Burley Cross Postbox Theft (27 page)

I don’t know… Just in case you wouldn’t like it. Or just in case Glenn might find out. Or just…

Bollocks!
I
hate
this! I can’t
stand
it! I feel so helpless! So
stupid!

Please put me out of my misery, Nina. Take it all back, if you must. Just set me straight, once and for all. Laugh in my face, if you want to – or tell me I’ve got completely the wrong end of the stick… Just do something to release me from all this horrible indecision (this pathetic mooning about the place)!

I’ll do anything for you, Nina, you must know that. I’ll do anything. Just say the word. Just give me some sign – some tiny show of encouragement…

I know it’ll be messy. I’m not an idiot. But I don’t care how messy it gets. I don’t care. I love you. I think you’re incredible. I just want to be with you. And don’t worry about Yasmin. I lied about Yasmin – I mean not
about
Yasmin. There
is
a Yasmin. We are engaged. But America just seems so far away right now. America just seems like a whole different world, in fact.

Oh yes. And in case there’s any remaining confusion about why I came back here (because Glenn’s take on it was so weirdly off-kilter) I
did
mainly come back to Yorkshire to support my father (once his business started going under), and I’m living at home not because I
want
to, but just to try and help Mum and Dad out, financially, for a while.

Glenn was wrong to think that my transferring to RAF Fylingdales was some kind of a demotion. It was actually a promotion. The job came up and I put myself forward, hardly thinking I would get it (there’s this whole, new, high-tech system of radars and tracking devices being installed at the base by the US over the next decade or so – an upgrade, in effect – and they’ve brought me on board to head the whole operation up).

Obviously I couldn’t say anything about this on the tour – it’s all totally hush-hush. And I was happy to let Glenn believe what he liked (I don’t need his approval) but I didn’t want you thinking I’d returned here with my tail between my legs, like
some kind of pathetic ‘Mummy’s Boy’, a failure, because that couldn’t be further from the truth.

When I accepted the post at Fylingdales I knew the thing with Yasmin probably wouldn’t be sustainable, long-term. She’s got a teaching job in Houston which she really enjoys, and family there, and tons of friends. Over the past five or so months it’s pretty much fizzled out between us. She was originally meant to visit this Christmas but in the end she decided not to (by mutual consent).

The truth is that she’s never made me feel the way you do, Nina. Nobody can. Only you can. I’m crazy about you – I’m crazy in love with you (like Beyonce keeps on singing in that infernal song of hers).

I had to say it. I
had
to. I just had to put it out there – if only to stop myself from going slowly insane. I’m sorry if this has upset you. I’m sorry if I’ve behaved inappropriately in some way. I apologize if I somehow managed to misconstrue what you said the other day.

If you don’t respond to this letter I promise I won’t bother you again. I won’t pester you. I’ll just pretend this never happened. I’ll move on. It’ll be fine.
I’ll
be fine. I don’t want you to worry about me. Forget about me! You’ve got enough to worry about!

Whatever happens I just want you to be happy, Nina. You deserve to be happy. You deserve every good thing the world has to offer, and more, so much more…

I’m talking crap now. Yes. I should probably just quit while I’m ahead.

Have a lovely Christmas.

Forget I ever wrote this (if you want to).

I honestly won’t hold it against you,

Nick

PS You were right about the A4 envelope. The book fitted into it just perfectly.

[tape transcript]

TRANSCRIPT OF DICTAPHONE TAPE RECORDING (transcribed on 7/01/2007 by WPC Helen Graves – Front Desk, Skipton)

I don’t know if it’s relevant to the case at all, Sergeant Everill, but the suspect appears to be located in a small, tiled room as he dictates this message (I’m guessing it might possibly be a bathroom, a cellar, or – at a stretch of the imagination – a cell of some kind). There’s an echo to his voice as he speaks, some audible ‘straining’ (I’ve italicized these segments for you), the rustle of tissue paper, and, at the very end, the sound of a low-flush cistern being pulled
.

