Toten Herzen Malandanti: TotenUniverse, #2

Toten Herzen Malandanti

C Harrison

Published by Alien Noise Corporation

copyright 2014 C Harrison

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations and incidents are invented and are used fictitiously. Similarity to real people, living, dead or undead is purely coincidental.

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ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

We Are Toten Herzen

Who Among Us...

The One Rule of Magic

There Will Be Blood

The Fine Art of Necromancy

Lords of Misrule

Toten Herzen Malandanti

by

C Harrison

Discover the truth about Toten Herzen and the Malandanti at

TOTENUNIVERSE.COM

Features, interviews, shorts stories, a collection of articles introducing the characters in more detail, filling the gaps between novels and expanding on events and subjects featured in the books.

TOTEN HERZEN ARE:

Susan Bekker - Lead guitar

Born, Susan Johanna Bekker, Rotterdam, 1951

Dee Vincent - Vocals, rhythm guitar

Born, Denise Leslie Vincent, Lincoln, 1953

Elaine Daley - Bass guitar

Born, Elaine Daley, Lincoln, 1950

Rene V - Drums

Born, Rene van Voors, Rotterdam, 1952

Peter Miles - Rhythm guitar (disputed)

Born, Peter Miles, Ipswich, 1953 - 1973

ALBUMS

Pass on By 1973

We Are Toten Herzen 1974

Nocturn 1975

Black Rose 1976

Dead Hearts Live 1976

Staying Alive (unfinished) 1977

FORMATION, DESTRUCTION AND RETURN

Toten Herzen were formed in 1973 when Suffolk based rock promoter and scrap metal merchant Micky Redwall put the band together following a gig at Hooly Goolys in Ipswich. Bekker and van Voors' original band was After Sunset from Holland, whilst Vincent and Daley came from the British band Cat's Cradle.

Between 1973 and 1976 Toten Herzen sold over eight million albums, but their success was cut short on the night of March 21st 1977 when all four members were murdered by Lenny Harper. Harper was never charged and the band disappeared for thirty years until they were found by Rob Wallet, a British music journalist, and persuaded to make a comeback.

This is the second part of the story of their comeback.

Introduction

1

It's worse than the seventies. Rob Wallet allowed for the time delay, but Tom Scavinio was only in New York, not on Venus.

No it isn't. Scavinio sighed. In the seventies they would have thrown a real horse off the roof of the East Midlands Arena.

Toten Herzen's six comeback concerts had turned a profit of just over two million Euros. The figure would have been closer to twelve if the papier mache horse hadn't been thrown from the roof of the East Midlands Arena. The equine surprise took someone's eye out, so they sued. Four million.

Wallet scanned a solicitor's summary with morbid curiosity and disbelief. The corrosive figures and eye watering descriptions compiled a grim bestiary of life on the edge of a parallel civilisation.

Another hole in the profits were gouged out by the torching of a restaurant at the Allianz Halle. Fans held an impromptu fire breathing contest with strong beer and barbecue lighter fluid. . . . Wallet hunted the document for the figures. Two million.

And the point of all this, Rob, is?

Can it be stopped? Is anyone capable of stopping it? Look at this. . . .

The phone line groaned.

In Budapest a fan was impaled on a flag pole when he climbed to the top and tried to balance on one foot. He sued the promoters not for his injuries, but because paramedics took six hours to pull him off the top of the pole and he missed the concert . . . another two million. Two million Euros, Tom.

Scavinio was speechless, but Wallet had more. Much more.

The atrocities didn't end at the top of a flag pole in Budapest. Eight fans were injured, one seriously, by the lethal beaks of masks imported from China. Eighty had their mouths scalded by hot mead in Geneva. And the second riot at the rescheduled Ahoy concert left two French fans with internal injuries. The medieval weapons inserted into them - orifice thankfully undisclosed - were described in police reports as 'like red hot pokers'. Combined total two million, grand total ten million and none of it covered by public liability insurance. (A sneaky clause to exclude acts of 'bizarre criminal activity' pretty much excluded everything these mad bastards did.)

They're a liability. Literally. There's just no predicting what they'll do. Wallet shook his head. No matter what you allow for, you can't anticipate them. It's like a contest. You think you've outwitted them, you concoct some devious security arrangement, pay a fortune in obscure insurance clauses, but they still manage to redefine the word stupid.

