Bang: Memoirs of a Relationship Assassin (23 page)

Ever had a hard-on as your sphincter widens with fear? It’s a weird one.

I tried to put her off the idea, called her a pervert, but she just laughed and said what’s new, go on John, put them on for me…

Shit shit shit. I hadn’t planned for this at all. How could I tell her those leathers were long gone? That even the bike hadn’t been mine? That I was never a real courier in the first place? Think fast, John! I mean, Scott! Think!

And so I took a deep breath and said “Becky, listen, I’ve um… I’ve got something to tell you.”

“What?”

“I’ve kind of… well, not lied to you as such, but not been completely honest.”

“About what?”

“About the courier thing. About me. There’s some things I should tell you about myself.”

She propped herself up and looked at me, alarmed.
“What?”

I opened my mouth and listened to my own voice, telling her the truth:

“The truth is I, er… I resigned from Ontime Direct this week. I sold the bike as well, and all my leathers. Got rid of the whole lot. I’ve been meaning to tell you…”

(With some lies thrown in.)

Becky was electrified, sitting upright, mouth open. A stream of questions: when did this happen, what made you do it, why didn’t you tell me?! This was bigger news for her than I thought. I was surprised she cared so much.

John explained that he sold the lot because of a debt that needed paying off, his old college grant that had been hanging over his head for years. But the main reason was that, well, he didn’t really want to be a courier all his life. As he got older, he was starting to wonder about what he really wanted to do. He knew he had potential, but it was unfocused. He needed to find himself. He needed direction. So he sold the bike to kind of kickstart himself into doing something about it.

John’s story, but my mouth saying it… and I suppose some truth did find its way in after all. “Sometimes you just get stuck in a rut, you know. You wonder if you’re even capable of doing anything else. You want to do something worthwhile, but… you’re not sure what, ‘cause you’ve only done one thing all your life.”

That wasn’t John talking.

I apologised to Becky for not telling her. Said I was worried how she might take it, that she’d think I was being stupid. But in fact she lit up, excited and happy that I was trying to change my life for the better. She told me it was good to have ambitions, that her Mum always nagged her to make more of herself but she was just too lazy. She thought it was great. Riding on a motorbike was fun, but she’d much rather John made something of his life.

“So no leathers for you, pervert,” I smiled.

She ran her fingers through my hair. “I’m proud of you, disco boy.” Her lips met mine, softly, like she really meant it. Becky was made up for me. Over the moon. Proud.

Made me wish it was all true.

So Friday night I was John, then Saturday I was John and Sunday I was, just to spice up the weekend a bit, John. Except Becky kept stumbling across Scott.

“What’s this?” She bent down and pulled a copy of Hello! magazine out from under the sofa. Cover story:
Passion For Fashion!
Montage of beautiful women in beautiful clothes, including Megan MacLeod.

Becky snorted. “Surely you can afford some decent porn mags!”

“Nah, my sister must have left that behind. All the real porn’s under the bed,” I said with a grin.

“Show me!”

“Pervert,” laughed John.

Aaargh!
thought Scott. That was too close!

My flat also told a story. I realised too late that my entire home was one big Exhibit A. “You really are a retro freak, aren’t you!” Becky had said when she first walked into my living room, staring at the lava lamp on the corner table, the canvas prints of movie posters on the wall (Jaws, The French Connection, Apocalypse Now, Scarface and the one I really wished I’d taken down because it seemed to be laughing at us up there on the wall, The Spy Who Loved Me), and the genuine pinball machine.

Becky loved Secret Agent. I realised later that she probably thought she’d discovered something significant about John, a hobby of his that you had to get past his front door to find out about. I watched her playing the machine, laughing at how primitive it was, shouting “Secret aaaaaaaaa-gent! Dum-da-da-daahhhmmmmm!” every time it started up. It felt odd. Nobody but me had ever played it before – not even Darren, who rarely made house calls. I’d never seen anyone else standing there, leaning over the table and operating the flippers.

She saw you could do two-player games and challenged me to a match. “Nah, played that old thing far too many times, getting sick of it now,” I heard myself lie to her. Why didn’t I want to play pinball with her around? Why did Becky and Secret Agent just not feel right?