You may notice that I have taken the decision to blank out much of the swearing in the text; this is actually because I named my only daughter, Bronwen, after one of The Little Wren’s most beautiful songs – ‘My White-Breasted Bronwen’ (off his 1994 album
Up on the Downs).
Bronwen is currently only twelve years old
.

Prior to transcribing this tape, I had considered myself quite a fan of Frank K. Nebraska (as he now insists on calling himself). I even played his first hit, ‘A Big Whistle (for a Little Wren)’, as the first dance at my wedding! Of course at that stage I didn’t have the slightest inkling that in real life he would turn out to be such a stuck-up, arrogant, filthy-mouthed little b*****d
.

Please feel free to get back to me if you have any queries about the text, as it stands –

WPC Graves

Troy – Frank here – and I’m so f***ing,
f***ing
ANGRY I hardly know where to put myself… Where
are
you? I need to
talk
to you for f**k’s sake!
[Sound of FKN grappling, clumsily, with a door handle]

I’m still lying low in the wilds of West Yorkshire struggling to get some s**t together for the new album…
[Sound of FKN pushing a door open and entering a small, tiled room]
Of course
this is on the remotest off-chance that you actually even care where I am or what I’m doing with myself right now…
[Sound of FKN petulantly slamming the door shut behind him]

I tried your mobile, but I kept getting sent direct to your message-bank, so then I tried the office, and your haughty, jobsworth of a secretary tells me you’ve swanned off to the f***ing
Maldives
for three weeks, you jammy c**t!

Why the f**k aren’t you picking up your messages? I mean who the hell gave
you
carte blanche to suddenly go all f***ing Garbo on me?

Huh?!

Because I’ll tell you something for nothing, here, Troy: if you
had
picked up those messages you’d be shi**ing your f***ing Bermuda
shorts
right now. You’d be standing, weeping, in the full glare of the tropical sun, on a wide expanse of f***ing, steaming tarmac, desperately trying to hitch a ride back to the UK on the next available f***ing flight. Your
ears
would be bleeding, Troy, because I am f***ing
livid
. I am incandescent with f***ing
rage
here, Troy.

Oh, yeah, and I can’t be f***ed writing all this down, so I’m recording it on my Dictaphone – as per – then couriering the tape direct to your hotel – or your t**tty stilted
chalet –
or wherever the hell else you’re parking your slack, white, lazy, pock-marked arse right now.

Kizzy’s sitting by the front door with her coat on, as we speak, primed and ready to make the drop.

[FKN expectorates, noisily, into what sounds like a sink]

The poor kid’s been in f***ing
tears
all morning, Troy. She’s inconsolable. She
hates
what this sh*t is doing to me! She thinks it’s
criminal
that you’ve fucked off like that, without so much as a f***ing by-your-leave. She thinks it’s completely, f***ing unprofessional, as it happens.

So f*ck you, Troy! You’ve made a beautiful, heavily pregnant young girl sob her gorgeous little heart out. You’ve broken her f***ing
heart
, Troy. You’ve broken my
unborn
child’s
heart, Troy. So I hope you’re f***ing satisfied with that! I hope your three, tawdry weeks in the f***ing Maldives was
worth
all that, huh?!
Huh?!

I also hope, for the sake of our twenty-year-long relationship (I won’t call it a ‘friendship’, that’d be rather stretching the point) – as well as your miserable little
career
, Troy – that you have a Dictaphone handy in your five-star f***ing paradise island retreat…
[FKN expectorates, noisily – for a second time – into what sounds like a sink]

So you’d better have a nice big sip of your Jim Beam, Troy, pay off the syphilitic ladyboy, raise the blinds, turn the volume up to max, and listen very,
very
carefully, because I’m only planning to say this once, okay?

Okay?

Right. Good. Now cast back your booze-addled mind for a moment, if you will, and try to recall how directly before you thoughtlessly buggered off to the Maldives (casually leaving all your hardworking clients – especially
this
one – totally in the lurch) you kindly forwarded me the first draft copy of my so-called ‘autobiography’ (working title):
Frank K. Nebraska’s: Blowing The Whistle
(a title which, for the record, I hate. It sounds like a coy pseudonym for the act of gay fellatio).

