The Day The Music Died

The limp, motionless body lay sprawled across the crumpled bedcovers, soft blond hair lying haphazardly around his ashen face. His head rolled to one side, hiding the scarlet mess where his skull had been shattered by the bullet. If it hadn’t been for the small rivulet of crimson blood trickling slowly down his pale cheek, he would have looked like he was sleeping. I dared not step closer, almost afraid to disturb the peace in the room. Shards of glass threw golden shafts of reflected sunlight over the walls, making the room appear to almost glow.

I stood in the doorway, still not liking to enter, surveying the scene. Apart from the shattered window, there had not been much damage to the room, as far as I could see. The wooden desk chair had been tipped backwards onto its side, as if someone had jumped up quickly, and the pile of letters and envelopes that had obviously been on the desk had been swept off, and now lay scattered across the plush hotel carpet. Other than this, nothing had visibly been disturbed – there were piles of CDs, clothing and books lying around, but I doubted that was anything more than typical male messiness. The police hadn’t touched anything in the room yet, apart from the gun, which had been removed for examination.

I looked back at the boy’s pale face. There was almost a serene expression on his features. The only thing that broke the stillness in the room was the question, pounding over and over in my mind – who killed Taylor Hanson?

******

It was cold, and when I say cold, I mean can’t-stand-still-for-more-than-a-millisecond-or-you’ll-freeze-to-the-pavement kind of cold. More snow had fallen in the last week than London had seen for twenty years, and much as I like snow, hanging around for two hours outside Westminster Abbey in it is not my idea of fun. When Jack finally turned up, my feet were blocks of ice, and I was on the verge of hypothermia.

"Where’ve you been?!" I demanded, trying to restore feeling into my hands.

"Don’t complain, at least I’m giving you a lift, otherwise you’d be on the bus! Be grateful!" I pulled a face behind his back as I followed him to his banged up old Ford Escort. "So, did Rob let you in?" he asked, pulling into the road.

I nodded, "Yeah. It took a bit of persuading, though."

"Jolly good!" Jack grinned, cheerily, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"What do you think, then?" I asked, curling up as comfortably as I could in the car seat.

"About what?"

"The case!"

"Oh, I see what you mean. I have to say that rock star suicides aren’t really my idea of ‘cases’."

"You reckon he killed himself?" I cried, incredulously.

"Well, how else did he die? There was only one way into the room, and his brother didn’t see anyone go in."

I rolled my eyes; Jack could be so slow sometimes. "If you’re going to shoot yourself, you hold the gun against your head, right?" Jack nodded. "Well, unless you’re very uncoordinated, you don’t shoot in the direction of the window by mistake."

I could see him taking this in. He nodded slowly, "So, someone shot him from the opposite building?"

I shook my head, "Nope, couldn’t happen."

"Why not?!" he protested his theory.

"The only blood was on the bed where he fell, and the bullet hole’s pretty accurate. You’d need a lot of luck to shoot someone that efficiently from a long distance, and there’d be blood everywhere."

"O…K…so he didn’t shoot himself, he wasn’t shot from outside…how was he shot?!"

I could see he was completely baffled. Then again, I wasn’t exactly crystal clear about the whole thing either. "I don’t know yet." I admitted, scowling at his chuckle. "But I’m working on it!"

We sat in silence for a while. I gazed out of the steamed-up window, watching the blurred orange splodges that were road cones flying past one by one. My mind wasn’t on the white landscape passing the window, however. It was back in London, in room two-hundred-and-four of the Savoy Hotel.

How could a sixteen-year-old American pop star keel over with a bullet in his head when there was no one else in the room? And who would want to murder him? The second question didn’t seem to be very difficult. He was world famous, there were obviously going to be people who held a profuse dislike for him. Working out who they were, and which one of them hated him enough to do away with him was a different matter, but I was sure there would be no shortage of suspects.

"….do you?" I suddenly realised that Jack was talking to me.

"What? Sorry, I was away with the pixies."

He rolled his eyes, "I said, do you think our friend Mr Jones could have anything to do with it?"

"Who?"

"Don’t tell me you haven’t heard?!"

"About what, for goodness sake?" I cried, feeling as if I’d missed something rather drastic.

"About David Jones."

"Jack, WHO IS DAVID JONES?!?!" he was prevaricating on purpose now, I knew it. He loved winding me up.

He chuckled, "You must have heard about him."

I groaned, "Jack, just tell me."

"OK, OK, David Jones is the bloke who escaped from Maidstone prison yesterday morning. It’s been all over the news, you know, ‘Dangerous Criminal On The Loose’, that kind of rubbish."

"Is he a dangerous criminal?"

"Come on, Skye, don’t tell me you haven’t heard anything about this! You watch television, don’t you?!"

"Well, some of us have GCSE coursework! Not everyone has time to watch TV! Just because you have nothing better to do with your retirement!"

"Alright, alright, no need to make sarcastic comments! David Jones was convicted in nineteen ninety-five. He got life in prison."

"What for?"

"The rape and murder of six teenage boys."

I raised my eyebrows. "So not only is a teenage pop star dead, but a boy killer is on the loose."

"That’s about it, yes."

"Do the police reckon he had something to do with it?"

Jack looked at me out of the corner of his eye as we negotiated a roundabout.

"Put it this way, the police have better things to do with their time than field off

thousands of question from endless journalists and hysterical teenage girls. The quicker they come up with a solution, the sooner they can get rid of them. Jones’ involvement is pretty much putting two and two together. It’ll make their lives a whole lot easier if he is involved." He explained.

"Mmmm…" I pondered what he had said. "I hadn’t thought about the girls…"

"What, the fans?"

"Yeah…"

"What about them?"

I considered something for a moment. "I don’t know yet, but I know someone who might.."

******

"Skye, why can’t you just leave me alone?" Joey scooped a pile of books from the desk and headed for the door.

"I only want to ask you a few questions!" I followed her out into the corridor.

"And I’ve already told you, I don’t want to answer them!" she was walking briskly up the corridor and I had to jog to keep up with her.

"Jo, this is important!" I didn’t mean to whinge, but I was desperate.

"Firstly, that is NOT my name, and secondly, I DON’T CARE!" she was still walking, and didn’t even turn round.

"OK, then, Josephine, but this is important!" I was so intent on getting her to answer that I didn’t notice until it was too late that the books I was carrying were slipping out of my grip. "Damn!" I cursed loudly as my history textbooks cascaded across the worn grey carpet. I scrabbled to pick them all up, looking up to see Joey’s back getting further away down the corridor. "Wait!" I yelled after her, franticly. She turned and looked down at me for a moment, and for a second I thought she was going to cry. "Look, Skye, you have spent the last two years making fun of me because of my taste in music. When your biggest idol suddenly falls down dead, it is not the happiest moment of your life, Skye, my little sister was too distraught to come to school this morning, and now you want to write about my views on the subject in your stupid school magazine! Well, you know where you can stick it, sweetheart!" she turned and strode off down the corridor. For an instant I was stunned by her outburst, and I just sat there like a complete idiot in the middle of the floor. Then the shock passed and I stood up, shoving the offending books into my bag and pelting as fast as I could after her.

