The Vanishing Point (13 page)

Despite George having made it clear that the only authorised interviews would be written by me, and the only photographs would be supplied by a snapper employed by his agency, the media camp at the gates never seemed to diminish. There was a hardcore of half a dozen who were there every day. Scarlett couldn’t take the baby out for a walk; the long lenses could pick her up two fields away.

Out of sheer frustration – and, probably, a nagging picture desk – one of the notorious paps, a favourite of the red-tops, actually climbed over the wall and got inside the compound. Scarlett raised her head at the end of a length of the pool to see him banging off a clutch of shots through the window. She had the good sense not to attack him, calling the local police instead, followed in short order by a local contractor who spent the next week coating the top of the perimeter wall with glass shards.

Maggie was in seventh heaven. Nothing sells on the news-stands like a cute baby and a celebrity mum, especially with a bit of aggravation on the side. Me and Scarlett, we ran the gamut from A is for antenatal to Z is for Z’baby designer clothes. The popular version of Scarlett was constantly reinforced by endless photo spreads bolstered up by my image-making. I look back at it now, and I’m not proud of myself.

However much I might wish otherwise, there’s no denying that I played a role in how things went so very badly wrong.

18

T
he afternoon Leanne turned up, Scarlett and I were supposed to be working on a feature about getting back into exercise after a C-section. It was early summer and she’d sent Marina off with Jimmy for a walk in the woods. ‘He needs fresh air,’ she’d insisted in the teeth of Marina’s mutinous glare. ‘If you walk through the woods for about twenty minutes, there’s a pond with ducks. Take some bread, feed the ducks.’

‘He is seven months old,’ Marina said. ‘He’s not interested in ducks.’

‘Of course he is. All babies like feeding the ducks. Go on, off you go.’

About ten minutes after they’d left, I understood why Scarlett had been so eager to get rid of Marina. I was in the kitchen brewing up when I saw a taxi pull up at the gate. The intercom buzzed and I picked it up. ‘Yes?’ I said, glancing at the video screen.

I nearly dropped the handset. I could have sworn it was a brunette version of Scarlett squinting up at the camera from the back of the cab. ‘Is that you, Scarlett?’ she said, northern vowels flat as a toasted teacake.

‘Who is this?’

‘Tell her it’s Leanne. Her cousin Leanne. She’s expecting me.’

‘Hang on a minute.’

I put the handset down and shouted down the hallway. ‘Scarlett? There’s someone at the gate says she’s your cousin.’

She ran down the hallway, a wicked grin on her face. ‘This is going to crack you up, Steph. Swear to God, crack you up.’

She grabbed the handset and howled gleefully. ‘Leanne, you bugger! Get your arse in here.’ And buzzed her in.

‘You never mentioned a cousin,’ I said, following Scarlett back down the hall to the front door. ‘I wanted to talk to family for the book, you know that. You said they were all wasters and wankers.’

She gave a wicked grin. ‘You’ve seen Chrissie and Jade. You can’t argue with that.’

‘So who’s this Leanne?’

She stopped and looked me square in the face. ‘Maybe I just wanted to keep control, Steph.’ She carried on walking, talking over her shoulder. ‘Leanne grew up on the same estate as me. Our dads were brothers but her mum’s Irish. After she split up with Leanne’s dad, she moved back to Dublin with Leanne. When we were kids, everybody said we were like sisters. I wanted to see if it was still true.’ Scarlett opened the door as the cab drew up. She turned and winked at me. ‘I have got such an evil plan, Steph.’

Looking at them side by side as they played catch-up in the kitchen, I could see the differences between them. Leanne’s face was longer, her nose a little more snub. Her ears were quite different in shape, but if her hair had been blonde and hanging loose, the resemblance would have been quite eerie. Her voice was different too – a little higher in pitch, a bit less Northern in its inflexions. I was beginning to have some very uncomfortable suspicions.

After they’d got up to speed with each other’s gossip, and Leanne had made the appropriate noises over the latest photos of Jimmy, Scarlett took her off to one of the guest rooms down by the pool to unpack and have a shower.

‘You’re up to something,’ I said as soon as Scarlett returned.

She grinned. ‘And how. There was this totally weird old movie on the other night,
Dead Ringers
it was called. It was about these twins—’

‘I’ve seen it,’ I said hastily. One of my pet hates is when people try to explain the plot of something they’ve seen or read. I suppose it’s because they’re never succinct or clear, and I get enough of that at work.

‘Right. So you see where I’m going with this?’

‘You’re going to pimp your cousin to Joshu?’

As I saw the look of shock and hurt on her face, I realised I’d underestimated Scarlett yet again. ‘I’m joking,’ I said hastily, trying to cover myself.

