Bang: Memoirs of a Relationship Assassin (11 page)

“You fucking nutter.”

“Don’t you talk to your boss like that.”

And then we burst out laughing, collapsing together in hysterics. My heart had been pounding the whole time, and now there was this great adrenalin rush from having got through it. Becky’s wild laughter told me she felt the same.

“I’m so sorry! Of all times for them to bloody let themselves in…”

“They were so nice to me! Your Dad would have driven me home!”

“Oh God, I know!”

We clutched each other, giggling, on a massive high. It felt genuinely good, I must admit. We both felt giddy and stupid and happy.

And then, still not thinking, I tilted her head up and kissed her.

A full minute later, when she finally pulled away, her eyes were gleaming. Bright blue.
Au naturelle.
Without a word, she took my hand and pulled me down the hall.

I could have just left. There was nothing more to be done, really. My detective was long gone, having taken a whole evening’s worth of pictures. Another case over. Mission accomplished. I’d taken her out.

But still, I allowed Becky to lead me into her bedroom.

No charge, I thought. This one’s on me.

“Yello?”

“Darren! Where have you been?”

“Oh, all right mate, how’s it going?”

I didn’t stop pacing round my flat. Mobile to my ear, I just kept pacing, round and round. “Where are you?” I asked.

“Er, out shopping. With Vicki.”

“Who?”

“You know, Vicki, I was telling you all about her. The nineteen year old.”

“Where are you, Toys R Us?”

“Nah, it’s wossname, IKEA.”

I stopped pacing. Try as I might, I just couldn’t picture Darren – with his scabby trainers and tracksuit bottoms and sovereign rings – pushing a trolley around IKEA on a Saturday afternoon. With a teenage girl. Was he winding me up?

“Are you winding me up?”

“Listen mate, I ain’t got long, wossoccurin’?”

Deep breath. “Okay… I’ve sort of got a bit of a problem. With Jake’s bike.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

I told him. After a long while, Darren said “Oh mate… you are well and truly fucked.”

I went cold. To the bone.

“Have you told Jake?” he asked.

“No… I sort of thought you might be able to do that for me.”

Darren laughed down the phone at me. “You’ve gotta be kidding! I’m not telling that mad bastard that someone nicked his bike! I like my face where it is!”

“Oh Jesus, look, will he really be that bad? I’m trying to get it back – ”

“Do you know who took it?”

“Not yet. But I reckon I can find out. I think it’s someone who… well, someone who knows me. Or at least knows what I do for a living.”

Darren sucked air through his teeth. “Listen mate, don’t take this the wrong way or nothin’, these missions of yours are a laugh and all that. But I have to say, you’re a complete fucking dipstick for losing someone’s bike just so you could shag some bird. And
Jake’s
bike…”

“I didn’t bloody lose it, someone stole it from me! Look, can you just have a word with him, tell him I’ll get it back – ”

“I ain’t saying that to him! He’ll bottle me!”

“One scratch on my bike and I’ll stick a broken bottle right in your pretty-boy face, cocksucker.”

Another deep breath. “Darren. I just need a bit more time. Can you just… just let him know that I need it for this weekend. Tell him I’ll pay him a hundred,
two
hundred a day for it. And then I’ll get it back to him first thing Monday morning. Can you do that for me? Just pass on that message?”

I listened to Darren click his tongue. “All right, mate, I’ll let him know. No worries.”

Phew. “Cheers. I owe you a pint.”

“Gonna do it by text, though,” he added, chilling me again.

I heard a girl calling his name. Then the sound of a hand being put over the phone, muffled voices. “Gotta run,” said Darren suddenly. “Let us know how it goes, yeah? Stay lucky – er, I mean… bye.”

Click.

Shit.

I was pacing harder now. Bumping into things around my flat. Caged tiger. All I could think about was standing in front of Jake – telling him I’d lost his bike… his mad eyes… sound of breaking glass…

Had to get it back. Had to track down that blonde guy. Had to find out what was going on.

I rang my agent.

“Make it quick, Scott,” he barked as soon as he answered his mobile. “I’m busy.”

“You’re not working on a Saturday, are you Barry?”

“As a matter of fact, I am, yes. I’m in the office.”

“Right, I’m on my way round, be there in – ”

“Well, actually I won’t be here for long. I’m off out in a bit. What do you want?”

