Chapter Two

When they were safely all out of sight below the stage, Mouse gave Jeff a hug. He wasn’t sure that he was going to be able to keep standing up for that long without a support of some kind. And Jeff seemed to hang on for dear life, which wasn’t the biggest of surprises. Duncan, however, was having none of it.

“Boo hoo hoo. What the hell’s the matter with you mate? It’s not like this is really the last gig or anything.”

Jeff pulled back, slightly unsure, as Mouse leapt to his defence.

“You lay off him. What the hell got into you during ‘Pump it’? It looked like you were doing a completely different dance routine at one point.”

Jeff lightened up a bit at that, and Jake seemed to wake up too.

“Yeah. Three-and-four-and go the wrong way round your mic stand and two-and-three-and stand there staring at my backside” Jake was gyrating in such a way as to make it very easy to end up facing his backside. The wardrobe ladies who had been standing by to take their stage clothes from them had retreated slightly under the stage supports to give him room, laughing as they did so.

“Why the hell would I want to look at your skinny old arse?”

“You mean my finely tuned dancer’s body?”

“With its skinny old arse”

“Just because your bum looks big in those Terry Wogan trousers”

Duncan’s trousers had been a bone of contention since the beginning of the tour, but nobody had yet come up with an alternative in which he was comfortable doing some of the dance moves. They tended to pop into the conversation at intervals, as a random term of abuse.

“I’m sure that Rach and Dawn would be more than happy to carry out an arse inspection if you both feel that it’s needed.” Jeff had pulled himself together, and silliness was just what he needed. “Shall we do it here, or invite them into the showers?”

“It’s OK love, we know what all of your arses look like. They are all just fine.”

Rachel was about the same age as Jeff’s mother. Duncan, however, had been fired up by the Terry Wogan comment and was stripping them off, along with his briefs.

“Oh dear no, love. Cover yourself up - Heaven only knows who might walk in on us!”

Rachel came forward proffering a dressing gown, only for Jeff to hold her back.

“Hang on there. I didn’t get a proper look. That’s actually a very fine arse. I give that a 5.”

Duncan mimicked Jake’s earlier gyrations.

“What’s that out of?” Jake was thoughtful.

“Six, like the skating”.

“Ooh. OK. I thought it was a bit mean if it was out of ten”

“They don’t do skating out of six any more you moron.”

“They do on the telly.”

“Oh give him a six and put it away.”

Mouse wanted to get on and have a shower. His shirt was damp with sweat, and it was starting to get cold. Jeff took the robe from Rachel and threw it at Duncan.

“Best cover up mate, people might get the wrong idea.”

Duncan looked offended, and went to get a bottle of water from under one of the clothes racks leaving the robe on the floor.

“But my arse is one of my best bits. Everyone knows that.”

He minced, deliberately, as he went, taughtening up first one buttock and then the other. The others started to change, as he walked back using the water bottle as a mic, singing “I’m too sexy for my pants” as he went, almost drowned out by the Phil Collins track playing on the arena sound system.

He stopped immediately Bob walked in. Duncan felt as if he had swallowed the note he was singing. Jeff and Jake immediately sensed something was up as well. Only Mouse carried on oblivious, tweaking his shoe laces and flicking off a dust speck; smiling as he did so. It was only when Jeff nudged his arm to get him to stand up that he caught the general mood of foreboding. It wasn’t just that Bob didn’t usually venture into the under stage area once the sound checks were done. It wasn’t even the fact that Jackie, Jeff’s wife, was standing next to him looking as if her entire family had just been hit by a truck. Bob looked scared. And they hadn’t ever seen him look scared before. When they had the backstage fire in Barcelona, he had barely registered it. When the trapeze gallery had come crashing down part way through the final run through, missing two of the band by inches, his only reaction had been to change the fixings. Whatever it was, it had to be bad.

He didn’t seem to know where to begin.

“I was wondering where you lot had got to.”

They all kept staring at him, willing him on. That clearly wasn’t it. Everybody knew it wasn’t it. Jeff wasn’t any good at suspense, and wasn’t in the mood to hang about.

“What’s up? You look like the world just ended.”

But after several throat-clearing attempts, and something which might have been “well”, it was Jackie who eventually came out with it.

“Marty’s gone missing again”

“What, our Marty?”

“What do you mean missing?”

“The bastard never really came back the first time, did he?”

“Seriously, he’s missing?”

“Wasn’t he meant to be over in the States avoiding us?”

“Shut up you, has he really gone again?”

“How can he have gone again if he never knew where he went first time?”

“But it’s our Marty, Marty King, that’s missing?”

Jeff took control. He always did. Mouse could have sworn that he looked about ten years older than he had done when they had come off stage, and felt a sadness for all of them, Marty in particular. But Jeff had his management face on, and wasn’t broking any nonsense:

“Hang about a bit you lot. Duncs, cover your nob up.” This time there was no argument, although there was a flicker of anger in his movements. “Bob, what’s actually happened? Why are you coming in here looking like the world has ended and all, just when we were warming up for a party?”

“His Mum called me just after you went on. She thought that you boys needed to know, and just kept saying how sorry she was. Stevo had been away for a couple of days and got back to the ranch at lunchtime, and he just wasn’t there. Nobody has any idea where he is. Poor bugger.”