"Joey! Wait! JOEY!" but my cries were in vain as the door to the staircase was slammed unceremoniously in my face, and I found myself studying the faded yellow, ‘Please hold the door for someone behind you’ notice in great detail while a couple of year sevens gave me strange glances from the French classroom nearby.

******

"When you have no light to guide you/ and no one to walk beside you/ I will come to you/ oh, I will come to you…" the lyrics seemed ironic in a strange kind of way. It was almost as if the boy was singing about some sort of guardian angel, instead of a lost girlfriend. "When the night is dark and stormy/ you won’t have to reach out for me/ I will come to you…" As the guitars kicked in in the background, I realised that these boys had been slightly more talented that I’d always thought. I sighed; somehow, listening to his singing had brought home the significance of his death. He would never sing this song again. I don’t know why I’d bought the tape in the first place – maybe I’d thought that for some reason it would give me a clue as to how he’d been killed. It hadn’t.

Suddenly, someone tapped me on the shoulder and I practically left my skin in a heap on the pavement. I spun round to see Joey, who had an apologetic expression on her face.

"Erm, hi…" she looked at her shoes. "Skye, I just wanted to say sorry, for this morning. I over-reacted a bit. I’m really sorry."

"It’s all right, honestly. But you didn’t have to scare me witless just then!" I grinned.

She fell into step beside me as we continued down the road. "Listen, if you really want then I’ll answer your questions. I suppose I’m just still in shock about the whole thing."

"I know. You don’t have to if you don’t want to." I lied, hoping she wouldn’t take me up on that.

"No, I will. What d’you want to know?"

I thought for a minute, composing what I was going to ask her. "Well, I want to know…has the band, well, Taylor in particular, had any bad publicity recently? You know, like passionate affairs with married women or something?" it must have seemed a strange question, but it was the only way I could think of to phrase it.

Joey raised her eyebrows at me after the last sentence. "Not that I can think of…he’s only sixteen, you know!"

I shrugged, "He’s a superstar – these things happen!"

"Oh, hang on a sec…I don’t know if this is what you mean, but there was something…" she trailed off, unsure.

"What?" I immediately perked up.

"Well, about a month ago, Taylor announced that he had a girlfriend. He’s always told the press he was single, and apparently he was lying most of the time."

"Did that upset the fans?" I wasn’t exactly the expert on the emotions of teenybopper girls.

Joey nodded, "I wasn’t too bothered, but Alice was heartbroken." I thought of Joey’s hyperactive eleven-year-old sister. It wasn’t the easiest thing to imagine her heartbroken – every time I’d seen her she’d been jumping around like a mad rabbit, singing at the top of her voice. "I doubt the groupies were very impressed either."

I thought this over for a second. "OK, thanks, Jo!" I smiled at her.

"Is that all you wanted to know?" she sounded surprised.

"Yes, I really appreciate it." I told her, truthfully.

As Joey’s long brown hair disappeared down the street; my mind was already turning over the new information. I felt a little bit guilty about telling her it was for the magazine, but I couldn’t reveal anything about the case until it was over – not only because I couldn’t tell anyone the details, but because I wasn’t supposed to be anything to do with it. If the police found out I’d been interfering, I’d get a ticking off and banned from going anywhere near the crime scene or the witnesses. Jack would get into trouble too, it had taken a great deal of persuading on his part to get Robert Dervlan, an officer working on the case, to let me so much as look at the scene. The only reason Rob had given in was because Jack used to be his boss, and had done his share of favours for Rob in his time.

Jack is an ex-police detective inspector. I met him when I went on work experience at the station, they had been working on a really complicated robbery, and I went in, took one look at the evidence and told them ‘who-dunnit’, as they say on television. Not that I’m blowing my own trumpet or anything – I don’t know how I did it, it just seemed blaringly obvious. I think Jack was a bit put out that this eccentric fifteen year old girl had just waltzed in and solved his case, but soon he decided that if he couldn’t beat me, he’d better join me, and asked my opinion on his next job. I had never known I was good at solving mysteries, but Jack informed me that I was better than him – which is rather worrying, when you consider that he was one of the most important detectives in the South East before he retired.

I suppose I just have a very logical mind. I have to say that I prefer writing mysteries to solving them. I only went on work experience at the police station because my dad’s friend works there, and because the local newspaper didn’t want me getting under their feet. I’ll just have to settle for writing for the school magazine for now – I set it up myself about a year ago. It isn’t one of those dull school magazines whose main articles consist of ‘St. Gertie’s has won the netball tournament…’ – my magazine is more like a teen magazine, but with a few small pieces of hockey and netball filling some gaps to keep the teachers happy. It’s quite handy really, when Jack announces that he’s got another case for me to solve, I can use the magazine as an excuse to ask people questions – as I had with Joey. I admit that occasionally it conveniently turns into an independent national magazine, just for a few hours – when I want to get something out of someone who has nothing to do with the school, but otherwise it isn’t really a lie – I usually end up writing a little piece about whatever it is anyway!

Despite this, I still felt a little bit ashamed as I continued along the road to the bus stop (a teen detective’s life isn’t as glamorous as you might imagine!). I soon put that out of my mind, however, as I began to attempt to analyse the new details Joey had given me. I absently switched my walkman back on, only to hear Taylor’s innocent voice slur drunkenly as the batteries ran out.

******

"…over to our entertainment correspondent, Matthew Giles, who is in London…" the newscaster’s stony face was replaced by that of a windswept, slightly blue looking reporter who was standing, trying to conceal his shivering, in front of the huge brick exterior of the Savoy Hotel.

"Thank you, Jenni. As you can see, I’m here in front of the hotel where sixteen year old pop star Taylor Hanson, lead singer in the teenage rock band ‘Hanson’, was found dead in the early hours of Saturday afternoon…" he babbled on for a while about Taylor’s history, which he’d obviously only just been told, and described his death in what I viewed as excessive detail. "The young music sensation’s death has already had a profound impact on the music industry – over the past few days, sales of Hanson’s album, ‘Middle Of Nowhere’ have rocketed, and fans from all over the world have been leaving flowers outside the Savoy."

The camera scanned what looked like millions of wilting bouquets piled up against the inappropriate setting of a brick wall, half buried in the slush which was the remainder of yet more snow – fallen the night before. The shot changed, to show the tear-streaked faces of a group of teenage girls, who all looked way beyond frozen, in the grey London street. The reporter asked them a suitably patronising question, and a red-haired girl began to blurt out;

"Oh, God, we want to tell Taylor’s family that we’re all thinking of them, and we miss him so much, and we’ll always love him and none of us will ever forget him…" she broke off into a bout hysterical sobbing.

