I'll get you

Chapter 6

Mal walked into the studio where John, Paul, George and Ringo were gathered. He was holding a pile of papers in his hand and waved with them. "What's that?" George asked.

"This..." Mal sat down. "Is the reason why I called you all to gather here." They leaned forward to have a better look at the papers. Mal coughed. "I've been told that these are the results of the autopsy of Brian. I haven't read them through yet, but they also said it could be quite... well, frightening, so maybe you don't want to read it."

"We do. But... aren't we suspects too? I mean, are we even allowed to read them?" Ringo asked. George nudged him. "Of course. Read it out, Mal." Mal had already read the first few lines. "Er... this is what it says." He looked up. "Are you sure?" They nodded. "Well, then. Here it is."

Brian Epstein, 32. Found dead on 27-8-1967.

Cause of death: Stabbed with knife. Before the fatal attack he was tortured with hot water.

Noticable fact: About an hour before his passing, he had taken sleeping pills. We have strong clues that he was interrupted while taking them. If this is true and he hadn't finished taking all the sleeping pills when he was interrupted, he was going to take an overdose and would have killed himself.

Their eyes grew huge. "Brian... an overdose? No, that's not possible. Let me read it again." Paul's eyes flew over the page. "I can't believe it. I just can't." He fell back in his chair, rubbing his forehead. John was just staring into space. "He would have died anyway." It was hard to speak because of the pain in his throat and ears and his aching eyes. "Was it..."

"I don't know, John. I don't see a reason why he'd do something like this. It was probably an accident. Oh my god, I have to go and cry." Mal ran to the door and disappeared, sounds escaping from his mouth.

They sat in silence for a while. "So..." George made an unknown gesture. "What are we going to do? Just carry on as usual, or... go our own way? Or something in between?"

They shrugged. "I don't want to do anything right now, to be honest. Just have a holiday and take a step back from all the business." Ringo said, sighing.

"Yeah.... but we aren't allowed to go anywhere out of London, remember?" George answered. "Oh, yeah. Forgot that..." Ringo sat back in his chair.

"You know... we decided to not tour anymore... and stop with the concerts and stuff, but... well, I don't feel so happy about it. It is a step closer to an end- I'm not suggesting that we might break up soon or something, but it is, you know, I'll really miss the time with you guys when we are on tour." Paul suddenly said, changing the subject.

"We agreed to it. It's three against one, isn't it?" Ringo and George nodded. "Listen, we still are the Beatles, and nothing will change that. Everything will be exactly the same as before, only we won't do any concerts anymore. And... we'll probably have another manager, or none at all." John said bitterly. Paul raised his hands and let them fall to his sides again and stood up.

"If that's all, I'll be off. A day off won't be a problem, will it? See you the day after tomorrow then." He took his coat and walked to the door. "Bye."

There were silent for a little while, and then John stood up, also ready to leave. "I'm leaving too. Don't tell the press yet." He walked to the door, not bothering to take his coat with him, and left quickly. The others followed.

The journalists outside had been told by the police to leave; there would be a press conference soon anyway. John noticed that Paul hadn't left yet, his car was still there. He looked around the stone wall where Paul always went for a smoke or just to think, but he wasn't there. "Paul?" He shouted. No reply.

"What's going on?" Ringo asked from behind John, making his startle. John sighed when he saw it was just Ringo. "Just searchin' Paul. Bit odd that his car's still there, isn't it? And he wasn't on his usual place either..."

A loud scream made them gasp and look up. George appeared from behind Ringo, wide-eyed, and confirmed their suspicions. "Was that Paul?"

John swallowed and nodded. "Where did it come from?" Ringo asked, panicking. "There!" George began to run past John, who followed suit. Another scream confirmed the direction and made them run even faster of fear for what could be happening.

John, who ran in front now, could already see a light coming from behind a few trees. As he approached it, he slowed down to make as less sound as possible. "Shh." He put his finger to his lips in a sign for George and Ringo to be quiet. A muffled sound came from behind the trees.

They carefully moved forward, closer to the trees. Then suddenly they saw something blink. John's eyes widened because he recognised it from the movies; it was a knife! He gasped and without hesitation or any warning, he ran to the trees and, now able to see what was happening, jumped on the person with the kife, knocking him over.

A moan escaped the killers' throat as he hit the ground and the knife was smashed out of his hand. "Paul!" John heard George scream. He looked up and saw Paul, tied up to a tree. This little distraction was almost fatal. The killer grabbed his knife and dashed towards John. John ducked away and fell on the ground, next to where George and Ringo were rescueing Paul.

"Behind!" John yelled. Ringo, George and Paul, who was now free and - luckily- unharmed, let themselves fall on the ground without hesitaion, dodging the stab of the knife. The killer stood still. He looked at the four Beatles who were lying on the ground, not able to defend themselves and who looked at him with either scared or challenging glances. He cursed loudly and then, to their  surprise and  relief, turned around and ran away.

They were silent for a while, still full of adrenalin. Then Ringo slowly got up. "What was that." He asked, his voice shaking. The others followed suit. "Are you alright?" George asked Paul. He nodded. "Do you think what I think?" He asked. "I think so." John answered, his eyes wide. Paul swallowed. "I think that was the same person as the one that killed Brian."

"And now he goes for one of us!" Ringo shivered. John put his shoe back on, it had fallen off when he'd attacked the killer. "Let's go back to the studio and stay there. I suggest we stick together so that we can defend ourselves and that we don't have to worry about each other all the time."

Paul nodded. "We have to tell the police, though."  

"They will only make a story up about how one of us 'found out that another one of us had killed Brian and then decided to take revenge' or something. Or that we are playing the pathetic victims now." George said. Ringo blushed, glad that it was already getting dark. He hadn't forgotten his role as spy for the police. Soon that officer would call him and he'd have to tell everything that had happened. Still, the officer would only notice the negative things and Ringo already knew that what George had said was going to be proved true. The day after it would be on the front page of the papers: 'Beatles say they were attacked by stranger; is this true?'

"Just....okay, this is going to sound strange, but just to make sure, again... none of us actually did murder Brian, did you?" This was the second or third time Paul had asked this question. "Of course not." John responded. Paul nodded. "I just want to be really sure of that. Because I am pretty sure that person who just tried to kill me was his murderer, but on the other side, it could have just been a crazy man."

"It's alright, I understand. Let's go back to the studio now, I still have to phone Cyn that I won't be home for a while, and you three too."