Swan (3 page)

* * *

Two weeks passed and there was still no sign of Chet
Vincent. Despite the absence of a body, America seemed to have satisfied itself
of the fact that he had most probably drowned. What other possible explanation
could there be? Why would a successful actor with the world at his feet,
millions in the bank, a glittering career and a beautiful girlfriend choose to
disappear off the face of the Earth? It was utterly inconceivable.

What gave more weight to the death theory were the
testimonies from the many celebrities who had witnessed the event. These were
people we could trust; familiar faces beloved by the public, who were incapable
of lying. The fact that it was Elton John telling you that Chet looked as happy
as Larry before he vanished, so couldn’t possibly done himself in, made it all
somehow more believable. Noble, even. Chet’s death had been a tragic accident,
we were told, a historic event, which would forever immortalise him in the
annals of Hollywood history, like his predecessors James Dean, River Phoenix
and Heath Ledger.

I cried for days. Almost as much as I had cried when
my mother died. Almost, but not quite. I sat in my jim-jams all day watching
his movies on repeat, eating
Häagen-
Dazs
ice cream. I didn’t
sleep. The brightness had been sucked out of everything. Inconsolable, I
couldn’t even be bothered to attend the candle-lit vigil they were having for
him at the O2.

The level of my grief took me by surprise. I scolded
myself that I was behaving more like a love-struck teenager than a
forty-something woman. Perhaps it was my lack of worldliness that had made me
this way, or perhaps that my empty life had to be filled by something - I don’t
know. Maybe I had never fully grown up. Or maybe a part of me was still that
enamoured teenager that had gone to the cinema in 1983 and fallen irrevocably
in love with a smoulderingly good-looking boy. Either way, the pain that I felt
was very real and very dark and I could see no way out of it.

‘I loved him so much. He was the best thing that
ever happened to me. I don’t know how I’m gonna make it through without him.’

The female voice was soft and girly but articulated
distinctly.

I glanced up at the TV. It was Maria Esposito giving
a statement to journalists at a press conference. Her hair was immaculate, and
she wore a dazzling red Versace dress. Her eyes were all smoky, her body lithe
and erect.

‘We were going to be married,’ she wept. ‘The night
before he died, he got down on one knee and proposed. When I said yes he told
me I’d just made him the happiest guy alive. I miss him with all my heart. His
light will never dim. The man’s a legend.’

My eyes narrowed.

Strange. I thought that what she was wearing was
wildly inappropriate for mourning. There was also something about her that didn’t
ring true, something that didn’t convince. Sure, she said and did all the right
things, but her words sounded hollow, like she was reading from a script. There
was no feeling there and the whole thing had a whiff of stage school about it.

She had never really loved him, I decided. For Maria
Esposito, this was just another photo opportunity, another chance to put
herself in the spotlight. She couldn’t have cared less about Chet. This
vacuous, narcissistic creature had only ever loved one person – herself.
But hey, that was showbiz for you.

No doubt her performance would no doubt add fuel to
the many conspiracy theories that were already doing the rounds of the
Internet. Since Chet’s disappearance, I had counted a total of thirty sites
that were dedicated to the idea that he had staged his own death. The most
popular blog, entitled
Chetvincentisnotdead.com
,
had at least a dozen postings of alleged ‘sightings.’ One of the most bizarre
showed a man in dark glasses and a bad wig walking around a Walmart in Connecticut
with a trolley full of Chet Vincent memorabilia. Another showed a man of
possibly Chinese descent creeping out the back of a truck before mounting a
horse and waving happily to the camera. The caption beneath read:
Chet Vincent heads for Mexico
. How
anyone could mistake this person for Chet is beyond me.

There was also a blog by a guy calling himself
Amadeus Kaufmann, who had written pages and pages about so-called hidden
meanings in Chet’s films. In
Intergalactic
,
for example, Amadeus argued that the scene where Chet’s character, Jett Starr
lay dying and said, ‘Nothing ever dies, nothing ever ends, this is just the
beginning,’ was prophetic. To me, it was a load of bullshit.

I had never been one for conspiracy theories. I knew
why people needed them, though. They gave you something to believe in, gave you
hope. Having lost both my parents, I knew that the only way to get over the
death of a loved one was first to accept it, then to let it go.
That was the only way.
No amount of
hoping was going to bring Chet Vincent back from the grave.

Chapter Three

The first time I became aware of my new neighbour
was about a month after he’d moved in. The flat across the landing had been
vacant for a while, but I hadn’t really noticed as I wasn’t in the habit of
socializing with the other tenants. Falcon Mews contained six flats, two on
each floor. In five years I hadn’t exchanged more than a passing hello with
anyone. Everyone kept to themselves, which was the way I liked it.

The first time my path crossed with David Powell was
on a Saturday afternoon. I was returning home from Tesco, laden with shopping
bags, and struggling to find my house keys, when I suddenly became aware of a
scruffy-looking man standing next to me. Silently, he reached past me and unlocked
the door to the outer building. Then he stood aside and held it open for me.

‘Thank you,’ I mumbled.

We walked in single file up the two flights of
stairs that led to the second floor. Then, without making eye contact, I stood
with my back to him, still fumbling for my keys in my handbag.

Damn. Why
on earth was it taking so long?

An uncomfortable silence hung between us, until finally,
I heard his front door shut. I realised then that this was my new neighbour.

After that, I didn’t see him around for a couple of
days. Then, on a Thursday evening, I returned home from work to find him
sitting on the steps to the outer building, looking like he was waiting for
someone. In his lap he cradled something that resembled a portfolio. As he saw
me approaching, he stood up with an expectant smile on his face.

