Free Kill For Love by RAY CONNOLLY Page A

talks to me."
    “He talks to you?”
    “Through his songs.”
    Kate looked sceptical. “And what
does he say?"
    Beverly giggled and looked slightly embarrassed.
"All kinds of stuff. Whatever I want him to say, I suppose."
    "What you mean is, you make
up your interpretations of the songs to fit your mood?"
    "Okay, yes. Sometimes, I
suppose I do. But not always. Jesse can be very direct when he wants to be."
    "I'm not sure what you mean
by 'direct'?"
    "You'd have to listen to the
albums to know that."
    "I have, and I still don't
know."
    Beverly laughed. "Ah, well, there you
go, Kate. Some of us get it, some of us don't. What do they say? 'Many are called but few are chosen' … The King James Bible ."
    Kate finished her lunch: " 'It's only rock and roll’... The Rolling
Stones."

    “What we really want is to get
him on to sex. That’ll get the ratings going.” Seb Browne, a stout thirty year
old with goodish chestnut hair of which he was very proud, was pouring them
both second glasses of wine.
    “We’ll get the ratings whatever
he says,” Kate said, putting up a hand to stop the flow. “And there’s a bit
more to him than sex.”
    “Yes, yes, I know. But at the end
of the day, that’s what rock music comes down to, isn’t it? I’m amazed you hadn’t
realised that.” He gave her a sly smirk.
    She wished she hadn’t come. She’d
been on her way out of the office when he’d caught up with her and suggested a
quick drink to go over a few ideas.
    “Come on, Kate,” he’d urged while
she’d been trying to think of an excuse. “We’re going to have to work together,
so let’s see if we can’t get along. I know you don’t reckon me, but that’s
because you don’t know me.”
    That had been half an hour ago.
Now she knew him as well as she ever wanted to and reckoned him even less. They
were sitting in Pearl’s, a noisy bar at Gabriel’s
Wharf on the South Bank of the Thames where
producers courted their prettiest research assistants before taking them on
location. And she wondered how many girls Browne had brought here and what his
hit rate had been. She didn’t like the way his knee was occasionally touching
hers around the side of the table. She moved it away.
    Noticing, he smiled. “Anyway,
Jesse Gadden…any thoughts?”  
    “Well, it’s been tricky getting
him this far,” she said, “so we’ll have to be careful not to frighten him off
before we’ve even started.”
    “I can’t imagine you frightening off
anyone?” He was getting leery.  
    Kate sighed and looked away.
    Browne grinned and took a large
gulp of wine. “Sorry, back to the interview. Plan of campaign?”
    “At the moment, I’m not certain.
But we could make a start by trying to get him to talk about his childhood and
its relevance, if any, to his songs. That might lead him into other areas.”
    “You mean you want to ask him to
explain the lyrics, like people used to do with Dylan, or   A Whiter
Shade of Pale or the Beatles…trying to read all kinds of significances and
subliminal messages in them, when really they were just...what did John Lennon
call it...goggledebook?”
    “Gobbledegook,” she corrected,
bored and waved good night to Chloe, who was leaving the bar with a group of
colleagues.  
    Spotting her, one of the group broke
away and approached. “Are you coming with us, Kate? We’re going on to dinner.
It’s on me.” The speaker was a bald, fifty-five year old online editor called
Frank Teischer who was celebrating his leaving party. The rumour was he’d been
forced to take early retirement following a complaint of sexual harassment from
Hilly Weston, and had invested his redundancy pay-off in a little editing suite.
    “I’m sorry, Frank. I can’t
tonight.” She was sorry, but she’d
promised a book review to The Observer and she was already late with it. She was fond of Teischer. Seb Browne’s
behaviour was just as crass but he got away with it because he was younger and
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