Chapter Forty-Eight
Sunday 4th August
Champagne?
Nikki had been called out early Sunday morning, they were predicting storms and flash floods after a stretch of unusually hot weather so there was no time to lose. She and Jack had worked tirelessly to collect as much evidence from the scene as they could before it was all washed away. She'd ended up soaked and the last thing she wanted was to go out for lunch with Harry. What she needed was a hot shower and some warm clothes. The shower pressure at her house had been really poor recently, so in frustration she threw some clothes, towels and her shower kit in her bag and drove over to Leo's.
"You alright?" Harry had asked as she'd marched through the door just after one.
"My shower's nearly given up the ghost now. I don't understand it. I just want to be clean and warm and dry."
"It's your house as much as mine," Harry said as she scuttled upstairs with her stuff. He called the council for her anyway, it was probably worth reporting.
#
"I thought you liked to take Sunday afternoon's off?" Nikki said as she entered the study with two cups of tea. They'd skipped their usual pub lunch it was so late and foraged from the fridge instead.
"But we're so close to finishing, I thought I'd have a go."
It had taken hours, days, to clear the books from the shelves. Each one had been checked and then assigned a new home. Harry had made frequent trips to the dump, the Salvation Army and a number of local charity shops. Added to their box system, which was now on some of the empty shelves and not in the middle of the floor, was an ebay box and when there were enough things in there, Nikki had promised to sell them.
Harry pulled the last book from the last remaining bookshelf, flicked through its pages noting the yellow edges and tossed it towards the bin box.
"Do you want me to get the champagne, rather than the tea?" Nikki asked.
Harry smiled. "I'm not sure it quite calls for champagne." He leant on the newly emptied bookshelf, causing it to shift slightly.
"Harry?"
"Mmm?"
"Harry!" Nikki repeated slightly louder, "What's that?"
Harry walked round to the side of the bookcase to where Nikki was standing, where the small movement had left a shadow. He gave the shelf another shove and the shadow got larger. This time he gave the unit a tug and the shadow got lighter, illuminating an alcove which the bookshelf had obscured. The alcove wasn't empty, it was stuffed full of books, cases and a whole lot more besides.
"We definitely need to hold off on the champagne." Harry groaned.
Nikki helped Harry shuffle the empty bookcase out of the way so that they could take a better look at Leo's secret storage place.
"I guess we found where Leo hid the skeletons in his closet," Harry smirked.
"Behind the bookcase?"
"There's plenty of good things hidden behind bookcases," Harry declared.
"True," Nikki agreed.
"How long do you suppose this stuff has been here?" Harry asked.
"You don't think he covered all this stuff up when Theresa died do you?" Nikki asked with a shiver.
Harry picked something up off the shelf and shook his head.
"I think this might be before Theresa's time, it might even be before Leo's time, this record is dated 1967."
"Do you think it's valuable?"
"I have no idea."
Harry pulled down a couple of boxes that could have held files but contained more records. "Some of these don't look as if they've ever been played!"
"Maybe collecting old records was Leo's secret hobby? Maybe they are really rare and we can sell each one for a £1000."
"I think you might be daydreaming Nikki," Harry said morosely. "It doesn't look like a gold mine to me; it looks like another week's worth of trips to the dump. From what I've seen Leo's taste in music has been awful, why would the earlier stuff be any better?"
Nikki flicked through the covers.
"Like you said, maybe they're not his. Maybe this bookshelf was in place before Leo even moved in?"
"Could be," Harry replied still staring at the newly found items.
"Seems like he's got every Sex Pistols record that ever was," Nikki said.
"The Sex Pistols? Does that sound like Leo?" And then after a moment added, "How would you even know how many Sex Pistols records there are, wasn't it a bit before your time?" Nikki gave Harry a smug look, and Harry decided that he didn't want to know how she knew what she did. It was no doubt a bit like her phenomenal knowledge of gambling.
Nikki held up the cover. "I bet these are valuable, do you want me to look it up?"
"Not now," Harry replied, flicking through another stack of vinyl record sleeves.
"What do you suppose this is?" Nikki asked picking up another suitcase shaped object with a handle." She pressed the catch lever to the side and opened the lid.
"Harry look!" she gasped. "It's like a museum piece!"
"That is a museum piece! Do you suppose it still works?"
Harry pulled an empty box from the pile, carefully taped the bottom and turned it over as a makeshift table. He lifted the old machine onto the box and checked the flex; it had at least been rewired to a 3 pin plug.
"It's an Alba 632," he said reading the label on the front.
"Do you think it's rare? Do you think it'll still work?"
"We won't know until we try."
"The turntables a funny colour," Nikki said, peering more closely at the machine.
"That's because there's still a record left on it."
"I wonder what it is?"
"It should have had a label but I guess that's disintegrated," Harry explained. It had been quiet for nearly a month. Harry couldn't bear any of Leo's recent CD's or the radio, so he'd worked in silence. Even Nikki had given up on the only CD she'd tried.
He was only too aware of how apt so many of the songs he'd heard in America had been for his life. Jorge's lift music had been the prime example. Elvis was always coming to damning conclusions about his life. If he'd listened to Elvis he would have got rid of Leyla weeks earlier. Elvis had told him from the beginning that 'She's Not You,' and had he listened to him he'd have saved himself a lot of heartache. And then of course there was the music during their weekend together. Maybe this record would complete the cycle, maybe of all the songs that had haunted him over the year, this would be the last one, and it would finally stop.
He plugged the player in, and heard the static hum of the speakers; he checked the rotation speed and clicked the switch that made the table spin. The arm and needle would need to be lifted on to the vinyl by hand.
"Harry?"
"Hmm?"
"I think it might be the time for that dance you owe me,"
Harry looked up, really looked at her. Her face was almost back to how it had been before, before he'd left and before Leo had gone. There were still more lines than there had been, age was creeping up but she was no less beautiful for them. What had gone was the haggard look and the wildness about the eyes giving her the look of a frightened animal.
"You sure?"
She nodded. "You?"
"I've been ready for a while now."
"Shall we?" he asked offering her his hand.
So what's the song? You must have some clues or at least good suggestions. I love to hear what you think.
