The Vinyl Detective - Underscore E-Book

Andrew Cartmel

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Vinyl Detective
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 476

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

The Vinyl Detective plunges into the world of Italian movie soundtrack music in his eighth adventure that is sure to delight those who love whimsical British cosy crime. Expect laughs, LPs, cats and the return of fan favourites, Nevada, Tinkler, Stinky Stanmer and more. Some of the greatest (and grooviest) music ever committed to vinyl has come out of Italy in the form of soundtracks—especially for that variety of lurid thriller known as a giallo. The maestros who composed these masterpieces include Ennio Morricone, Piero Piccioni, Armand Trovajoli… And Loretto Loconsole. No one disputes that Loconsole was a genius, but was he also a murderer? When his mistress was brutally killed in 1969, on location in Cool Britannia for a giallo called Murder in London, there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute him. But Loconsole died in the shadow of disgrace. Now, his granddaughter Chloë has come back to England to hire the Vinyl Detective. She wants him to find an immaculate vinyl copy of Murder in London… And to clear her grandfather's name. Can the Vinyl Detective and the gang—Nevada, Tinkler and Agatha—find out the truth of what happened in Swinging London more than half a century ago? And can they stay alive when there's someone out there who'd prefer the secrets of the past to remain buried—and is more than willing to kill to keep it that way?

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Praise for the Vinyl Detective Series

Also by Andrew Cartmel and Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

1: Mention of Murder

2: Chloë

3: Murder in London

4: Frogwoman

5: Needle Drop

6: No Picnic

7: The Nevada Effect

8: Pornographic T-Shirt

9: Double-Breasted Pyjamas

10: Cake and Giallo

11: Cat People

12: Pint-Sized Power Dresser

13: Two Doors

14: Bumper Sticker

15: For Sale

16: Air Stewardess

17: Double Booked

18: Houseboat

19: Silver Mermaid

20: Princess Seitan

21: Not Impossible

22: Cruel Actions

23: Handover

24: Lanky

25: Little Beatnik

26: Thank Dog

27: Book Ends

28: Most Likely Suspect

29: Phone Call

Acknowledgements and Notes

About the Author

Also Available from Titan Books

Praise for

THE VINYL DETECTIVE SERIES

“The Vinyl Detective takes on the stupendous, sexy, swinging sixties—superb.”

BEN AARONOVITCH, author of the Rivers of London series

“One of the most innovative concepts in crime fiction for many years. Once you are hooked into the world of the Vinyl Detective it is very difficult to leave.”

NEV FOUNTAIN, author of The Fan Who Knew Too Much

“The Vinyl Detective is one of the sharpest and most original characters I’ve seen for a long time.”

DAVID QUANTICK, Emmy Award-winning producer of VEEP

“Cartmel has a gift for bringing you into his characters’ world and making you want to stay there which simply makes this a joy to read.”

Blue Book Balloon Review

“Cartmel is getting a great tune out of the characters… Will have you chuckling out loud.”

SFBook Review

“Crime fiction as it should be, played loud through a valve amp and Quad speakers. No digital writing here, it’s warm and rich. Every delicate pop and crackle adding character and flavour. Witty, charming and filled with exciting solos. Quite simply: groovy.”

GUY ADAMS, author of The Clown Service

Also by Andrew Cartmeland available from Titan Books

The Vinyl Detective series

Written in Dead Wax

The Run-Out Groove

Victory Disc

Flip Back

Low Action

Attack and Decay

Noise Floor

The Paperback Sleuth series

Death in Fine Condition

Ashram Assassin

Like a Bullet

THE VINYL DETECTIVE

UNDERSCORE

ANDREW CARTMEL

TITAN BOOKS

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The Vinyl Detective: Underscore

Print edition ISBN: 9781803367989

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803367996

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: April 2025

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Andrew Cartmel 2025. All Rights Reserved.

Andrew Cartmel asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

EU RP

eucomply OÜ Pärnu mnt 139b-14 11317

Talinn, Estonia

[email protected]

[phone]

For Joe Kraemer, who writes music for the movies.

1: MENTION OF MURDER

Nevada was busy washing the dishes, which was fair enough since I’d cooked dinner.

But I don’t want to downgrade her multi-tasking skills. My darling was also assiduously micromanaging my assignment of feeding the cats. “Put Fanny’s bowl up on the counter, so Turk doesn’t eat hers as well.”

“How many years have I been doing this?” I asked. The answer was, since before I’d met Nevada, and since Fanny and Turk were kittens.

“I know, I know,” said Nevada contritely. “But it’s the bavette beef and you know how they go nuts over that.”

I was indeed aware of our little carnivores’ enthusiasm for this particular cut, also known less pretentiously as “skirt”.

I put one bowl with the carefully diced bavette, or skirt, on the floor for the impatiently waiting Turk and then set the other one up on the counter, safely out of Turk’s immediate reach. She looked at me with her disquieting turquoise eyes and made a noise of sour reprimand. Turk clearly disagreed with Nevada about the whole policy of keeping her sibling’s dinner safe.

“It’s only fair, little one,” said Nevada at the sink. “Your sister has to have her good food, too.”

Turk made a noise that could only be interpreted as indecorous contradiction and then settled down to the serious business of devouring beef. “I hope Fanny comes home soon,” said Nevada. “I worry about her when she’s out.”

The doorbell rang. “Perhaps that’s her now,” I said.

“Ha ha, very funny,” said Nevada, somewhat insincerely. She leaned over the sink and craned her head to look out the window and see who our visitor might actually be. I took the more direct approach of just going to the front door and opening it. I fully expected to be confronted with Tinkler, our ever-present and only occasionally irritating friend, here to cadge a meal, smoke weed with my sweetheart and listen to music with me, while sharing with us both his hopeless lust and devotion for a mutual pal.

But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Instead of chubby, affable and only intermittently annoying Tinkler I was confronted with a very slender and very nervous young woman.

