Ride Upon Midnight: Chapter 2
String Theory
Ride Upon Midnight is an occult mystery of murder, music, and ghosts.
Didn’t read Chapter 1: Bad Moon? Read it here!
2 STRING THEORY
Tony watched the yellow tape wrapped around his restaurant flutter in the breeze.
‘I don’t know how,’ he said, ‘but you have something to do with this.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I put you on stage and the fucking roof falls down. Tell me that’s not a coincidence.’
‘Wish I could see what you see, Tony.’
He pointed at a group of men wearing hardhats and white coats and carrying clipboards. A construction van was parked in front of the building and a crane was standing against the glare of the sky.
‘They’ve no idea how it happened.’ Tony continued. ‘The wooden beam just collapsed. You want to know what kicks it into hyper-drive? The water damage is on the inside of the wood. Inside it. Explain that.’
‘I really can’t be responsible for a faulty beam.’
‘You’re a funny guy who does funny things and I’m watching you.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
Tony took a new pack of B&H from his pocket and peeled off the plastic. He lit a cigarette and watched construction workers move in and out of his building.
‘I guess we won’t be coming into work tonight then,’ I said.
Tony pointed at me with the cigarette. ‘There it is. That funny thing you do. Remind me to stop with the singing crap and start comedy night. You can headline it.’
We stood there watching the scene and Tony smoked.
‘Think you can get me some work?’ I said. ‘This is the only job I’ve got.’
When I first left home I boxed at a local sports centre. I did that for six months and it was my only source of income while I lived at a youth hostel. My trainer said I had passion and skill, but I’d never get into the professional league because my wrists were too thin. After a summer break I quit completely. I sustained several injuries during my short tenure, some of them permanent. I didn’t want to go back down that road, but without an income I’d be out on the street in a month.
Tony wiped his chin with his palm. ‘Maybe in a couple of days. We’ve got to pull out all the shit inside. I’m not being poetic. A beer keg went through the wall and broke the latrine in the women’s bathroom. Looks like Afghanistan in there. Lighten up, Nils. I’ll get you some under the table work. Hey, last night some fat prick left a card for you.’ He reached into his jacket and gave me a business card. It had a cartoon picture of a machine gun on it, the kind used by Sly or Arnold during the ‘80s.
‘This is from Machine Gun Records,’ I said in disbelief.
‘Right. You blow a hole in my restaurant and you still get a call back. When you’re done rubbing your magic lamp how about you bring it over and let me have a go. Look, I gotta get back over there and make sure none of these wankers messes anything up.’ He walked away, cigarette smoke snaking behind him. I remained there, the business card heavy between my fingers. Printed on the front was a personal name and a number.
Ivan Spencer
982382323
Machine Gun Records (executive)
On the reverse were a handwritten address, a time, and a date. I slid the card into my wallet and walked twenty minutes to the public library. I was excited, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Ingrid and where she had come from. I logged into a computer and checked out the database of missing persons. I spent half an hour clicking through photographs of children who’d gone missing in the last two weeks. I clicked back a month and I still found nothing matching Ingrid’s description. I sat there staring at the screen wondering where she came from and why no one had reported her missing. She didn’t appear to be a street kid. Someone like her doesn’t simply go missing without somebody caring.
She’d been with me for two weeks now, and I knew it couldn’t go on forever. I plugged in a few coins in a local payphone and dialled child services. As the phone rang my thoughts turned to the night I found her, and I imagined her face and those eyes that stared into me, lighting and acknowledging something about myself that I couldn’t see.
I heard a voice on the other side. I stared at the receiver and hung it up, feeling both a sense of relief and guilt. Ingrid was not mine to look after. She was not an object to acquire, and I was not capable of caring for her. Legally or emotionally.
I knew leaving Ingrid alone as often as I had was a bad thing, so when I arrived home I knocked on my neighbour’s door. Her name was Jenny and she was about my age. I asked her if she could look after Ingrid for a couple of hours later that night. For the past four months Jenny had been living on a disability payout from her employer. I’d spoken to her more than anyone else in the building, and I believed her to be a good person. I told her that Ingrid was my niece and that I’d pay her eight quid an hour.
At eight o’clock Rachel and I went to Motorizer and we sat beside the pool table and watched a large man with tattooed sleeves play versus a petite woman in a leather jacket, her hair peroxide white, her eyes faded like old denim. She appeared to be winning. The beer taps were covered in imitation skulls, and the wall beside the bar was chequered with photographs of Lemmy, Hammett, Dickinson, even a burning church. The sound system was connected to a laptop with which the bar owner selected playlists and took requests when the bar was quiet.
