Please be aware that this excerpt contains details of a suicide.
 

CHAPTER ONE

Classical music should never take itself too seriously.

Case in point: Aria Sopra la Bergamasca by Marco Uccellini. Composed in 1642. Traditionally performed with two violins and a basso continuo. And very definitely not a Gretsch solid body G5135 CVT, with a harpsichord patch on a Roland XP-80, a tenor sax wailing out the baroque melody line, and a polite little snare drum keeping us all well-behaved.

My band and I had taken over the main studio at Ardwick House, a rambling 18th-century cottage in NW3 that had been owned by successive generations of a local musical family. Around the time I was born, in 1968, the last of them—a pair of elderly spinster sisters who’d kept cats and nearly everything else their ancestors had accumulated since 1794—died within a month of each other. The property and its antique-cluttered rooms were left to some distantly-related and financially-savvy cousins, who were also musically-inclined. The cats were dispatched to a leafy estate in Dorset. The antiques were dusted off. And the rooms they occupied were converted into rehearsal spaces. 

I knew one of the cousins, so we were enjoying a “mate’s rate” on that quiet Sunday afternoon. We’d set up in the main hall, which the musically-inclined cousins had created by demolishing a couple of interior walls and removing part of the second floor. It had a high ceiling with a pitched roof embedded with skylights. It had a wonderful old fireplace set into oak panelling and a sprung maple floor that bore the comfortable scars and scuffs of instruments, music stands, amps, and flight cases. A beautiful concert piano occupied one of the corners, near an abundance of large green houseplants, and the entire south wall had been knocked out and replaced with floor-to-ceiling windows—which overlooked an untidy, overgrown, and completely secluded back garden.

“Once again,” Rudy said, with a gentle final brush on his Zildjian cymbals, “invoking the perfect synthesis of the unnatural with the bizarre.”

It was true. We’re a jazz combo—guitar, sax, keyboards and drums—with a permanent residency upstairs at The Blue Devil in Soho. We’re the after-hours Late Show’s main act. I’m notorious for my everything-goes audio-fusion. You can do it with food, so why not with music?

“I can’t wait for your very special arrangement of Handel’s Messiah on Guy Fawkes Day,” Dave replied, giving us the triumphant orchestral violin intro to the "Hallelujah" Chorus on his keyboard.

“You’re on,” I said. “"Last Train Home" next?”

One of my favourites by Pat Metheny. We’d been playing it since our very first gig at The Blue Devil.

Ken gave his sax a little polish. “Our current version?” he inquired. “Or your heavily-sampled re-imagining of the original Klingon?”

#

It was Sunday, October 14, 2018. I’d just come off a thirty-four-day, eighteen-city tour of Wales and southern England with my mum’s band, Figgis Green. I’d taken a leave of absence from The Blue Devil while Rudy, Ken and Dave had carried on with a series of guest acts taking over my chair.

And now I was back. We’d just run through half of our first set, mostly to make sure I still remembered where my fingers were meant to be after more than a month on the road with the Celtic-folky-pop Figs. 

Dave had gone into the little blue and white Dutch-tiled kitchen to make us some tea. Rudy and Ken were expecting me to wander out to the overgrown garden for a quick ciggie. I surprised them.

“Gave it up in Tunbridge Wells,” I said, returning my Gretsch to its stand so I could share out the chocolate digestive biscuits I’d brought in a sustainable shopping bag from a homeopathic health care shop in Lincoln.

“My sister quit last year,” Ken replied. “She put on two stone.”

“Thanks very much,” I said. 

I was fifty and I was lucky. I’d inherited my dad’s lean build. He was fifty-four when he died—struck by lightning while he was caddying for a mate on a golf course. I never got to see him grow old. But I knew what he’d been handed down by way of his own father. Noah Figgis was fit and healthy well into his senior years. He’d cycled to the village shop every morning for his Daily Express, a pint of milk, and an apple for his afternoon tea. He’d been to the shop on the day he died in 2005. It wasn’t old age that killed him—it was a careless driver. He was taken away too soon—aged eighty-five. We all thought he’d carry on until he was at least one hundred. 