She had long, straight blonde hair which looked like a blatant dye job to me, though I’d have to run it past Nevada for an expert opinion. Framed by that hair, her face was potentially pretty. Indeed she possessed something of the bloodless beauty of a girl in a high tower in a fairy tale, though at the moment she was robbed of any such quality by a very evident tension. She had blue-green eyes and it’s probably wrong of me to have found them all the more appealing because they reminded me of those of my cat, currently greedily eating her dinner on the kitchen floor.

Our guest also had a small gold ring through one of her nostrils, which matched another one in her navel, which was on display along with a band of very flat, very pale belly in the gap between the snug black tube top she wore and her baggy grey trousers, which were made of some kind of corduroy with fat thick cords. (Nevada would subsequently tell me this was called elephant corduroy; and confirm the dye job.) The girl’s dazzling white trainers matched the white Puffa jacket whose notional role in keeping out the unseasonal biting chill of this midsummer evening was largely checkmated by being worn wide open, along with bare midriff, etc.

But being cold seemed like the very least of her concerns as our visitor gave me an intense stare.

“I’m Desdemona Higgins,” she said.

“Okay…” I said, somewhat relieved to sense the sudden and comforting presence of Nevada at my back. And not just because this was rather an odd name.

“We have to talk,” said Desdemona Higgins.

“In that case,” said Nevada over my shoulder, “you’d better come inside.”

The women went into the living room and sat down while I went into the kitchen to make coffee. Turk had finished her dinner, leaving an exemplary clean bowl on the floor, and obviously had designs on her sister’s portion, its careful placement up on the counter being no serious impediment to a cat who could jump up the way Turk could. Indeed she was standing tall and alert on her hind legs now, sussing out Fanny’s bowl and evidently preparing to make just such a jump.

She sank down on her haunches again as I came in, clearly disappointed that her fiendish scheme had been derailed. When it became obvious that I would be in the kitchen for some while, she gave up in disgust, making a small contemptuous sound as she strode out.

I kept my ears open as I made the coffee but what I heard from the living room was mostly silence. And when I carried the three mugs through—our best instant, but a long way from our best coffee; this is the most that mysterious, uninvited visitors could expect on a summer’s eve—both women looked up at me in relief. It had clearly been a rather tense silence.

We made brief and sporadic small talk, with Desdemona Higgins thanking me and saying it was good coffee. But I could have told her that. Finally Nevada decided to cut the crap and ask why she was there.

Desdemona looked at us over her mug. She hesitated as though summoning courage, then all at once blurted out, “We know she’s been here to talk to you.”

I noticed the plural pronoun and I saw that Nevada had registered it, too. There was something a little disturbing in our mystery visitor being only one member of a shadowy group described as “we”. Beyond that, this was a baffling statement since I had no idea who “she” might be—more mystery pronoun fun. Nor I imagine did Nevada.

Our friend Agatha—the mutual chum upon whom Tinkler lavished his hopeless devotion and lust—would normally be the most plausible pronoun candidate, being a regular visitor. But Agatha hadn’t been a regular visitor lately because she was away on an extended holiday touring the Blue Coast. So that seemed to exclude her as a possibility.

I glanced at Nevada. The look she gave me said to give nothing away. She seemed content to wait and see if our visitor would give anything away herself. Which Desdemona did soon enough, setting her coffee aside and wrapping her Puffa jacket more tightly around her, as if she was cold in our nice, warm living room. She peered out at us, a small face nestled inside the bulky garment, and said, “Everybody knows what her grandfather did to our grandmother.”

This sounded dispiritingly like a family feud being pointlessly perpetuated over generations and something I would be only too glad to stay out of. But Nevada was in charge of negotiations here and she was still playing her cards close to the chest.

“Everybody knows, you say?” she said.

“All right, it’s an obscure case now,” allowed Desdemona, leaning forward and letting her jacket fall open again. “After all these years. But back in the day it was a cause célèbre.” I saw a flicker of surprise from Nevada at this correct use of a French phrase and I could tell she was a little impressed despite herself. “And we know the truth,” said Desdemona. “We know her grandfather did it.”

She looked at me and then at Nevada.

“He killed her.”

At this statement Nevada and I, who had been staying carefully silent, became even more silent and even more careful.

“He’s a murderer,” said Desdemona. “It’s as simple as that.”

Nevada and I looked at each other, wondering what we were getting drawn into here.

Nothing at all, if I had any say in it.

“All this business about clearing his name,” said Desdemona. “It’s delusional.”

“Delusional?” said Nevada. “That’s rather a strong word.” She was doing a masterful job of holding her own in a conversation that was like driving through thick fog.

And now, with the mention of murder, I was beginning to wonder if it might be just as dangerous…

“He was never sentenced for the crime,” said Desdemona, looking from Nevada to me and back again. She seemed to have concluded that Nevada was the one who made the decisions here, and she wasn’t necessarily wrong. “But everybody knew he did it,” she said. “They knew he was guilty as hell.” Desdemona had now locked eyes with Nevada. “So you see, it’s pointless you taking the job.”

“Pointless, you say?” said Nevada politely.

“We already know the outcome. We already know the truth. So there’s nothing for you to find out.” Desdemona suddenly slithered out of her white Puffa jacket, like a serpent shedding a very swollen skin. Apparently she’d finally had enough of sweating inside it in our nice, warm house. Or maybe she only now felt sufficiently comfortable to take it off, as though it had been some kind of protective armour she couldn’t remove until she was sure she was safe.

But a third possibility was that it was some kind of sexual challenge. Desdemona was considerably less skinny than she’d looked shrouded in her thick jacket. In fact she had a rather voluptuous body which she now seemed intent on displaying for us. She and Nevada looked at each other, fixedly and steadily, as if each was daring the other to blink.

“Or maybe you know all that, and you decided to take the job anyway.” Desdemona’s voice had taken on a satirical, sing-song quality, as though she was mocking us. “Despite knowing it’s pointless, despite knowing it’s cruel to give Chloë false hope.”

Needless to say, we had no idea who Chloë might be.

Desdemona was smiling a humourless little smile. “But perhaps you don’t care about that. Because all you care about is the money.”

Nevada considered this for a moment and then said, “So, you don’t want us to take the job?”

“That’s right.”