We met up with friends, some new and some old, and they in turn introduced us to the guitarist and drummer of a Metallica cover band. I wasn’t in the mood to talk or socialise, and the music was loud enough that it was easy to disconnect from conversations. I zoned-out to Iron Maiden and W.A.S.P and Gojira and Dire Straights and a couple of local bands I wasn’t very familiar with but had a sound that I wanted to include in my own music. I tried forgetting about the last couple of days and instead thought about the Machine Gun Records card in my wallet.
I was excited, but I had already told myself that I’d never achieve more than a kitchen job, that music was no more than a childhood illusion, like winning it big in the lottery or a long lost uncle bequeathing an old manor. Like the princess and her problem with the pea, I could feel the weight of the card in my pocket. I kept thinking about what might be, and that in itself made me anxious.
At around half nine two men in nice coats entered the bar, gold police badges clipped to their belts. They were followed by two more men wearing brown suits. One had a tie with little alien heads on it.
Then a minute later the music shut off and we all saw flashing lights outside printing red and blue against the pavement. There were about twelve of us in total and we were each questioned by the inspectors.
The police told us that the questioning was optional. Although we had every right to leave, our co-operation would be appreciated in the murder investigation of Janet McFadden, who was believed to have visited this bar the night she was found dead in a motel bathroom.
Rachel and I stayed and helped. Three or four others left. She touched my thigh and bobbed her head at the man with the alien-headed tie.
‘You know who that is?’ she asked.
At the time I had no idea who he was, but more than a decade later he and I would form a respected relationship. He relied mostly on experience and instinct and had the essence of a person who considers the ‘90s the most influential decade of his life. I shook my head at Rachel.
‘That’s Philip Lockwood.’
‘You’re going to have to clue me in some more.’
‘He’s a private investigator. That’s his partner.’
‘Neat.’
‘Nils, you idiot. They usually only take on cases of the weird.’
‘Murderers are weird people.’
‘Not weird’—she waved her hands as though that would help—‘but weird weird. Supernatural. If the police called them in it’s because they haven’t got any idea where to look and they’re desperate. Don’t look at me like that. They used to be on a Ghost Finding show on the Discovery Channel. They’re big news.’
Philip’s partner, Andrew Moffet, was supposed to be the medium. The two frequently worked together on strange cases and often worked with the Wightford police department.
Looking at me, Andrew whispered something into his partner’s ear.
The inspector to whom I spoke was Frank Elling. He didn’t smoke when I knew him, but back then he did and he kept a silver Zippo lighter in his breast pocket. This was before the Anti-Smoking Law of 2007, so the bar was hazy and Frank’s cigarette burned between his fingers.
When he asked me questions I told him exactly what had happened: that I hadn’t seen Janet the night she died and I hadn’t seen anything strange. A couple of follow up questions. The clicking of a pen. The flip of the page in a notepad. I thought that would be the end of it. I was wrong.
Philip Lockwood asked Inspector Elling if he could have a moment alone with me. After a minor disagreement, Frank mashed out the cigarette in the ashtray on the table he’d pulled over and stood up. Philip replaced him in the chair. He was probably about fifteen years older than me, had a scar across his right ear, and had hands as thick as a boxer’s.
‘You ever see things you can’t explain?’ asked Philip.
‘Like what?’
‘Things only you can see. People who are there and then disappear. Rooms changing into other rooms.’
‘No, I’ve never experienced that,’ I lied.
‘Right. It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me the truth, Nils. I’m not a psychic. But I’ve worked closely with those who are. My partner over there for example, he tells me you’ve got this colour around your body. Says maybe you’ve got the sight.’
‘How can I help the investigation, Mr Lockwood?’
‘Tell me what you know.’
‘I don’t know anything.’
‘My partner was sure we were going to find something tonight. He said he tasted it. I think you’ve experienced stuff like that, but you don’t want to tell anyone. Maybe what you see is still new to you, or maybe you’ve seen them since you were born. There is another world right next to ours. Everything’s connected, like one big seamless blanket.’
‘I hardly believe in parallel universes.’
‘This isn’t a parallel universe. It is an extension of our universe, and it’s very much a real place. Deep down, it’s all bound by the same element. Always repeating, always moving, always recycling. It’s like a waiting room. Like going to the dentist. I have reason to believe Janet McFadden is waiting there. Has she contacted you?’
I laughed, though I wiped my hands on my jacket. ‘I can’t help you guys, okay? I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Can I go?’