Then the camera skipped to some old footage of Taylor and his brothers singing, and one of their songs began to play in the background; "If I’m gone when you wake up/ please don’t cry/ and if I’m gone when you wake up/ it’s not goodbye/ don’t look back at this time as a time of heartbreak and distress/ remember me, ‘cos I’ll be with you in your dreams…." Despite myself, I couldn’t help a lump forming in my throat as the soft harmonies of the band accompanied pictures of their lead singer performing, and others of the piles of flowers lying limply in the gently falling snow.

I quickly flicked the power switch, and the television screen went blank. I sighed, picking up a newspaper. Hopefully, the written story wouldn’t make me so emotional. I scanned the pages for the article on Taylor, mindlessly reading each headline as I went: "MP SPOTTED WITH MARRIED WOMAN", "TESCO SCANDAL OVER BEEF", "POSTMAN CRASHES VAN IN LONDON", "MILLENIUM DOME COLLAPSES IN MIDDLE OF NIGHT", "’I EAT SPROUTS’ SAYS CHARLES", "LOCAL SCHOOL HOLDS RAFFLE", and finally, "TEEN STAR SHOT IN HOTEL – ‘IT’S A MYSTERY’ DECLARES D.I. WALKER". The article didn’t turn out to contain anything I didn’t already know – he was found shot in his room, his brother had been outside the whole time but no one had gone in…etc.etc.. I wasn’t going to get anything out of it. I flopped down on the settee, fed up of the whole thing. Why had I let Jack talk me into this anyway? Why did I have to get so obsessed with solving the damn thing? I’d always been that way – if I started something, however much I didn’t like it, I had to finish it. It was so frustrating sometimes, especially this one. Previously, Jack had only asked me to solve burglaries and such-like. This was the first murder he’d got me involved in, and although I hadn’t anticipated that it would, it was starting to upset me.

I rolled over, looking for something to take my mind off murderers, teen pop stars, and the image of Taylor’s motionless body that had begun to haunt me. I grabbed an ancient magazine from the pile on the coffee table (my mother’s magazine collection is likened to that of a dentist’s surgery – everything is either utterly boring, or it’s at least six months out of date) and opened it, only to be confronted with Taylor’s all too familiar grinning face on the first page. I honestly didn’t want to, but I found myself reading the interview that accompanied the photograph. I aimlessly read Hanson’s views on England, the Spice Girls and football – I hate to admit it, but I had to fold the opposite page so that I didn’t have to look at his face. It made me go cold all over, just looking at his trusting smile. The thoughts that were ceaselessly running through my head were beginning to scare me – did he know he was going to die? Did he enjoy his life? Was he upset at the exact moment he saw the gun and knew that he would never see his family again? How could someone who seemed so happy, and had brought so much joy to other people’s lives, die so young? I had to force myself to push them to the back of my mind. I had never met him – I wasn’t even a fan of the band, I shouldn’t be getting so worked up about it.

I’d almost worked myself into such a state that I had to stop reading, when I saw it. The last sentence of the interview. I read it again; "The fans are cool, they’re really sweet. We’ve had a couple of threat letters, but they usually turn out to be from jealous kids. Most of our mail is from fans telling us they love us. It’s so cute!" The words of a naïve sixteen year-old probably hadn’t meant a thing to him at the time, but, I thought as I scrambled to my feet clutching the magazine tightly, I bet he’d be glad he said it now. I couldn’t have known how wrong that thought would turn out to be. All I knew was that, somehow, I had to speak to Taylor’s brother.

******

He immediately shook his head, "No way, no journalists – I have strict instructions about that!"

I groaned inwardly, desperately trying to think of a way to persuade him. He was just shutting the door in my face when something dawned on me.

"Hang on!" I eyed his bold ‘SECURITY’ badge, "Are you the bodyguard who was there when it all happened?" it was a stab in the dark, but it was worth it.

The man narrowed his eyes, "Why?" he asked, slowly.

"Well……you could answer my questions!" I grinned, hopefully.

"Aren’t you a little young to be a journalist?"

I rolled my eyes at the well-known question. "No, I’m not, and I can prove it if you really want." I sighed, truthfully. At least that part wasn’t a lie. "Come on, it’s just a couple of questions!" He looked hesitant. "Please! I bet that wasn’t in your ‘strict instructions’!"

He sighed, "All right, I suppose a couple of questions wouldn’t hurt." He emphasised the word ‘couple’. "The papers already know everything I told the cops." His American drawl was obvious as he finally gave way.

I smiled triumphantly, "Great!"

"I suppose you’d better come in, but remember, you are NOT speaking to Isaac – no way, no how." He warned.

I nodded, "Yeah, I know, it’s all in your instructions…"

A hint of a smile flashed on his stern features for an instant, before disappearing again as he motioned me into the very large and extremely expensive looking hotel suite. It wasn’t the same one I had visited before – not surprisingly, the family hadn’t wanted to stay in the suite where Taylor had been killed, although I had a sneaking suspicion that the aforementioned suite would become the Mecca at the end of a frequently undertaken pilgrimage for a lot of people, for many years to come.

I perched myself on the edge of the plush settee, trying to look as businesslike as possible, while the bodyguard took up a position beside the window.

"So.." I trailed off, expectantly.

"Jason." He informed me, abruptly.

"So, Jason, what exactly happened in the time leading up to the tragedy?" I asked, in my best ‘professional journalist’ voice.

He looked at me for a few seconds, and began to speak. "OK, it was Saturday, the boys had a day off – you know, from interviews and whatever – it had been a tiring week, so everyone got up quite late that morning. We, the family and all the rest of the tour crew, ate a late breakfast in the hotel restaurant." He spoke in a tone that sounded as though he had told this story many times, almost bored sounding, but behind it I could hear a well concealed tinge of regret. "Then everyone went their separate ways. The boys’ parents wanted to take the younger siblings to see some sites around London, so they left first. Zac wanted to go look in some shops, so Danny – that’s the other bodyguard – drew the short straw and agreed to take him." My limited Hanson knowledge was enough for me to gather that Zac was the youngest member of the band, drummer, Taylor had been the middle brother, the keyboardist, and Isaac was the oldest, the band’s eighteen year old guitarist. I also knew that the three Hanson brothers who were in the band had about a billion younger brothers and sisters who travelled everywhere with them and their parents. With this knowledge, I could just about keep up with the man’s story. "Anyway, Tay and Isaac just wanted to stay here, they were tired, and Taylor was suffering from a bit of ‘flu. The postman had just delivered about a ton of fan mail, so Taylor took some of it into his room to read. He likes…liked his own space sometimes, and he seemed a little depressed that morning. Isaac and I just sat in front of the TV.