“So he’s been gone less than a day? Fuck me, Mouse disappears for weeks on end and forgets to turn his effing phone on. I’m sure he’ll just jump out from behind a tree somewhere and laugh at Stevo for being such a big girl” Jeff started to chuckle, but nobody laughed with him.

“You don’t get it, do you? The poor bastard’s been taken again. Or he’s gone again. Or whatever the hell happened to him before is happening all over again. It’s not bloody funny. It’s not a fucking joke. The police are setting up checkpoints, it’s all over the news already.” Bob didn’t seem to know whether to yell or cry, but Jeff was left in no illusion as to whose side he was on, and it wasn’t his. Bob had been there, as they all had, when Marty had gone the first time. But he had also worked with Marty, while the rest of them had been away. They’d all said that it didn’t matter, what mattered was getting the old crowd back. But it did matter, of course. It mattered more than any of them could ever admit. And it really, really mattered when the shit starting bouncing from fan to fan. He tried not to wonder how many more of the crew were rooting for the other side.

“Jeff, it’s different with Marty. Because of what happened, he always tells people where he is. He has lists and stuff, and speaks to his Mam and Steve at least twice a day. There’s almost always other people in the house as well. It’s not like me being a useless bastard and just fancying a couple of days by the seaside and not telling anyone”. Mouse was looking steadily at Jeff, trying to make him understand.

The whole world knew that Mouse blamed himself for what had happened back then: he’d even gone on Parkinson and blubbed about it. He and Marty had been thick as thieves; living in one another’s pockets for almost five years. Just once had Marty’s pratting around, and drinking, and sulking got the better of him. Just once had he refused to share a room. And the next morning Marty just wasn’t there any more. If the bastard really had disappeared again, poor Mouse would be all over every TV screen in the nation. He would be saying the same thing over and over again for weeks, even though it was at least ten years out of date.

“Shit!” Duncan struck out at one of the struts which supported the stage with his fist, and kept on hammering it. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

“Cool it Duncs, we need to figure out what to do”

“Fuck all. That’s what we need to do. The shitty fucking bastard has done it on purpose, just to screw things up for us again.” He flung the bottle away, but it was plastic and it bounced.

Mouse moved towards him, slipping into his normal role as mediator.

“Hang on. That’s not fair. We really don’t know what’s happened yet. Like Jeff said we just need to figure out what to do now. And pray to God that Mart comes back soon from wherever he’s gone to.”

“Fuck it!” Duncan made a final protest.

“But there’s nothing we actually need to do now, right?”

“The police and the security guys are worried about you going back by boat. There’s so much press out there they aren’t sure that they can get you through in one piece, especially as they seem to have brought a few nutters with them. They’ve brought the van over as a back-up.” Bob finally got to say what he had come in to tell them in the first place, but couldn’t help feeling that it sounded wrong.

“Is the other end covered if we do that?”

“The guys have gone ahead to check, but when we spoke to the hotel reception about fifteen minutes ago they said it was actually pretty much the same as normal. The longer you leave it, though, the worse it’s likely to get.”

“Everyone OK with that? Quick shower and then jump in the van?” Jeff could see the sense in it, although it wasn’t the end he had wanted for the evening. He didn’t particularly want to drown either. Or end up having to lash out at a photographer to avoid drowning. Especially not if there were likely to be dozens of other photographers watching.

“Bob, did Mart’s Mam tell you anything else?” Jake was always the one left checking for the details.

“Like what?”

“Stuff about what had happened? I mean is there anything else that makes them all think that it is like last time? I mean, like Jeff said it could be all sorts of other things.”

“Just that he wasn’t there. He hadn’t called her or Steve. Hadn’t left details of where he would be in the usual places. Couldn’t get hold of him on his phone. No signs of a break-in. And it was all mega-tidy again, like the last time.”

Mart had usually lived in the middle of a heap of junk. He seemed to be able to magic it into a suitcase and back out again in such a way that it mostly looked the same. Except that awful morning the junk had mysteriously disappeared. Someone had waved a different magic wand, and it had become heaps of T shirts folded to exactly the same size and paired off socks, all stowed in cupboards that Mart would never have thought to open. Jake didn’t want to know anything more after that.

“Come on. We need to get a move on if we are actually going to get back to the hotel before it turns into a zoo.”

The others went through to the showers. Jeff went over to Rachel and gave her a hug of thanks, as he had always done.

“It was a fabulous show lad,” she said, looking up slightly reproachfully, “just don’t you go forgetting that.” He thawed ever so slightly, before getting on to the task in hand.

They had agreed no comments. No nothing until they had a chance the next morning to sit down and find out what was really going on. Jeff had suggested that they all make themselves scarce, in case anyone got pictures of them which might look like they were celebrating, but Duncan had insisted that he was going to fucking celebrate because he had been looking forward to fucking celebrating for two fucking months. He eventually agreed to stay in the hotel, and Jeff got one of the security guys to agree to keep an eye on him. He tried not to think too much about the fact that it was the same guy, Ed, who had tried to keep an eye on Marty back in the day.

Mouse didn’t quite manage “no comment”. He never did. He had stopped to sign a couple of autographs in the hotel lobby, and a girl he didn’t remember seeing before had yelled over to him “Where’s Marty?”

“I really, really wish I knew. And I just really, really hope he’s OK. Marty’s a lovely bloke, I just hope he’s OK.”

He even looked like he meant it when it was shown on Sky thirty minutes later.