Scavinio finally spoke. Yeah, well . . . maybe they'll grow out of it.

Grow out of it! Wallet wasn't sure about that. Wallet thought it was becoming a trend. A meme. Acts of social disorder were now described as going a bit Toten. Well, I don't need to tell you Susan's not happy. When she saw these figures she left the building in a rage and we all know what happens when she gets in a rage.

Yeah, yeah. We do.

Things have to change or she'll bail out, Tom. She's had enough.

That might be for the best, Rob. Scavinio's yawn was audible. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all. They wanted to know what would happen, well, now they know. They're not Toten Herzen without the fans. Without all the bullshit.

I wouldn't normally advise this, but I really think they need to jettison the past. Stop trying to recapture it. Start again. The image of the papier mache horse gliding gracefully through the Birmingham evening sky wouldn't leave Wallet alone. I mean, how did they even get on the roof?

I don't know, Rob. I really don't fucking know. Maybe they learned how to fly.

Sorry, Tom. It sounds like I'm keeping you up.

It's five o'clock in the afternoon.

Okay. Sorry, I'll let you get on. Just thought I'd update you. No decision yet on you coming back over here. . . ?

No.

No. Okay. Not a problem. I'll let you go. Speak to you again, Tom.

Bye.

Wallet threw his phone in the air and watched it land with an awkward, clumsy crunch on the stone floor of the kitchen. Add that to the bill. What price do you put on a manager?

TRACK 1 - At War With the World

1

When marauding mobs gathered in one place to create a critical mass of hooliganism not even powerful witchcraft could move them.

You take your life in your hands coming here at this time. The force of the rain transformed one tall police officer into a sodden hunchback.

Lena Siebert-Neved thought the downpour would clear the area and wash away the problem. Enormous gobbets of rainwater dripped off the hood of her coat, off her eyebrows, nose, chin, anything with an edge to it.

Her ability to summon the worst kind of tempest had failed and now this cop wouldn't leave her alone. Why do you come here? he said.

Another marble of rainwater landed in Lena's eye. The accidental wink encouraged the cop to stand next to her. I'm not here to watch any of this. I just like to hang around with men in uniforms.

My mother wanted me to join the police.

And you wanted to make her proud. Lena leaned closer to make herself heard above the rattle of raindrops on waterproofs. You look like the officer who killed a friend of mine.

I'm sorry about that.

Oh, you don't need to apologise. It's a very long time ago. He's dead now.

Your friend?

The officer. Lena unleashed a wicked smirk.

Ah, well . . . what to say? There are always one or two who are bad . . . in every organisation.

Are there? Well I never.

The small tracks and lanes around the hillside village of Gurmzer were clogged with police cars, pagans' cars, locals' cars, motorhomes, vans, motorbikes, motorbikes with sidecars, bicycles, even a child's scooter (which may have belonged to a local child, but today anything qualified as an intrusion). The transportation was here to carry the curious and the devout up the side of the mountain to watch the witches holding their sabbat. Except the witches weren't here. They hadn't been here for three years, not since the sabbat of 2010 was abandoned because of the crowds trying to muscle in. Now with nothing to hold their attention the gathering mob turned to violence. The spectacle became a protest.

Are you here alone? The cop shared Lena's misery and saturation.

No.

Your partner isn't up there is he? He nodded at the upper slope of the hill where a human hunt propelled police and protesters through mud and woodland, wave after wave of seek and destroy.

What makes you think my partner is a he? Lena took her gloves off. What's your name?

Uwe.

Uwe. Let me show you a little magic trick. Lena cupped her hands. Keep watching . . . keep watching. Uwe watched, but he had one eye on the upper slopes of the hill and the chase, the angry dogs. Uwe are you cold? Uwe's eyes bulged as a red flame glowed into life, hovered a centimetre above Lena's skin and grew to the height of his head. He was about to ask for instructions, but a swift clap of Lena's hands propelled a cloud of vapour the size of a fist into his gaping mouth. That, young man, is what happens when you make assumptions about the world around you.

-

On a dark and desperate evening the villagers of Gurmzer watched nonplussed as their community was ransacked by both law breakers and law enforcers. Lena and her friend Birgitte Schelm were bystanders who knew the score, knew what all the dreadlocked, unshaven, shabby fuss was about.