I’m aiming for that myself, in spite of my addiction to Maltesers, chocolate digestives, and an utter lack of any kind of physical fitness—other than a daily walk, which, admittedly, does usually cover a couple of miles. Giving up smoking was something I’d been wanting to do for a long time. In the end, it was easy. Well, easy compared to what had led up to it—someone had tried to do me in with an overdose of insulin. I’d recovered in hospital in Tunbridge Wells, and after I was discharged, I suddenly found I no longer had the urge. 

“I honestly wouldn’t recommend it as a Stop Smoking strategy,” I said, to Dave, as we joined him in the little kitchen to recharge on his Yorkshire tea and my chocolate digestives.

I’d had my phone switched off while we were rehearsing. I took it out of my pocket now and skimmed through the usual collection of checking-ins, reminders, and shared memes and jokes. 

A text from my son, Dom, telling me about an upcoming film festival. He was nearly twenty, and he was doing his BA (Hons) in Film and Television Practice at London South Bank University. You’d love it, he wrote. It’s all crime thrillers, detectives, mystery, and suspense. Chinatown. Night Moves. Very Raymond Chandler. Very noir.

No amateur sleuths? I texted back. Send it on to your aunt—she’ll be there with bells on.

Angie, my sister, writes best-selling cozy mysteries under the pen name Taylor Feldspar. Her main character, Jemima Fielding, is a chef who solves murders which always seem to happen when she’s called on to cater a function. But, in spite of the professed lighter side to her writing, Angie’s a voracious fan of hard-boiled gumshoes. 

I’m on it, said Dom.

A text from my daughter, Jennifer—a professional photographer—who’d flown home to Vancouver to cover the launch of a quirky new cafe featuring coffee, pastries, and wildly bizarre decorations thought up by a couple of her fashion-designer friends. She’d attached photos. They looked like something that had escaped from a Tim Burton film. 

An email from Katey, my independently-faithful girlfriend. She wasn’t in London, either. She’d jetted off to California for a sixteen-night repositioning cruise, San Diego to Tampa, by way of the Panama Canal. All expenses paid by the travel agency where she worked.

We’re approaching Puntarenas. It’s in Costa Rica. I bought you some hand-blown Christmas tree ornaments that look like musical notes from a glass factory in Cabo. I’ll stuff them into my socks so they don’t break. Love you. PS the WiFi’s atrocious.

I knew all about the atrocious WiFi on cruise ships. It had been just as bad when I was an entertainer on board the Star Sapphire in 2012. Six years later and they still hadn’t solved the problem with satellites, at-sea internet connections, maritime communications and dodgy bandwidth.

Love you too, I emailed back. Though you probably won’t get this until yesterday. 

There were three voice messages from someone named Marcus Merritt. Follow-ups to the two voice messages he’d left yesterday, and the five texts.

“Hello Jason. You don’t know me. I was at Figgis Green’s last show in Hammersmith.”

He was right—his name didn’t ring any bells. 

“I bought a program that I wanted you to sign, but I just missed you.” 

Every night, after each show, we’d gone out into the foyer to mingle with the fans and sign things: programs, tea towels, posters. Our venues weren’t huge—Hammersmith Apollo, case in point—and the audiences—some of whom had travelled quite a distance—appreciated us for giving them the chance to say hello. 

But the tour was over.

“I wonder if we might meet somewhere so I can get that signature.”

I don’t hide my telephone number—I’m easily found. But he was assuming a lot. 

Dave slid a mug of Yorkshire tea with plenty of milk and sugar across the table to me and then went back to the messages on his own phone.

My phone chimed. Marcus Merritt. Of course.

I let it ring. 

Dave glanced up at me. 

Ken and Rudy decided to consult a news feed on Rudy’s phone.

“Eleven badly-decomposed infant bodies discovered inside the ceiling of a former funeral home in Detroit,” Ken read, aloud.

“New research,” Rudy added, “suggests Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, may be covered in tall, jagged ice spikes. Are you going to answer that, Jason?”

“No,” I said, drinking my tea.

Marcus Merritt’s call went to my voicemail. 

I helped myself to another biccie. 

I really didn’t want to have to block him. But he was testing my patience.

And, evidently, my voicemail was testing his.