D’you remember that, Troy? Gradually coming back to you yet?
Yeah?
Great! Fantastic!

Well, what you might
not
realize, Troy, is that in your frenzied rush to catch your stinking flight, you also inadvertently enclosed the letter which the esteemed ‘scribe’ of said autobiography – Robert Pole – sent, for your private perusal, with the first draft of the book.

Yes, Troy, the letter. Remember the letter? Remember Robert Pole’s ‘entertaining’ letter about the many ‘hilarious’ foibles of your loyal client and gullible paymaster, Frank K. Nebraska? Remember the letter, Troy? You do? Good. Excellent.

Well, you accidentally
enclosed
that disgusting letter
in
the book.

You sent the letter to
me
, Troy.

Like I say, it was a private letter, addressed to you, personally, so just as soon as I realized the mistake you’d made, I folded it up and sent it straight back.

[Sound of a hand slapping repeatedly against a tiled wall]

OF COURSE I BLOODY DIDN’T!

WHAT KIND OF A FEEBLE IDIOT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR?!

I READ IT, TROY!

I F***ING READ IT!

OF COURSE I F***ING DID!

[Heavy panting]

I
read
the letter, Troy…
[Slightly calmer, now]

I read
every damn syllable
of it!

You forwarded the letter to me, Troy – is this actually sinking in yet?
Is it?! –
and I have
read the letter
, Troy.
[Dramatic five-second pause]

So thanks very much for that
[Insincere]
. No, I mean it. Thanks a f***ing
bunch
for that, old boy.
[Sound of heavy, plastic lid being lifted]

You’ve done me a great service there, my friend. I really mean it: a
great
service. It was just what I needed –
exactly
what I needed. It was a gift, Troy – a
gift –
to finally find out what that repulsive, cock-eyed, snivelling little secretary
you
hired (and generously paid over
10 per cent
of my piddling advance to) actually thinks of me.

That was great, Troy.

That was very, very special.

Merry Christmas to you, too, Troy.

That was just… just f***ing
wonderful
.

It really was.

[Sound of zipper being unfastened]

I call him a ‘secretary’, Troy, because that is exactly what he is. A secretary. A glorified f***ing secretary. Nothing more, nothing less. And – for the record – I don’t give a flying f**k
how many other books he’s co-written. He could’ve co-written
War and
f***ing
Peace
for all I care. He could’ve co-written Katie Price’s f***ing
Pony
novels for all I care…
Bollocks
to him!

He’s just a
secretary
, a pointless, gibbering, insignificant little secretary. He took dictation. That’s all the slimy, self-important little turd
did
in my case.

So maybe he indented the odd paragraph or two… Maybe he added the occasional comma and full stop… Maybe he did a smattering of
entirely gratuitous
editing… I mean where’s all the fascinating stuff about the development of my political philosophy gone? That was gold dust, f***ing
gold
dust! Why’d he get rid of it all?

Huh?!

I mean I
told
you how I didn’t want…

[
Straining]

I
told
you, right from the start, how I didn’t want anyone ghosting the autobiography for me. I was determined, from the very off, to write the damn thing myself.

And
why
was that, Troy? Eh?
Why
was that? [
Expectant pause]

Because I’m a famous
storyteller
, you bloody moron! It’s what I
do
. I have a special
genius
for telling stories! I was kissed by the f***ing
Blarney
Stone! It’s in my
blood
! And we both know that if I’d had even so much as a
minute
to f***ing spare I would’ve put pen to paper myself – or I’d’ve got Kizzy to put pen to paper
for
me – and I would’ve written one of the best autobiographies of ALL TIME, Troy. Absolutely no f***ing doubt about it.

But the turnaround was way too tight, Troy. You bungled the contract, and I ended up with only a paltry
three years
in which to
deliver
the stupid thing, and by the third year I was still gestating, Troy! I was still cultivating my ideas. I was still marinating my themes.

I just didn’t have the f***ing
opportunity
to get this project
fully operational, Troy, because – unlike our wonderful Mr Pole – I actually have a flourishing and viable
career
to manage. I have a
profile
to maintain. I have a hungry – an
insatiable –
f***ing
public
to entertain.