Dead Air (22 page)

‘No, I didn’t get the taxi’s number,’ I said. ‘Who ever does?’

‘I do.’

‘Oh yeah? What was the number of the last taxi you—?’

‘Four four one seven.’

‘Oh, Ceel, you’re kidding.’

‘No. I used always to leave gloves, scarves, bags, umbrellas and so on in taxis. Strangely, it was always easier to remember the taxi’s number than to—’

‘All right, all right,’ I breathed.

‘Kenneth, don’t you want to take your clothes off ?’

‘Aah …’

‘Or mine?’

‘Well, ah …’

‘I think we need drugs,’ Ceel said decisively. ‘Luckily I have contacts.’

She was right.

‘Do you know what John does when he is not with me, or away on one of his trips overseas?’

‘No.’

‘Do you want to know?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘He goes caving.’

‘He does what?’

‘He goes caving. He spelunks. He descends into caverns under the ground. Mostly in England and Wales, but also abroad.’

‘That,’ I breathed, ‘is so
not
a gangster thing to do.’

We were lying on a giant circular table in one of the rooms in the Dome suite. The Dome itself, in fact, at the very top of the whole hotel. We had made it comfortable with sheets and pillows from the bedroom, two rooms away through the sitting area. The Dome room had numerous small, high windows that looked straight down Waterloo Bridge, part-way up the Aldwych and down most of Drury Lane. If we’d stood up we’d also have had a view to part of the Strand. There were twelve severe, formal-looking seats spaced round the giant table. Even all the soft accoutrements hadn’t made the solid surface all that comfortable. The bed would have been more forgiving, but this was how, and where, Ceel had wanted it.

‘Mobile phones do not work in caves,’ she said after a long time.

I thought. I thought twice, in fact. ‘Don’t suppose he goes scuba-diving, too, does he?’

‘Yes.’

I thought some more. ‘Why would he need that excuse?’

‘I don’t know. That is why I think perhaps it is not an excuse.’

There was silence for a while. Ceel cuddled up to me. She hadn’t quite managed to get the suite up to what she considered to be full operating temperature yet, so perhaps she was cold. I lay there, perspiring gently, and thought about what Craig had said, about love.

Some time passed, then she murmured into my shoulder, ‘You have my mobile number, don’t you?’

I closed my eyes. Holding her had never felt more precious. ‘Yes,’ I admitted.

She said nothing for a while, but I felt her give what might have been a small nod. ‘You have been careful,’ she said. ‘I appreciate that. I understand now why you were concerned. I’m touched. But please; be even more careful. You have the number committed to memory?’

‘I know it by heart.’

‘Remove it from your phone.’

‘All right.’

‘Thank you.’

‘This girl. Was she very beautiful?’

‘Very attractive, in a sort of obvious, blond way.’

Ceel was silent for a while. Then she said, ‘I feel jealous. I know I should not, but I do.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Me too.’

‘Well, I feel jealous of your husband.’

‘And yet there are times you and I meet up when the last person to make love to me was you.’

I thought. ‘I don’t know what’s the more pathetic,’ I said quietly. ‘The fact that that does actually make me feel a little better, or the fact that we are clutching at this straw in the first place. It’s not just about sex, Ceel. I mean that I’m jealous he gets to be with you more than I do, that you two can have something like a normal life together.’

‘It is not very normal. He is away so much.’

‘No, but you can walk across a street together, holding hands.’

Another pause. ‘He never holds my hand.’

‘You’re admitting you assaulted this woman, Mr McNutt?’

‘It was self-defence, but yes.’

‘I see.’

‘Oh, shit,’ I breathed.

There was no comeback. Nobody was going to press charges, after all, and, of course, as I’d expected, the cops did nothing. At least nothing they ever told me about. They couldn’t even test Phil’s jacket for traces of rohypnol; a visiting friend had assumed the jacket in the bag was to be taken to a dry cleaners, and done just that.

Never mind. I’d fulfilled my part of the bargain and reported the incident to the police like a good little citizen.