She looked uncertain for a moment, but went with it. ‘You have a weird sense of humour sometimes, Steph. I love him, you know that. Even if he is neither use nor ornament most of the time. No, what I’m thinking is Leanne could be, like, my body double. Like they have in the movies.’ She opened the cupboard and took out a tall glass pitcher. ‘You remember when Brad Pitt made that movie,
Troy
?’

Wondering where this was going, I nodded. ‘Bloody awful film.’

‘Never mind the film. He worked out like crazy to bulk up for it, but he ended up all out of proportion. Great shoulders and chest and six pack, but he still had skinny legs. So he had a leg double.’ Scarlett emptied a tray of ice cubes into the jug and added a terrifying slug of Bacardi.

‘Are you kidding?’

‘No, I’m dead serious. The reason I know is that they used a lad who was a student at Leeds Uni. He was Brad Pitt’s leg double. And see, I thought Leanne could be my clubbing double. Have you seen the pina colada mix?’

Luckily, her head was in the fridge so she couldn’t see my face. Words failed me. I simply stared, incredulous.

‘Think about it, Steph.’ She emerged from the fridge, waving the plastic bottle of cocktail mix. ‘Got it. Here’s the thing. Most people who see me out and about in the clubs, they don’t know me. They’ve only ever seen me on the TV. And everybody knows people look kind of different in real life.’ Scarlett poured the ready-made mixture over the rum and ice, then stirred it with a wooden spoon. ‘And Leanne sounds more like me than me. She’s totally into all that
Yes!
magazine crap. She walks the walk and talks the talk. She could be me for public consumption, out on the razz, giving the gossip columns and the paps all they need to keep them happy. That way, Joshu gets somebody to play with and show off out on the town, and I get to not go out clubbing.’ She plonked a glass of pina colada in front of me and looked pensive. ‘And if we’re not fighting all the time about me not wanting to go out, maybe I’ll feel more like shagging him. Which is worth a try, right?’

I took a big drink. I had a feeling it was going to take a fair bit of pina colada, even at Scarlett’s industrial strength, to make this sound like a good idea. ‘And she’s up for this?’

‘I haven’t exactly gone into the details. I didn’t want her blabbing to her Irish mates. All I said was that there might be a job for her on my staff.’ She poured herself a drink and chinked her glass against mine. ‘Here’s to my body double.’

I snorted. ‘Your staff? What have you told her?’

Scarlett looked offended. ‘There’s Marina. And there’s Georgie.’

Somehow, I didn’t think that was how George pictured him-self. But I let it go. ‘You really think you need a body double?’

She sighed, deep and heartfelt. ‘I need something. I feel haunted by those fucking jackals at the gate. Every place I go, they’re on my shoulder. Unless you’ve been there, you’ve got no idea how stressful it is. Sometimes the thought of going outside the gates makes me feel ill. Like I’m going to throw up. I realise people think it’s cheeky to complain when publicity’s what I live by. I mean, I know it’s getting my face all over the papers that pays the bills. But surely that doesn’t mean I’ve got no right to a private life? What about Jimmy? Does he not have a right to grow up without some fucking hack on his tail? I tell you, Steph, it’s dragging me down. And I thought maybe Leanne could take the heat off a bit.’

I could see her point. And my heart did go out to her. Even the most avid publicity hound needed to pull the drawbridge up sometimes. ‘Could Leanne hold her nerve? Has she got the bottle?’

Scarlett nodded. ‘I think so. The thing is, Steph, I need to keep my profile nice and high. I’ve been offered a TV series. It’s daytime, but it’s a chance at something with a bit more oomph to it. It’s going to be a kind of chat show – sort of, Where are they now? Every week we’ll be looking at a couple of reality TV show stars and seeing what’s happened to them. Some that’ve gone on to make something of themselves, some that have ended up on their beam ends.’

‘Sort of, triumph or tragedy,’ I muttered.

Scarlett, with no sense of irony, pounced on my words. ‘That’s not a bad title,’ she said. ‘Triumph or tragedy. I’ll run it past the producer.’

‘And you’re thinking Leanne can be Scarlett by night and you can be Scarlett by day? Are you sure you can trust her not to drop you in it?’

Scarlett sipped her drink and considered. ‘She’s always been loyal, our Leanne. She’s a year younger than me. Always looked up to me. I don’t think she’d grass me up, not even if there was an earner in it.’

‘An earner in what?’ Leanne walked back into the kitchen. With her hair swathed in a towel, the resemblance was quite unsettling. She sat down at the breakfast bar and Scarlett fixed her a drink.

