Daniel Oriel and the Nightingales

By Oliver Franklin

With the occultists in complete disarray and defeat, Oxford ought to be a city on the up. The trouble is: when the biggest bully leaves the playground, there is always another kid who wants to take his place. Drugs are becoming endemic and rumour has it they are being shipped in by a local biker gang... Daniel and his friends aren’t really interested in this sort of thing but, when they witness suspicious activities while going for a jaunt along the river, their curiosity is stirred up. Can they gather enough evidence to force the authorities to act? Can they even get themselves home in one piece without sinking Kavanagh’s expensive birthday present? Ahoy! Strandings – stranglings – coke and crack. Oh, and there’s more difficult decisions for our hero too...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oliver Franklin
• Release date: Dec 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781005773908

Oliver Franklin

You will read some of it in the books...

Book preview

Daniel Oriel

and the Nightingales

by Oliver Franklin

Copyright © 2013 Oliver Franklin

The author has asserted his moral rights

First published in 2017 by Buddlewood House

Cover by P J Truscott – https://pjtruscott.wixsite.com/pjay/

Logo by angwerproductions.co.uk. Typesetting, page design, layout by DocumentsandManuscripts.com

The right of Oliver Franklin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the copyright, design and patents acts pertaining. All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this work may be made without written permission from the author.

This is the fourth book in the series, you might want to read the other three first. But you don’t have to…

Daniel Oriel and the Body in St Aldate’s

Daniel Oriel and the Coven

Daniel Oriel and the Watchers

Chapter 1

Two Bands

The second Oxford Street Party (now an annual event) was held on New Year’s Day. It was even better attended than the first. Over eight and a half thousand people drifted through the various market stalls, amusements, corporate advertising stands and the main stage.

One of the exhibitors was Volkswagen UK, who were showcasing their prototype Free-Energy car. They had picked Oxford, partly in recognition of the city’s effort in bringing the new tech to light and largely, as a result of the corporate muscle of the Oxford Business Partnership, who had recently renamed themselves ‘New World Business’. (This name change greatly alarmed some of our friends.)

As before, the rockers were slated to close out the evening and this year promised to be particularly interesting. Many people were aware that the famed November Criminals had split late last year and the result was two competing bands, each vying to be the heir of that fame. Mark and Daniel Oriel, with Darren Brain and John Zachary from the original group, had been joined by Mike Adams and Gareth Brocklebank from St Aldate’s. They had renamed themselves ‘December Gold’, which was the name that Mark had always favoured. Meanwhile, Sam Jones and Chris Wycliffe had picked four other guys to replenish their line up and were performing as ‘The Criminals’.

Earlier in the evening, there had been a slight disagreement over which of the two bands should go on last – generally considered the top slot – and it was decided by the toss of a coin in the admin office. Sam, leader of The Criminals, won and immediately chose top billing. Mark accepted defeat graciously and passed the news on to his colleagues while the Magdalen College Choir were performing Mozart.

The main stage had been set up in the same place as last year – opposite Lloyd’s Bank – and the road had been closed from lunchtime onwards. The choir finished at seven o’clock and December Gold stepped out under the lights to wild screams and cheers that sounded more or less the same, despite the new name and line up. The crowd was about five or six hundred and Dave Zachary was on top of the bus shelter again, videoing their performance. Daniel quickly tried to count the crowd in blocks of ten, but he ran out of time as they started playing.

Mark was still the leader and he opened with Runway by Azimuth and followed it up with Jesus Wept by the same group. Very few of the audience picked up the message in the music – to most it was just more rock. When they ended the second song, Mark addressed the crowd by quoting the Rolling Stones at Altamont in 1969, ‘Oh, babies – there’s so many of you!’ He then continued, ‘Different set, different sound, hope you like it – ’

Huge cheers erupted, which answered his question.

‘ – I’d like to introduce our new faces to you. On keyboard, we have the dazzling Mike Adams (more screams and cheers) and on drums we have Gareth Brocklebank.