Philip smiled and cleared his throat and nodded. ‘Sure. Just be careful out there. We call it the Wandering World, on account of it being able to move. It’s everywhere and nowhere. What you may think is the Underground is really the top of Mont Blanc. Some people say apparitions and ghosts are stored photons, particles of light that get trapped in our world. Forget about it - it’s just stories, right? Hey, you’re not related to Aksel Andersen are you?’
Andrew looked over at me, his hands inside his coat, his eyes shaded by his bowler hat, and he looked so out of place, as though he’d stepped directly out of the American Prohibition era.
Afterwards I found Rachel with the cover band musicians, and she was laughing and the guys were smoking cigarettes. She turned to me and said, ‘Ready, soldier?’
‘Ready for what?’
‘We’re going to go watch these guys play.’
‘When did we decide that?’
‘God, Nils, where are you sometimes?’
I went with them, thinking I’d listen to just one song and head home. We had to pay five pounds to get into a trashy bar that smelled of weed, and the bathroom was networked with graffiti like the arms of an addict. There were five bands playing and they played four songs each.
The first band up were the guys from Motorizer. The singer sounded nothing like Hetfield and he had drunk too much before going on and almost fell over a speaker. By the time the third song started I was tired and wanted to get home to Ingrid. The music was so loud I could barely make out what Rachel was saying.
‘But Billy said … kickass … party … across the bridge.’
‘Who the hell is Billy?’ I said.
She said something I couldn’t understand. When I motioned toward my ears she leaned toward me.
‘I said you never listen!’
‘Why don’t we just head somewhere quieter!’ I said.
‘What!’
‘Quieter! Somewhere quieter!’
But she feigned ignorance.
I didn’t want to leave her there, but I’d known Rachel long enough to know that my words were a waste of energy. When she had made up her mind there was nothing I could do about it. I was thinking about the death of Janet McFadden, which made it all the more difficult when I pushed through the moshing crowd and opened the side door. In the alleyway I leaned against the building and listened to the soft dripping of water in the gutter.
Eventually I heard the door clank open and then Rachel’s voice.
‘Uncool, man,’ she said.
‘Want to know what’s uncool? I’ll tell you. This place is uncool. It’s not rock or metal. It’s just a bunch of idiots doping up together. And who the hell is Billy?’
‘Billy Spokes. He’s the guitarist and he actually plays music.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You know what it means. You say you’re a musician but the only time I’ve ever heard you play anything was at Grim Tony’s, and it was a couple of lines. You’re a poser, Nils. You think you’re some expert on rock music but you don’t know shit.’
‘Thanks,’ I said and pushed off from the brick wall. Walking away, I could still hear her yelling through the throbbing music of the bar.
Ingrid was asleep when I arrived home. I gave forty pounds to Jenny and carried Ingrid in my arms to my flat. I put her on my bed and draped her in a blanket, then I lay horizontally in the armchair in the living room and fell asleep. A minute later the morning sun shone on my face, and Ingrid was in the kitchen trying to put on a pot of coffee for me. She’d dropped the jar and it’d shattered on the floor and there was coffee powder everywhere. With the coffee pot in her hand she looked up at me and I laughed and then she laughed and she helped me sweep up the mess and put it in the rubbish. I turned on the radio and we listened to Foo Fighters’ Learn to Fly while we cooked eggs in a pan and made toast. I poured orange juice, and we sat in the living room eating in silence.
I called Rachel twice but she didn’t answer. The third time I tried she picked up and it sounded like she had just woken up.
‘Nils, I don’t want to do this anymore.’
‘All right.’
‘You’re a good guy but you just don’t get me.’
‘Okay.’
‘Maybe I just need to make some time for myself.’
She hung up before I did. I thought I’d probably never see her again. I didn’t know what to feel about that.
I took Ingrid to the park and sat on a bench and watched her play. The sky was mottled with clouds that marbled the ground with shadows. It felt as though it was raining but it wasn’t. The wind was cold through my clothes. I saw a blue kite flapping about in the air and I realised I hadn’t seen a kite in years. Seeing Ingrid running without care of the wind on her face or hair made me believe that children are imbued with an energy for life so that as jaded adults we may once again see the beauty of the world.
On the way home we went to the supermarket and picked up a few things. She took a box of Kellogg’s Coco Pops off the shelf but I put it back and took a generic brand of Cocoa Rice Puffs instead. She wanted to carry it so I let her. When we got home I put the plastic bag on the kitchen bench. Ingrid helped me put the groceries into the cupboards. I’d bought her a book about a mouse with magical powers, and she took it to the living room and sat on the floor and looked at the pictures.
Rachel called me again that night. I could hear the football match between Manchester and Arsenal in the background.
