mr invisible 2

“Mr Visible!!! Popstar Paedo Unmasked!

Vile Perve Vince Brando, real name Gordon Woodley, of pop band The Young Groove, who reached number one with Mr Invisible, was today exposed as the perpetrator of the Billington Disco scandal. Tearful accuser Linda Greene, 60, named the monster after years of silence…”

It was the height of the Saville Scandal and every paper was finding stories. Gordon Woodley stared into space. He was now a retired carpenter who only sang in church. He’d been invisible since 1973 until this!

In the secrecy of his shed, he looked again at his frayed yellow cuttings preserved in see-through plastic. Him and Kev, the lead guitarist, good looking boys, all hair and moustache, two peas in a pod they’d been.

Had he done it? He didn’t think so. “How could you not “know?” he wondered. It didn’t feel like him but he’d been around in a scene where morals were loose and drugs plentiful. Had he always checked the passports for the ages of groupies?

But this girl said she’d been 13. Surely not. The fact that it was just about possible wreathed him in guilt. What must she think of him? He’d thought of the detail of his pop career as youthful hi-jinx up until now but faced by this narrative, had it been?

He couldn’t bear to put himself or his family through the shame.

His daughter’s bike stood in the corner, she was now 35 but he didn’t have the heart to throw it out. What must she be thinking in Loughbrough? He turned his phone off. What about his wife Dianne? He’d already been seeing her at the time of the alleged incident and yes, before it had got serious he’d been unfaithful once, that he could remember. Perhaps those days were wilder than he’d thought?

What could he remember about the Billington Disco? That he’d taken some uppers just to get him through the gig. There were kids everywhere. Kev had been unusually boisterous. Then. Nothing.

It might be true. It might.

The very thought of the shame and guilt he’d feel if it were, was enough, in his desperation, to make him consume all his prescription heart pills at once. (Not nearly enough to kill him but enough to knock him out.)

He didn’t know how long he’d been there, not hearing anything outside when he finally became aware of someone kicking down the door. It hadn’t worked! A flash of terror! The police!

When he woke in hospital Dianne explained. “You soft idiot! You were never like that! You weren’t capable! I was there at the Billington Disco! I took you home! With Eddie the manager, dozens of people saw you pass out! you never were great at drug-taking. They did the gig without you, with Kev singing! She’s got you confused! As soon as I saw the accusations I knew what had happened. You know what Kev was like and I don’t like to speak ill of the dead but I wouldn’t have put anything past him and well, you looked similar. It wasn’t you Gordon!”

And after a nasty incident involving local vigilantes Gordon gratefully went back to being Mr Invisible helped by a pay out from The Sun. But Linda Greene will never get closure.

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