Adrian McKinty - The Cold Cold Ground

Sammy, as usual, was doing a roaring trade. Of course Friday evening was his busy time. Men getting “a little something for the weekend”.

He had three guys lined up in the chairs and another two waiting.

I picked up a paper. The English press was dominated by the Yorkshire Ripper trial. A verdict was expected today.

Sammy looked at me, nodded. “Guilty on all counts,” he said. “It just came through on the wireless.”

Good. That was one less bastard for us coppers to worry about. When it was my turn in the chair, I ordered a short back and sides. Sammy went to work with the scissors. “You like your music, don’t you, Sean? Thought I’d let you know. Town hall. Auction tomorrow morning at nine. The entire stock of CarrickTrax.”

“Paul’s going out of business?”

“Moving to Australia. Selling everything. Three thousand LPs. It’s breaking his heart. Classical. Non-classical. You name it. Rarities. Everything.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

“Aye, me too. You’re not a Beatles fan, are you?”

“No. Not really.”

“Are you more of a Stones fan?”

“Aye.”

“Well, look, if you don’t bid on the Beatles, I won’t bid on the Stones. Ok?”

“Ok.”

“What about Mozart?”

Like ghouls we split up his collection between us and I wondered exactly how much money I had in the bank. A hundred quid? One fifty? I’d saved up six years pay to buy the house for cash. Still, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. CarrickTrax was the deepest and best record shop in East Antrim and had been in business forever. The stuff they might have …

We moved on to other topics. He told me about the record renting shops in Moscow and then he got to talking about the Red Army choir and finally about his father who had been interned by the Japanese. “Fascinating people, the Japs. They say that death is lighter than a feather but duty is heavier than a mountain …”

I had heard the story of his father’s experiences in Burma twice already so I changed the subject. “What do you think of yon girl marrying Princess Charles?”

“When I think of that wee lassie in the clutches of that corrupt family of decadent imperialists …”

When I left the rain was heavier. I crossed the railway lines at Barn Halt and channelled Lucy Moore again.

“Your mother didn’t see you, Lucy, because you were on the Larne side of the tracks waiting for the Larne train to get you to the ferry. Isn’t that right? You and your boyfriend were going to Glasgow to get an abortion. But you got cold feet. You decided to have the baby and live with your boyfriend until it was born. Decent enough plan. What went wrong, Lucy?”

What went wrong? I stood there getting soaked. Walked home. Heated soup. Drank vodka and lime. I put on La Boheme again. This time the classic 1956 Sir Thomas Beeching version.

Read the lyrics as I listened. Mimi’s solo aria.

“My name is Lucia. But everyone calls me Mimi. I don’t know why. Ma quando vien lo sgelo. Il primo sole e mio . When the thaw comes, the sun’s first kiss is mine.”

I lifted the needle and put it down on the record and played it again. And again. I’d heard it before but this time it struck a nerve. Lucia = Lucy? Was that a stretch? Could Lucy Moore’s death have something to do with the murders of Tommy Little, Andrew Young and the others? A deliberate or even a subconscious link?

I listened to the record over and over, getting drunker and drunker. At midnight I played Orpheus in the Underworld . I began to see patterns there too. Eurydice is a daughter of Apollo, the lord of light. Lucia means light. The more I listened I began to see links everywhere, in everything. In Mozart, in Schubert, in Bowie.

Human beings are pattern-seeking animals. It’s part of our DNA. That’s why conspiracy theories and gods are so popular: we always look for the wider, bigger explanations for things.

The more I delved the clearer it all became. DC Todd was in on it. Brennan was in on it. It was the masons. It was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Yeats was in on it. All the crazy Prods were in on it. I drank so much vodka that I made myself sick. I kept on drinking. The one smart thing I did was unplug the phone lest I call Laura or my ma. I climbed upstairs and hugged the toilet. Alcohol poisoning. Pathetic. What was I? Sixteen? I began to cry. Eventually the power went off and I closed my eyes and fell asleep dry heaving.

I woke on the bathroom floor sometime after first light. I was a sorry spectacle in the mirror, and the house was worse.

I put on the Ramones, cleaned up the vomit, had a cold shower, brushed my teeth, made a Nescafe, drank the coffee, replugged the phone and called Laura.

“You wanna get breakfast and go to an auction?” I asked her.

“I have my clinic in the afternoon.”

“This is at nine. Come on. We’ll get breakfast at the Old Tech and bid on some records.”

The Old Tech. I couldn’t face the Ulster fry so I just got a cup of tea instead.

Laura got pancakes.

We talked and read the papers.

The headlines on all the tabs were the same: GUILTY over a picture of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. The broadsheets too were obsessed by the Ripper with his trial and the verdict occupying most of their front pages with a little bit about the hunger strikes. According to The Times , senior figures in the Tory party were speaking about “compromise” and “new ideas” but Thatcher was having none of it; she had come to Ulster to stiffen the resolve of the troops: the lady would not negotiate with terrorists, the lady was not for turning.

Only the local papers, the Irish News and the Newsletter had the attack on the gay pub in Larne.

One dead. Twenty hospitalised.

The report was done in a restrained, let’s not talk too much about this , style.

The killer had used a tried and true terrorist grille-bomb method. Had Todd seen that? Maybe I should call him?

No.

I shouldn’t.

I went to the cashier and asked if she had any aspirin.

She said that she did and I popped a couple and splashed my face in the bathroom and went back to Laura who was reading a fold-out special on Lady Di’s wedding plans from the Daily Mail .

I didn’t tease her.

We finished our breakfast and went round to the auction in the town hall.

The place was packed.

Word had got out and the vultures had come in from high and low. Only Paul himself had not come by to watch his valuable records gets sold to the hoi polloi.

I nodded to Sammy.

He nodded back.

I ignored the first few lots which were ’30s-’40s Americana.

I bought some ’60s Motown and a mint condition, first pressing of Dusty in Memphis for a pound, which was an absolute sin.

It was when we were into the classical section that I noticed our old friend Freddie Scavanni in the audience.

He was buying early Italian stuff with not much competition.

I watched him bid and buy.

He was initially cautious but eventually he lost his patience and jumped on the things he wanted like everybody else. I let Sammy take most of the Mozart. I bought the Schubert.

I bought some knick-knacks too: some anti-static cloths, an oil lamp from Chess Records in the shape of a guitar, Beatles pencil sharpeners.

None of it was terribly interesting and I could see that Laura was bored out her mind. I had spent about ten quid but had gotten enough records that I was going to have trouble getting them home.

“Do you want to head?” I asked her.

She nodded.

I went to the auctioneer’s assistant, gave him my lots, paid my money and got my discs. The Dusty in Memphis album turned out to be number eleven of a limited edition signed by Dusty Springfield and Jerry Wexler. Karmically there was no way I could keep it. “Laura, here, this is for you,” I said, giving her the album.