Beggars Banquet [The Rolling Stones]

8. Stray Cat Blues

New Scotland Yard, Westminster, London
Thursday, the 4th July
5:50 p.m.
*  

It still was awfully silent in the interrogation room. The older detective had left sometime during Keith's last explanations, not that he had minded though. It was the younger detective who was trying to find out the truth, if the other one had to lead this case on his own, it probably would just disappear into the basement with all the other unsolved cases. 

Keith feared that despised the younger man's eagerness it still would end up there. The guitarist had been present during the whole thing and he couldn't even figure out what actually had happened, so how should the detective?

To be completely honest, Keith didn't want to know what had happened to Brian Jones anyway. From his point of view the guy had nearly asked for it.

He sighed. 

"After Miss Jones finished her story, nobody said much. We were all a bit speechless and well just wanted to go home... The driver was supposed to come back soon, so we waited until-"

*

Cotchford farm, Hartfield, East Sussex.
Wednesday, the 3rd July
12.45 a.m
*

"Where the fuck are they?

The singer could be loud and even worse he could be cranky, if he didn't get what he wanted,  but in this case Keith shared Mick's moodiness.

The clock had struck 12 and everyone's faces seemed to momentarily relax, but with every passing minute the tension crawled back in until Mick couldn't stand it anymore and let his anger out.

"You told us somebody would pick us up at midnight! It's 45 minutes past that, so where the fuck are they?"

Miss Jones only trembled. She still looked miserable. Janet had at least cleaned her wound and bandaged it up with a towel.

"Maybe they're only late, because of the storm," the nurse offered and Miss Jones smiled thankfully at her. 

"That has to be it..." she stuttered out. "They'll come when it is over..."

"That could take the whole damn night by the look of it..." Frank commented, as if to underline his statement he lifted the curtains and though it was pitch black outside, they all could very well see what he meant... A heavy rain was still hitting the windows.

"So what now? We'll wait here until the morning and pray nothing else happens?" Mick retorted. The eye roll was nearly audible in his voice.