Forty years ago we would have been up there fighting the cops. Birgitte's lip curled as she watched another line of distant figures emerge from the woodland edge and sprint over the crest of the hill.

For what? The right to what? What's their cause? What do they want here tonight?

We should show them how it's done.

Birgitte, you agitator.

We may as well be soaked for a reason.

Lena agreed and headed off alone along a narrow track away from the village and up the hill towards the woodland. As she ascended she stepped over battered and beaten bodies dropped by the proximity of police batons or savaged by dogs with their own canine agenda. Bosch would have felt quite at home up here, surrounded by all this pillage and soggy human litter. The woodland was a partially abandoned camp with a ravaged understorey of protest debris, bags and discarded clothing; the ground trampled to slime by an unremitting footfall of rioters' boots. The canopies cackled with shouts and whistles, ghostly cries and yells.

They won't be happy until they've driven us all over the edge. An upright collection of clothing spoke to Lena as she studied the soft sponginess of the ground around the edge of the trees. Somewhere above a heavy trench coat, behind a tangled beard, was the mouth of one of the rioters.

They? The edge? The ground was saturated. Perfect for conductivity.

Fascists.

Fascists. Oh, not them again.

Beardy dissected the international corporate agenda to eliminate the alternative lifestyle. And fuck the workers.

Is that what you think or what the fascists think? Lena concentrated on the search for a branch, something small, no more than thirty centimetres.

Fascists. No. Them. They're killing the planet, killing us all. Beardy swung his outstretched arms. Give them five years and we'll all be gone.

Five years. The branch was found, close to where Beardy stood. You know today is Imbolc. She stuck the branch in the ground and dusted the tip with a substance taken from a bottle in her top pocket.

What's that?

Red sulphur.

Yeah, well, there'll be no red sulphur, no Imbolc. . . .

And what are you doing about it? Lena secured the branch before stepping around it in a slow circle.

This, all this. Protest. Create a nuisance. He moved out of the way as Lena completed the circle. The whistling through the canopies belonged to another group of cops who emerged, wet and agitated. They saw Beardy.

Running around in the rain will only get you wet. What you need is a loud bang. Lena snatched her hood back from her head and offered her face to the downpour. Beardy should have run. He had a choice: offer his dreadlocked scalp to one of the cop's batons or stay and watch the curious ritual in Latin around a sulphurous piece of twig.

-

Birgitte crossed a torrent of water escaping diagonally across the road from the field edge. The shelter of a small cafe allowed her to remove some damp clothing and study the photograph she had just taken on her phone. The image contained a web address.

TOTENHERZEN.COM

The whole sordid history was here: the band's fall and rise, or possibly rise and fall - success and failure were indistinguishable; the bastardised birth and gruesome separation from the first manager Micky Redwall; Rob Wallet featured in a wordy account of his discovery of the dead band still alive; and a blog, which decreased in detail as the concerts became increasingly chaotic, ended mid-sentence on December 4th. 'Another bad. . . .'

Birgitte read the closing words of Dee Vincent's biography when the lights in the cafe flickered and the muzak stopped. Everyone looked up simultaneously milliseconds before a flash of blinding light and a crack of noise shattered the village and shook the building. A furious bolt of lightning ripped across the hillside. In the mist of the upper slopes figures, human and canine, flew through the air, blown off their feet by the terrible burst of static electricity and the ground transformed into a live circuit board.

The cafe emptied with chair-scattering panic as if the safest thing to do was run towards the explosion. Birgitte sat and waited for the evacuation to end and then served herself a piece of gateaux and a large latte.

When Lena walked in fifteen minutes later the place was still empty. She removed her dry, dark green beeny hat and tried to flatten her hair.

Birgitte laughed. Put your hat back on, Lena, you look like Einstein.

All that static. It won't lie flat now. Lena was about to help herself to coffee when Birgitte shoved the mobile phone in her face. Where is that picture?

Back up the road. I noticed it just after you went up the lane.

Show me.

Outside the cafe, the crowd parted as a police siren screamed through the village, followed by an equally hysterical ambulance. On the upper slopes some bodies, dazed and charred, hauled themselves out of the mud. Have we asked ourselves the right questions, Lena?

It's just one of a number of stepping stones, but maybe, just maybe the journey to our lost valley starts with this vehicle.