“Perhaps you’d like to pay us not to take the job.”

Even knowing Nevada as well as I did, I was impressed at how swiftly and coolly my honeypie was transforming this cryptic encounter into a potential salaried gig.

Desdemona blinked with surprise. “Pay you?”

Nevada shrugged, exuding her coolest cool. “Didn’t you just say that all we care about is the money? In that case, since you also say you want us to stay out of things, wouldn’t it make perfect sense to take advantage of our shallowness and greed by paying us to stay out of those things? Anyway, it’s certainly one possibility.”

It certainly was. And judging by the thoughtful expression that now settled on Desdemona’s face, it was one she didn’t seem averse to considering. For the first time since her arrival, she lost her worried, hunted look and began to seem genuinely at ease. Nevada glanced at me. There was a flash of mischief in my beloved’s eyes, as much as to say, We might be about to get paid for doing nothing at all.

Any chance of this, admittedly pleasant, prospect vanished with the sudden sound of a peremptory knocking on our front door. We were all startled, but it was interesting to note that this startlement didn’t translate for Desdemona—the most nervous member of our group—into any kind of anxiety.

Instead, she looked distinctly annoyed.

I went to the door and opened it. A young man was standing there. He was very tall and very thin, and doing a remarkably fine job of wearing a hooded jacket made of various kinds of mismatched tartan without looking ridiculous. After the spectacle of that jacket, his jeans and trainers were disappointingly ordinary. He had fair, wavy hair and bright, watchful eyes in a narrow face with a sharp nose. It was intriguing how he managed to look simultaneously weaselly and handsome.

“Sorry to trouble you,” he said in an aristocratic drawl, “but I think my sister…”

Even before he said the word sister, I had realised that there was a family resemblance between this young man in his tartan hoodie and our visitor in her elephant cords. It was chiefly in the distinctive, close-set eyes, which were now looking past me, down the hall, to where Desdemona had appeared from the sitting room, followed by Nevada who looked both amused and intrigued. Desdemona on the other hand seemed rather angry.

“This is my brother,” she sighed. It was an elaborately disgusted sigh.

“Cass,” said the young man. This was apparently his name. “Pleased to meet you.” He then set about busily shaking my hand and Nevada’s.

He was inside the house now, good and proper, so I surrendered to the inevitable and shut the door behind him, repressing the urge to make some disgusted sighs of my own. This was supposed to be a quiet evening at home for Nevada and I and the cats. With, at most, Tinkler in the way of uninvited guests. And Tinkler at least was a known quantity.

“My brother, who was supposed to be waiting in the car,” added Desdemona.

“I got worried,” said Cass. “I was concerned for your safety. You’ve been in here for ages.”

“No I haven’t. And you are not concerned for my safety. You just couldn’t resist sticking your nose in.”

They were siblings all right. We led them into the living room, where Cass and Desdemona settled in the armchairs and Nevada and I sat on the sofa, as though we’d rehearsed these moves.

Desdemona was saying, “Oh well, since you’re here, since you insist on being here, you might as well be part of this discussion.”

“What discussion?” Cass looked suddenly alert. I decided that, despite his taste in jackets, he wasn’t entirely a fool after all.

“I was just suggesting,” said Nevada smoothly, “that you could pay us for staying out of it.”

We didn’t even know what “it” was, yet it looked like she was ready, willing and able to begin haggling over an exact figure for our remuneration.

“Stay out of it?” said Cass.

“Yes.”

“You want us to pay you?” said Cass.

“Just a suggestion,” said Nevada, all silky charm.

“You shouldn’t need to be paid,” said Cass decisively. “You should just be glad to do the decent thing.”

“When was the last time anyone did the decent thing?” said his sister.

So cynical for one so young, I thought.

“When was the last time you did the decent thing?” she added. Now it was her brother Desdemona was locking eyes with. She really was quite combative.

Nevada let the sibling hostility simmer for a moment or two and then said, “But if you’re asking us to forego work, to forfeit potential income…” she was warming to her theme here, “then surely you should be willing to compensate us.”

“It’s not in the budget,” snapped Cass.

He had a knack for making decisive declarations. Without, I thought, possessing all the facts. Not that Nevada and I could be said to possess all the facts here either. Or indeed any of them.

“Why not?” said Desdemona.

“Why not what?” said Cass.

“Why isn’t it in the budget?” said Desdemona. “We haven’t even finalised the budget. How can you know it isn’t in the budget?”

Cass made a sound which was a posh, drawling version of his sister’s disgusted sigh. “Because I know that Jasper won’t buy it,” he said.

At this point warning bells began to sound in my head.

How many people called Jasper could there be?

Even allowing for the fact that Cass was a posh buffoon and would inevitably know other posh buffoons and that Jasper was a posh buffoon sort of name… I looked over at Nevada, who met my gaze. You didn’t have to be a registered telepath to know she was thinking the same thing.

But I was the one who took the plunge. “Jasper McClew?” I said.

The brother and sister looked at me, surprised and impressed. I was a little embarrassed to realise how pleased I was about the impressed bit. But that look faded swiftly and my pleased glow along with it.

“That’s right,” said Desdemona. “Jasper said you knew him.”

“He said you’d interfered with his investigative journalism before,” said Cass.

There was so much to get angry—indeed furious—about here that it was hard to know where to start. But Nevada beat me to it. “Investigative journalism?” she said.

“Yes,” said Cass.

“He’s calling himself an investigative journalist now?” said Nevada.

“Well, what else is he?” said Desdemona.

“A guy with an internet connection,” I said.

They stared at me blankly, so Nevada enlarged on the theme. “He is, at best, a guy with an internet connection,” she said. “Although I suppose anyone can call themselves a journalist or an investigator these days.”

“Jasper told us you’d be hostile,” said Desdemona.

“We’re not hostile,” said Nevada. “We’re just realistic. Would you like some coffee, Cass?”

This sudden piece of left-field politeness seemed to surprise and wrongfoot our guests. It certainly surprised and wrongfooted me, since I was the chump who’d have to make and fetch said coffee, which I proceeded to do when Cass accepted the offer with reciprocal politeness and a certain amount of aristocratic aplomb. As I boiled the kettle and spooned the instant, making enough for all of us, I realised what Nevada was up to.