"After about two hours, I went outside for a cigarette – the boys don’t like me smoking inside – I went out to the back of the hotel. As I was coming back up the stairs towards the suite, I heard two gun shots, one after the other." He paused, contemplating. I listened intently. "Obviously, I ran into the suite, and straight into Taylor’s room. The first thing I saw was the gun lying on the floor. Isaac was kneeling on the bed beside Taylor, holding onto him, there was a load of blood pouring out of Taylor’s head…" I almost thought I heard Jason’s voice quiver, but I dismissed it. He took a deep breath before continuing. "Isaac looked up at me and began screaming that Taylor was dead and that I had to do something. Then I rang the cops and an ambulance. That’s about it." He finished, turning to face me. I must have turned a little pale, because the next thing he said was; "You’re not another fan, are you?"

I shook my head, "No, I’m not, honestly." I assured him, pulling myself together. "Erm, listen, I need to know…"

"Jason?" the barely audible voice made me jump. I looked up, there was a figure standing in the doorway which I assumed led to a bedroom from the main suite. I recognised him immediately, although the face I saw was very different from the happy smile I had perceived in photographs. The boy’s face was pale and drawn, almost reminding me of the lifeless image of his younger brother which was still tormenting me. His eyes flickered nervously from Jason to me and back again.

"It’s OK, Isaac, I’m taking care of it." The bodyguard’s harsh tones suddenly contained a great deal of compassion.

The boy looked at me, partly frightened, partly suspicious and partly confused. I took the glance as a cue, and stood up.

"Hi, I’m Skye Richardson." I said, feeling the same need to speak quietly as one does when around small animals – the boy looked so fragile and afraid that it was as if any loud noise would send him rushing back into his hole. I offered my hand as I spoke. Another frightened glance at Jason. On receiving a reassuring nod, the boy reached out to shake it. I could feel him trembling.

"I…I’m Isaac…" his deep brown eyes caught mine, and for an instant I saw a glimpse of the abyss of pain which he was doing his best not to show.

"Skye, I think you should leave now.." Jason interrupted, walking toward me.

I turned to face him, turning on my best pleading look. Begging adults was against my principals, but this time I really was desperate. I had already gained a lot of information from Jason’s story, but there were still gaps, still things missing that were needed to complete the puzzle – and Isaac Hanson was the only person who could finish the jigsaw. "Please, Jason! Please! Let me ask just a FEW questions! Please!"

"Skye, Isaac doesn’t want to answer your questions! I told you that! No journalists!"

At the word ‘journalists’, I saw Isaac visibly flinch. I could see how upset he was, and I knew Jason was only trying to protect him, but I needed this information – it was for his own good in the long run. Unfortunately, it didn’t look as though I was likely to get it. Jason was already herding me towards the door.

"OK, listen!" by this point I was willing to risk getting both me and Jack into deep trouble. "I’m not a journalist!" I blurted out before I’d even had chance to think about what I was going to say.

Jason gave me a look of disbelief. "Yeah, whatever…"

"No, honestly!" I put my foot in the door, stopping him from shutting it in my face. "I’m not supposed to tell anyone this, but I’m working privately to solve this case!" it didn’t sound the slightest bit convincing to me, but I suppose it’s easier to tell if someone’s telling the truth, than it is to tell if they’re lying.

"So you don’t work for a magazine?" Jason asked, doubtfully.

"No! Yes, I mean…" I was confusing myself now, just trying to be honest. "Well, I do, but that’s not why I’m here. I used the magazine I run as an excuse to get in here because if the police find out that my friend and I have been interfering with this case then we’ll both be in hot water, but I really am close to solving it!" I managed to explain in one breath, hopefully not revealing too many details. "I swear it’s true." I directed this breathless plea at Isaac. I know I was taking advantage of his condition, but I felt I had to. Jason also looked at Isaac, uncertainly. I could see him beginning to give way, but if the boy refused, I was sunk.

"It’s OK. I’ll talk to her." The words were surprisingly firm, considering how nervous he had looked, and still did to a certain extent. Jason reluctantly stepped away from me and returned to his position by the window, keeping a close eye on me as I sat back down opposite Isaac.

"Alright, I’ve got the main story from Jason, but I need to know a few details."

He nodded; his eyes fixed on the floor. I paused, I didn’t want to work him up into a worse state than he was already in by forcing him to relive what had happened to someone he had obviously cared deeply about, but I was determined to work out how Taylor had been killed. I shut myself off to emotions of my own, and began the questions which I had planned carefully on the journey to London, in between Jack’s whining about being dragged out on such a cold day at short notice. "Can you tell me what happened, just from a few minutes before Taylor was shot?" I was afraid that phrasing it so straightforwardly would upset him, but Isaac simply inhaled deeply, his breath wavering slightly, before beginning.

"I..I was watching TV, with Jason. He went out for about fifteen minutes…then there was a gunshot, and massive crash…" he trailed off, his breath catching in his throat. I stayed silent, waiting for him to continue. "At first I was shocked, but it didn’t really register where it had come from. Then I suddenly realised that it was Taylor’s room, and I ran in there…Taylor was lying on the bed…he was…." This time I knew he wasn’t going to carry on – he was practically in tears, and Jason was literally hopping around, frantic to throw me out.

"And you didn’t see any sign of anyone else in the room?" He shook his head, biting his lip. "About what time was it when you heard the gunshot?"

"It was around quarter to two, I think…" he looked at me, swallowing tears. I saw Jason nod from across the room, as if confirming the time.

"What were you watching?" Jason’s expression when he heard the question was so astonished that I almost had to stifle a laugh. Isaac just looked confused.

"I think it was…some stupid film, James Bond..yeah, that was what I was watching."

"Are you sure? At the exact moment you heard the shot?"

"Yes, definitely. I wasn’t really concentrating – I was worried about Taylor…"

"Why? Why were you worried about him?" Isaac looked shocked, I felt as if I’d caught something he hadn’t meant to say.

"He..he was ill, I was worried…." This seemed plausible enough. It didn’t occur to me to consider why someone would be so worried about the flu, until much later.

"OK, well, Jason said he was reading fan mail.." Isaac nodded, although he seemed to be growing distant, as if he was trying to shut himself off from his feelings. "Have you had any threat letters recently? From fans?"

He seemed relieved that we’d returned to a subject that he’d expected. "A few. Because of Hannah.."

"Hannah?"

"Taylor’s girlfriend." I nodded, recalling what Joey had told me.

"Is there anyone in particular, who’s sent more than one?"

"I don’t know…Taylor was reading the ones addressed to him…but I expect there would have been some from Tina…" he paused, thinking. "She’s a really obsessed fan. She follows us everywhere. We’ve had letters from her before, even delivered directly to hotel rooms – things like ‘marry me or else’. We just thought it was pathetic, she would send threats and then a pile of more love letters. It got kind of scary at one point, last year, she found out Taylor’s mobile number, and he kept getting phone calls from her, sometimes she would threaten him, or other members of the family. Every time we looked out of a window, she’d be there, and sometimes we’d come back to the hotel room and find she’d found her way in somehow, and left letters and stuff all over the room. She became so obsessed it was getting frightening. She still follows us everywhere, but there haven’t been any threats for a while."

"Is she in England now?"