The car in the photograph was an ancient Saab. The paintwork was probably the last remaining memory of the car's structural integrity, give or take a few windows and tyres. Lena inspected the dents and rust and peered through the windows at the mess: the lager cans, old shoes, a rolled up sleeping bag, an interior smeared with an unidentifiable brown film like alien lichen. You know their fans appear to compensate for the band's secrecy. . . .

Maybe. Birgitte put her phone away. I looked at their website while I was in the cafe. There was a question and answer section that was quite illuminating. They were asked what they would rescue if the house caught fire. Elaine Daley said the insurance policy, but Dee Vincent said she would rescue her book collection.

Book collection. Lena ran her finger over the rear window of the Saab, across the sticker on the inside of the glass. She has a book collection?

Quite a large one. Antiques. First editions. Manuscripts. Curios. Lost works.

Uwe the cop, drove past. He noticed Lena, but turned away. If there's one book every vampire should own it's that book.

Of course there's no guarantee she has it, said Birgitte.

No.

But it's an opportunity. If she doesn't have it maybe she'll know someone who does.

Yes.

The rain had stopped. Lena stroked the remaining drops of water off her coat sleeves and looked again at the derelict Saab. The sticker in the back window said everything that needed to be said about the owner of the car, the owner of the mess and the object of worship. Toten Herzen's crest lay on a red and black background with the words 'fuck us, fuck you, we win.'

email:

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: film project

Message:

Dear Jens Gol

Would you be available to film the recording process of a forthcoming album between April and November 2014? The recording will probably be in the UK, but this is not yet finalised. The artist will be revealed to you if you can make these dates. More details are in the attached PDF.

Yours

Henk Van der Meulen

Director of Media

Alien Noise Corporation

Rotterdam

This message has been scanned for bugs, viruses and shit. If you are not the intended recipient why not and how the fuck did that happen anyway? Please save the environment by not breathing out.

The greasy spoon

2

Two years ago Rob Wallet cracking his elbow on the edge of a plastic table would have meant pain. Now he hardly noticed the impact, but he often paused to consider what he could feel. The sensation wasn't the dull numbness of lying on your arm and cutting off the blood supply, his limbs weren't extended blobs of flesh. And it wasn’t the throb of a dead leg. Unable to define the feeling he invented his own word: a vampash. The non-pain was a vampash and there were no degrees of vampash. You could not, for instance, have mild vampash or a serious vampash. Also, the verb was to vampash: to suffer a painless, scarless, instantly healing bruise. And academics and linguists could decline the verb thus: I vampash, you vampash, he/she vampashes, we vampash, they vampash, Susan Bekker doesn't vampash because she doesn't give a shit. (It was an irregular verb.)

The collision with the edge of a plastic table in the restaurant of the Flooden service station generated an audible wallop that alerted truck drivers, on the road salesmen, and all four members of Toten Herzen still reverberating from an all night practice session.

Why? Wallet sat down.

Why? Dee tried to balance two salt cellars on top of a vinegar bottle.

Why, with all our money are we sitting in a crappy service station like this?

Because we like to keep grounded, we like to maintain a bit of reality. Susan pretended to drink coffee.

Maintain reality, you're vampires, how can you. . . .

Susan lifted a finger. "Firstly, we, Rob, we are vampires. And secondly, what's with the our money? Where's your money coming from?" She waited for suggestions from the others, but none of them spoke.

Elaine sniffed. Behind her a Norbert Dentresangle truck pulled out of the car park. Jens Gol has something urgent to ask. We said we'd meet him here.

Outside, said Rene.

Outside? Wallet could see the frost evaporating and the sun wasn't up yet. Why outside?

You'll understand when you meet him. Rene slid his tablet across the table to Wallet. Jens Gol's website mutated, rotated, and exchanged one grim visual presentation of Rotterdam after another. There was a link to his film 'A Thousand Voices,' described without shame as a near perfect exploration of the Dutch symphonic metal scene. (To be fair the words near perfect weren't Gol's, but the very act of borrowing someone else's adoration was in itself not quite cricket.) And there was also 'Light and Rust,' a desaturated ode to Rotterdam.

He's a bit colourless, don't you think? Wallet's question bounced off four equally desaturated faces. Why him?

Rene took his tablet back and browsed the site. Because he makes the ugly look beautiful and the mundane fascinating.

That has to be the worst reason I ever heard, said Wallet.