‘Just a little something I’ve got in mind.’

Leanne made a dent in her drink and smacked her lips. ‘Ooh, that’s bloody lovely, our Scarlett. Nice room, too. I’ve never had an en suite before, except in a bed and breakfast. I could get used to this.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. I could get used to having you around.’

‘So what’s this job you’ve been hinting at? You know I’ve got no secretarial skills or owt. All I’ve ever done is work in the nail bar. And you don’t need to bring me over from Dublin just to keep your manicure up to scratch.’

Scarlett flashed me a quick look. ‘You know how people used to mistake us for each other when we were kids?’

Leanne giggled. It was identical to Scarlett’s irritating cackle. ‘Eeeh, do you remember when Miss Evans thought I was you and dragged me along to the head for your bollocking?’

Scarlett gave me an ‘I told you so’ smile. ‘I reckon if you dyed your hair, we could still get away with it. What do you think?’

Leanne eyed her critically. ‘I’d need to do my eyebrows a bit different. But if it wasn’t your nearest and dearest, I reckon I could pull it off. Why? Are you making some porno flick where you don’t want to show your scar?’

‘Fuck off. Of course I’m not doing porn. I might be a slapper but I’ve got standards, Leanne Higgins.’ Scarlett dug me in the ribs. ‘You tell her.’

‘Me? Why me?’

‘Because that’s what you’re good at. Explaining stuff so it sounds normal.’

It was, I suppose, one way of describing my job. So I outlined Scarlett’s suggestion to Leanne, emphasising the secrecy of the project at every stage. At first, she looked sceptical. But as I outlined what Scarlett wanted, she started to look more interested. By the end, she was grinning.

‘And that’s all you want me to do? Go out on the razz three or four times a week and pretend I’m you? You want to hire me to do your bad behaviour for you? That’s mental, that is,’ Leanne said, shaking her head and chuckling.

‘That’s all there is to it. You’d be staying here. Obviously you couldn’t go out when I’m out. I can’t be in two places at once. But it’s not like you’d be a prisoner here. You can go out shopping and shit when I’m home with Jimmy.’

Leanne drained her drink and waved the glass at her cousin. ‘Gimme another one of them. If I’m going to pretend to be you, I need to get into training. And what about Joshu? What does he think about all this?’

‘He doesn’t know about it yet.’

Now Leanne looked anxious. ‘But he is going to know about it, right? Because there’s limits to how far I’m prepared to go with this. And sleeping with him is definitely off limits. I mean, what you do is your business, but I wouldn’t sleep with a Paki.’

‘Jesus, Leanne, you can’t go round saying shit like that. That’s how I got in trouble in the first place.’

Leanne shrugged. ‘I’m not going round saying it, am I? This is just us, in your kitchen. I’m not stupid. I wouldn’t say that where anybody else could hear me. But it’s true, all the same. I’m not shagging him.’

Exasperated, Scarlett slammed her glass down on the counter. ‘Of course you’re not bloody sleeping with him. He’s my husband. I love him. I don’t want him catching something off the likes of you.’

I thought war was going to break out. But I clearly understood nothing of the history between these two women. Instead of a catfight, they burst out laughing and playfully punched each other’s shoulders. ‘What are you like,’ Scarlett said.

‘Mental,’ Leanne replied immediately, as if it was their own personal comedy routine rather than a straight lift from a
Catherine Tate Show
sketch. ‘What are you like?’

‘Mental.’

And that was that. The whole arrangement had taken about twenty minutes to set up. A smarter woman than me would have picked up the clue phone and learned something about Scarlett that afternoon. But I was slow, and it took me a lot longer.

19

M
aggie had fixed me up with a new project ghosting for teenage twins who had rowed the Atlantic, so I didn’t see much of Leanne and Scarlett over the next couple of months. Well, I didn’t see them in the flesh, but it was hard to pick up a red-top without being aware of ‘Scarlett’. Between the teasers for the new TV show and paparazzi shots of her staggering out of clubs in the small hours, often with Joshu, the coverage must have plastered a smile all over George’s face.

When I finally resurfaced from the Atlantic, I met Scarlett for lunch near the production offices for her new show,
Real Life TV
. We settled into a corner booth with a bottle of Prosecco and a couple of bowls of pasta and she passed me a bundle of photos. There was a clutch of recent shots of Jimmy, who looked cuter with every passing month. I’d surprised myself by how attached I’d grown to him. I’d missed his cuddles and giggles while I’d been locked down with someone else’s book. ‘He’s started pulling himself up on the furniture,’ Scarlett said fondly. ‘He’s into everything. I tell you, Steph, it’s been a real bonus having Leanne around. She’s really good with him. Now Jimmy’s on the move, it’s great having an extra pair of hands on deck.’ She chopped her spaghetti up with the side of her fork and began spooning it in while I studied the photos.