"Yes. She was on the news yesterday, being hysterical, saying how much she cared." He spat the words out, bitterly. I wondered which of the sobbing girls she had been. None of them had looked like psychopathic stalkers, but you never can tell.

"The police said he committed suicide." The sentence came out of the blue, spoken in a detached way that comes when your mind is elsewhere – or when you’re forcing yourself not to think about something. I looked at him, he was staring off into space, and I noticed the red blemishes around his eyes and the tracks of dried tears. His face was expressionless, as if all emotion had been drained away over the past few days. I empathised with him. I knew how it felt to lose someone you loved – although my father might still be alive somewhere, imagining that someone you were close to had lost their life was probably worse than knowing. I quickly shoved these thoughts away – this case was upsetting me enough without dredging up old memories.

"Do you think he did?" I knew he hadn’t, but you never know what information can come from a pointless question.

"I don’t know." He replied, simply, still not looking at me.

"Was he upset about anything? Depressed?"

Isaac thought for a while, he seemed past the crying stage. "He was a bit depressed. He hardly spoke that morning."

"Do you know why?" I was intrigued.

"I assumed it was because of Ashley."

"Who?" he seemed in a world of his own now, as if he’d forgotten who I was, I had to prompt him to go into details, all the time hoping that the next question wouldn’t push too far.

"Ashley’s his best friend. Well, was. That’s what he was upset about."

"What happened?"

"Taylor rang Ashley up on Friday night, just to talk to him, but Ashley told Taylor to stop calling and writing. Said Taylor was a big headed moron and he was too high and mighty to hang out with ‘normal’ people any more." He smiled to himself, as if at some private joke. "I know the real reason, though."

"Why?" prompting again. He was in a dream.

"Ashley’s jealous. Badly jealous. Taylor used to play keyboards and sing with Ashley’s band back home, but he quit because Ashley said Taylor was too much of a perfectionist. Taylor made up with him, but never rejoined the group. When we started playing music together, Tay, Zac and I, we were much more popular locally, than Ashley and his band. When we got signed and everything, Ashley was fuming. Everyone could see he was bitter about it, but Taylor’s always been so naïve, he didn’t even notice and carried on treating Ashley as his best friend. Until Friday. Taylor used to make it worse without even realising it. When we’d go home, he’d rush off and tell his friends about everything we’d done on tour, Ashley thought he was rubbing his nose in it. He must have hated Taylor so much. Taylor didn’t even guess until it was spelled out to him. He’d always relied on his friends – it really hurt him." Isaac’s voice was still dreamy and distant, but my mind was whirling. This could change everything. I was about to ask more details, but, when I looked up, a small tear was working its way down Isaac’s pale cheek.

******

There were people everywhere, thousands and thousands, all staring straight at me, silently – there was not a sound. I looked down, feeling as though I was floating. In front of me stood a keyboard, my hands were pressing the keys, but no sound came from it. To my right I saw Isaac, standing with his guitar, silent but playing, and I noticed tears rolling down his face. Behind me, someone was playing the drums, but their face was a blur. I looked back at the crowd standing noiselessly in front of me, and then the deafening silence was broken by a single gunshot. Glancing up, I saw a bullet flying toward me in slow motion, and a second later, everything went black.

*

I bolted upright, sweat streaming down my face. The house was quiet. I held my breath, hoping I hadn’t screamed. Exhaling slowly, the shock of the dream ebbed away, but it took a few moments before I could release my tight grip on the edge of the bed. When I began to breathe normally again, I reached over and felt around in the dark for my bedside lamp. The orange light cast a comforting glow across the room, making me feel a little safer.

I lay there for a while, shivering despite the warm duvet. I wasn’t used to nightmares – I hadn’t had one since a few months after my father disappeared, when I was ten. I knew instinctively that there was no way I would be able to go back to sleep for a while yet, so I grabbed my notepad from the floor nearby, and opened it, rubbing the sleep-dust from my eyes. Taking a biro from the bedside table, I turned to the first blank page and scrawled ‘Suspects’ at the top. I knew that thinking even more about the case wasn’t going to help at all when it came to going back to sleep again, but it was occupying my mind so much that I decided that the sooner I got to the bottom of it, the sooner it would be over and done with and I would be able to stop thinking about it constantly.

So, the suspects. Considering it, I immediately found the obvious ones; 1. David Jones – the escaped boy-killer, but what was the logic in escaping from prison only to commit another crime straight away, making it easy for the police to find you again? One thing I had learnt from past experience was that criminals were usually far from thick. 2. Tina Lawson – the obsessed fan, if you loved a famous person that much, would it make sense to kill them, unless you were going to get something out of them beforehand? There had been no evidence of anyone demanding money, or anything else, before Taylor’s death. It had just been out and out, just for the sake of it murder. 3. Ashley – the extremely jealous ex-friend, this one made perfect sense, but for one flaw – Ashley Carter, as I had discovered, had been sitting cosily in his house all the time, in Tulsa, Oklahoma – over six thousand miles from the Savoy hotel.

That left me with the slightly less apparent suspects. 4. Jason Browning – bodyguard, Jason was there at the time, and, thanks to his smoking habit, had absolutely no alibi for his whereabouts at the exact time of the murder. However, what was needed here was a motive, and it had been clear from the way he had comforted Isaac, and spoken himself the day before, that Jason’s close working relationship with the band had made him really care about them and their family. Unless there was some deep dark secret hidden, Jason had absolutely no reason to shoot his charge. Added to the fact that Isaac had seen him leave the room, and nobody had gone past him into Taylor’s. Which brought me to the final suspect: 5. Isaac Hanson – deceased’s brother, he had been alone in the room, and he was the only person who could possibly have had access to Taylor’s bedroom. I thought about it, before violently scribbling Isaac’s name out, leaving a blue mess on the page. Seeing the eighteen year old dissolve into hysterical sobs on the hotel floor had proved to me that there was no possible way in which Isaac Hanson could have killed his little brother. He loved him so much, and that was a fact.

I sighed to myself. There was either someone involved who I didn’t even know about, or there was a hidden motive behind one of my four suspects that I probably wouldn’t be able to discover without another interview, and I knew that I was extremely unlikely to get anywhere near them again. The only hope I had of solving the case lay in the form of another view of the murder scene, which Jack had arranged with Rob for the next morning. I was praying that there would be some clue that no one else had spotted that would give me the solution to the whole thing. Somehow I doubted there would be. I groaned, pulling my pillow over my head in frustration. If I couldn’t solve this, it would never stop persecuting me. Someone must have killed him. The question remained – who? Who had orchestrated Taylor Hanson’s last moments? It was beginning to look as though no one would ever know.

******

"I’m fed up of being a taxi service to annoying teenage girls." Jack stated, bluntly, as we drove down the M25.

"How many teenage girls do you drive around?!" I asked, dryly.

"Enough to know that I’m glad I never had a daughter."

"I’m not that bad!" I laughed, "I know you enjoy it really."

"What? Ferrying you to and from London every other day?!" he cried with fake astonishment.