There he was again.

“Points for persistence,” Dave said. 

I put the phone on speaker.

“Jason Figgis.”

“Ah,” he said. “You are there.”

“I was rehearsing,” I said.

“I assume you got my messages.”

I didn’t say anything.

Rudy, Ken and Dave were all looking at me, fingers poised over their screens, waiting.

“I wonder if we might meet,” Marcus said.

“I’m afraid I’m busy for the rest of today,” I replied.

“Tomorrow, then. I think you’ll find it worth your while. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you. A possible job. Investigative.”

A few years earlier, I’d tracked down a legendary musician—Ben Quigley—who’d dropped off the face of the earth after attending a music festival in northern Canada. I’d rescued him from certain death and brought him home. His story had ended up in all the papers, and my second-string career as a PI had been launched. I’d solved a few more mysteries since then, on a bespoke basis only. I wasn’t licensed—you don’t have to be in the UK. I’d done the course, answered the questions, submitted the exercises. I actually had a certificate that said I’d successfully achieved the requirements for the SFJ Level 3 Award. I’d just never got round to sitting the actual exam.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Everything I investigated had a habit of landing me in trouble. Often to the detriment of my health. And occasionally, my life. 

And, I was tired. I still needed time to decompress. 

“Could we meet tomorrow, half past one, Level 72 at the top of The Shard?” Marcus inquired.

“A soulless spike skewering the beating heart of historic London,” Dave muttered. (Dave was not a fan of the city’s new architecture, and shared Prince Charles’s opinion of an early design for an extension to the National Gallery as being “a carbuncle on the face of a much-loved friend”.)

“A glass facade equal in size to almost eight Wembley football pitches,” Ken supplied.

“Fabulous views from the public toilets,” Rudy added.

“I’m not really able to take on any new cases right now,” I said. “I’m very sorry.”

“It has to do with Elgar,” Marcus replied.

“The composer?” I asked.

“The very same.”

“Do it,” Ken mouthed, silently, daring me. 

“A new musical adventure,” Rudy added, his eyes filled with mischief.

“Just go and talk to him,” Dave suggested. “You don’t have to accept his offer.”

I gave in. “How will I recognize you?”

“Don’t worry,” Marcus replied. “I know who you are. I’ll find you. See you there.”

 
CHAPTER TWO

My flat’s in Angel, on Pentonville Road. N1. On the first floor of a Georgian-era conversion near the tube station. The people who lived there when it was first built occupied all four floors: kitchen in the cellar, servants in the attic, 18th-century family discourse conducted everywhere in between. My open plan kitchen and lounge were created out of what used to be the main drawing room at the front of the house, and my bedroom at the back constitutes most of what used to be a second drawing room. The former ante-room between the two is now a very compact but functional toilet. It’s a tiny place—less than 500 square feet—but it’s perfect for what I want and what I need. And I have all the mod-cons. USB wall chargers in the lounge and bedroom. One of those contraptions attached to the kitchen tap that delivers scalding hot water at the push of a button. 

I popped my teabag into the pot and summoned the water and made myself a late breakfast—scrambled eggs with some chopped up cheese and ham, and a slice of toast with butter and Marmite. I love Marmite. My daughter thinks it’s vile. But she was raised in Vancouver, without my gastronomic influences. 

Four days earlier, I’d been on top form at the Hammersmith Apollo. Two days before that, I was onstage in Ipswich, and two days before that, Southend.

In total, I’d been away for nearly two months, first rehearsing and then, touring.

The most striking sensation of walking back into my flat, after it was all over, had been the absence of connection. I’d had a strange, suspended feeling of familiarity—but I was observing it all from a distance. And I was alone.

I’d had two months of not having to look after myself. Eating in cafes and restaurants and, just as often, my hotel room. Leaving my bed unmade and my towels on the floor. 

I’d enjoyed our 50th Anniversary Reunion tour. The constant change of scenery, the shows—I loved the shows. I loved—and still do love—performing. But it had all depended on a constant supply of adrenaline, and, in the end, when it was all done and dusted, I missed that rush.