“Okay. Look, things have got a bit weird with the Hargreaves case. Last night there was somebody watching the – ”

“Hey hey hey, that job should be finished by now!”

“It is, it’s done. But I need to get in touch with Londonwide Associates. There was somebody else there last night, and he seemed to know who – ”

“Look,” grunted Barry, “if you’ve done the business, that’s good enough. I’ve had Larry on the phone today. It’s looking more and more likely this big one’s coming our way. And when it does, I want you ready, all right?”

I’d forgotten all about Larry and his six-figure mission. That should have been on my mind day and night, getting me excited. But right then, it didn’t seem nearly as real as having the jagged edges of a Newcastle Brown bottle rammed into my face.

“Barry, listen, I need you to talk to Londonwide Associates for me, this is important, all right? I want to know if they put a second detective on the Hargreaves case.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I don’t know, but they might have done. I need to know more about the case, or why somebody else might be interested in it… and I want to know who’s paying for it. I don’t like not knowing who I’m working for, Barry.”

“I don’t care if the client is Queen pissing Elizabeth as long as they pay up and we get our share. So leave it be, all right? We need to – ”

“Telephone for Mr O’Nion!”

“ – be ready to move as soon as Larry gives us the nod. So just – ”

“New York office on line three!”

“ – focus on that, Scott, all right?”

“What the hell?” I could clearly hear a woman’s voice in the background. “Who’s that?”

“Database has crashed! Computer says no!”

Barry laughed. “Will you give it a rest!”

“I need that presentation by two o’clock or it’s your ass!”

I gaped at the sound of someone doing exactly what I’d done a couple of weeks ago – pretending to be an entire office full of people. Except this time, Barry wasn’t blowing a gasket at being interrupted. “Give over, you!” he chuckled. I heard a young woman’s laughter.

The penny dropped. “Is that your niece?”

“Er, yes. My niece. Little minx.”

I thought of Barry’s niece walking past me and smiling. The blonde hair and dark eyebrows. The toned stomach. That arse. But mostly I remembered her smiling at me, and making playful remarks to a complete stranger. Confident as hell. With an arse that could launch a thousand ships. (Sorry if I’m overdoing her arse a bit. You really had to be there to see it. It was nothing short of arsetastic. Okay, I really will stop now.)

And now here she was, coming out with the very same gag that I did… thinking along the same lines.

Damn it. She sounded so cool.

“Hey listen, how about I pop round and give you a hand…?”

“No, don’t bother. We’re off out in a mo. Stuff to do. I’ll be in touch when I get the nod from Larry.”

Click.

Shit
.

I sank slowly into an armchair. Barry’s niece had actually made me forget that I was two days away from having my bollocks ripped off.

For a while I just sort of sat there, in limbo. The sunlight was streaming in through my window, it was a Saturday, I probably had a hundred things to be getting on with, but I didn’t feel like doing anything. I just felt adrift.

I was in such a twilight zone that when my mobile went off in my hand, I jerked and answered it without even checking who it was.

“Where’d you slip off to then, mister?”

Becky.

“Oh, hi,” I said, “yeah, sorry I had to do some stuff this morning and I didn’t want to wake you. Um, tried to leave you a note but couldn’t find a pen…”

Shit. I shouldn’t have answered. The job was done, it was time to get a new SIM card and close the case. And now I had to try to explain why I’d crept out of Becky’s flat at sunrise without saying goodbye, she was bound to be upset and disappointed…

But all she said was “When are you coming back?”

And you know what? I sat there, looking round my empty flat, and honestly couldn’t think of a reason not to.

So I spent a sunny Saturday afternoon with Becky. What had been urgent and hungry the night before was much more relaxed in the warm light of day. Afterwards, we just lay there, tangled up in the bedsheets. Listening to the world through her open window. Birdsong. Kids laughing. Cars driving past. Distant radios. Watching dust motes float in the sunshine. Fingertips spiralling over bare skin.

Summer sex.

Weird. Really weird. I bet it’s not at all weird for most people. But for me, it was always sex in the dark. In a stationery cupboard. A car park. A toilet cubicle. The front seat of a Mercedes. But a bedroom, during the day? Pervert!

Nice bit of overtime, I thought at first. Weekend rates applied. But then I thought about explaining it to Barry and getting him to add it to my bill and… ah, couldn’t be bothered. Call it a freebie.

