The Devil In Her Heart (Beatles Fan Fiction)

Chapter 57

November 17th 1965, 00.24am


The door to the building was ajar when he arrived, so he pushed it open and went in without ringing the bell, creeping up the stairs to her flat on the first floor. Again, the door had been left open, but this time he knocked loudly before stepping in. Despite that, she still looked round in surprise when he found her in the small living room.

The flat was a mess. Clothes, papers, plates and records strewn everywhere without much care. Grace lay on the floor of the living room, on the small, red wine stained rug, a lit cigarette in her hand. He gripped his own collection of papers tightly.

"Oh," she said flatly when she saw him. "What do you want?" Grace sat up, pulling her knees up to her chest and took a drag on the cigarette.

He stepped into the room. "What do you think?" he replied in a hushed voice.

George Harrison was lying on the sofa, asleep and half undressed. Shirt unbuttoned, hair a mess, boots still on his feet as they hung over the end of the sofa. He didn't stir. There was something about the position he was lying in was odd.

“You don’t need to whisper,” Grace said, her voice emotionless. “He won’t wake up.”

"I had a visit from... this today," he said, pointing to the Beatle, daring to raise his voice a little.

"So?"

"So?!" he repeated, the anger beginning to bubble up in him already. "So? This is not the plan, Grace. I don't know what the hell you think you're doing, but..."

"I don't care about the plan anymore," she interrupted. "I'm not doing it. George and I are in love."

Archer rolled his eyes. "Not this again."

"George and I are meant to be together," Grace said with conviction. "I've told him everything and he understands."

"You've… You’ve what?!" he said, incredulously. "What have you told him?"

"About faking the accident, everything."

"And Epstein?"

"Oh he already knows about that. He's not dumb, he’s figured it out for himself."

His head was suddenly spinning. He felt disorientated, as if he was falling. "You… you stupid girl! You will have ruined everything!" His voice began to get louder and higher as he struggled to control it. "Weeks, months of laying the groundwork! You don't know what I've had to do! And you've destroyed it in one swoop!"

"What does it matter?" She sounded bored.

"What does it matter? What does it matter?!” He ran a hand over his hair. “I knew I shouldn't have trusted you with this, Grace. You're unreliable. You always have been."

Grace shrugged and stubbed the cigarette out on the carpet. "If you say so."

"Harrison came to me today and said he's leaving the band."

"I know."

"You're behind it then, are you?"

"No."

"That’s hard to believe."

"Believe what you like."

"Don't you see, you stupid girl, without all four of them, there is no band. No Beatles."

"Good," Grace said quietly.

"So all this will have been pointless. I thought… I thought this was what you wanted..." he pleaded, trying to soften his voice.

"It was, but it’s not anymore."

He stepped closer to Harrison. There was something about the pallor of his skin, and there was a slick sweat on his face. His breathing seemed awfully ragged.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing, he’s fine.” Grace crawled across the rug and took his hand in hers. He didn’t stir. “George and me are leaving, Daddy,” she said, in a silly, childish voice.

“Leaving? He’s not going anywhere in that state. What have you given him?”

Grace stuck out her bottom lip and looked away. “We’re going to a better place. A place where we can be together and free, without pain or fear or…”

“And where’s that? Brighton?” he scoffed, and then the pill bottle caught his eye, lying on its side on the floor next to Grace, two white pills spilled on the carpet. He snatched it up. It was empty. “What’s this?”

“My pills,” Grace replied. “The one’s Mickey got for me. The happy pills.”

“Have you taken all of these?” He studied the label. He didn’t recognise the name. Valium.

“I haven’t taken any, he’s had them all, the greedy boy!” she giggled.

“He’s taken all of these?” he echoed. Grace shrugged. He set down his papers on the floor next to her and lifted Harrison up. His eyes rolled back sickeningly. Archer began to feel panic knot in his stomach. If he died, if she’d killed him, then all of this was over.

He turned back to Harrison and shook him hard. His head lolled and his eyes stared without recognition. Archer drew back his hand and slapped his cheek, as hard as he could. Harrison gasped and tensed, but his eyes remained blank. He slapped him again.

“What the fuck have you done to him?!” he asked. Grace was behind him now, scrabbling to her feet. “He’ll overdose, Grace. He’ll overdose and die! Is that what you want?” The defiant look on her face was the only reply he needed.

