3 #2
She had also tracked down Ron ‘Racey’ Joiner’s widow, Monica, who had long since remarried and was now going under the name of Farley, as well as their daughter, Jennifer.
Jennifer Joiner, Lyssa supposed, would probably have been much too young to remember her late father very well, let alone the band he had belonged to, but she might prove to be a treasure trove when it came to family photos.
She might even have kept a scrapbook, or some other ephemera that could be useful.
Then there was Jonas Bannister, the son of Glen’s younger brother, Robert.
Jonas, from what she’d been able to glean from the social media posts of his own children, was a businessman of some wealth and standing.
She’d gained the impression that he was a rather conservative and private man, and she thought it very unlikely that he would be particularly enthusiastic about a book telling the story of his long-dead rock-star uncle and his notorious wild-child lover, but sometimes you never knew.
She would need to find many more people to talk to, of course, both in the music industry at that time, and any of the reporters (or more likely, their children) who had written about the celebrity couple. But it was a start.
As for contacting various members of Monty’s family, she thought she could safely leave that to Elizabeth – she would know who amongst her family would still be around and willing to talk about her.
Although, from reading between the lines over their lunch conversation, she’d got the impression that her client’s enthusiasm for the book wasn’t widely shared.
Still, once a project got off the ground, it sometimes gathered its own momentum, and Lyssa was nothing if not optimistic and determined.
She ate her toast minus any toppings (she usually had a tin of baked beans lurking about in a cupboard somewhere, but not today) and after taking a quick check outside to see that the storm had indeed passed, decided she would nip down to the nearest mini market and do some grocery shopping.
Her mother might be a virtuoso of the weekly super-shop, but Lyssa had never quite mastered the art and tended to leave things until the cupboards were actually bare before venturing out in search of supplies.
Slipping her feet into some espadrilles and grabbing a light summer cardigan, she snatched her keys and bag and headed out the door.
After skipping down the stairs and crossing the hall, she was just about to reach for the communal front door when it opened in front of her and a man stepped inside.
‘Neville!’ Lyssa greeted him warmly. ‘When did you get back?’
‘The day before yesterday.’
‘Carter mentioned you’d gone away somewhere – was it anywhere nice?’
‘Oh, just a business trip, unfortunately.’
He lived in the super-deluxe flat on the ground floor and was a handsome man somewhere in his late thirties or very early forties.
It annoyed Jason, who was perpetually nosy (especially about handsome men), that he hadn’t been able to winkle out Neville’s exact age yet, nor much about his background, or even what he did for a living.
For all his apparent friendliness, it had quickly become apparent to Lyssa and her gang of friends that Neville Rickman didn’t talk about himself much.
Six feet tall, with hair almost as black as her own and dark brown eyes, he was slender and looked fit. Jason insisted he could only be that toned through ruthless squash-playing, but he had no evidence to back this up – which was typical of Jason’s theories.
Freida, who fancied him even more than Jason did, had been similarly unlucky in teasing out of him any titbits of information, and for all that he’d lived in the building for some years now, all they really knew of him was that he was probably single because he lived alone and kept odd working hours.
That he could afford one of the big flats indicated that whatever he did must pay well, and he drove a nice, mid-range but unspectacular car.
Jason, who had tormented Carter into buying a flashy sports car, declared that it was the one thing about Neville that disappointed him.
Naturally, the gang had nicknamed him ‘The Man of Mystery’ and ‘The Most Out There Game’ had produced some real beauties about him.
Carter, perhaps more stung by Jason’s obvious drooling over him than he’d like to admit, had sardonically dubbed him 001-and-a-half, suggesting that he was a low-level intelligence officer for MI5, who was nothing more than a glorified clerk who liked to pretend that he was James Bond’s sidekick.
Freida had him down as a top-secret government scientist working on a secret weapon in a secret lab (this was Oxford, naturally, where science was always being done somewhere) and was working selflessly all hours of the day and night on something that would one day save the Western world.
Lyssa had opted for him being a UFO researcher, who scoured the land for alien spaceship sightings, which Jason had leapt on and insisted on going one step further by saying that Neville himself was an alien in disguise.
Right at that minute, though, he looked human enough in a lightweight summer shirt and jacket combo over dark blue trousers.
He appeared to be vaguely tired and maybe a little rumpled, though – perhaps he’d just got back from a long shift somewhere?
The thought made her feel instantly guilty, and she stepped aside hastily so that the poor man could get past her and to his bed.
‘Well, I’m just off out to the shops. Do you want me to get you anything?’ she offered. Since he hadn’t been back long, maybe his fridge was as empty as hers.
‘Thanks, but I’m fine for the moment,’ he said, giving her one of his nice smiles, the one that crinkled the attractive crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes. ‘Working on anything interesting?’
‘Might be,’ she conceded. ‘I just got a new commission. Know anything about 1960s pop music?’
‘The Kinks,’ he said promptly. ‘I’m a Kinks fan, personally.’
At this, Lyssa had to laugh, thinking of the look that would have been on Jason’s face had he been with them. ‘I’ll have to remember that,’ she said, and aware that she was still standing there like a lemon, gave a sudden nod. ‘Well, I’d best get on with it, in case it starts raining again.’
Even as she said this, she looked beyond him out of the open door and saw nothing but sunshine and blue skies and felt like kicking herself. Of all the lame things to say.
‘Yes, good idea,’ Neville said smoothly and, so saying, moved past her and headed for his door. Her face feeling rather warm, Lyssa shot outside, cursing herself for her awkwardness.
It didn’t take her long to do her shopping, and once back in her kitchen, she distributed her various purchases to the fridge, freezer and cupboards.
That chore done, she picked up her phone and notebook and made herself comfortable on the couch. Now, to try and track down the man who had filmed Monty’s last party.
As she’d hoped, she soon found a website dedicated to 1960s scandals that had a section devoted to the Monty and Glen ‘tragedy’ and one newspaper interview with a partygoer named Frank Tillman.
He had been a bass player in one of the short-lived bands that had been around at the same time as the Lucky Cuckoos – hence the invite to Monty’s party – but which had never achieved significant acclaim.
In the article, he confessed to filming some footage of the party, ‘never realising they would be Monty’s last moments’.
Ignoring the rather specious sentiment (given that he’d gone on to sell Monty out to the press), Lyssa set about finding any digital footprint for Mr Tillman. Not surprisingly, he had died some years before, but was survived by his only child, Justin.
And he, she was delighted to eventually discover, was not only alive and well, but living in the Northamptonshire town of Brackley. Which was not far away at all.
With a few clicks she found he had a profile on Facebook, and left a message, saying briefly who she was and what she was doing, and asking him to get in touch with her. She’d give it a day or two, and if she’d heard nothing back, she’d have to try a more direct approach.
That done, she started flipping through her notes, and came to Emily Bannister’s details first. The youngest sister of Glen was now living in what had looked, online, to be a rather nice and upmarket care home for the elderly with more intensive nursing needs in Dorset.
She was sure she’d written down the details, and sure enough, found it midway through her copious notes.
Punching the numbers into the telephone, she got through to the office, where a pleasant-voiced woman was able to confirm that Emily was indeed one of their residents.
After Lyssa explained who she was and what she wanted, she was told that they’d speak to Emily and ask if it was all right for Lyssa to visit and then get back to her.
Lyssa thanked them, gave them her own contact details and hung up.