Why? Susan started to reconsider the idea.

Because everyone will think you've hired him because you're all ugly and boring.

That might be a good point. Susan nodded at Rene's tablet. Might be a good idea to think of a better reason.

I'll ask again. Why are you meeting him here? It's a dive, you're not After Sunset trying to live on eight bob a week, why do you still come to these places? Wallet had to work hard sometimes.

It used to be called the Paradise, said Susan. Shittiest paradise I ever saw, but it was cheap.

Just a shack at the side of the road. Rene scanned the duel carriageway. The Paradise had become a complex junction with shops, motel, petrol station and garden centre. Arni Grojss died about ten years ago. He wouldn't recognise the place.

Arni Grojss? said Wallet.

Guy who owned it when we used to come here. Susan stared into the coffee cup. He lent me five guilders once to buy some strings.

He always told us After Sunset would be huge, said Rene.

Dee raised an eyebrow. Prophet was he?

Hardly a prophet, said Susan.

Come to think of it, said Rene, the bastard never actually came to see us play.

And I never repaid him his five guilders.

I've never felt right in posh places. Dee still hadn't balanced the salt cellars. I always feel like I'm being judged.

Wallet watched her, transfixed. That's because you won't behave yourself when you go anywhere.

Dee objected.

He has a point, said Elaine.

No he doesn't.

The wig! said Wallet.

It was obviously a wig, none of you lot had the balls to lift it off his head. Dee whispered. I wanted to see what was underneath it.

But now we can't go back to that bar, said Wallet, or the one on Hoogstraat. Or that other one on whatsit, Fleukermeer or whatever it's called.

Fleurdemeer. Rene had his own list. Meijners. Fish bar at the harbour. Kruips.

Tangermol, Elaine said. Waco Maco, Bar Johnny doesn't want us back.

Okay, okay. So those bar owners have no sense of humour. That's not my fault. Dee unscrewed the top of the vinegar bottle and placed it back on the table. Can't blame me for that.

Rene took the bottle and screwed the top back on. We can and we do.

So the reason we're not banned from coming here is because the owner's dead? said Wallet. These surroundings are the real you, the core of Toten Herzen. Look, as long as you perpetuate this band of the people image you'll continue to have the people following you.

What's wrong with that? said Susan.

The same people who riot at concerts, burn down restaurants, impale themselves on flag poles, throw horses off rooves and stab each other with beaks and red hot pokers. The others had to agree, and they did. Reluctantly. And you're paying for all this merriment. No wonder you eat in dives like this, you can't afford to go anywhere posh with the insurance premiums you end up paying. Why don't you have a big bonfire and throw all your money on it? Or set up a trust fund. The Toten Herzen Benevolent Fund for the Deranged.

Has a ring to it. Dee unscrewed the vinegar bottle and rammed it down on the table in front of Rene.

But eating at posh restaurants isn't gonna change anything because it'll still be the same music, said Susan.

Ah! said Wallet.

No. Susan waved her cup at him. Stop right there. No musical change. We're not gonna start singing stuff from the Great American Songbook.

No, no, no, this is what I had in mind.

Elaine always had a problem with talking. Talking in the form of going-nowhere conversation and Wallet's circuitous rambling was a particularly pernicious variety. She left the table to follow a salesman out to his car. Wallet fiddled with his tablet as the others watched Elaine engage conversation with the salesman and casually walk away out of view with him.

I haven't had any breakfast either, said Rene.

Here. Wallet played a video: the wrong one. Shit, not that one. . . .

Who was that? Dee grabbed the tablet. Dschinghis Khan! You want us to play German schlager?

No. There. The tablet featured Nightwish and a long piece of orchestral rock.

Susan shook her head before Tarja Turunen had even opened her mouth. We're not symphonic metal. We're not goth, we're not cinematic. We're definitely not a fucking clone of Evanescence.

Not suggesting you become a clone of anything. Wallet reduced the volume on the tablet and spoke to himself. I mean it's not like you're trying to be a clone of Deep Purple or Jimi Hendrix or Jeff Beck. . . .

You cheeky cunt! Susan jumped up. They influenced us. We're not trying to copy them. We're not clones.

Everybody in the restaurant watched her leave a trail of scattered chairs and tables as she went. We are not clones, said Wallet. We are Toten Herzen.

That girl takes life so seriously, said Dee. If I ever get like that please boil me in lead.