He released Harrison and he slumped back, his cold staring eyes closing again.

“Don’t shout at me, daddy…”

“You’ve killed him!”

“Daddy…!” she wailed, that piercing, screeching voice. She sounded just like her mother when she did that.

Archer had to think. What could he do? He couldn’t call an ambulance. He couldn’t be found here. Grace couldn’t be trusted to do it. She was still wailing away, not so much crying as squealing. “Will you shut up?!” he shouted at her and to his surprise, she did.

Instead, she picked up the papers he’d brought with him. “What are these?”

“The contract. Power of attorney over the business.”

She fixed him with her dark eyes. They were another inheritance from her mother’s side. “And you’ve brought them for me to sign, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

She snorted derisively and threw them up in the air. They fluttered down around the room and Archer felt like strangling her. She was definitely her mother’s daughter. Swallowing his annoyance, he set about collecting them up again.

“I won’t, Daddy. I’ve told you, I’m not doing it.”

He paused. “You will,” he told her.

She shook her head. “I thought you said you’d get him to do it. Get Brian Epstein to sign it all over to you, all legal and proper.” She was mocking him.

He shuffled the papers, trying to put them back into the correct order, refusing to look at her because if he did, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from hitting her.

“You obviously don’t have him under your control, as you thought, Daddy. Do you? All this and he still won’t give you what you want.”

“No,” he agreed quietly. “So you will do it for me.” He looked up at her. She shook her head. “You will, Grace.”

“Even if I do, don’t you think he’ll realise? He’ll know he hasn’t signed any contract for you, he’s not that soft.”

Archer’s mouth twisted. “He’ll be dead soon. No one will know.”

“I’ll know,” she said wickedly, a smile playing on her lips.

Archer stepped over to her in one stride and yanked her up by her hair. She squealed. “You will sign it!” he demanded. “Do you hear me?!”

“Alright, alright! Daddy, you’re hurting me!”

He let her go and she fell back onto the sofa, on top of Harrison. He didn’t react.

“Give it to me then,” she pouted.

He swept the debris off the coffee table at the side of the room and set the papers down on it, reaching into his jacket pocket for the letter he’d taken from Epstein’s apartment – an example of his signature, and put it on the top of the contract. Taking a pen from his other pocket, he offered it to Grace. “If you do it wrong, we’ll just have to go and get another copy and do it again,” he told her.

She took the pen from him. “I won’t do it wrong.”

“Do you want to practice it?”

She shook her head. She took Epstein’s letter, looked at it briefly and the scribbled something quickly across the page. Dropping the pen on it, she turned her attentions back to Harrison.

Archer picked the paper up. Perfect. It was amazing. Her ability to copy signatures; emulate handwriting, anyone you wanted her to. It almost made it worth putting up with her.

He folded the pages and tucked them into the inside pocket of his blazer, turning back to Harrison. He’d have to get him help. He’d have to protect the investment. Otherwise all of this was pointless.

“Grace,” he said, trying to sound gentle, convincing. She was attempting to lie next to him, pawing at his chest and trying to get her arms around his neck. She kissed the side of his mouth haphazardly. “Grace, let him go. He’s got to come with me.”

“No. He’s staying here.”

“He will die if he stays here.”

She sniffed. “He wants to leave me. He doesn’t… he doesn’t love me. He still loves that stupid girl. He tried to dump me earlier tonight. Can you believe that?”

“And that’s why you’ve done this to him?”

“George is stupid, Daddy. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t realise the things that I do.”

“And what’s that?”

“That we are meant for each other. We’re supposed to be together, and I intend for that to happen. Whatever way it has to. There’s no way I’m letting him go back to that blonde bitch.”

He sighed; his patience was wearing thin. “And I thought you and McCartney were ‘meant for each other’?”

Anger flashed in her eyes. “Don’t mention that bastard’s name,” she snapped.

“Fell out of love with him pretty sharp, didn’t you?”

“It was… That was a mistake. It was George I was meant to be with. It was always George.”

“Grace, you know that I can’t let you do this.”

“You haven’t got a choice, Daddy. Neither have I. This is how it’s meant to be.”

Struggling to control his temper, he reached for her and pulled her to her unsteady feet. She pulled back and nearly fell over when he let go of her. He reached for Harrison and tired to stand him up, a floppy, dead weight. Grace was fighting him, clawing at him, trying to pull Harrison away from him again.