‘This next song was a huge hit for someone your grandparents would have loved – he’s been around so long – it’s an anti-occult song, it sold 1.4 million copies… Here it is… Devil Woman!’

The fact that they were happily playing anti-abortion and anti-occult songs was because they were an anti-abortion and anti-occult band. Now that the two chief dissenters had quit and two new church guys had joined, there was much less friction concerning Mark’s desire to move towards political and spiritual activism.

Mike was a student at Green Templeton college and his initial reluctance to mix spiritual with secular had petered out. As he still had free rein with the church band, he saw no conflict in following Mark’s lead in December Gold. Moreover, Mark’s energy and vision seemed to reflect the genuine call of God.

Gareth had recently moved with his parents from Milton Keynes. He was seventeen and looking for work (nobody liked to use the word ‘unemployed’) and he slotted in like a hand in a glove.

In the aftermath of the SPUC gig, where the band had performed for nothing, Mark had been undecided on what to do about their fee. Prior to the break up, they had been charging £350 per night. Considering that his drummer had no income, it seemed reasonable to charge for their appearances, but he also knew that ministry and activism ought to be provided freely. So, he’d taken up the matter with Mike, who was a few years older and also maturer in faith, and the two of them had yet to make a final decision.

When the band wound up at ten-to-eight, they cleared the stage, left their gear in the hands of the crew and went around to the front to watch their erstwhile colleagues. Mark signalled to Dave on top of the bus shelter to keep filming and the six of them pushed their way through the crowd. At Daniel’s suggestion, they went and sat on the wall outside Lloyd’s Bank, as it was a good vantage point. Kavanagh was waiting for them with the remains of his third hot dog and a half-eaten bowl of salad.

‘Good gig!’ he said, as they sat down.

‘How was the sound?’ Mark enquired keenly.

‘Loud – as it should be,’ he replied.

Mark had clearly been wanting something a little more insightful but he had no time to pursue it, as The Criminals were taking to the stage.

‘Wow! Sammy’s up front – he’s singing,’ Daniel gasped. ‘They’ve got a new chap on drums!’

Back on stage there came a loud screech of feedback and Sam, dressed in leathers, yelled, ‘Yo…! The Criminals are still here, folks!’ Enthusiastic applause followed. ‘And I’m much better looking than Marky anyway, don’t you think?’

Laughter erupted along with considerable debate. Mark was dark-haired, Sam blond and the crowd was divided on the issue.

‘Less talk, more rock n roll!’ Mark yelled from the wall. Large numbers of people agreed with his sentiment.

Sam acknowledged him and replied, ‘I get more than you, Mate!’ A few people in the audience screamed – mainly older girls – and before Mark could answer he was drowned out by the opening chords of Naked Eye by The Who.

‘His voice is okay,’ Daniel shouted in his brother’s ear, a minute or so into the song, ‘considering what he went through with his punctured lung.’

‘Yeah, not bad,’ Mark shouted back over the noise.

As well as Sam on lead vocals and Chris on keyboard, they’d recruited Matthew Kidney on rhythm guitar, Adrian Whitehouse on lead guitar and Ian Skinner on bass. There was lots of guitar – and their rendering of The Who’s classic was pretty good. The only criticism Mark could make, aside from the fact they should never have split from him, is that the song was too much of the same, all the way through. In fact, that was the second problem student bands always encountered – how to vary their sound and prevent everything sounding the same. The first problem was that inexperienced players usually whack up their volume as loud as possible, to make themselves heard. The resulting noise is little more than a crackling thunderstorm in listeners’ ears and, apart from making people deaf, it completely obscures the music, which is what a band is supposed to be about. Mark had learnt this over a few years by trial and error, whereas Daniel was actually taught it in choir.

The Criminals’ next item was When Love Comes to Town by B.B. King and U2. This was altogether different and Mark was glad for their sakes. He did not want to see his friends booed off stage at their first gig.

Zac