By taking the emotional temperature down in the room and putting things on a courteous social footing she was setting the scene for a further valiant attempt to fleece our guests. She was good at this, and was liable to try anything short of turning them upside down and shaking them to see if money came out of their pockets.

As I served the coffee, Desdemona said, “So what did she tell you about us?”

Not at all deterred by being presented with a question she had no answer to, Nevada gave me a bright smile as I handed her a mug. She was positively enjoying herself. She was really in her element here. “I’m sure you’ll understand,” she said, “that if we are working for someone, we have to maintain client confidentiality.”

This was a lovely sally because it was entirely true while confirming nothing and giving away nothing at all, yet also maintaining the illusion that we were totally on top of what the hell was going on here. When in fact we knew effectively nothing.

“Of course,” said Cass, giving his sister a look which suggested she was a peasant and an oaf to have even asked such a question.

“Do you know where she’s staying?” said Desdemona abruptly.

“Chloë?” said Nevada. It was the obvious inference, but still, full marks to her for remembering the name.

“Yes,” said Desdemona.

Her brother was staring at her, aghast, but she went on. “Do you happen to know where she might be staying?”

For her part, Desdemona’s expression was suddenly one of beseeching need. To my surprise, I found my heart going out to her. Brother Cass, however, definitely didn’t feel the same way. “Listen, Des…” he said, in a low threatening voice.

Desdemona ignored him and kept looking at Nevada. Her big eyes, so reminiscent of our cat’s, were pleading silently. And, as if this wasn’t enough, she began pleading aloud. “Perhaps if I could talk to her directly…” she said.

“Des,” snarled Cass.

Everyone ignored him, which he didn’t like much.

Nevada met Desdemona’s piteous gaze and said, “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.” A handy phrase which, when you think about it, could be applied to just about any situation.

“She does not want to know where that woman is,” said Cass.

“Yes I fucking do,” said Desdemona. It was impressive how quickly they’d got to the stage of swearing at each other, in front of total strangers. That’s families for you. Although I suppose it could be argued that she hadn’t sworn directly at him. “You are not going to tell me what I’m going to do,” she added.

“Somebody has to,” said Cass. “When clearly you don’t know what’s good for you.”

“What’s good for me? And I suppose you know what’s good for me?”

“Better than you do.”

“I just want to talk to Chloë.”

“All I’m saying,” said Cass, “is that you’re not exactly disinterested where she’s concerned.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself,” said Desdemona.

Well, she’d definitely sworn directly at him this time.

He turned to look at us for sympathy or support, and he might even have received some of the former, but just then the doorbell rang.

Suddenly the hostility between the siblings evaporated and they assumed identical looks of furtive fear, like two little kids caught doing something they shouldn’t. “Is that her?” they said in perfect unison.

I looked at Nevada. There was only one way to find out.

Nevada turned to them and smiled and said, “And what if it is?”

I didn’t hear what their response, if any, might be to this rather brilliant quip from my honey because I went to the front door and opened it. I must confess I was a little disappointed to find that instead of the second mystery woman of the evening it was merely Tinkler come to call.

He grinned his trademark cockeyed grin at me and said, “What’s happening?”

“I could hardly begin to tell you,” I said, and led him inside.

In the living room Cass and Desdemona were both on their feet, ready and tense, though for what and why I couldn’t guess. As soon as they saw Tinkler they both relaxed— sagged, actually—and assumed identical expressions of relief. Although it only took an instant for Desdemona’s expression to change to something more like disappointment.

I introduced Tinkler. Cass, who evidently liked shaking hands, shook his hand energetically while Desdemona sank back into her chair and continued to look disappointed. I’m sure Tinkler wasn’t offended. He would have been used to his arrival engendering this kind of reaction by now.

“I’m Cass and this is Des,” said Cass.

“Nice to meet you,” said Desdemona from the armchair in which she was slumped. Her expression of profound disappointment didn’t alter, but I was impressed by the bright friendliness of her voice which apparently was something she could conjure up entirely on autopilot.

“Well, we’d better be going,” said Cass, also in a bright and friendly voice. He was every bit as convincing as his sister. We might have just spent a convivial evening together and he was reluctantly tearing himself away from our company. “Come on, Des,” he said. And Desdemona, whom I didn’t see as being big on obedience, on this occasion rose obediently from her armchair and accompanied him to the door. We saw them out. Tinkler didn’t join us. He was already nosing around my record collection, knowing all too well where I kept the new vinyl arrivals.

We watched Desdemona and Cass disappear into the darkening summer evening, made quite sure that they were gone and then returned to the living room.

“What was that all about?” said Tinkler.

“We have no idea,” I said.

“We have some idea,” said Nevada. “And it could involve money.”

“And murder,” I said.

“Just a typical day at chez Vinyl Detective,” said Tinkler.

“You can’t say ‘at chez’,” said Nevada, making no attempt to hide her scorn. “Chez already means ‘at’.”

“Consider my education ongoing,” said Tinkler. “I haven’t missed supper, have I?”

2: CHLOË

Tinkler got his meal, salmon and butterbean salad with marinated red onion, capers and fresh mint. He tucked into it with a level of enthusiasm which matched the way our cats attacked their diced bavette. Tinkler hoovered up the salad and asked for seconds, despite his complaints about being given leftovers. “Leftover by about twenty minutes,” said Nevada.

He might even be said to have earned this supper because, after eating and listening to details—what few we had—of our encounter with Cass and Desdemona and hearing the mention of our old friend Jasper McClew, he went online and after a little adroit searching found a page stylishly designed in black and white with bright red highlights that featured a moody monochrome photograph of Mr McClew himself.

“The photographer who took that picture is a genius,” said Nevada.

“Because they made him look good?” said Tinkler.

“Because they made him look human.”

“A bit harsh,” said Tinkler. He then proceeded to chortle over the text, which was headlined McClew’s Clues.

“I wonder how long it took them to dream up that zinger?” said Tinkler.

