Page 54 of Summer at Harbour View House
‘It’s more complicated than that,’ Eddie said.
‘So,’ Hannah said, giving Eddie a smile that could have melted sugar, ‘you’ll do it if the rest of the old band will do it?’
Eddie smiled. ‘Sure.’
‘You know, we could just walk up the road or catch a bus into St. Austell,’ Natasha said, as she crawled up into the narrow loft space beside Hannah, brushed dust off the wooden boards in front of her and untwisted a power cord from around her ankle. ‘Or perhaps buy one of those booster things that give you free Wi-Fi, or you know, just walk down to that café by the harbour. They have a Wi-Fi sign up in the window.’
‘Oh, Nat, you’re so boring. This is so much more fun. Don’t you like a little adventure?’
‘Do you seriously come up here whenever you need to send a message to Davey?’
Hannah grinned. ‘No, I can get a spot of signal if I stand on a chair in the corner of my room and hold the phone up to the ceiling. But that’s not ideal if I want to browse for something. Once I found a way up, it was like the world had opened up before me.’
They both lay down on the hard loft floorboards. Hannah opened her tablet computer and let out a squeal of excitement. ‘We have a signal!’ she said. ‘Right. What are we looking for?’
‘Go for the Wiki page first,’ Natasha said. ‘We’ll start there and work our way out. These guys were famous once. They’ll be online somewhere.’
They met Ben and Davey in the pub for dinner. Lizzie stood over their table, rubbing her chin as Natasha and Hannah explained what they had found.
‘So, it looks like a no go?’ Lizzie rolled her eyes. ‘Ah well, I suppose the Weasel gets his way after all. I appreciate you’s efforts. You’s all got me hopes up, but I s’pose it’s what I expected.’
‘We can’t write it off just yet,’ Natasha said. ‘There are still a few leads to go on.’
Ben lifted a hand, touching his fingers one by one. ‘So, the original drummer’s dead. The keyboard player sued Eddie back in the Nineties for unpaid royalties, and the lead guitarist was most recently quoted—admittedly fifteen years ago—as saying, ‘I’d rather eat my own fingers than play guitar for that scumbag again.” And the bass player disappeared, most likely to join a cult in South America.’
‘We could send them a postcard,’ Hannah said. Then, as everyone looked at her, she shrugged. ‘You never know.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Davey said, leaning forward. ‘Didn’t you say before that he was the second bassist?’
‘Yeah, technically, but he was the classic lineup bassist, the one on all their hits.’
‘Hit,’ Lizzie corrected.
‘But he was still the second, at least according to the Internet,’ Davey said. ‘Wasn’t there that first guy, who played on the debut album?’
‘Yeah, but he got fired before they got big,’ Natasha said.
‘But purist fans will love that,’ Davey said.
‘So,’ Ben said, ‘the best we can come up with is a maybe on a bassist who left the band in nineteen eighty-five. It’s not much to go on, is it? We’d still need to convince him, and even if he says yes, we’re still without a drummer, guitarist and a keyboard player.’
‘We’ll get there,’ Natasha said. ‘All we need is a yes from Eddie, and we’re good to go. Everything else will fall into place.’
‘How can you be sure?’ Ben asked.
Natasha gave him a wry grin. ‘I’m a teacher,’ she said. ‘I spend most of my time trying to organise reluctant people to do what I want. Get Eddie to say yes, and it’s on.’
‘I have an idea,’ Lizzie said.
‘Look, whatever it is you want this time, I’m not interested,’ Eddie said. He ran a finger through his thinning scalp and grinned. ‘I’m washing my hair.’
Hannah grinned. ‘We just thought, you know, that you were so good at Monopoly the other night that we wanted you to share your financial knowledge with a few of the other villagers.’
‘Villagers?’ Eddie scoffed. ‘What is this, the eighteen-hundreds?’
‘Oh Eddie,’ Hannah said, rolling her eyes and fluttering her lashes in a way Natasha could only dream of doing, ‘I can see where your stage charm comes from. Look, we’ve got a couple of boards set up, and we’re all waiting to go. You don’t want all those poor people to miss out on a bit of sage financial advice, do you?’
Eddie sighed. ‘All right, I’ll come. But this is a one off. I’m not joining some stupid club or something. Let me get my coat.’