I was a little surprised that what I didn’t miss was the camaraderie. It was lovely working with the other Figs—mum, my uncle Mitch and my cousin Rolly, Beth and Bob—and most of the crew. But, after weeks of sharing a tour bus and enduring constant and close proximity with people you’re fond of (but who have some of the most overbearing idiosyncrasies you could ever imagine), saying goodbye actually felt like a relief.

There’s a song by Duran Duran—“Ordinary World”—which I think really captures a lot of what I was feeling on that Monday morning in October. 

I’d woken up feeling restless and detached. And I really and truly didn’t feel much like going out to meet Marcus Merritt. The offer of an investigative job aside, he’d probably want to sit me down to discuss chord progressions in “Roving Minstrel”. Or take issue with the fact that we’d added a new bass line and strings to “One Summer Day”. And he’d very probably want to argue about the absolute heresy of switching lead singers at the end of “The Whistling Gypsy”.

I’d really meant it when I’d told him I wasn’t able to take on any new cases. In fact, I was seriously considering giving it up altogether. A couple of weeks earlier, in Tunbridge Wells, I’d very nearly died. My heart had actually stopped—twice. But I’d been brought back by the paramedics. It’s quite a sobering experience. It gives you some perspective on what’s important, and what isn’t. But when I’d told Katey I was thinking of giving up investigative work, she’d said, “Are you thinking of giving up sinning, too?”

She knows me entirely too well.

#

It was drizzling as I walked along Islington High Street towards Angel tube station. I had my umbrella up. And I wasn’t at all optimistic about the view from the top of the tallest building in western Europe, with the highest habitable floor in the UK.

I rode down the Underground’s longest escalator and waited on the platform—the one that used to be a terrifying twelve-foot island with trains blasting past in opposite directions on either side, but which is now—since the station was rebuilt in 1992—double that width and only has tracks going in one direction. 

My mood improved somewhat on the journey to London Bridge, four stops south. The tube wasn’t busy and the carriage was half-empty. I didn’t have to be in charge of anything. I just had to sit there, and be conveyed. And, once I got to my destination, I didn’t have to agree to anything. I just had to listen.

London Bridge’s mainline tracks sit on top of a wonderful Victorian red brick viaduct, and the tube exit landed me underneath one of its arches in a cross-passage that led straight to The Shard’s entrance.

I was fascinated by those arches when I was a kid. The area used to be very grim, and the London Dungeon—as gruesome a museum as you could ever hope to explore as a twelve-year-old—used to be housed in one of the arches on Tooley Street. It’s an anonymous shuttered entrance to something else now, with a Starbucks on one side and an FCB Coffee place on the other. And the London Dungeon itself is long gone, having relocated to the more lucrative lure of the South Bank, next to the London Eye.

There weren’t a lot of people going up The Shard that day, mostly because of the weather. But then again, it was mid-October, and not the busiest time for tourists anyway. 

I looked around as I went through the airport-style security, wondering if any of the other visitors was Marcus Merritt. Evidently not. He’d said he would recognize me—and nobody had.

There was a bloke doing a commentary into his phone while he filmed his “experience” for YouTube, but he was the only one who seemed remotely interested in me—and that was only because I was standing in the way of a shot he wanted.
Getting to the top of The Shard involves two lifts. The first shoots you up to Level 33 while you peruse ceiling panels that project a prerecorded glimpse of what the view would be like if it was a perfectly sunny day, and not wet and grey with rain that couldn’t make up its mind whether it wanted to fall or just annoy you by threatening to.

Then you have to walk around to the next lift, which takes you up to Level 68. And then it’s around once more, this time to some stairs—and Level 69 (the enclosed view)—and Level 72 (the one that’s open-air).

I’d been to The Shard exactly four times since its opening in 2012. Had a glorious dinner at Aqua on Level 31, spent an extremely interesting weekend with Katey at the Shangri-la Hotel (and had a swim in the highest hotel pool in Western Europe)—and I’d done both versions of The View, inside and out.

It was cold and damp on that day—about 12C, according to the weather app on my phone—and I was glad I was wearing my lined weatherproof jacket. Everything on Level 72 looks very functional—exposed pipes and steel frames and rivets, with fake green turf underfoot and, if you look up, a fabulous perspective of the minimalist maintenance floors. 