Beneath this title, slightly smaller lettering boasted A True Crime Podcast Solving the Coldest of Cold Cases…

The surprising level of professionalism and general slickness on show in the design was somewhat undermined by the banner at the bottom which read Website Under Construction, and the fact there weren’t actually any podcasts available yet.

“So Desdemona and what’s-his-name…” said Tinkler.

“Cass,” said Nevada. “I wonder if that’s short for Cassio?”

“Why?” said Tinkler.

“Because they’re both names from Othello, you lout.”

“No need to get personal. We can’t all be Shakespeare scholars.”

“Full marks for knowing it’s Shakespeare, though,” said Nevada.

“I know more than that.”

“Really?”

“I know it’s not a great play to name your children after.” Tinkler took out a small, flat, pink tin from his pocket and removed cigarette papers and a tiny plastic bag of vegetable matter from it. “Tragic ending and all that.”

“Desdemona and Cassio are the two most blameless characters in it,” said Nevada.

“Being…?”

“Being Othello’s wife and his best friend.”

“Both of whom came to a sticky end, right?”

“Well done, Tinkler,” I said. “You’re showing a surprising depth of knowledge.”

He grinned and held up the small plastic bag. “Once I’ve smoked some of this, I’ll probably be able to recite the whole play from memory.”

“Please don’t,” said Nevada.

“Anyway, see my earlier comment about being lousy names for your kids.”

“Cassio gets out of it okay,” said Nevada. “He ends up as governor of Cyprus.”

“Yay Cassio,” said Tinkler. “Governor of Cyprus. Impressive.”

“But Desdemona…” Nevada trailed off and Tinkler looked up at her with sudden and atypical alertness.

“Murdered, right?” he said.

Nevada nodded. “Strangled,” she said thoughtfully.

“Bummer,” said Tinkler.

There was silence for a moment in our little house and then Nevada said, “Why are we even talking about them?”

“Desdemona and Cassio?” said Tinkler.

“Desdemona and Cass, who might be called Cassio,” said Nevada.

“Count on it.” Tinkler was studiously assembling a joint. He showed impressive skill and dexterity in this enterprise, but then he was highly motivated. “We’re talking about them because they’re apparently assisting Jasper McClew with his true crime podcast.” He paused in joint-assembly to make air quotes with his fingers for both “true crime” and “podcast”. “In some capacity or other.”

“Presumably they’re providing the true crime,” I said.

“Which is their grandfather murdering what’s-her-name’s grandmother?”

“Chloë,” said Nevada. “And it’s the other way around.”

“Their grandmother murdering her grandfather?”

“No,” said Nevada. “Stop it. Now you’re making me confused.”

I stepped in at this point. “They said Chloë’s grandfather murdered their grandmother.”

“Thank you for the clarification. Whichever way round it is, it all sounds like it happened a long, long time ago.” Tinkler licked the cigarette paper, sealing the weed inside.

“Cold case,” I said.

“The coldest of cold cases,” quoted Nevada.

“Website under construction,” quoted Tinkler. He held up his creation, an admirably neat, thin white cylinder and waggled it invitingly at her. “Going to help me smoke this?”

Nevada shook her head. “No thanks.”

“What?”

“Sorry, after what happened earlier, I’m not in the mood.”

“You’re going to let unexpected visitors turning up in the middle of the night and talking about murder, ancient murder at that, put you off smoking drugs? Tut-tut. Shows a distinct lack of moral fibre.”

Nevada smiled. “I just want to keep a clear head.”

“Oh foolish child.”

“At least for the time being.”

“That’s more like it,” said Tinkler. “Meanwhile I shall go outside and smoke this one in the garden.”

“Thank you, Tinkler. That’s very considerate of you.”

“I’m Mr Considerate.” Tinkler waved the neat little spliff at us. “And, remember, there’s plenty more where this came from.” He opened the back door. “Now, Fanny are you going to join me in the garden? Wait a minute, this is Turk.”

Nevada sighed. “And you’re not even stoned yet.”

“I corrected myself, didn’t I? Come on, Turk.”

Duly accompanied by the cat, he went out into the back garden, taking care to shut the door behind him so as not to catch her tail in it. Nevada and I exchanged a look. Whatever we might have been about to say to one another, we never got around to it.

Because at that point the doorbell rang. Again.

We stared at each other.

I got up to go and answer it, experiencing a brief, swooning swoop of déjà vu. I walked down the hallway with Nevada at my side, and opened the front door. It was night now, and the creamy smell of our lilac came riding into the house on a flow of cool air.

Standing there looking at us was a petite young woman. She had a sweetly appealing elfin face, haloed by an impressive mass of black curly hair. She was wearing a baggy T-shirt, tie-dyed in trippy shades of pink and green, and long denim shorts which looked like a skirt until you noticed it was split in the middle into separate legs. Her feet were shod in what looked like serious hiking boots, low cut in sturdy chocolate brown leather with pale blue laces and pale blue trim. The boots went with the large and serious rucksack on her back.

She looked for all the world like she might be in search of a youth hostel to spend the night in. But this impression was immediately dispelled when she smiled at us and said, “Hello, I’m sorry it’s so late.” She fixed her gaze on me. “Are you the Vinyl Detective?”

“Yes,” I said. I’d given up prevaricating on this point.

“And I’m Nevada,” said Nevada.

“My name is Chloë Loconsole.”

Nevada smiled back at her. “You’d better come in, Chloë.”

* * *

More, though milder, déjà vu buzzed through my brain as I went back into the kitchen to make some coffee.

This time I used the good stuff. It seemed called for. And I was glad I did. The smell coming from the mugs stirred something deep in my nervous system and caused my spirits to lift and my energy reserves to rally as I carried the tray of refreshments towards the living room, walking down the hallway past Chloë’s backpack which was standing alertly against the wall, parked there like a patient pet, or a small and exceptionally well-behaved child.

Nevada gave me a dazzling smile as I joined her and Chloë. In striking contrast to the earlier interlude with Desdemona, there had been a steady flow of animated conversation coming from the living room all the while I was gone. This paused momentarily as I handed out the mugs. I have to admit that Chloë won my heart by the way she sniffed the coffee and her face lit up with pleased surprise. She knew quality when she smelled it.