“I need a cup of tea after that,” said Becky, pulling on my shirt and doing up two buttons, baggy on her.

“Why do girls do that, wear the bloke’s clothes afterwards?”

“Dunno,” she shrugged. “Maybe I’m a closet trannie. What’s the matter, don’t you like girls who dress up like boys?”

“Pervert. Two sugars in mine,” I grinned.

I got a pillow in the face as she padded off, barefoot. For a minute I just lay there, bathed in sunlight. Listening to a suburban afternoon through the window, the clanks and clunks of Becky pottering around her kitchen. My mind wasn’t ticking over twenty to the dozen any more. I was chilled out. More chilled than I could remember being for a long time.

I wondered why I was there. The case was closed. I didn’t have to be John any more, and I shouldn’t be anywhere near her… but for some reason my mind veered away from questioning myself about that too much. There were so many other problems to work out, like: Who had stolen my – Jake’s – motorbike? Why were there were detectives for the detectives?

And frankly, who in their right mind would pay seven thousand pounds to split Becky Hargreaves up from her fiancé?

Looking around her ordinary bedroom, in her ordinary flat, littered with bits and pieces from her ordinary life, I couldn’t see why anyone would bother. Becky was just… Becky. I knew less about Sajjan, but he seemed pretty ordinary as well: a young Indian guy studying to be a doctor, looking to settle down and get married. Who could possibly give a damn about these two? They were nothing special.

“John?” called Becky. “Do you have milk in your tea?”

“Yeah,” I shouted back.

“Do you have just a splash or really milky, how do you like it?”

“Um… kind of halfway.”

“Okay.”

Nothing special at all.

I sat up on her bed, thinking. I wasn’t used to this small scale, I realised. Most of my cases involved big bucks, properties, shared bank accounts. But I was in the junior league with the Hargreaves case. I had to start thinking smaller. So what –

“Oh yeah, I forgot!” Becky came jogging back into the bedroom, shirt flapping. Then suddenly:

Click
.

“Shit!”

I jerked, realising what she’d done: taken my picture with her mobile phone. “Been meaning to get one of you for ages!” she laughed, checking the screen. “Mmm, topless as well, perfect!”

“What the hell did you do that for!” I snapped. Threw the covers back and got out, ready to run.

“All right, easy, I just wanted a picture of you, that’s all!”

Surprised hurt on her face. Okay. Deep breath. Smile. “It’s okay, you just… sorry, you just caught me by surprise. Hate having my picture taken!” I lied through my teeth.

“Really? God knows why, I’m the un-photogenic one, you came out great, look.” She held up her little silver Ericsson and there I was, propping myself up in her bed, sheets bunched round my waist. Looking surprised.

Damn it, I hated being caught out like this! Pictures should be arranged in advance, I should know when and where to expect them, I should be ready. But it felt for a second like Becky had seen me with my mask off. She’d snatched a shot of Scott Rowley rather than John Holmes. You dipstick! Should be more prepared!

“Got to have one of you for my collection!” Becky waved at her dresser table, where there were rows of photographs. Suddenly the mobile rang in her hand, making us both jump. She did the ‘shush’ gesture at me, sprinting back into the kitchen to answer it. No prizes for guessing who that was.

I sat on the edge of her bed, peering at the photos on the table. Most of them seemed to be her mates, a mixture of girls’ faces. I recognised Laura, Teri and Nicola from the office, at some work-related party. One picture of a dark-skinned guy who had to be Sajjan. One of her and her older brother Robert, all curls and scowls, looking like he’d been constipated for a week. A big one of her Mum and Dad, one of those sepia-tinted funfair sideshow pictures, both wearing Victorian clothes. Friends and family.

Suddenly I realised I was looking at a line-up. Like in The Usual Suspects.

Bloody obvious, when you think about it. Whoever my client was, he or she obviously knew Becky and Sajjan very well indeed.

You’re probably aware that in 89% of murder cases, the victim knows the attacker. In 74% it’s a close friend or family member, and 68% of all murders take place in the home… Okay, I made all that up, but I bet the real statistics aren’t a million miles off. The point being, it’s not strangers you have to worry about. Becky had an enemy in her life. Someone with seven grand to spare and a good reason to get rid of Sajjan. Someone who hired me to make the kill.