There are also CCTV cameras. London has nearly a million of them, one for every ten people in the city. You’re likely to be captured up to seventy times a day if you live here.

I saluted the camera that was aimed at me, and had another look for anyone that might had been Marcus Merritt. I walked all the way around the central core, past the stairs and the bar, but nobody approached me.

I stopped and had a look at the view to the west but, to be honest, everything disappeared into a grey smudge roundabout Blackfriars Bridge, and well before the curve in the river leading to Waterloo and the London Eye and Dungeon.

I sent Marcus a text to let him know I was there. He wasn’t doing himself any favours being late.

I walked along to the north view—the money shot—the Walkie-Talkie building, the Tower of London, the HMS Belfast, and Tower Bridge. At least I could still see those. 

And then, on the east side, I stopped to have a look down at the railway tracks. I know it’s a cliche, but we were so high up—800 feet—that the trains speeding in from the suburbs were like toys, inching under the undulating white roofs of London Bridge Station. 

“Jason?”

The voice belonged to a tall, lean man with a shock of untidy white hair. He had a large nose and a long, angular face and chin. He looked to be in his mid-sixties, and he was wearing black: jacket, high-necked pullover, jeans.

“Marcus?”

I’m good at remembering faces, and he suddenly seemed familiar, though I couldn’t think why. I supposed I might have seen him loitering in the foyer after that last show in Hammersmith. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. 

“No problem,” I replied, even though it was nearly half an hour past the time we’d arranged to meet.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?”

“I don’t,” I said. “Should I?”

He smiled. 

“First things first,” he said. “Before we discuss Elgar. I’ve brought the program.”

I had a terrible thought. Had I remembered to bring my black Sharpie? I checked my jacket pocket. I had.

“I want you to remember something for me, Jason. Newlydale. It’s in Derbyshire.”

“OK,” I said. “Why?”

He handed me the program. “Please.”

As programs go, it was pretty good. A glossy book filled with photos of Figgis Green through the years, all of the people who’d played in the band, right the way through to the lineup my mum had assembled for our 50th Anniversary tour. Posters from past gigs, album covers. Bios of everyone. Set lists and credits, right the way down to our production team, suppliers and management. 12” x 12”, forty pages in full colour, heavyweight paper, £10 well spent.

“Marcus with a ‘c’?” I checked.

“Marcus with a ‘c’,” he confirmed.

I looked for somewhere to sit so I could sign it, and spotted some resin-wicker chairs corralling a small cube coffee table near the bar. 

I appropriated one of the chairs and opened the front cover.

There was a little envelope with my name on it, tucked into the binding. Something to do with his proposed investigation? I popped it into my jacket pocket. 

It was while I was making sure my To Marcus with a ‘c’. Hope you enjoyed the show! scrawl was legible that I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. 

I glanced up in time to see Marcus taking a run at the window at the southeast corner of the floor. 

On Level 72, the tall glass walls are open at the top. Each of the four corners has panels that are shorter—probably only about eleven or twelve feet high—with a decorative pipe running horizontally about two feet below the top edge. 

I’m not sure what the designers were thinking when they created those four corners, but I know for a fact that at least one illegal BASE jumper’s filmed himself hiking up and over that exact same spot without too much difficulty at all.

Marcus had grabbed the horizontal pipe and was in the process of kicking and hauling himself the rest of the way to the top of the open-air window. 

He wasn’t a BASE jumper.

He didn’t have a parachute.

“Wait!” I yelled, leaping to my feet and running towards him. “Stop!”

I knew what he was going to do. I knew.

“What the fuck are you doing? Please—no!”

It all happened very quickly, though in my head, afterwards, it was slowed down to a frame-by-frame snail’s pace, like the trains crawling into London Bridge Station 800 feet below. 

I got to the glass wall just as Marcus was tipping himself over. His face was turned to me. Our eyes met momentarily. And then, he let go.

I heard a woman shrieking. It was one of the waitresses from the bar. 

I remember looking down, stupidly. But I couldn’t see much because of The Shard’s outward slope. And I remember thinking, also rather stupidly, that he was probably going to smash right through one of the glass canopies at the bottom and crash onto St Thomas Street, directly outside Guy’s Hospital.