She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. I could tell by the appreciative way she sipped it that here was a woman who wouldn’t have been satisfied with the instant.

Nevada said, “I’ve just been filling Chloë in on our usual terms and conditions, darling.”

“We have terms and conditions now, do we?” I said. I sipped my own coffee and felt the unique combination of stimulation and relaxation which the magic elixir provided flowing through me. Both the women smiled at me.

“Chloë has a record for you to find,” said Nevada.

“I’m pleased to hear it,” I said. This wasn’t entirely true. After Cass and Desdemona’s hit-and-run visit, I didn’t particularly want any part of what sounded like a potentially very messy affair. And Jasper McClew being in the mix certainly didn’t make it sound any more inviting. But at least I was on familiar, or anyway recognisable, terrain if someone wanted me to look for a record.

And, I have to admit, I was instantly intrigued.

“What record?” I asked.

Chloë set aside her mug—reluctantly, I was pleased to note—and said, “It’s a film soundtrack. The music underscore. And I’m really hoping you might be able to locate a copy for me.”

Her English was perfect but, as she spoke at greater length, I began to detect the faint echo of an accent. And in the lights of the living room I could see that her skin was darker than it had first appeared. A sort of golden-bronze shade which contrasted sharply in my mind, for some reason, with the very pale skin of Desdemona Higgins.

Anyway, all in all, Chloë had a continental look which went naturally with the backpacker vibe. My guess was that she was Spanish or Italian. “It’s an LP that was only released in England,” she said. “In 1969.”

“It’s very rare,” said Nevada. “And hard to find.” She said this happily because rare and hard to find equated to a commensurately large payday for us.

“It’s part of the Lansdowne Series,” said Chloë.

This instantly got my attention. Lansdowne was a sublabel of EMI/Columbia and it had featured some of the best, and most desirable, British jazz albums of the 1960s, which changed hands for insane sums of money. Mind you, it had also featured the Hawaiian guitar music of Wout Steenhuis. Which didn’t.

“What’s the record called?” I said.

“Murder in London.” Chloë picked up her coffee and took a sip. “It’s by Loretto Loconsole.”

“He’s the musician?” I said.

“The composer, yes. He was my nonno.”

“Nonno,” said Nevada, all scholarly linguistic interest. “That’s Italian for grandfather?”

“Yes. My grandpa.”

With the coffee buzzing in my brain, all my senses were now on high alert.

We know her grandfather did it.

Chloë looked at me. “You have some of his music here. My nonno’s music.” She gestured towards the racks of LPs on the far side of the room.

I bit back my immediate impulse to contradict her. It seemed rude to do so. But I was pretty sure I was right and she was wrong, and I didn’t have anything by her grandfather.

After all, it was my record collection.

As if reading my thoughts—or perhaps my face, Nevada always said I had a lousy poker face—Chloë smiled at me, rose to her feet and crossed the room to the record shelf. She reached into the section where Various Artists were meticulously, some might say obsessively, filed under “V”, and carefully slid out a double album in a gatefold sleeve.

It was one of Rocco Pandiani’s lavish compilations of 1960s Italian film music on the Easy Tempo label. Nevada watched with interest as Chloë opened it and handed it to me. She pointed at the text printed inside the cover, listing the tracks by the various artists. Sure enough, there on side two was one called ‘Raspberry Shrapnel’ from a film called The Daughter of Autumn.

And it was by Loretto Loconsole.

It seemed the least I could do, having been proved so decisively wrong about my own record collection, to now play this for our guest. I went over to the hi-fi system and crouched down on the floor to turn on the Audio Note monoblocks. As I clicked the switches, the big 300B valves began to quietly glow in a way which would gladden the heart of any audiophile. Chloë came over to see what I was doing.

“These really should have been warming up earlier,” I said, glancing up at her. “Sorry.” I didn’t add that, if not for the unforeseen intrusion of good old Cass and Desdemona, the amplifiers would indeed have been on and warming up, quite some while ago.

“What fantastic tube amps,” said Chloë, looking down over my shoulder. She scored numerous points with me just for knowing what these big constructions of metal and glass were called, let alone admiring them. Though I was interested to note she used American terminology.

I rose from the floor again, having finished kneeling at the shrine of hi-fi, so to speak, and switched on the pre-amp. This was more tube—or, if you were English, valve—equipment, also courtesy of Audio Note. But it lived above floor level, supported on an attractive cherrywood shelf unit that also housed the turntable, plus the phono stage and, much less importantly of course, the CD player.

Chloë was still looking appreciatively at the power amps, not something one can often say about an attractive young woman. Or, in this case, two attractive young women because Nevada, never one to be left out, had now joined her. “He built them himself,” she said, proudly, her hand on my shoulder.

This was true enough, though I’d actually assembled the amplifiers from a kit. Admittedly, this in itself had been fairly challenging, involving as it did deciphering circuit diagrams which might have baffled a large team at Bletchley Park and performing meticulous soldering (using silver solder, naturally) at the cost of at least one permanent burn mark on a knuckle. Every man should have a few scars.

But the way Nevada had described it sounded like I’d personally mined and smelted the ore for the transformers. Maybe that’s what a true audiophile would have done.

I took the record out of the sleeve, lifted the Perspex lid on the Garrard, and settled the gleaming black LP on the spindle. Behind me, Chloë was examining the Quads. I turned to see her running her hand across the top of one, as though caressing a big, friendly beast. “And these are speakers?”

“Yup.”

“They’re electrostatics,” said Nevada, with an air of casual expertise which hid the fact that this was about all she could have told you about them.

“They’re very elegant,” said Chloë.

“Thank you,” said Nevada, as if she’d built them.

I clicked the switch to set the platter turning at as close to exactly thirty-three-and-a-third RPM as fine British precision engineering could achieve back in 1958, released the fiddly lock on the SME arm and lowered the needle onto the now-rotating record at exactly the point where Chloë’s nonno’s tune began. Music filled the room.

