Amphetamines and Pearls by John Harvey Page A

wouldn’t forget but I was rapidly losing my appetite.
    The name above the obligatory dragon read ‘Patrick Gordon-Brown—Recording Manager’. I knocked on the frosted glass and went in. A dark-haired version of Jane was sitting at the left of the room behind a large desk. She was looking longingly at an electric typewriter as though she was about to seduce it; she could have had on Jane’s red dress from the day before but I doubted it. I just hoped they didn’t turn up at the building with them on the same day. Businesses have been known to fail for less.
    I asked for Mr Gordon-Brown and gave my name. She gave it back into a little speaker at the edge of her desk and pointed to the door opposite. I smiled a thank you and she smiled all right back but she wasn’t as appealing as her colleague downstairs. It was when I was opening the door that I realised why: she hadn’t giggled.
    Your friendly neighbourhood recording manager didn’t look as though he was going to giggle either. Thickly striped shirt open at the collar, black, tight trousers, tinted glasses without rims. He held out a well-manicured hand.
    â€˜It’s lovely to meet you, Mr Mitchell. Janie said you wanted to talk to me about dear Candi, God rest her soul.’ He offered me a seat, a cigarette and a drink in swift succession. ‘You’re a reporter, are you?’
    I told him that I wasn’t. A photograph of Candi looked at me from behind his desk; the same pose as in the one which had been in her flat. At the bottom corner she had signed it ‘To Patrick, With All My Love’.
    â€˜Oh, I see, I understood from Janie in Reception that you were—a reporter, I mean.’ He showed several expensively-filled teeth.
    I told him I was just a friend. Had been a friend.
    â€˜I see. A terrible thing, naturally; terrible. To happen at such a time in her career makes it a true tragedy.’
    â€˜Why now in particular?’
    â€˜She had never really broken big on the American market. All over Europe and Scandinavia she was a big name—Australia, too. But in the States, nothing. Just a big zero. Till the last month or two, that is. One of her singles went to number two in the Billboard and Cashbox charts and the album rose to the mid-twenties. Oh, yes, she was about to take off there all right. We had a whole tour lined up: supper clubs, a few places like the Troubador for the hipper audience, television. And now … nothing.’
    â€˜Just money for her memories.’
    He looked puzzled, slightly annoyed. ‘I’m afraid I don’t quite follow.’
    â€˜I heard it on the radio this morning. Her new record. Wouldn’t you say that was cashing in?’
    Now he did look hurt. What right had I to make remarks’ about his integrity?
    â€˜That single would have been issued regardless, Mr Mitchell. As would the album it was pulled from. And we’re putting that back till next month so that we can redesign the cover.’
    â€˜So you can put on a picture of her coffin,’ I suggested. ‘Just to pull in the necrophiliac end of the market.’
    He stood up. ‘So that we can call it a memorial album and use a simple picture of her with a black line round it, if you must know. It will all be very tasteful, I can assure you of that.’ He felt that his dignity and that of his company was restored and he sat down again.
    He even apologised: I had never realised what nice young men worked in the record business.
    â€˜Excuse me. I worked with Candi for a number of years and we were very close …’
    I interrupted him and pointed at the inscription on the photograph behind his desk: Yes. I can see that.’
    He turned and half-smiled: ‘Oh that, that is merely show-business talk, Mr Mitchell. Our relationship was merely a working one, I assure you. A very close one, but a working one only.’
    I tried to work out whether he was happy or sad