"Well, if you hadn’t got me involved in this in the first place then you wouldn’t have to, would you?!" I reminded him. "Anyway, you haven’t got anything better to do!" I added, dodging the newspaper he threw at me. "Keep your eyes on the road!"

He shook his head, chuckling. "So, is this the last time I’ll have to play chauffeur? My petrol tank needs to know!"

"I hope so." I told him, glumly. "But I doubt it’ll be because the case is done and dusted."

"Why? Isn’t my little protégé living up to her potential?!"

"No, she’s not. In fact she’s at a complete dead end."

"Well, no need to sulk about it, now, is there?" he said, patronisingly.

I scowled at him from the passenger seat. "You know how much I want to solve this!"

"Skye," he pulled the car up beside a parking meter in Oxford Street. "I’m sure you’ll walk into that room and the solution to the entire case will be staring you right in the face. Don’t worry about it."

"Hmm." I wasn’t convinced.

I dragged my feet in the slush as we walked towards the Savoy, making depressed trails in the grey mush.

"Cheer up, Skye, for goodness sakes! It took a lot of effort to get Rob to agree to this, so you could at least pretend to be grateful!"

"I am, I am. I just don’t think it’ll do any good."

Jack stopped walking as we reached the huge double doors of the hotel. He looked me in the eye, "It’d better."

I shrugged, leaving him on the pavement as I made my way into the warm, plush interior of the Savoy’s reception.

The receptionist was deep in an animated conversation with someone on the other end of the phone line, so she didn’t notice me as I slipped past and up the stairs. This was quite a good thing, I realised, as she might have been more than a little suspicious to see the same scruffy fifteen-year old coming into the hotel for the third time that week. I don’t think the ‘I’m just visiting my uncle’ excuse would have washed the next time she chirped "Can I help you, dear?". I walked briskly up the carpeted stairs, running my hand over the carved wooden handrail. I wondered if the Hanson’s enjoyed staying in places like this, or if they’d prefer to stay somewhere more like home. I knew that if I had the choice, the Savoy would not be my idea of a regular abode. It was all too posh – it smelled of money – even if it was in the form of pot pourri.

Reaching the third floor, I turned into the corridor, making my way past the endless identical doors, each with a pair of identical shoes sitting outside, waiting for the bootboy. Room two hundred and one, two hundred and two, two hundred and three….and finally – the room I had been looking for. There was a ‘No Entry To Members Of The Public’ sign blue-tacked to the door. I ignored it and knocked once before pushing it open.

"Morning Skye." Rob sounded bored. I wasn’t surprised.

"How long have I got?" I asked, eyeing the door into the bedroom with apprehension.

He glanced at his watch, scowling at his radio as it buzzed with an inaudible babble of speech. "About fifteen minutes. If anyone comes you’ll have to skidaddle quick smart, right?"

"Sure. Just shout through the door." I told him, putting my hand on the brass handle.

"OK. Don’t disturb anything, you know how much trouble I’ll be in if anyone finds out you’ve been in there." His voice had a hint of distaste, I knew he only let me in because he felt a duty towards Jack. He couldn’t stand me.

I took a deep breath, before going into the room. I wasn’t letting myself admit it, but the idea of seeing this scene again was making me nervous. The room was exactly as it had been the last time, nothing had been touched, except, of course, the body had been removed. I felt strangely guilty referring to it as ‘the body’, even in my mind. He was a real person, he had a name, he had been alive just a few days ago – and yet now he was referred to as simply ‘the body’. Thinking of corpses really wasn’t helping my state of mind, so I quickly got down to business. If I was a murderer, what might I forget to hide?

After looking in all the cupboards and corners and finding nothing, I headed over to the desk. I had been intending to look at the letters all along. They were still strewn over the carpet beside the bed, so I bent down to pick one up. As I did so, I knocked against the bedside table, sending something bouncing to the floor. I quickly picked it up, not wanting to leave anything out of place. It was a small pill bottle, the kind you get from the chemist – brown plastic with one of those typed labels that make finding out what exactly you’re supposed to do with the tablets rather harder than necessary. I shook it, and it rattled, confirming that there were some tablets inside. I was mildly disappointed that they were so obviously prescribed – an illegal drug would have been much more interesting, and helpful. I peered at the label, ‘d4H, Stavudine tablets, 250mg. Take ONE tablet DAILY. Taylor HANSON – 30^th December 1999.’ I had no idea what Stavudine was, or what you took it for. Seeing as it was prescribed, I decided it probably wasn’t important, but I fumbled around in my coat pocket for a biro and scribbled the name down on the back of my hand anyway, before replacing the bottle on the table and turning my attention back to the letters.

I picked up the envelope nearest to me, and studied it. The address was written in primary school style pencil printing. I pulled the piece of paper out of it, and scanned the first few sentences: ‘Dear Taylor, I love you and your music. You are so gorgeous……’ I put it back, that was definitely not from someone plotting to kill him. I was about to reach out for the next envelope, when a thought struck me – the biro had left blue ink on my fingers – if one of the letters turned out to be important and the police analysed it, I could get into serious trouble. I quickly slipped the gloves that I had been wearing outside back on and carried on looking at the letters. After about a dozen envelopes, I was beginning to lose hope. All I had read so far was from eleven to fifteen year old girls and ran along the lines of declaring undying love. I was getting nowhere fast. I sighed, looking at my watch. I had about five minutes left, and I decided I may as well carry on looking at the letters. There were no other clues in the room as far as I could see, and at least it gave me a small insight into the world of the teeny-bopper, which could, at a stretch, come in useful some day.

I groaned. I had read all the letters that lay scattered on the carpet, and the only thing that could have the slightest significance was a letter from the infamous Tina, which consisted of a few swear-words, curses on ‘that bitch Hannah’ and finally a post-script proclaiming - yes, you’ve guessed it – undying love despite everything Taylor had ‘put her through’. I was just about ready to collapse on the floor in defeat when I spotted a corner of paper under the bed. I pulled it out, yet another letter. I almost didn’t bother looking at it, but then I noticed the postmark: ‘Tulsa, Oklahoma’. The Hanson’s home town. The thought immediately occurred to me – it was also the home town of Ashley Carter, the would-be prime suspect. I eyed the letter, almost suspiciously. Could it be that he had sent it as a cover-up so that no one realised he had flown over to England in order to assassinate his best friend? I doubted it, but it was my only lead, so was worth examining.

"Skye! Get out now! The D.I’s on his way up!" the shout was somewhat muffled by the thick mahogany door, but I got the gist of it. I glanced from the closed door to the envelope in my hand. It was wrong, I know it was, and, if things hadn’t turned out the way they did, I might have really regretted it afterwards, but it was on the spur of the moment. I shoved the envelope into my pocket, along with the letter from Tina, and left the room exactly as I had found it – minus two of the most important clues.