-

Wallet had told Scavinio Susan would bail out eventually. She wasn't quite ready for the jump, but in the muck and smog of the service station she was surrounded by so much icy vapour she could have been rehearsing an urban magic trick; a vanishing act without the discarded clothes or goodbye note. Draped in her own black hair she huddled herself and breathed out with enough energy to alter the climate.

Didn't mean to upset you, Wallet called.

Go away.

No, I won't go away. You know I'm right.

You arrogant. . . . Fuck you. Don't talk about After Sunset like that again. . . . She turned away. You know what I mean.

Wonder where Elaine is?

I don't know. Susan had this habit of speaking prematurely, playing catch up with deeply buried thoughts. Given the choice some people, Wallet included, would put money on Dee being the master of the thoughtless comment. She had uttered so many off-the-cuff remarks there were holes worn through her sleeves. But when Susan forgot herself a troublesome mental artefact would unexpectedly bob to the surface like a discarded corpse.

This latest slip in the late winter fog contained Marco Jongbloed and Wim Segers and a rain soaked evening in Ipswich when Susan's ambition finally ran out of road. And it was her ambition, not Rene's or Marco's or Wim's, her ambition to follow Hendrix on stage. When it finally came the death was the worst kind: inevitable. Anyone within touching distance of common sense would have known how the story would end. After Sunset was Susan Bekker's band, vehicle and passport out of Rotterdam, but somehow the adventure found itself in someone else's more capable hands, and with someone else's name forever attached.

It was Micky Redwall who turned you into the Munsters. Does that sound grounded to you? Or do you want to carry on being the novelty vampire band? Available for very violent weddings and bar mitzvahs?

Course it isn't.

Carry on losing money through litigation and that's where you'll end up. Do you like the name Toten Herzen?

Susan squinted. Yeah. Yeah, course I do. Course I do.

That's all right then. For a minute I thought you'd forgotten your own name.

I still have strong memories of my life back then. They mean a lot to me. If I lose them I'm nothing. I'm just a robot if I don't know where I come from.

You still have that ambition, Susan. You make it very obvious, but ambition is also about evolving, moving away from the humdrum, becoming better. Becoming unique.

You don't think we're unique?

Yes, but people don't know that, do they? They think it's all a hoax. That's not what I meant. Musically unique. That's what your heroes were. You're about to record your first album in nearly forty years, you have no manager, again, a bunch of fans who are like an army of locusts and the world at your sharpened fingertips. This is a golden opportunity, Susan. You just can't come back after all this time and do something ordinary. This is the moment. This is your big chance to enter that . . . pantheon. Big word, but I mean if you get this right you won't be in the wake of Hendrix and Beck and all those people you've looked up to. You'll be alongside them. The name Susan Bekker, not guitarist with shock rock band Toten Herzen. Susan Bekker, guitarist, songwriter, legend.

Susan laughed. Me, legend. Okay. I haven't done enough to earn that.

You have to start somewhere. Hendrix wasn't a legend when he was backing for The Isley Brothers. And he didn't become a legend by cultivating a mad fan club. The skill is in changing the image, but keeping your integrity. You're not a daft twenty year old any more. You're a grown up. Come of age. Show them you're a musician, not a freak. And talking of freaks.

Elaine strolled round the corner, followed by her walking breakfast. Susan rubbed a line of blood off Elaine's chin.

How was he?

Okay. Breakfast plodded across the car park heavy footed. He had enough awareness to find his car, but not enough to climb in without first unlocking the doors.

So what you guys talking about? Elaine said.

Stuff, said Susan. I think Rob wants us to become legends.

Really. Elaine cleared her throat and spat out a ball of thick black blood. Thought you had to die first to be one of those.

-

Rene and Dee had left the cafe to talk to a man. Wallet could hear him above the sound of the traffic. Fucking hell, he doesn't need a megaphone, does he?

Hope he doesn't talk like that when we're in the studio, said Susan.

Introductions were clear enough. Jens Gol, independent film maker, Dutch auteur, had a handshake as powerful as his vocal cords. He was incapable of quiet speech, of subtle discretion. Every word, every sentence, every question thundered out of his mouth like a military order. Wallet wanted Dee to snatch the man's hat just to see if she was tall enough, but he was like a human television mast. Wiry, slender, geometrically vertical and capable of emitting his signal over great distances. The roaring trucks couldn't compete with Gol.

