THE H-BOMB GIRL by Stephen Baxter (beach books txt) 📕

“No, I don’t,” Laura said, feeling grim.

“Maybe she wanted us to figure it out,” Joel said. “The clue in her name. Have you thought of that? And maybe she wanted us to find this phone thing.”

“Why?” Bernadette asked.

Joel shrugged. “Because, like Laura says, she’s playing a game, and we’re all just pieces on the board.” Joel always seemed to think things through that bit further.

“Well, that’s a jolly thought.” Nick pushed his chair back. “Come on. That waitress with the hairy arms is giving me funny looks. Let’s go down the Jive-O-Rama, I’m meeting the group there.”

“Don’t even think about doing a runner,” the waitress said, hearing every word, though she was yards away.

Chapter 11

They shuffled down into the Jive-O-Rama. At the door, Nick had a mock boxing match with Little Jimmy.

The club was as crowded as ever. Bernadette recognised the other Woodbines, who sat languidly around a table, their long legs stretched out. She walked over, with Joel in tow.

Laura went to the counter to buy some coffees. Big Jimmy grinned at her as he took her order. “Oh—hey, Agatha,” he called to the back. “She’s in.” He clicked his fingers and pointed at her. “Forgot your name.”

“Laura.”

“The new girl. Laura’s in. There’s something Agatha wants to say to you,” he said with a wink.

Agatha came out from the back, a tea towel in her hands. She took Jimmy’s scribbled slip and started to make up the order, for four espressos.

Laura asked, “So?”

Her back turned, Agatha said, “So what?”

Laura felt deeply uncomfortable around this skinny, thin-haired, forty-year-old woman with a face like an older sister. “What do you want to say to me?”

“They’ve been in. Searching.”

“Who have?”

Agatha shrugged. “Men in suits. Believe me, we don’t get too many men in suits in here. There was a black car outside.”

Mort. It must have been.

“They asked questions. They bribed the kids, with sweets, comics. A few ciggies. Copies of Health and Efficiency.” That was porn. Agatha sneered. “You’d think you kids had so much stuff you wouldn’t want any more. But there you go.”

“Questions about what?”

“You,” Agatha said. “Where you go, who you go around with, how often you come down here.”

Laura felt cold, despite the sweaty fug of the cellar. Mort must have got frustrated digging around at home, and at school, and now he had followed her here. After all it wasn’t just the Key he would want but the codes she had memorised. “Did anybody talk?”

“Well, that’s a stupid question. Of course they did. But nobody knew anything worth telling.”

“Why would you help me? I don’t even know you.”

Agatha looked at her. “But I know you.”

“How?”

“You don’t want to know. Four espressos. Two bob, please.” She wouldn’t say anything else.

At the table, things were tense.

Nick introduced Laura to the four Woodbines, the other members of his group. They were all about eighteen.

“Bert Muldoon, rhythm guitar.” Berk in a sheepskin jacket and sunglasses.

“Paul Gillespie, lead guitar.” Intense musician-type.

“Mickey Poole, bass. He’s a Manc, but don’t hold it against him.” Shy, young. Laura knew “Manc” meant he was from Manchester.

“And you know the famous Billy Waddle.” The drummer was the best-looking, his face set in a constant sulky sneer. He looked Laura up and down, sizing her up.

Bernadette was sitting right next to Billy, arms folded, glaring as he ogled Laura. There was obviously something going on between them.

“You’re never in when I call, Billy,” Bernadette said now.

“Been out. Gigs, you know.”

“Yeah,” sneered Mickey Poole. “That and overtime at the bottle factory in Bootle.”

Nick’s expression was complicated. He tapped the tabletop with a fingernail, his glance darting from Bernadette to Billy and back. Laura didn’t understand how he fit into any relationship between Bernadette and the drummer.

Billy sipped Coke from a wasp-waisted bottle. “Anyway I’m cool with things between us. Aren’t you?” Before Bernadette could have another go, he turned to Laura. “Haven’t I seen your face before?”

The other boys rolled their eyes. It was an obvious line.

Laura said, “Well, I was here on Sunday. At the club.”

“I remember you now.”

“Sure you do.”

“She’s a rock and roll virgin,” Nick said.

Billy leered. “Is there any other kind?”

Without warning Bert Muldoon launched into an impromptu performance of a song. Laura worked out from the lyrics that it was called “Tutti Frutti.” In his sunglasses and moth-eaten coat, Bert was like a scruffy cartoon bear, who only came to life from time to time. The others joined in, slapping the tabletop for rhythm.

There was ironic applause from the other tables in the crowded cellar.

Laura looked around the walls, at the yellowing posters for concerts in town halls and schools and church fetes, and ice rinks and ballrooms like the Locarno and the Rialto, featuring local groups with names like Gerry and the Pacemakers, Derry and the Seniors, John Smith and the Common Men, Bob Tanner and the Threepenny Bits. The freshest poster announced that the Beatles would be playing at the Cavern on Monday night, supported by the Woodbines. It was the concert she had seen advertised in Mersey Beat.

All these names, all these hopefuls. Would any of them be famous this time next year? Would any of them still be known in whatever year Miss Wells came from? But that didn’t matter. Their music was something completely new in the world, here and now. And she, just by chance, had found herself in the middle of it. It was exciting, despite the dark cloud of her problems.

Agatha stood over them. Nobody had heard her approach. She looked straight at Laura. “They’re back. Big Jimmy is holding them up.”

Turning, Laura saw shadows at the head of the stairwell, muscular, brisk.

“Drug bust,” Bert said. Nobody contradicted him.

Everybody stood up.

Bernadette asked, “Is there a back way out?”

Agatha said, “This way.” She walked off.

Joel glared at Laura. “Do you trust that woman?”

“No. But what choice do we have?”

Nick looked at her. “More dodgy stuff, H-Bomb Girl? Well, come ‘ead.”

They moved, Laura and Nick following Agatha, then Bernadette and Joel.

All the Woodbines