******

It wasn’t until Jack had disappeared through the sliding doors that I trusted myself to take the envelopes from my pocket. I kept glancing around, as if someone was going to pounce on me in the middle of a Sainsbury’s car park and arrest me for stealing evidence. As soon as I had got out of the hotel I had begun to shake. I felt intensely guilty, I hadn’t felt this bad since I took fifty pence from my mother’s purse and spent it on sweets when I was seven. This time I knew that the consequences if I was found out would be decidedly worse than being sent to bed without any pudding. Jack had noticed how nervy I seemed, but hadn’t mentioned it, he just gave me a couple of concerned glances when I failed to answer his questions with more than one syllable.

"OK, you’ve done it, Skye, you might as well look at them." I told myself, forcing myself to stare at the paper in my hand. I sat there looking at the hand-written address for about five minutes before I gave up even trying to make myself open it. "I’ll do it later…" I convinced myself, picking up Jack’s newspaper that he had left on the back seat. Reading mindlessly seemed to help take my thoughts away from what I had done, so I worked my way through the first few pages of arms deals, troubles in Northern Ireland and BSE without stopping. The article was on page six, I remember because I stared at it open mouthed for what seemed like an eternity before screeching loud enough to wake the dead and throwing the envelope, which was still in my hand, as far across the car as I could. I sat quaking for a moment, prior to lifting the paper and reading the article one more time, just to make sure:

On Saturday the eleventh, at approximately midday, a London postman, on his way back to the depot in Greenwich, was involved in a head-on collision with a heavy goods vehicle. The driver of the HGV escaped with minor injuries, but postman Mark Davies, 34, was rushed to hospital, sadly passing away in the early hours of Sunday morning. Mr. Davies, father of two children, died from his extensive injuries, but after a post-mortem, doctors have revealed that the collision was caused by the fact that Mr. Davies was under the influence of the hallucinogenic drug LSD at the time of the accident. Mr. Davies’ wife, Mrs. Laura Davies, remains unconvinced; "Mark would never have taken LSD. He doesn’t even drink, I refuse to believe that he would ever do such a thing." Friends of Mr. Davies agree with his wife in that the deceased would never consider taking a drug of any sort. Police are now investigating the possibility that the drug, which can be absorbed through the skin, was given to Mr. Davies without him being aware of its presence.

I suddenly became aware that I was biting my lip so hard that a trickle of blood was running down my chin. I took a deep breath, staring at the envelope, which had landed on the dashboard. I momentarily thanked the Lord for creating blue biro, without which I would probably be in hospital, or, worse still, in a mortuary, by now. I hugged myself tightly, my thoughts in a turmoil. I had, in a way, solved the case, but also left myself back at square one. A single question remained unanswered. Why would someone shoot a dead body?

******

I felt a strong sense of déjà vu as I sat up in bed that night. The only difference was that this time, the sleepless night wasn’t the result of a bad dream. It had got to the point where I needed to know what had happened that Saturday morning, and until I did there was no way I was going to get any sleep. I hadn’t had the guts to tell Jack the day before – the truth just seemed so terrible that I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone without all the details. I had picked up the envelope, put it back in my pocket, and wondered nervously for the rest of the journey home whether polyester absorbed lethal drugs. Luckily, the answer appeared to be no, and I was still alive, although extremely shaken, by the time I reached my front door.

Sitting in the dark with nothing to do but think is not a good idea when you’ve got images of corpses, drugs and crushed postvans circling madly around your brain. At about two in the morning I decided I’d better get up and do something before I turned into a gibbering wreck. I got out of bed and turned the light on, tiptoeing across to my desk so as not to wake my mother in the next room. My biology exercise book stared up at me as a reminder that I had been so wrapped up in murder mysteries in the last few days that I hadn’t even started the project that was due in the following Monday. I sat down and hauled the huge text book down from my bookshelf. As I scanned the list of contents to find the chapter on genetics, my eye caught the words ‘index of prescription drugs’ near the bottom of the page. I almost disregarded it and carried on, when I remembered the little brown bottle which resided on Taylor Hanson’s bedside table. I hesitated, wondering whether starting to think about it all again was a very intelligent thing to do, but told myself that it probably was nothing important anyway. What could a bottle of tablets have to do with a person being shot? I flicked to the page which was specified, and skimmed the list of scientific, usually unpronounceable, names which faced me. "Stavudine, Stavudine…." I repeated softly to myself as I searched amongst spironolactone and sulfametopyrazine. "Ah, Stavudine…..oh my God…." My breath caught in my throat as I gazed at the words. Suddenly everything fell into place. In just thirty seconds I knew exactly what had happened, why and how. I knew every detail of Taylor Hanson’s last moments. All I needed now was proof – and I knew exactly where that proof should be.

I opened the newspaper, turning straight to the page I wanted. ‘Television – Saturday 11^th.’ I ran the tip of my index finger down the columns, searching for the words. Finally I found it, the key to the entire case: 10:40am – Goldfinger; 1:30pm – Gardener’s World. How many people could mistake Alan Titchmarsh for James Bond? Not many, that’s for sure. I ran over the conversation in my head to confirm my suspicions:

I took a deep breath, taking all this in. This proved it – whatever Isaac Hanson was doing at the time his brother was shot, it wasn’t watching television.

******

I burst into the room, and immediately all eyes were upon me. With some amazing fortune I’d managed to get past the security and into the suite, but now I was in, I wasn’t quite sure what to do.

"Excuse me, miss, this is a private suite, you can’t come in…" the policeman, whom I assumed was Detective Inspector Walker, reprimanded me.

"No, listen, I really have to tell you something!" I managed to blurt out, breathlessly.

He strode up to me, and herded me into the furthest corner from the family.

"What?" he asked, gruffly, obviously wanting to get rid of this strange girl who

had miraculously appeared in the middle of a secure area. He was speaking quietly, so that no one else in the room could hear.

I looked him in the eye, trying to be as assertive as possible, and spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear. "I know who killed Taylor!"

The room instantly fell silent. I scanned the faces – the D.I looked stunned, as if unsure whether to believe me or not. Jason, who was standing in his normal position by the window, appeared somewhat dismayed, giving me the impression that he had never had much faith in me the whole time. My vision passed two adults, who I guessed were Taylor’s parents. Their faces were blank, almost lost. I felt a rush of sympathy for them – their son was dead, and they certainly weren’t going to like what I had to tell them. Then there was Isaac. He was staring at me with a look of confusion. For a second it was as if time was standing still. No one moved, all eyes were fixed on me.

"Who exactly are you, young lady?" the D.I broke the silence with a slightly inappropriate question.

"I’m Skye Richardson. I’ve been working with Jack McPhearson to solve this case."

"McPhearson? He’s retired, he has no right to interfere with this case!"

"Do you want to know how it happened or not?" I cried, I was getting annoyed now – it was going to be hard enough to reveal the awful truth to Taylor’s family as it was, without people interfering before I even got to start.

Suddenly, someone else spoke up, "Let her say what she’s come to say, Inspector." The woman, who I had presumed was Mrs Hanson, said. Her voice was as expressionless as her face, she was shutting out any emotion.