‘You thinking about your dad?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know if I love you.’
‘Okay.’
We spoke for about ten more minutes. She didn’t call me again.
My father, a Norwegian musician who immigrated to England with my mother in 1979, introduced me to classic rock and I grew up listening to Led Zeppelin and Ozzy and Pink Floyd, and I didn’t know any other type of music existed until high school. When I was six he bought me a second-hand acoustic guitar. At first he let me play it without any guidance because he believed I had to know how it worked on my own accord before someone else could tell me what to do. A month later he started giving me lessons everyday until I was twelve. From then on it was me and the guitar.
Later in the evening I pulled out my guitar case and popped it open. I sat at the edge of the bed and put the guitar across my thigh. I touched the strings, my calloused fingers leading the way, my mind on tomorrow’s meeting with Ivan Spencer, the music executive. Ingrid had put down her book and was anxiously watching me from the doorway.
‘You want to come help me?’ I said.
She sat next to me and listened as I plucked the strings. On the nightstand I kept a jar of picks I’d collected from concerts. I took one with a faded Motorhead symbol on it and played Zakk Wylde’s As Dead as Yesterday all the way through. The energy surged through me and I’d never quite felt that way before. I think part of Ingrid’s childhood entered me, for I felt so full of life and expectation and the world didn’t seem so bad after all. I played the song again and then I gave the guitar to Ingrid. The guitar looked absolutely massive in her hands. I showed her a few note progressions but the moment she strummed the strings she revolted and pushed the guitar away. She jumped off the bed, her eyes wide and wounded.
‘What’s wrong?’
Her eyes were quivering and the edges were wet. When I stood up she backed away, shaking her head. And then for the first time she spoke outside of her dreams.
‘The moving place,’ she said.
‘What moving place?’
‘There.’
I looked where she pointed but it was just the empty space between the bed and wall.
‘You want to talk about things now?’
‘I don’t know.’
I decided not to press the situation, so I put away the guitar and went to bed early. My dreams were vivid and colourful and the way I felt was visible in the way the dream world was projected. My father was there and he was physically so much bigger than I was, and he was kneeling and still I had to look up to see his face, and his huge hand was on my shoulder, and he said, One day, gutten min, you’re going to be bigger than me. You’re going to fly and the whole world’s going to know the magic you can weave from your heart with your fingers. Sometime you’re going to see your face in magazines and newspapers. I’ll be in your shadow, where I belong. One day, my boy, you’ll be what you were born to be.
I woke up and drank a glass of water in the bathroom. When I saw my reflection in the mirror I snapped off the light.
At seven I showered and dressed in a black buttoned shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a new pair of denim jeans without holes. I dried my hair and poured a couple of bowls of Cocoa Rice Puffs for myself and Ingrid, and we ate at the kitchen counter. She was sleepy and she wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve.
‘I don’t want to go,’ she said.
‘Go where?’
‘Away. Far.’
Then she grabbed me around the waist and hugged me and I didn’t know what to do. My father wasn’t a hugging man and I’d never been hugged by a child before, so I picked her up in my arms.
‘Today I’ve got a really important meeting. You’re going to stay with Jenny across the hall, but I’ll be back. You’re not going away, I promise.’
I took the 134 and then waited for the number 57 at a bus stop with the glass window busted out. A woman on the bus had put her bag on the adjacent seat. When I asked if she could move it, she looked deep into my eyes and ignored me. I stood all the way to End Street.
Machine Gun Records was in a brick building opposite a fitness centre, and apart from a small sign on the door there was no way of knowing what the building contained.
A receptionist was behind a wooden desk. She looked up at me when I entered.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ she asked.
‘I’m here to see Ivan Spencer.’
‘Do you have an appointment?’
I took the card from my pocket and put it on the counter. She picked it up and squinted. It was just after lunch time and my appointment wasn’t until 3 P.M. I stopped her before she could speak. ‘I’ve got nowhere else to go.’
‘Sit down over there please.’
I leaned my guitar case against the wall and took a seat. Two hours later the receptionist called me into another waiting room. More musicians arrived, some with their own guitars. A man with cropped blond hair waved to me. He was wearing a black Candlemass t-shirt and a pair of thick glasses.
‘Do I know you?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, I thought I recognised you. You’re that guy from last night. With Rachel,’ he said.
Then I remembered his face but not the name. He stared for a while, waiting for me to say something; then he introduced himself as Billy, Billy Spokes — the guy from the Metallica cover band.
‘How you doing Billy?’ I said.