And then there were the pictures. Becky was obsessed with snapping photos all the time, using her mobile phone. And that scared me. It was evidence of Scott Rowley. Evidence from inside my flat, my world. I felt exposed.

Becky absolutely loved that little Ericsson. If it wasn’t bleeping with text messages or ringing with calls from her mates, it was going KER-CHICK! – that sampled camera shutter sound – and taking my bloody picture when I least expected it.

Walking into the room with yet another mug for the tea-holic, KER-CHICK! Slowly waking up and opening one eye, KER-CHICK! Shower curtain yanked aside, KER-CHICK! Exhibits B to Z.

That Ericsson was going to suffer an accident very soon.

It was only when I found Becky hugging a cushion on my sofa, scrolling through the pictures on her phone with a big smile on her face, that I caught on. She was exorcising her past, getting over the past two years and her fiancé and the horrible break-up, by making new memories. Memories of John.

She liked him so much.

I let the Ericsson live.

On Monday morning, after she had left for work, I finally put John aside and became Detective Sergeant Jack Carter of the Metropolitan Police CID.

“Alice Holt, please.”

“Speaking.”

“Are you the president of the Official Megan MacLeod Fan Club?”

“Um, yes, that’s me.”

I introduced myself as one of Scotland Yard’s finest, keeping my voice low and strong. The same voice I’d used to breeze my way into the kitchens at the Glasshouse restaurant. No bullshit. Got a job to do. CID business, out of my way.

“Miss Holt, I’m calling in regards to your relationship to Ms MacLeod. We’ve received some anonymous threats of harm to her, and we’re investigating potential ways that someone might actually put those threats into practice. Obviously we’re in close contact with Ms MacLeod via her representatives at the Golden Screen Theatrical Agency, but I wanted to make sure we’d covered all the bases, so I thought you might be able to help.”

Alice Holt, a plump girl in her early twenties according to her website picture, stuttered nervously that she’d help if she could. She was in over her head, talking to the police. Running the Fan Club was just a hobby, something she did because she admired her favourite actress so much and was a complete EastEnders junkie.

But Megan had actually met Alice and endorsed her. So she had information I needed.

“Miss Holt, since you know Ms MacLeod and her life about as well as anyone, can you think of any times or places when she might be vulnerable? Opportunities for someone to get close to her?”

Like me, for instance?

Poor old Alice racked her brains, desperate to help. She knew that security around Megan was generally pretty tight. Her agency paid for the best, to keep her safe. (And protect their cash cow, I didn’t remark.) The only possible times she might be at risk was when she was in public, doing a photo-shoot or charity gig. Or maybe when she was at the TV studio, filming EastEnders. But still, there’d be plenty of people around, and the Beeb had their own security too.

Bugger.

Even as I thanked the Fan Club president for her time and promised that the CID would stay in touch, I wondered how this helped me. I had to get closer. I had to become somebody that Megan would not just meet, but actively talk to. Someone she wouldn’t feel threatened by.

How about a TV professional of some sort? Somebody working at the BBC studios, perhaps? A member of the crew, working on the set of EastEnders? Good idea. I sat down and did a bit of research into television production, which suggested a few jobs. Boom operator. Sound recordist. Continuity. Make-up.

Hmmm. Could I see myself as a make-up artist, chatting her up while I swept blusher across her face? A butch, sexy make-up artist, obviously. Yeah, very convincing.

I wrote these ideas up for Barry. He’d been nagging me for not providing a report every day, but usually there wasn’t anything to tell him. Now I filled an email with suggestions for infiltrating a television studio. With some faked credentials and ID cards, a couple of strings pulled or favours requested, I could get in there, become just another face on set. Someone Megan could talk to, get to know…

Forget it, said Barry.

I demanded to know why. For God’s sake, in the past I’d been a journalist for Reuters, a trader on the stock exchange, even the son of an earl! I’d hired flash cars and clothes, and Q had produced cast-iron identification for me. How come a make-up artist for the BBC was so impossible?

No time, he told me, and no resources. Not on this case. Have to fend for ourselves.