It had a jazzy bossa nova feel, featuring Hammond organ, some very adroit tenor sax and as much groovy wordless female vocals as anyone could ask for.

Recorded, I’d noted, in 1967, it was an altogether warm, trippy, infectious sound. A lot of Italian music from this period had a similar vibe, and it sounded as great now as it had back then. Timeless rather than dated. This vast treasure trove of tunes had been rediscovered and embraced by twenty-first-century hipsters under the rubric of lounge music. The original pressings were hopelessly hard to find and commensurately expensive, so discriminating connoisseurs and savvy entrepreneurs—and our friend Rocco Pandiani was both—had set about reissuing the cream of the music on newly founded and very hip record labels. Hence Easy Tempo, which did an exemplary job expertly curating these painstaking and invaluable reissues of such rare material.

You might think you’ve never heard anything in this vein, but the odds are you have…

For a start there is the crazily infectious song (again, wordless) ‘Mah Nà Mah Nà’, immortalised in a cover version by the Muppets and played millions of time all over the world. Deriving from the soundtrack of an obscure Italian skin flick, it’s a work of genius by Piero Umiliani, one of the giants of the genre, and of course a favourite of mine. Another favourite would be ‘Richmond Bridge’ by another Piero—Piero Piccioni—a piece I particularly love and not just because we live near the handsome old eponymous bridge.

It was one of the unusual characteristics of the Quad electrostatics that, although they possess a central sweet spot, they sound great everywhere in the room, even behind the speakers. Which was where I was now standing, happily watching the turntable while I listened. I turned around to see that the infectious music had had its effect. Chloë was shamelessly bopping around the room in time to it, and Nevada had shamelessly joined her. I watched the women dance. Nevada was pretty good and, though I’d never admit as much aloud, Chloë was even better—although both of them would have been effortlessly outclassed if Agatha had been here.

It was a pleasure to be presented with this spectacle and I wondered how many young men in London were lucky enough to be enjoying such a show.

Two, was suddenly the answer as the back door abruptly opened.

The women paused in their bopping and looked around.

“Don’t stop on my account, for heaven’s sake,” said Tinkler.

“The music has ended anyway,” said Chloë.

It had, now. Chloë casually sank back into an armchair, but she kept her face towards Tinkler in a manner which might have been merely friendly, or might have been cautiously watchful. I noticed also she’d changed armchairs, this time sitting in the one nearest the front door, as if getting ready in case she needed to make a dash, grab her rucksack and escape.

I hoped she wouldn’t do any of these things. I was enjoying our musical excursion. Not to mention those fine dance floor moves in my living room. I went to the turntable. Chloë’s nonno’s tune had been the last track on that side of the LP and the needle was now riding hissing in the run-out groove. I lifted the arm up and away, ending the hiss, and took the record off the platter.

Tinkler was saying, “I heard the music and I had to come in. I’m Jordon, by the way.”

“Hello, Jordon.” Chloë remained friendly but watchful as Tinkler settled into the other armchair.

“I’m their lovable reprobate chum,” he said. “I was out in the garden doing some weeding.”

Chloë elevated her eyebrows decoratively. “In the dark?”

It wasn’t actually fully dark outside, but it was admittedly a bit late to be gardening.

“Actually,” said Tinkler, “in the interest of strict factual accuracy, I wasn’t doing some weeding. I was doing some weed.”

Now Chloë relaxed and smiled at him, a proper smile. “That makes you the best kind of reprobate chum.”

“I’d like to think so,” said Tinkler modestly.

I listened to them continue to chat as I put away the Easy Tempo compilation and pulled another album off the shelf.

“By the way,” said our guest, “I’m Chloë.”

I turned to watch Tinkler, concerned that the look on his face would give the game away. He’d been briefed sufficiently by us earlier to recognise the name of our visitor. But even stoned Tinkler could retain a surprising degree of discretion, especially when there had been recent talk of murder. He turned his head away from Chloë so that his startled expression was directed solely and harmlessly towards me. “That’s a nice name,” was all he said.

“Thank you,” said Chloë.

Tinkler turned back to her and took out another expertly rolled spliff which he must have assembled in the garden. “Would you care to partake of this, Chloë?”

“Maybe later.”

Tinkler glanced at Nevada. “Have you girls colluded on your stories? Your boring stories of deferred gratification?”

“We’re still busy talking business, Tinkler,” said Nevada.

“Then heaven forbid that me and my weed should interfere. Or do I mean my weed and I?”

The record I had selected was a towering classic of Italian film music, Piccioni’s Fumo di Londra, with its mod livery of Union Jack cover art. On the Black Cat label—great name for a record label, but unfortunately it signified that this was a reissue. An original 1966 Italian copy, on the Parade label, would have cost me hundreds of pounds.

Tinkler recognised the sleeve from across the room and acknowledged my choice with an approving thumbs up. But his real interest was elsewhere. “What was that fantastic music you were listening to before?” he said.

“That was something by my grandpa,” said Chloë. Her undisguised pride was rather touching.

“Well, big thanks to your grandad for providing the perfect soundtrack for this space-age bachelor pad.” Tinkler gestured around at our humble abode. “Or wait, does it still qualify as a bachelor pad if he has a live-in girlfriend? I suspect it doesn’t.” He shrugged, looking over at me, standing by the turntable. “Never mind, old friend,” he said.

“I’ll try and roll with the punches,” I said.

I lowered the Ortofon SPU, beautiful and retro with its bulbous black-and-gold headshell, onto the rotating playing surface of the record. As the music filled the room, Chloë was instantly all smiling alert attention. “This is Piero Piccioni?”

“Yes.”

“My nonno used to call him Peter Pigeon,” she said.

“Why? Did he have a sexual thing about pigeons?” said Tinkler.

“You must forgive our friend here,” I said. I sat down on the sofa with Nevada. “I don’t know why, but you must.”

“Peter Pigeon,” said Nevada, her sharp mind at work. “Piero is the Italian equivalent of Peter…”

“Yes,” said Chloë, watching her expectantly.

“So, does Piccioni mean ‘pigeons’?”

