The Devil In Her Heart (Beatles Fan Fiction)

Chapter 40

November 17th 1965 10.00pm

George lay on his side on the thin mattress on top of the hard wooden bed. He was still wearing the clothes he had changed into before accompanying the police to the station. Although they had been clean on, they now smelled of the stale cigarette smoke and alcohol he hadn't had the chance to wash off from the night before. They also smelled, very faintly, of Grace. She had washed them for him.

His evening meal lay untouched and cold on the floor. Just beans on toast, but George couldn't face it. He thought he might never eat again.

The cell was cold but George didn't move to draw the blanket around him. He didn't move at all. He stared straight ahead at the white tiled wall, afraid to close his eyes.

His Beatle status still afforded him some luxuries it seemed. He had a private cell, at the end of the corridor, away from whoever else was staying the night. Where he couldn't hear them and they couldnt hear him, but the silence did him little good. His mind was a jumble of noise and broken images. Fragments of the memory he was so desperately trying to piece together.

I should try and sleep, he told himself. Rest would prepare him for the morning. Perhaps allow him to remember something that would set him free. For one frightening moment George wondered if there was anything to remember at all – except perhaps killing Grace. Could I have done it? In the haze and anger of a drunken mind? Then he firmly pushed that notion away. If he doubted himself, what chance did he have of convincing anyone else of his innocence? But why couldn't he remember? What the hell happened to end up with Grace dead and...

He remembered waiting for Grace at home, driving into London, eating at the restaurant, drinking, telling Grace he didn't love her... then things began to get mixed up.

George stood and paced to the heavy cell door. Resting his forehead against it he once again tried to remember the events of the previous night.

"From the top!" Paul voice, back in Abbey Road Studios, echoed in George's mind...

The metal was cold as he rested his forehead on the roof of the car. Grace, behind him somewhere, was yelling and screaming and nagging but George was beyond it all now – he simply didn't care anymore. She prattled on in his ear, Me and you and Mickey, we'll be so happy. And my mother can come and live with us. We'll have a cottage in the lake district...

"Are you even listening to me?" Grace demanded, shoving George hard.

George straightened his back and shook his head, calmly. "No," he said. "I'm not."

"If you don't... If you don't listen to me, I shall break all the windows on the car!"

George shrugged. "Knock yourself out," he said.

Grace looked round, seemingly for something to put the glass through. She had already smashed all the crockery and glasses when she'd tipped the table up inside the restaurant. Her left hand was still bleeding from when she had picked up the shards of the broken glass and to cut herself with, a favourite trick of hers, George now realised.

"Give it up, Grace," George said, flatly. "You've had us thrown out of the restaurant. Isn't that enough drama for one night?"

"You don't understand, do you? You just don't know," she said.

"No, I don't," George agreed. "But I couldn't actually care less."

"George, you must listen to me. You're ruining everything. You don't know what you're doing. I love you and you love me. We're meant to be together."