I thumped my keyboard, went back to creating that crop circle in my living room. Barry pissed me right off these days. How was I meant to land this without his help? How could I ever have seen that stubborn bastard as my trusted agent, working for me? He didn’t give a damn. Unless it was about his own profits. What a bastard! What was his
problem?

That evening, fed up of thinking about Megan, I wandered from room to room, surrounded by empty space. I hadn’t realised before how big my flat was. But since Becky had left, it seemed huge. Too big for one person, suddenly.

I picked up my cordless house phone and called Darren’s mobile. That’s what I needed. Bit of lad time. Monday nights down the Anchorage was almost traditional. Be good to finally get to have a decent chat with –

“Hello?”

– who was that?!

“Um… is Darren about?” I found myself asking.

“He’s in the other room,” said a girl’s voice. Unless Darren had just inhaled a whole helium balloon, it had to be Vicki. “Hang on.”

I stood there waiting. Something about a girl answering Darren’s mobile got right under my skin. I’d forgotten he was now living at her place.

“Yello?”

“All right tosser, it’s me, you free tonight? Thought we could go for a pint?”

“Can’t mate, sorry,” said Darren. “Got some Chinese on order from the shop, gotta go pick it up in a sec. We’re having a night in tonight, both of us are a bit knackered, you know what Mondays are like – ”

“I wasn’t invitin’ the bird, mate!”

The words spat out of me before I could stop them: “Just come out for one pint, it won’t kill ya!”

Without warning, there he was, straight from the Old Days. Andy Holloway. Twisting my mouth into a sneer.

Darren sounded annoyed. “Not a big deal or anything is it, I just – ”

“If it’s not a big deal how come you won’t do it!”

“Cos I’m busy, all right? Look, come on – ”

“One pint
mate, not to much to ask is it, eh? Just ditch your bird for one night, is that so bloody hard all of a sudden?
One fuckin’ pint!”

Even as I was saying it, part of me wondered where this sudden rage had come from. Andy Holloway’s rage. Don’t take shit from no-one, not even a mate, when you’re a hardnut scally like me.

Like
him
.

I was expecting Darren to shout back, but instead he backed down. “All right mate, take it easy, I’m sorry yeah? Been a bit busy recently is all, we’ll sort something out soon though, okay?”

I sneered again. “Don’t bother mate, you just stay in yeah, just sit there and eat your Chinese! Fuckin’
pussy-whipped!”

I hurled the handset at the wall. Crash.

Standing there with my chest heaving, teeth bared, knuckles white. My impulse was to walk out the front door and punch the first bloke I came across. Just knock him down, bang!
Unlucky
, mate!

“Fuck…”

I gasped for air. Easy. Easy. I ran my hand up over my head – surprised to find thick hair between my fingers. It wasn’t Andy’s cropped head but John’s spiky, trendy haircut up there.

For a second I couldn’t remember what the hell I looked like.

I needed to talk to someone. This was really getting to me. Darren was getting to me, he wasn’t himself any more, what had happened to him, he wasn’t himself at all. What was his
problem?!

Abandoned. Screwed over. Just like the last time. Just like when we were kids.

Remember?

And for a second I did – but then yanked myself away from it. Long time ago. Don’t go there. Too scared to go there.

I reached for my mobile, scrolled straight to Becky’s name without really thinking about it. Green button. Red button. Stop. I was still Andy. Couldn’t speak to her yet, not like this. Not while I was him. I couldn’t inflict that mad bastard on Becky… who knows what he might say to her. Or do to her. The thought of Andy Holloway getting his hands on Becky made my blood run cold.

I hadn’t worn the Andy mask for years. What had made me talk to Darren the way he did? Maybe because I thought that was the only language he understood? That talking in fluent scally might somehow get into his thick head?

Why would a character I invented be more angry at Darren than I was?

“You’re going schizo, man!” I laughed aloud, and then realised that standing in a room by yourself and saying
You’re going schizo, man!
was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. You nob.

It took me a good half hour to get back into character as John. Eventually, having calmed down and pulled my mouth from sneer to smile, I called her at home. Almost immediately she sensed something was up, and asked if I was all right.