TP Fielden - Resort to Murder - A must-read vintage crime mystery

‘Where’s Tommy?’

‘Where d’you think?’

Britain’s No 1 beat group had paused for a quick cigarette in the wings but their guitarist, a red-haired Irishman, was already onstage, guitar plugged in. He was noisily experimenting with various catlike cries he could squeeze from the instrument, fully aware that the racket he was making was filtering through the locked auditorium doors to the fans beyond, driving the girls to even greater ecstasy. He moved his body unnecessarily to the sounds he made, deeply in love with himself.

‘Turd,’ said Danny. Nobody bothered to respond because the singer had voiced the collective thought.

Boots McGuigan was sorting out the cat’s cradle of wires without which the magic and the mystery of their latest hit Please Me Baby Please would be inaudible. Each member of the band had a different responsibility beyond their musical role, and Boots’ was to make sure the sound equipment worked. Danny made the tea, Taz made sure they got paid. The exception was Tommy – who never did anything except play his guitar and waggle his hips in a most unpleasant fashion.

A curious rumbling, not unlike an earthquake, now gripped the building. The fans were drumming their heels hard on the floorboards, unaware the building was long past its best and a continuation of this heavy-booted tap dance might result in a complete collapse. A safety warning over the loudspeakers would have made no difference because by now delirium had set in.

Meanwhile, the grandmother of popular music’s most unpopular manager had scurried into the calm of the manager’s office and was lifting her Plymouth gin from the filing cabinet. There was a knock at the door and Judy popped her head round. ‘Can we come in? It’s terrifying what’s going on out there.’

‘Quick and shut the door.’ Geraldine Phipps knew Miss Dimont well, and liked her. She’d even got out her scrapbook once to show her the snaps from when she was a Gaiety Girl.

‘What on earth is going on?’ Judy shouted as she introduced Valentine. ‘It sounds like the Blitz.’

‘Strange how potent cheap music is,’ quoted Mrs Phipps, who had entirely ditched her reservations about Danny and the boys now she could see they were box-office gold. ‘According to Gavin, when the fans are finally let through the doors they will tear the seats out. Thank the Lord I renewed the insurance.’

‘It’s a terrible din,’ said Valentine.

‘You’re supposed to like it,’ said Judy crisply. ‘It’s your age group. Myself, I prefer Michael Holliday.’

Mrs Phipps was lighting a cigarette to help the gin down. ‘Heaven knows what the town will make of it,’ she said happily. ‘We had Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson the year before last. All very sophisticated – and look, they’re in the Top Ten now! Why can’t these greasy-haired fellows be more like them ?’

‘I think that’s the point about them,’ said Miss Dimont, and another wave of joyous squealing erupted as the auditorium doors burst open and the Gadarene horde swept in.

‘So, Geraldine,’ said Miss Dimont, ‘I have to write something for the paper. Obviously, we can’t ignore this mass hysteria – I mean, Temple Regis can never have seen anything like it. Where have they all come from?’

‘St Saviour’s Convent, a lot of them.’

‘But … that’s a boarding school. For young ladies!’

‘Precisely,’ said Geraldine Phipps. ‘I sent a nicely worded invitation to Mother Superior – an old friend, don’t you know – and here they are. Shocking, isn’t it?’ But the smile on her lips suggested a remarkable absence of shock, convent girls being what they are.

‘So you probably “condemn this unbridled behaviour”,’ said Miss Dimont, using that old journalist’s trick of putting words into the interviewee’s mouth ( Mrs Phipps said, I really have to condemn this unbridled behaviour when in fact all she’d done was answer the question with a simple yes).

‘Not a bit, my dear. In fact, I have come to the view that I positively encourage it.’

‘Can I say that?’

‘But of course. Gavin has assured me that all over the country the floodgates have opened to allow in this rock and roll, as they call it, and they are unlikely to shut any time soon. I want to encourage more of this bad behaviour.’

Miss Dimont was scribbling in her notebook.

‘My dear, I first set foot on the stage nearly fifty years ago,’ she went on, waving her gin glass gently. ‘We wore long dresses and frilly underpinnings. We smiled coyly and threw as many double-entendres as we could at the audience.

‘In those days, such things could drive men wild, and when I was a Gaiety Girl they would do the most extraordinary things – one climbed in my dressing-room window. On the third floor! One sent fourteen wedding rings, one each day for a fortnight, in the hope of getting me into bed if not into church. One did a thing far too rude for me to describe. And quite often, too.

‘Is this so very different? They’re noisier, yes. And it’s the girls now, not the boys, making the running. But the young have always craved sensation, and this is what we have today.’

Judy’s pen sailed across the page. This was supposed to be Valentine’s story, but she couldn’t resist – Mrs Phipps was priceless!

‘Aren’t you worried about them wrecking the theatre?’

‘My dear, if they do, the publicity will pay for it. These fellows are here for six weeks and we are already in profit.’

‘The lads themselves seem so surly,’ said Miss Dimont. ‘I caught a glimpse of them as I came in.’

‘I expect Gavin has got them on short rations. A well-known ploy in our business for keeping your workforce hard at it. They perform much better when they’re hungry.’

‘Good Lord!’ laughed Judy, ‘I didn’t know you had it in you, Geraldine! You’re far better at running this place than old Ray, er, Mr Cattermole.’

‘For continuity’s sake and for the health of my bank balance, I shall be running the Pavilion this season,’ purred the miraculous Mrs P. ‘Of course I have Gavin here to call on should I need assistance.’

And no Ray Cattermole to dip his hand into the takings, thought Miss Dimont. But any subsequent musings were wiped away by a sudden and frightening cacophony not unlike a bull entering a china shop without bothering to knock. It was Danny Trouble and The Urge making their debut in summer season at the Pavilion Theatre, Temple Regis, with their latest offering, ‘Schoolgirl Crush’.

Mrs Phipps poured herself another of Plymouth’s finest and serenely produced some earplugs.

Judy and Valentine were reunited in Beryl’s café just along the promenade. It was late but both were exhilarated by the day’s events.

‘Hoped I’d find you here,’ said Valentine, his face pink with excitement. ‘I went and had a wander backstage but I didn’t want to end the day without thanking you for all your help. I already feel as though I’ve been here for half a lifetime.’

‘Well, quite an interesting day,’ agreed Judy. ‘Heaven knows what Mr Rhys will make of it, but I’d favour writing positively about this beat group thing. No point in denying the future if, indeed, that is what it is.’

‘From what you say he may find that hard to accept.’

‘He’s always had a way of looking backwards rather than forwards. I think it’s because of all those old dinosaurs he mixes with in that club of his. They were all grown men long before the War. They cling to the past, want to turn the clock back to the summer of ’39.’

‘No point in trying to go back,’ said Valentine. ‘Because in life they’re always rolling up the carpet behind you.’