Are we to go inside? He came with a query. A simple contractual question before he sold his soul to Toten Herzen.

No, we're fine out here, but we need to go urgently. Susan wanted to keep the negotiations secret, which meant Gol had to stay well out of range of human ears, but there wasn't Gol-proof isolation anywhere west of the Russian Steppes.

He consulted two sheets of A4 paper and his iPad. The contract. There is a clause I need you to explain.

The clause concerning immunity from being bitten was inserted into all contracts, but not as a joke. Susan kept a straight face when she told him it wasn't a joke.

It's not a joke?

It's not a joke. And she kept an equally straight face when she explained that if the clause was breached it was unenforceable.

To understand Toten Herzen's working methods took time and allowances were also needed to adapt to their sense of humour. Eighteen months minimum. Gol slipped the papers back into a black leather file, but he wasn't done yet. Now that he knew he had no legal right to claim damages if anyone bit his head off he moved onto the subject of filming. What do you want to achieve from this project?

The question sounded innocuous, simple even. There must have been a moment when one of them thought a film would be a great idea. The inspiration must have come from somewhere. Four pitifully blank expressions suggested otherwise as if Gol had been contacted by a mysterious prankster. Rene had the tablet with the website and he had the reason: turn something ugly and boring into something beautiful and interesting. He didn't know what he was talking about and therefore couldn't be the genius behind the decision to allow the camera's uncompromising eye to follow them through every stage of the recording process. What about the truth behind the band's reality. Wallet thought he was being helpful.

God, I hope not, said Susan.

Dee had her eye on Gol's hat. Four bickering vampires. That's the truth behind the band. Can't say I'd pay money to see a film about that.

Okay, Gol shouted, we can allow the project to emerge by itself. Let it develop, come to life as we go along. And the vampire image. Do you intend to continue that when we stop filming? His eyes were like two roving golf balls plugged into his sockets.

Wallet had to answer for the band again. I don't think they'll stop when you're not here. Best to stay in character whether the camera's rolling or not.

Gol swallowed something solid. (Possibly another golf ball.) Okay. Peculiar, but whatever you want.

The sunlight increased. Soon it would shine directly onto Arni Grojss's Paradise and Gol didn't have his camera to film the aftermath. Rene wasn't the only one to check his watch and worry about the brightness of the clouds. He hopped about like a man bursting for the toilet. We should be going.

Gol apologised for the urgency of the meeting, but couldn't promise to talk a little quieter next time they met. If he had any more questions or an afterthought it would have to wait. Toten Herzen were gone as soon as his back was turned.

Meeting the comrades

3

Wallet stared at the blank computer screen and asked himself: how did it come to this? He was ready to fire off a round of high calibre words to some unsuspecting, innocent victim, but he couldn't do it. Earlier in the day Susan asked him again to look for Peter Miles. The disappointment almost caused his knees to buckle. There was history to be made in the close association with the band, a musical, professional association. No one ever made history ghost hunting.

Susan had a way of persuading people, a method perfected over several decades. Stage one was a momentary gaze, a visit from two pleading big brown eyes. Stage two was a drop of the shoulders, a careful slump to allow the hair to slip around the side of her head. Stage three was a softly spoken expression, with the word please inserted with just enough sorrow and heartbreak to crush a man. Together, the performance invoked images of a desaturated Rotterdam, circa 1969, and a hungry urchin struggling through deadly weather systems blowing up the Nieuwe Maas, sacks of coal to carry, Flying Vs to haul. . . . (And of course Susan knew what she was doing. She knew Wallet was a sucker for fluttering eyelids and a come hither expression.)

So, along with his task for the day, and the week, and the month, sod it, for the foreseeable future, Wallet was handed a coda: oh, and take Raven with you. Keep her occupied.

Raven?

I made a promise to her, but I don't know what to do. It's only until I can think of a proper role for her. Now Susan avoided eye contact. Guilt. Sheer guilt.

Look for Peter Miles and babysit Raven.

And maybe you could find anything about Terence Pearl, like who turned him. . . .

Wallet looked around for a notebook and pen. Anything else? Do you want me to see if there really are alligators in New York's sewers? Find the true identity of Jack the Ripper? Solve the mystery of the Voynich Manuscript?

"What? I don't want to know