The D.I looked slightly put out, I’m not sure whether it was because he wasn’t getting his own way and throwing me out, or because she hadn’t used his full title. "Well, alright, I suppose so. But be quick! We haven’t got all day to listen to little girls who think they know everything!"

I scowled at this comment, but quickly took advantage of the pause and began. "I just need to ask something first. Isaac.." he looked up, startled at being mentioned. "How much do you know about AIDS?" His face turned white, if it was possible to be any paler than he was already, and a look of pure horror contorted his features. If this had been a cartoon, his jaw would have been on the floor. "Not much, I suspect is the answer."

"I…I…" he stuttered, unable to reply.

"Yes, Taylor was HIV positive – what has this got to do with his death?" the man, Mr Hanson, snapped, impatiently.

I turned to him, "Absolutely nothing." I said, simply. "But it has rather a lot to do with Taylor being shot." Everyone, including Isaac, looked extremely bewildered. It was almost with a kind of morbid satisfaction that I realised that I knew things that none of the people in the room had any idea about. "Maybe I should explain…"

"Yes. I think perhaps you should." The policeman muttered, obviously realising that I knew more than he had anticipated.

"If we were doing this properly, I would have brought everyone involved together in this room." I began. "But unfortunately this isn’t a Sherlock Holmes novel, and I really couldn’t arrange it at such short notice. You see, the murderer in this case, is a few thousand miles away from here."

"David Jones?" the D.I’s voice came quietly from where he was sitting behind me.

"Oh no, he has nothing to do with it. Did you really think he would have been stupid enough to lay a perfect clue as to his whereabouts on his very first day on the run?" I glared at him. He looked at the floor, as if trying to hide embarrassment. "The culprit has probably never even set foot in this country."

"Then how…?" I shoved my gloved hand into my pocket and pulled out the envelope, dropping into the centre of the carpet. The D.I reached to pick it up. "Don’t touch it!" I warned, causing him to freeze. I stared at the square of paper, lying with the address facing upwards. "If you ask your forensics to examine this, I think you’ll find a solution not only to this crime, but to the death of a Mr. Mark Davies."

"The postman?" he looked at me, questioningly.

"LSD." I stated, simply. The look on his face was a picture of amazement.

"So…?"

"Mark Davies delivered the mail to the hotel, touched this envelope by accident and was under the influence of the drug when he drove away. Consequently he crashed, while at the same time, Taylor was alone in his room, reading his post. He opened the letter, got a massive overdose of LSD without even realising. While he was hallucinating, he knocked over the chair and sent the other letters flying all over the floor. After a while he collapsed on the bed and the drug got the better of him." I finished my explanation.

The Detective Inspector nodded, grasping the situation.

"So who sent the letter?" the question came from Mrs. Hanson. I glanced at Isaac, who appeared to still be in shock, but looked as if he already knew.

"Ashley Carter. I think you should recognise the name."

Mrs. Hanson clapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide, looking as though she was about to faint. I dreaded to think what her reaction would be when she heard the next part.

"Hang on," trust the D.I to keep asking questions while everyone else was still trying to come to terms with the information I’d already given them. "If Taylor died from LSD, how do you explain the shooting?"

I smiled, "That’s where the HIV comes in." all eyes were on me again. I didn’t think I had the nerve to explain this part – I felt that it was a family secret, and I shouldn’t get involved, even to the extent of simply telling them about it. "I think maybe Isaac should explain."

The boy looked around at his parents, who were watching him expectantly. I felt so sorry for him, I couldn’t imagine how it felt to have done what he had.

"Isaac?" his father broke the silence, his voice soft, frightened.

"I didn’t want to…I..I…" he began to sob, hiding his face in his hands.

"Isaac, what happened?" his mother sounded frantic.

He looked up at her, the pain in his face evident. "I..I shot him."

Mrs. Hanson gasped, beginning to cry herself. "Why? WHY, Isaac?"

"I promised him. I promised I would!"

They were both becoming near hysterical – I felt I had to step in. "Isaac, you thought he’d died of AIDS, didn’t you? You went into his room and he was dead, and you just assumed…"

"How could you have been so STUPID?" his mother screeched, trying to break free of her husband who was attempting to calm her down.

"I didn’t know!" Isaac cried, "I didn’t know anything about it, when we found out he had HIV I was so shocked that I didn’t – couldn’t take in any of the information the hospital gave us! All I knew was that he had no immune system, so he’d get ill and die! He’d had ‘flu for a week, it was getting worse…" he trailed off, tears rolling down his cheeks, his eyes begging for forgiveness from his parents.

"But why did you shoot him, Isaac, why?" his father asked, softly. His mother was sobbing so hard that she was unable to speak.

"Because he made me promise…." He took a deep breath. "Taylor didn’t want anyone to find out, especially not the press, that he had AIDS. He was so ashamed, he knew taking heroin was stupid, that’s why he stopped, he regretted it so much…"

I suddenly realised that I’d been holding my breath for the last few minutes, and I had to remind myself to breathe. This was new information, even to me. I hadn’t known why Taylor was ill, the news that he’d caught it from being a junkie was shocking. Now it was clearer than ever. Taylor hadn’t wanted the fans or the press to find out about his past, so he had made his older brother promise that when the illness took his life then Isaac was to make it look like murder. He had simply wanted to die with dignity. Unfortunately, Isaac didn’t understand, perhaps didn’t want to understand Taylor’s condition, so when he walked into Taylor’s room and found him dead, he assumed the worst. I felt so much admiration for Isaac – he’d done the unimaginable to keep a promise to his brother – I had been right, Isaac Hanson loved his little brother so much that he would have done anything for him.

******

As I lay in bed that night, I let myself run over what had happened in the past few days one last time. I knew that it would be extremely difficult to forget the events which had taken place, and the image of Taylor’s dead body would no doubt stay with me forever. It was almost frightening how a person who looked so perfect to the world could have such a dark past, and made me wonder how many other people in the public eye had a few skeletons hidden away amongst their designer clothes in their Harrods wardrobes. The thing that was affecting me most, however, was not the details of Taylor’s death, it was simply the fact that he had gone. It had just occurred to me that not only had he gone, but his music had gone too. He would never sing again. The soundtrack which had accompanied thousands of people’s lives had suddenly been silenced. It was a strange thought, but it touched me. Thinking this reminded me of a song my father used to sing to me when I was tiny, before he walked out and never came back. I knew it had been written about another musician, who had died many years ago, someone completely different, but it seemed uncannily significant. I closed my eyes, and for the first and last time in this awful series of events, a single tear rolled down my cheek, as images of Taylor’s final expression merged with my father’s long lost face, the lyrics of the old song played over and over in my head, and I drifted off into a dreamless sleep;

MUSICAL CREDIT TO: DON MCLEAN AND HANSON

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Copyright Rainbow Turnip 1999

All text copyright J. Morris

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