“That’s right,” Chloë grinned happily. “Exactly,” she said. “But nonno thought Peter Pigeon, singular, sounded better. Funnier.”

“It does,” said Nevada.

“They were rivals. Friendly rivals. Nonno and Peter Pigeon.” She snuggled down in the chair, her head bobbing to the music. “This is lovely.”

“It’s an altogether lovely evening,” said Tinkler lazily. He was tapping his foot to the music and smiling his characteristic, stoned, cockeyed smile. He directed this at Chloë. “You don’t have a brother waiting outside in a car who’s about to barge in, do you?”

The emotional temperature in the room suddenly dropped to subzero. So much for retaining a surprising degree of discretion.

“A brother?” said Chloë. She turned to look at Nevada and me, a sharp frown incised on her forehead. “Cass and Desdemona… Were they here?” She was anything but slow.

Nevada gave Tinkler a look that could have broken his nose and said, “They left shortly before you arrived.”

Chloë was leaning forward in her chair. A look of deep concentration had clouded her eyes. But only for a moment. It vanished as she sat back in the chair, apparently having taken this unwelcome news in her stride. “That was quick of them,” she said, a hint of a sardonic smile curving her lips. Then she lifted her chin defiantly. “What did they want?”

Nevada and I exchanged a look. The truth was best in these situations, if only because it was easiest to keep track of. “They thought you’d already been to see us,” I said.

“Like I said,” said Chloë, “that was quick of them.”

“They wanted us to not take the case,” added Nevada.

Chloë smiled. “My case, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“What did they tell you?”

“They said…” I hesitated. Chloë’s grandfather had gone from being a remote anonymous abstraction to a sort of living entity, thanks to his music playing in this room and thanks to Chloë’s presence here. And her obvious love for him. Which all made it a bit hard to say, but I said it anyway.

“They said your grandfather killed their grandmother.”

Chloë nodded in a businesslike way.

“I’d better tell you all about it, then.”

3: MURDER IN LONDON

Before Chloë embarked on her tale, I made us some more coffee. It seemed called for.

After I served it, we all sat there, oddly becalmed and quiet. For a moment it seemed Chloë didn’t quite know where to begin. This hesitation reminded me strangely of Desdemona just before she had launched into her own cryptic tirade which had really got this fun evening underway.

But Chloë was made of sterner stuff. She gave a little nod as if confirming something to herself, then she lifted her chin, again rather defiantly, and said, “My grandpa died a few years ago…”

“Sorry to hear that,” I said.

“You aren’t really, though, are you?” Suddenly her dark eyes—which up to now I would have described with words like warm and friendly—had gone cold and hard, and were gazing unblinking into mine. I realised, a little belatedly it’s true, that this was not a woman to be messed with. Her voice was smooth and calm but also quite ruthless and unyielding. “You aren’t sorry at all.”

“Why do you say that?” said Nevada.

Chloë turned those hard dark eyes on her. “Because you think he’s a murderer, don’t you? Cass and Desdemona told you as much. They said my nonno was a killer. And you believe them. And so you’re quite glad he’s dead—one less murderer in the world. That’s what you think. Because you believe them.”

“We’re not sure what to believe,” said Nevada. Which was true enough.

“But I really am sorry to hear that he’s dead,” I said. Chloë turned back to me. It wasn’t easy meeting that implacable gaze. But I did.

“Why?” she said.

“Because I love his music,” I said.

For a moment there was complete silence in the room. As if I had broken some kind of spell by speaking the truth— and unquestionably it was the truth; already some part of my mind was scheming to scoop up any records I encountered in the future by the redoubtable Loretto Loconsole, even if I hadn’t been hired to do so.

And, to be frank, whether or not he was a murderer…

The silence was broken by the rattle of the cat-flap in the back door and Turk came nosing in. Eyes wide and alert, she skirted the room cautiously in a broad arc, scoping out the stranger in our midst. Suddenly Chloë bent forward and made a little whispering, kissing noise, rubbing her fingers together, clearly hoping to entice our little intruder.

I could have told her she was wasting her time.

But I would have been wrong.

Because Turk came to her at a run and flung herself on the floor at Chloë’s feet. She then rolled over on her back, legs shamelessly akimbo, and proceeded to allow Chloë to rub the thick white fur of her belly, while Nevada and I looked at each other in astonishment.

Chloë began to speak. Her voice was so low and soft that at first I thought she was addressing the cat she was so busy caressing.

She wasn’t.

“Nonno came here in 1969,” she said. “He came because they were shooting a film on location in London and he’d been hired to write the score for it.” She looked up at us, forsaking her cat stroking. “That wasn’t standard practice, of course. Usually the poor soundtrack composer has nothing at all to do with the making of the film, no connection with the process. They’d only call him in at the last minute, after it’s all been shot and edited. And then they’d want him to add his music to enhance the impact of the film, or sometimes to save it from disaster. Nonno did that more than once. His brilliant music turned terrible movies into… well, I won’t say masterpieces, but at least movies that worked. And ones that went on to earn money at the box office.”

Turk gave a sour, scandalised yowl. Chloë had stopped stroking her, and she didn’t like being ignored. Chloë immediately resumed rubbing the cat’s tummy. I was pleased to see that our guest knew her correct place in the evolutionary pecking order.

“Sometimes,” she said, “when a composer had a very good relationship with a director, like Ennio Morricone with Sergio Leone, they would get a chance to read the script at an early stage and write music before shooting began. Morricone did that for Once Upon a Time in the West, and Leone played his music on the set to get the actors in the mood, before they filmed a sequence.”

Chloë slid off the armchair, and sat down on the floor beside Turk, so as to more comfortably continue the high-priority work of feline petting. She looked up at us from this position, which for anyone else might have seemed silly and undignified, but for her was merely rather cool and stylish. “My nonno did that once or twice,” she said. “But for Murder in London, it was something entirely different. You see, he’d worked with the director, Beniamino Rosso, a number of times before. Including on that movie we played the music from.”

“The Daughter of Autumn,” I said.

“Yes, and that film had been a considerable success. So, by the time they collaborated on Murder in London, nonno