The Nature of the Beast by Penny Louise

Author:Penny, Louise [Penny, Louise]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Traditional Detectives, British Detectives, Thriller & Suspense
ISBN: 1250022088
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Published: 2015-08-25T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

Once dinner was over and the dishes done, the guests went their separate ways.

“Coming, numbnuts?”

“I just want to get the record, I’ll be over in a minute.”

And he was. Within minutes Jean-Guy was carefully tipping the vinyl record out of the sleeve.

“Here, give me that.” Ruth grabbed the LP from him and almost dropped it on the floor.

Finding the A-side, she put it on the turntable, surprising Beauvoir by fitting the small hole onto the post effortlessly. But he stopped her before she swung the arm of the record player over the precious disc and scratched it.

“Let me do that.”

“Have you ever done it before?” Ruth demanded, shoving him aside with a sharp elbow.

“Hey,” he said. “That hurt.”

“You want to know hurt? Wait ’til your ears get a load of that.” She jabbed her finger at Al Lepage’s record, now going round and round on the turntable. Ruth lifted the arm and expertly, delicately, lowered the needle to the vinyl.

A rhythmic crackling came from the speakers.

And then the first song started with a simple guitar. Classical, melodic. And then a drumbeat, like a metronome. At first a slow march, then it gathered speed, intensity. It picked up more instruments as it began to race along. A piano, strings. Horns. The drum became almost militaristic, building to a vigorous, energetic, stirring crescendo.

And weaving through it was the voice.

Beauvoir sat on the lumpy old sofa and stared at the turntable, marveling at Al Lepage’s deep, gravelly voice.

As the first song wound down, Jean-Guy turned to Ruth. “That was incredible. Even you must see that.”

“Did you listen to the lyrics?”

“I think so.”

“Well, if you thought they were great, more than your nuts are numb. Excuse me, I have to pee.” She rocked herself out of the chair. “I’ve been drinking tea all night.”

When she left, Jean-Guy carefully lifted the arm and replaced the needle at the beginning of the record.

A soldier and a sailor met in a bar, Al sang in his raspy voice. The one said to the other, there you are.

Jean-Guy listened as the soldier and sailor talked about war and love, parted ways, then ended up on different sides of a conflict.

Ruth was right. It was painful, but not in the way Al Lepage probably intended. The story was clichéd, embarrassing, cringe-worthy. The rhymes were either obvious or tortured. But the music and voice obscured that, camouflaging it. Making it appear better than it was. Perhaps, thought Beauvoir, like the man himself.

The next song was on. The music was powerful, with piano and banjo and harmonica. A fusion of folk and rock and country.

Now Al was singing about a dog who gets lost and is just about to curl up and die when he’s found by a pack of wild dogs and saved. He’s accepted into the pack but, too late, he realizes they’re wolves and he’s expected to kill other animals. As they do. Not because they’re cruel but because it’s in their nature. Just as he’s about to kill a little lamb, his heart in despair, he sees a light through the trees and runs toward it.

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