‘I hear Ivan Spencer’s looking for a big rock band to blow the lid off the mainstream. That’s why we’re here, to show the industry that rock’s not just a limp dick.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Don’t act like that’s not why you’re here. There’s only so many shitty bars to play in before you start wondering why you didn’t take a trade skill.’
‘Rock music’s more than just numbers, Billy. It’s raw and my old man used to say that old epic poetry still lives on in it.’
‘Hey, no offense, but your old man sounds like one strung out whack job.’
I returned to my chair and waited for my name to be called. I was directed into a small office with a blind covering the only window. The walls were filled with framed vinyls and CDs of bands the label managed. I was alone in the room. As I sat down I wondered if the potted plant by the desk was real. Behind me the door opened and closed, then a man whom I assume was Ivan Spencer entered, carrying a glass of water. He didn’t shake my hand and simply sat down behind the desk.
‘Name?’
‘Nils Andersen. I just want to say thank you—’
‘Why are you here?’
‘You asked me to come.’
‘Right, but remind me what you did that impressed me.’
‘I played Bad Company at Grim Tony’s.’
Ivan took a couple of Aspirin’s from his pocket and chased them with water. His lips were shiny and full and it looked as though he were wearing lipstick. He was fat around the middle and his hair had probably been blond when he was a child but now it was lifeless and grey. His eyes were clear green in the sheaves of light shining through the blinds. He wore a suit without the jacket. Loops of sweat were under his arms.
‘High class place that one,’ he said. ‘We should be lucky we made it out of it alive.’ He opened a leather bound notebook and picked up a pen with his name on it. ‘Why do you think you’ve got what it takes to be in the music business?’
‘I’ve never been too good at talking about myself, Mr Spencer. I’d rather show you what I can do.’
‘You haven’t done many interviews have you, kid? Why would I want to hear what you’ve got if you don’t even know what it is?’
‘My dad taught me to play when I was probably three or four. I don’t really remember. All I know is that there’s not a time when I don’t remember playing.’
‘By play I hope you mean the guitar.’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry. I spent time on the road with my dad. He’s a musician, too. He wrote a song that reached number thirteen on the U.K. Rock & Metal Singles and Albums Charts.’
‘Mr Andersen, Nils,’—he pronounced my name like Neils—‘I don’t care what your father did or didn’t do. I think it’s better if you just go ahead and play whatever it is you play.’
I wiped my hands on my jeans. I could smell my odour rising from under my arms and I felt so hot that my shirt was sticking to my skin. I took up my guitar and immediately started playing, but I hit the wrong chord. I took in a deep breath and started again. But no sooner had I started, than Ivan was waving his hand at me telling me to stop.
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
‘What are you doing?’
‘It’s House of the Rising Sun, originally by The Animals. A lot of rock bands have covered it.’
‘I know what song it is. You know how many times I’ve heard it? It doesn’t impress me. You’ve got a good voice, but you’re going to have to do better than that. Play something else.’
I coughed and closed my eyes as sweat dripped down my forehead. I removed my jacket and wiped the sweat off my face with it. I decided to go in a completely different direction and did Like a Stone from Audioslave.
I started cleanly, the tone perfect. The room darkened and I saw pages from books fall around me. Ivan picked up his water and finished it. I felt this unexplainable pressure on my chest. With each verse I sang and played the room shifted and changed.
Lotus flowers dripped from the ceiling like water. Ivan leaned back in the chair. I saw a neon sign appear whereupon Hotel was written in reverse.
I saw headlights flashing through the ceiling and the pages on the floor commenced falling back to where they began. My hands fell through the guitar, and in the room stood Janet McFadden, but unlike she was when I first saw her. She was spectral, her features distorted and broken, blood trickling down her face, suspending in the air beside her shoulder. She wore a long dress that billowed with a wind I could not feel, and periodically I heard the faintest sound of a car skidding across a wet road. Looking down at my chair and the office I saw myself and Ivan sitting there, frozen in time, and I heard voices in the distance but I could not understand them.
I didn’t remember closing my eyes, but when I opened them I was laying down and a face I did not recognise was staring at me.
‘Mr Andersen, we’ll get you over to the hospital and check you out. You’ll be okay.’
‘No, I’m good.’
Then Ivan’s face appeared. ‘Thanks for coming in, Neils, but I don’t think you’re quite what we’re looking for.’
I scrambled to my feet and pushed the paramedic away from me. I tripped over myself and landed hard on the floor.
‘Janet McFadden’s dead,’ I said, ‘and she’s trying to tell me something. Christ, don’t you get it? She was right there in that room.’
Blank faces staring at me. I picked up my guitar case and ran out of the building.