And that’s all I remember, because after that I’m pretty sure I went into shock. 

I still had Marcus’s program in one hand and my black Sharpie in the other. 

I walked back to the little table where I’d left my umbrella.

I sat down.

#

Someone came to talk to me. I think he must have been one of the other visitors. He had a neatly trimmed grey beard and unusual eyes—hazel-brown in the centre, fading to a halo of green, but finishing with a outline of bluish-black. He was older than me.

“I’m Craig,” he said. His voice was calm and kind. “I used to work with the railways, though I’m retired now. I’ve witnessed a few suicides in my time. What’s your name?”

“Jason,” I said. I was shaking. I put down the program but I couldn’t make my fingers let go of the pen. Inside, I was numb, the way your ankle goes after you’ve stupidly misjudged a curb and twisted it badly, and with a sickening crunch, on your way down.

“I didn’t actually see what happened, but I gather you did.”

I nodded. 

“Do you feel like talking about what you saw?”

I didn’t. 

And then I did.

I tried to organize my thoughts but they wouldn’t cooperate and it all came out in a jumble. I think I must have ended up telling him my entire life story, up until the point where Marcus called me at Ardwick House. And then it all became crystal clear. Every detail, every thought, every word.

“If only I’d been quicker. I could have grabbed his legs. I could have stopped him from going over. I could have pulled him back.”

Craig was listening. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t try to hurry me. 

“And I don’t know why he did it,” I said. “He went to all the trouble of arranging to meet me here, to bring me the program…” 

I picked it up and showed it to him. 

Craig took it, and opened it, deliberately, not a casual flip-through. He paused to read what I’d written inside the cover. 

“Why did he jump while I was signing it? Was he blaming me for something? Was it something I said? Something I did?”

Craig was still holding the program. “Had you met him at all before today?”

I shook my head. 

“Then I don’t think he could have been blaming you for anything, really, Jason. You had no way of knowing how his mind was working, or what had gone wrong in his life, how he was feeling about things…”

“He asked me if I recognized him. The way he said it, he was surprised I didn’t.”

“You’re a performer,” Craig said. “You must know, from all of your experiences, that people will think of you as being familiar—possibly on the same level as one of their best friends—even though you haven’t got a clue who they are.”

He was right, of course. And I did know that. 

“And then he apologized,” I said.

“Why do you suppose he did that?” Craig asked.

“He’d made up his mind about what he was going to do next.”

“There you are,” Craig said. “And by turning up here, to sign his program, perhaps you showed you cared. At a time when, possibly, no one else did.”

“He wanted me to remember Newlydale.”

“In Derbyshire?”

I nodded.

“Have you ever been there?” Craig asked.

“Never.”

I don’t know how long we talked. But I was gradually aware that things were happening around us. Everyone who’d been present when Marcus had kicked himself over the glass wall had been asked to stay put, to sit down and wait for the police. And now the police were arriving.

“They’ll likely want to take a statement from you,” Craig said. “Since you were the last person to speak to him before he jumped. Just a routine investigation. Nothing to be worried about.”

He took something out of his wallet. “I’ll give you this card,” he said.

The Samaritans. 

“I’m a volunteer. If you feel you need to talk more, give us a ring. Always there to listen.”

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. I put the card in my pocket. “Which way’s the Gents?”

“That way,” Craig said, gesturing with his head. “Down the stairs. You’ll see the signs.”

The toilets were one floor down and along a passageway. I went into the one at the end and found myself in a room with a floor to ceiling view of that money shot: HMS Belfast, the Tower of London, the Thames. Drenched in rain. The opposite side to the one Marcus had chosen when he jumped. 

I remembered the little envelope that he’d tucked inside the program. I took it out of my jacket pocket.

Inside was a First Class train ticket from London St Pancras to Matlock for Tuesday, October 16. There was a printed itinerary pointing out that I needed to change trains in Derby. And a single piece of note paper, the size of an A4 sheet cut into quarters, with handwriting scribbled on one side. 

The scribble was a single name—Judy—and an address—Wensley Manor, Market Street, Newlydale.