Peter Robinson - When the Music's Over

‘It says in his official biography that they both died in the war,’ said Winsome.

‘That’s true enough, love. At least, his mother died in a concentration camp.’

‘And his father?’

‘He was a member of the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz.’

‘What was that?’ Banks asked.

‘It was a paramilitary group made up of ethnic German Poles. Danny’s father was half-German. They basically did all they could to help the German war effort, including massacring fellow Poles. For years Danny thought his father had died in the camp with his mother, when it’s not entirely impossible that he had helped put her there. One day an old family friend called by, a camp survivor. He knew Danny’s family. You can imagine how upsetting the news was for him. Of course, he was famous then. He felt he needed to keep it quiet. He was ashamed. It seemed unsavoury. I suppose it helped that he couldn’t really remember his parents — after all, he hadn’t seen them since he was three — but even so, it’s a devastating thing to happen to someone, and no matter what he’s done, Danny isn’t without sensitivity.’

Banks could imagine how much it must have hurt and confused the young man. Perhaps if anyone were looking for a trigger to Caxton’s later behaviour, that might have been it, though from what Carol Canning had said, he was already a man used to getting his way sexually, even if it meant being a bit rough. Still, something like that could rip your soul in two.

‘What happened to him? The father?’

‘Nobody knows. He might have died in the war or ended up living to a ripe old age in Germany — east or west — after it was all over. One thing’s for certain, he’ll be dead by now. Danny never talked about him again in my presence. I remember his expression when he was told the news. Face set like stone. Pale as a ghost. And he didn’t argue, didn’t contest it. He just left the room. When he came back, hours later, he acted as normal, as if nothing had happened. Cracked a joke or two. That was Danny.’

Banks reconsidered his direction. ‘Let’s go back a bit,’ he said. ‘You didn’t sound surprised at the accusation when I first mentioned it.’

‘Am I surprised Danny shagged a fourteen-year-old? Not at all. He always liked them young. Am I surprised he was a bit rough with her? No. He never was a patient or considerate lover. Am I surprised you’re making such a fuss about it after all this time? Yes. Those were different times.’

‘And stars like Danny Caxton were subject to different laws?’

‘In a way. Yes. They were gods. And you know what the gods got up to.’ She drank some more gin. ‘Have you asked her why she took so long to report this... incident... or whatever it was?’

‘She didn’t. She reported it at the time and nothing was done.’

A triumphant and unpleasant grin split her features. ‘Seems like it’s down to you lot, then, doesn’t it, ducky?’

‘I’m not saying the police weren’t at fault. We’ll be checking out that aspect of the case, too.’

‘I’ll bet you will. You could probably save yourself the trouble, you know.’

‘Oh, yes? How?’

‘Well, think about it. Danny was a big star. People liked to be around him. Bask in his glory. He had charisma, you know. Tons of it. People came under his spell. Important people, like senior coppers, judges, politicians, royalty, for all I know. Or people who relied on him for their jobs, to keep raking in the money. You don’t kill the cash cow just for a quick slice of beef, do you? And the others, the coppers and their like, they liked to be seen with him, liked to be able to impress their mates by saying they’d been down to Danny’s for the weekend, rubbed shoulders with Mick and Keith, and, by heck, you should have seen the crumpet. He played golf with the chief constables. Gave generously to the Police Widows and Orphans Fund and a few others. Someone always owed him a favour, belonged to the same club, was a mate, depended on him for their livelihood or status. He was clever with people like that.’

‘Manipulative? A user?’

‘Of course. But without seeming so obvious. He was a charmer, was Danny, when he wanted to be. When he wanted something. If he committed the occasional indiscretion, odds were there’d be people to cover it up, people who didn’t want any grief to fall on him.’

‘You’re saying he bribed his way out of an investigation?’

‘I’m saying he didn’t have to. He was golden, was Danny. Untouchable.’

‘Rape isn’t a simple indiscretion, Mrs... Canning... and Danny wasn’t particularly charming when he wanted to have sex with the girl we’ve just talked to.’

Carol made a dismissive gesture. ‘He always got what he wanted, one way or another. There’s no doubt he was screwed up. But he’s not stupid. He might not have had much formal education, but he taught himself.’

‘The point remains,’ Banks went on, ‘that the girl did report the assault, the rape, to the local police at the time, which makes me inclined to believe that it did happen.’

‘And they did nothing. What I said before still stands. She got pissed and went too far. Regretted it in the morning.’

‘Then why would she bother going to the police and raking it all up? Surely that must have been painful for her. Nobody knew. Why not just get on with her life and chalk it up to inexperience?’

‘I don’t know. Guilt? Shame? Maybe she wasn’t too bright. Maybe she got pregnant.’

‘She didn’t.’

‘Don’t tell me Danny used a rubber Johnny. That’d be a first. He wouldn’t know how to put one on.’

‘She didn’t get pregnant.’

Carol Canning drank some more gin, and her eyes seemed to blur out of focus, then, very slowly, under a puzzled frown, they sharpened again and she took off on a different tack. ‘On the other hand,’ she said. ‘Neither did I.’

‘What?’

‘Get pregnant. I thought it was me, but maybe he was shooting blanks. I mean, I had three with Kenny. Kenny might have been no great shakes in the bedroom department, but he had the right stuff, apparently. Danny just had to touch me and I came like the dickens, but Kenny just had to look at me and I’d get pregnant.’

‘Didn’t you go to a doctor?’

‘With Danny? No. We didn’t care that much, really. We were having too much of a good time to want kids. Even when we were married we didn’t see that much of each other. I was still touring then, first with the girls, then solo. And if Danny was playing the rear end of a horse in Christmas panto in Leeds, I was Widow Twanky down in Brighton. It was a crazy life.’

‘And if you had got pregnant?’

‘There were ways of dealing with it, even then.’

‘Why did you split up?’ Winsome asked.

‘I don’t really see as it has anything to do with your investigation, but we just drifted apart. We really did. It was easy, so easy we never even noticed it happening.’ She waved her cigarette arm theatrically in the direction of both of them. ‘I mean, he went one way — variety shows, lousy pop songs, quiz programmes, bad movies — and I went another — Granny Takes a Trip, psychedelia, dope, acid, country weekends with the Maharishi, the whole shebang. Even us pop girls had a bit of fun, you know. I made a solo album, a folky sort of thing, like Vashti Bunyan, but it went nowhere. I had a nice voice. They all said so. New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Record Mirror . Even Danny said I had a nice voice.’

Where had Banks heard that before? Linda Palmer. Perhaps it was a line Caxton used with all the girls. Suddenly, Banks remembered what he had been racking his brains over since they had arrived. The Tri-Lites. Carol Canning had been one of the original Tri-Lites, so named before the term had been hijacked for lights of three different wattages. They were a girl group popular in the early sixties. He wouldn’t have known that to look at her now, of course, and he had been a bit too young back then to appreciate their obvious charms, but her mention had jogged his memory. They had enjoyed a period of chart success from about 1961 until 1965 when their sort of music started falling out of fashion. They wore knee-length dresses and had bouffant hairdos, all trying to copy Helen Shapiro, Kathy Kirby or Susan Maughan. Banks remembered seeing them once or twice on Top of the Pops . In the mid-sixties they tried to imitate the American sound popular at the time, but they were no match for Tamla Motown. Banks remembered that Carol had tried to go solo in the late sixties, jump on the hippie bandwagon, but her career had quickly foundered.