Afterwards, it was difficult to remember the exact sequence of events. She was grabbing at him, he kept pushing her away as he wrestled with Harrison, trying to get him on his feet. He’d managed to drag Harrison half way across the room when suddenly Grace flew at him, something in her hand held aloft. She knocked him over, Harrison falling on top of him.

“Let him go,” Grace was squealing, pulling Harrison away from him. She gripped a brass fire poker in both hands, waving it wildly. Archer dodged his head backwards to avoid a swipe.

“Grace,” Archer warned. She had Harrison away from him now. She dragged him into a sitting position, leaning his back against the sofa. He moaned softly.

Archer struggled to his feet, smoothing his clothing down. She was just like her mother. Always fighting him, always defying him. Always so bloody infuriating.

He reached for Harrison again, but Grace pushed him away, holding the poker out threateningly. “Get away, Daddy,” she growled.

In one swift movement Archer reached out and disarmed her, pulling the poker away from her. She squealed, partly in surprise and partly in frustration. She tried to grab it back but he lifted it above his head, holding Grace back with his other hand. He shoved her and she fell heavily onto her bottom, crying. He went for Harrison again, and again Grace was there, finger nails digging into the back of his hand as he tried to get a hold of the Beatle. He moved his body to block her access to Harrison and that was when she bit him, as hard as she could, into the flesh of his forearm. He cried out in pain and brought down the poker he’d almost forgotten he was holding, onto her.

It hit Grace with a dull ‘thunk’. She released his arm and he snatched it back. Small droplets of blood showed where her teeth had punctured the skin. Grace stared up at him dazed, unmoving, and before he’d realised it, he’d raised the poker and hit her a second time, to the side of her head, just above the temple. She fell backwards, like a rag doll, flopping down onto the stained rug; eyes open, staring glassily. Everything was suddenly very still.

“Grace?” he said softly, leaning over her.

Blood started to seep across the rug underneath her head, dying it a bright crimson.

Archer gasped and dropped the poker. He leaned over her, close to her mouth, listening for, feeling for her breath. None came. He drew back in alarm. “Gracie?” he repeated, his voice weak, unrecognisable. An unbidden noise emitted from him, something in between a cry of pain and a sob. “You stupid girl, look what you’ve gone and done!”

He rose to his feet and turned to go, then reconsidering looked back at the unconscious witness. Harrison had slumped further down, his drooping head close to the blood that pooled from Grace’s wound.

If he left him here, they would find them together. Her, dead from a head injury; him, dead from an overdose.

He stood, undecided. The urge to flee, overwhelming. The contract seemed to burn in his pocket, the ink from Grace’s forgery not yet properly dry. The Beatles, NEMS, everything was his. That pathetic doctor has assured him that Epstein would be dead within the week.

Before he had time to change his mind again, he reached once again for Harrison, hoisting him up, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and half walking, half dragging him from the room. Harrison groaned and mumbled something unintelligible. By the time they reached the front door of the flat, it appeared he was waking up. Perhaps he wasn’t as far gone as he’d feared. 

He nervously looked out into the hall. The door to the neighbouring flat opposite was reassuringly closed. Not a soul to be seen. Archer tried to manhandle Harrison through the door with a degree of difficulty; the doorframe being too narrow to comfortably allow both through together. “Wake up you dumb fucking…”

Harrison seemed to come awake with a grunt and a strange, strangled cry. His head rolled round and he looked at Archer with a flicker of recognition. “What are you doing?” he slurred.

“You are still alive then?” Archer said, panicking that Harrison would notice Grace behind them, as he struggled to pull the door closed behind them while still holding George in this awkward embrace.

Harrison weakly tried to push Archer away from him. “Gerroff…” Archer released him and he walked a couple of unsteady steps towards the top of the stairs. As Archer watched him, he stumbled, grabbing out with flailing arms and fell. Archer tried to grab him back but missed. Harrison tumbled head first down the short staircase, landing in a heap at the bottom. His eyes met Archers for a second before he closed them and passed out.

Archer raced down the stairs, dragging Harrison to his feet. No time to check for broken bones, he worried one of the neighbours would have heard the commotion and come to investigate. He pulled Harrison outside and shoved him into the back of his car, parked haphazardly outside of the block of flats.