Now I got to look at him properly. He was aged
between forty-five and fifty, five-foot ten in height, with bushy,
sand-coloured hair and steel-rimmed spectacles. His nose was very large and
very red, and he had wonky, discoloured teeth. The shabby tweed coat he wore,
which looked like it had been bought in a charity shop, gave him the air of a
kind of absent-minded professor. This observation was further enhanced when I
heard him speak for the first time.

‘Oh good, you’ve come to my rescue.’ He had the
deep, plummy voice of an old Etonian.

I didn’t return his smile. Not because I was
unfriendly, but because I was hopeless at talking to strange men.

‘I’ve been stuck outside for twenty minutes,’ he
continued. ‘I’ve rang on all the buzzers but no one’s answering. I’m sorry to
be a pain, but do you have the landlord’s telephone number? I appear to have
locked myself out.’

‘Sure,’ I said. Rummaging through my handbag, I took
out my phone and handed it to him. ‘It’s under the name Jim.’

For the next few minutes, I stood watching this
strange man pace up and down the street with my phone clamped to his ear. He
didn’t sound too impressed with the answers Jim was giving him. ‘What do you
mean forty minutes? But you only live down the road ... Do you want me to come
to you instead? What? No, okay ... well it doesn’t sound like I’ve got any
choice, does it?’ He snapped the phone shut and looked at me. ‘He says he’ll be
forty minutes. Can you believe it? What am I going to do until then? Well, I
suppose I shouldn’t complain. It’s my own silly fault for locking myself out.’

I nodded and put the phone back in my bag. Then I
let us both inside the building, and he followed me up to the second floor,
where he stood hesitantly outside my flat, like he wanted something.

‘Well, I’m sorry about what happened,’ I said. ‘I
hope Jim doesn’t leave you standing out here for too long.’

He smiled and shook his head. ‘I guess I’ll just
have to sit here and wait it out.’

Poor thing.

I felt for him, I really did, but if he was
expecting me to invite him in, he had another thing coming. After a stressful
day at work, the last thing I wanted was to entertain a visitor. So I said
goodbye and closed the door in his face.

For a couple of minutes, I roamed around my kitchen,
checking I’d switched off the oven, generally straightening things up. Then,
quite unexpectedly, I got a pang of conscience. I was being a bitch. Would it
really kill me to give the poor devil a bit of hospitality?

When I got back to the landing I found him sitting
crossed-legged with his back against his door. The portfolio was propped against
the banister railings.

‘Do you fancy a cup of tea while you’re waiting?’

‘I thought you’d never ask!’

I showed him into my living room and asked him if he
took milk and sugar.

‘Just milk. I’m trying to cut down on the sweet
stuff.’ He patted his stomach, which had a little potbelly.

I smiled insipidly and left to boil the kettle.
When I returned, I found him standing over by the wall, inspecting my shelf of
DVDs. ‘I see you’re a real movie fan,’ he smirked. ‘My, what a wide and varied collection
you’ve got.’

I frowned as I put the tray on the coffee table. Nearly
all my films starred Chet Vincent. I wondered if he was taking the piss.

He sat back on the sofa. I poured the tea and handed
him a cup.

‘Thanks. I’m not really much of a film man myself. Can’t
remember the last time I went to the pictures. I’m more in to fine arts.
Photography, Old Masters, that sort of thing.’

I didn’t say anything. Smoothing down my dress, I
took a seat in the chair opposite and looked down at my nails. He was making
annoying little slurping sounds with his tea.

‘Do you mind if I take my shoes off?’

‘Be my guest.’

He kicked off his battered loafers to reveal a pair
of holey red socks.

I winced. His feet absolutely stank.

I closed my eyes, tried hard to think of something,
anything that could take my mind off the terrible odour. I looked up at him.
There was a hint of amusement in his face, like he could sense my discomfort.

‘You wouldn’t happen to have a custard cream by any
chance, would you?’

I gritted my teeth. Now he was
really
taking liberties. And anyway, wasn’t he supposed to be ‘cutting
down on the sweet stuff?’

I brought him back a packet of Maryland cookies.

‘Thanks. I’m sorry; I don’t even know your name, do
I? I’m David Powell.’

‘Maddy.’

‘Is that short for Madeline?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what do you do?’

I paused before answering: ‘I work for the council.’
That always sounded far grander than saying I worked in a call centre.

He smacked his lips together, like he was relishing
the taste of the biscuit in his mouth. Crumbs stuck to his moustache and chin.
Something about this really irritated me.
[E2]
 

‘What do
you
do?’ I asked.

‘I’m a freelance photographer.’ He looked pointedly
at the portfolio lying on the floor.

‘Oh, you take pictures. Of what?’

‘Buildings, people, anything really. Whatever
assignment the newspaper gives me.’

‘Wow, that sounds exciting. Which newspaper do you
work for?’

‘Different ones. I move around a lot. That’s what I
love about freelancing. I can be spontaneous. It never gets boring.’

‘I wish I could do something like that. If must be
fun working for yourself.’

‘It is. Would you like to see some of my photos?’

‘Sure.’

I had really surprised myself. I wasn’t normally
this talkative around strangers, but something about David’s shambolic persona
put me at my ease. Had he been handsome, I might have clammed up, might have
gone all timid. But I felt no physical attraction to him whatsoever. I could be
totally candid with this badly dressed man with wonky teeth and smelly feet.

He passed me the portfolio. It was bound in black
leather and felt very expensive. I opened it and flipped through numerous
glossy, high-resolution prints of famous London landmarks: St Paul’s Cathedral,
the Gherkin, the London Eye.

They were good. Very good. I was impressed.

‘You’ve got all the sights here, haven’t you? Big
Ben, Trafalgar

Square ... ’