‘Well, maybe, like, we should leak it to the press. Yuh?’

The speaker was Nina Boysert, Mouth Corp Group PR chief and Special Adviser to Sir Jamie, whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean. She didn’t say ‘Ya’, like Raine - sorry, ‘Raine’; hers was more of a ‘Yuh’.

Meant the same thing.

We all looked at her. This was her office, an even more spacious one than Station Manager Debbie’s. Not high up, but wide and deep and airy and with a pleasant view over Soho Square. Also present were Debbie, Phil and the Group’s chief in-house legal mind, Guy Boulen.

‘Ah, the police did say not to,’ Boulen pointed out. We’d covered this point about a minute ago. Boulen was an oddly rugged man to be a lawyer; about my age, tall and fit-looking and with a face that appeared wind-burnt. Strapping, would be the word; looked like he belonged halfway up a fell in the rain and cloud, manfully scrutinising a compass and leading a bunch of deprived kids on a character-building hike. Softly spoken, though; Home Counties accent.

‘Yuh, but, like, they’ve got their job to do and we’ve got ours, right? We have to think what’s best for the Group.’ Nina was business-suit posh; long, not inelegant face, perfect teeth and silky skin; black hair, bobbed. Deep voice. She’d been head-hunted for the Mouth Corp from an internationally renowned management consultancy firm. Still under thirty.

‘May I call you Nina?’ I asked her with a smile.

‘Ah, yuh. Yuh, sure.’

‘Ms Boysert,’ I said, not smiling. ‘My life might be in danger. I’m not entirely sure from what you’ve been saying whether you’ve fully grasped that fact. I’m asking for help from my professional colleagues, and from the firm that employs me. Now—’

It was the ‘Now’ that did it. Phil jumped in after that.

Of course what I’d
wanted
to say was, Listen, bitch, fuck the Group, fuck the shareholders and fuck Sir Jamie, too;
I
was the one being bundled off into the depths of the East End in the middle of the night to have fuck knows what done to me, let’s focus on what’s best for
me
… but I’d reined myself in and come out with a little speech that I thought was far more polite, even with the sarky and probably unnecessary bit at the start about not using the woman’s first name.

‘I think Phil’s right,’ Boulen said, to whatever Phil had said (I’d kind of missed it, still glaring at Ms Corporate Good). ‘This is a legal matter and we have to take our lead from the police.’

‘Yuh, but I’m thinking, like, what about the publicity? I mean, this would be quite big news, yuh? I’m seeing the front page of the
Standard
; Top DJ’s Death Threat Hell. And a photograph, of course. Something like that, yuh? I mean, that’s big. We can’t ignore that; you almost can’t buy that.’

There was an awkward silence.

I said, ‘Are you for fucking real?’

‘Look, Ken!’ Phil said quickly, rising and clapping me on the shoulder. ‘You’ve had a tough couple of days; you don’t really need to be here. I can look after things. Why don’t I meet you in the Bough, half an hour, say? Yeah?’ He waggled his eyebrows at me. Guy Boulen was nodding fractionally, his expression somewhere between a grin and a grimace. Debbie was looking at the floor.

‘What a splendid idea.’ I got up, looked round them. ‘Excuse me.’

As I got to the door I heard a deep female voice say, ‘Was it something one of us said, yuh?’

‘Well done,’ Phil said, clinking glasses in the Groucho that evening. We were in the wee nook with the blue plaque, up in the snooker level. ‘You told the police what happened and, to my utter astonishment, you didn’t tell Nina Boysert exactly what you think of her. Proud of you.’

‘Thank you so fucking much. Do I get a badge or something? ’

‘I’m having a special commemorative medal struck tomorrow. ’

‘Did she shut the fuck up about leaking the story eventually or did you just throw her out the fucking window?’

‘That would be Option A there.’ Phil nodded. ‘Though it did take Boulen and I threatening to resign if she insisted on going ahead. I did also somewhat talk up your acquaintanceship with Sir Jamie; she might have got the impression that if anything happened you didn’t like, you’d take it up with the Dear Owner the next time you’re playing polo together.’

I shook my head, drank. ‘I bet she leaks it anyway.’

‘I don’t know.’ Phil thought. ‘Wouldn’t like to hazard a guess. But I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I’ve never met anybody who thought quite so much like a spreadsheet.’

‘Well, never mind. Fuck it. Fuck her.’

‘Hmm. Well, after you.’

‘Hey, look, Phil, can I stay at your place tonight?’

‘Jo’s away again, is she?’

‘Yeah. I hate sleeping alone on the boat.’

‘Well, no, you can’t. Sorry.’

‘Oh, come on.’

‘No.’

‘I’m vulnerable! Don’t abandon me!’

‘Stay with Craig.’

‘He’s got Nikki staying for the weekend.’

‘So?’

‘They don’t want me there.’

‘So get a hotel.’

‘
I
don’t want me there. I …’

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Let me stay at yours, Phil. Come on. Please.’

‘No. You’re probably safe now; they know you’ll be wary.’

‘I’m
trying
to be fucking wary! That’s why I’m asking you to let me stay with you.’

‘No.’

‘Please.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I have a friend staying.’

‘What, the compulsively tidy jacket-cleaner?’

‘What about Ed?’

‘He’s away.’

‘Oh. Forgot to tell you; those Winsome people rang again, just before we left.’

‘The
Breaking News
company?’

‘Yes. The thing with this Holocaust denial bloke is back on. Second or third week in December, though that’s still tentative. ’

‘Tentative. Really. Right. But don’t go changing the subject. Come on; let me stay over. You’ll never know I’m there.’

‘No. Stay in a hotel, or go back to the boat.’

‘Look, man, I’m fucking
frightened
, don’t you understand?’

‘You have to face it sometime.’

‘I don’t want to fucking
face
it! I want to fucking
live
!’

‘Even so.’

‘I’m thinking about asking Ed to get me a gun.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’

Six

LONDON EYE

‘Nah, mate. Sorry, no.’

‘Ed! Come on!’

‘Na. Now, that’s wrong, Ken. You shouldn’t even have asked me. Let’s forget you did. Look at the view instead.’

I sighed and leaned back against the curve of glass. We were on the London Eye, riding one of the big, bulbous cars on its grand forty-minute rotation through the air. We were about two-thirds of the way round now, slowly descending. It was a bright end-of-November day and the air was clear. Most of Ed’s extended family were here, laughing and pointing and generally having a fun time. Ed had reserved the car for us. The blazered attendant and I were the only white people on board.

I’d become quite worried on the way up; it had suddenly struck me that the Eye would be a perfect terrorist target. The supporting legs stretched out behind it - looking, I thought, a lot like the marching hammers in
The Wall
- splaying down to the ground by the side of the old GLC building … they and their supporting wires and cables suddenly appeared terribly vulnerable. Jesus, I’d thought; a big enough bomb there, blowing the whole structure forward to fall into the river just a bridge away from Westminster … but we were on the way down now, my atypical paranoia subsiding along with the gradually flattening view. Downriver, the tall white support towers of the new works on the Hungerford Bridge seemed to echo the architecture of the Eye itself.

Ed had just come back from DJing in Japan and this was the first chance I’d had to catch up with him. It had taken a good twenty-five minutes - and the passing of the best of the view at the top of the circle - for me to get him alone.

‘Would you get me a gun if I was black?’

‘
Wot
?’ Ed said loudly, incredulous. A few of his family turned and looked at us. I guess we’d made it obvious this was meant to be a private word. He lowered his voice. ‘Listen to youself, man. Ken! I mean, fuckin ell.’

I shook my head, patted his forearm and sat forward, my head in my hands. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, sighing. ‘I’m sorry, Ed. That was, that was truly, truly shit. I …’

‘Look, mate, I can see you’re really shaken up wif this. Don’t blame you.’ Ed leaned down so that he was level with me and he could say even more quietly, ‘But a shooter is not going to solve your problems. It’ll just add to them. Plob’ly.’