As well as the pics of Jimmy, there were several shots of Leanne looking weirdly similar to Scarlett. I could only tell the difference because I was looking for it. ‘It doesn’t confuse him? With her looking so much like you? Because I have to tell you, Scarlett, the resemblance is uncanny.’

She swallowed a mouthful of pasta, shaking her head. ‘Doesn’t seem to. If we’re both in the room he heads for me. I read somewhere that they go by smell as much as by sight. Obviously I smell different from Leanne.’ She grinned. ‘That’ll be the smelly Irish tinker in her.’ She held her hands up defensively when she saw the look on my face. ‘I’m only winding you up,’ she said. ‘You’re so easy, Steph.’

‘And you’re so bad. It’s great that Jimmy’s OK with Leanne. What about Joshu?’

‘He seems pretty chilled about it all. It means he gets to go out with a woman on his arm when he’s not actually working. And because we’re not arguing all the time, things between us got a bit sweeter. Which means it’s good all round. All I got to do is make sure nobody susses it out.’

‘How long are you planning on keeping this up?’

Scarlett frowned at her food, poking it with her spoon as if she expected it to develop independent life. ‘Obviously, not for ever.’

‘Obviously. But do you have some sort of timescale in mind? Is there a master plan?’

She gave me a sharp look. ‘Are you taking the piss?’

‘No, no way. If I’ve learned one thing about you, it’s your capacity to wrong-foot me. The predictable thing here would be for you to be clueless about the endgame. But I’ve spent enough time with you now to know that you wouldn’t have set the ball rolling without having a pretty good idea where you want it to end up. I shouldn’t have said, “Is there a master plan?” I should have said, “What’s the master plan?”’

Scarlett ate another mouthful of pasta. Then another. ‘Sort of,’ she said eventually.

‘Do you want to share it? Or is it going to be another one of your bloody surprises?’

‘I want to get my TV show established. It’s time to show people the truth. That there’s more to me than they think. And when that begins to dawn on them, I’ll get Leanne to start tapering off the night life.’ She gave me the familiar piratical grin. ‘Then you can write a load of articles about how I’m a new woman, a reformed character. How motherhood transformed me. I’ll be so boring the paps might just decide to leave me alone.’

‘And what’s going to happen to Leanne?’

‘I’ve bought her a nice place in Spain, up in the mountains.

There’s a big expat community up there. The property’s got a pool house, she can set up a nail boutique there. Her own little business. Obviously, she’ll have to go back to being brunette, maybe cut her hair short.’ She shrugged.

There was a ruthlessness to Scarlett’s planning that I almost admired. But not quite. I pushed my plate away. ‘And you think she’ll settle for that?’

‘Why not? A haircut and a dye job? It’s not much of a price to pay for being well set up at her age.’

‘I meant, giving up the party life. From what I’ve seen of Leanne, it’s meat and drink to her. She’s found her calling, Scarlett. Being out on the tiles at somebody else’s expense is her vocation. Why would she cheerfully give up all that fun for the expats up in the mountains in Spain?’

Scarlett’s surly expression wouldn’t have been out of place on a teenager. ‘Because that’s the deal. She knew when she took it on that it was only temporary. And she’s OK with that.’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ I said, not meaning it.

As it turned out, I was right about Leanne creating problems. Only they weren’t the problems I’d expected.

Three weeks later, I turned up at the hacienda without phoning ahead. I’d been up in Suffolk, being interviewed by a comedienne looking for someone to write her memoir of fifty years in the laughter game (her pitch, not mine . . .) and we’d wrapped up earlier than I’d anticipated. Mostly because I’d loathed the woman within five minutes of meeting her and I couldn’t be bothered to push for the job. Scarlett’s memoir was still selling well in the paperback charts and the rowing book was due out soon, so cashflow wasn’t an issue. And Maggie had tipped me the wink about a retail entrepreneur who wanted to write a book about leadership which sounded a lot more interesting.

So I’d escaped early from the suffocating knick-knack heaven inhabited by the comedienne. Rather than head straight home, I decided to call on Jimmy and his harem. I was out of luck, however. Marina had taken him to a toddler playgroup for the afternoon, and Scarlett was having a final wardrobe fitting for
Real Life TV
. Joshu was somewhere. Leanne had no idea where except that it wasn’t there. She was home alone and I was surprised by the effusiveness of her greeting. Don’t get me wrong, we’d always got on fine. But today she seemed both relieved and pleased that she had me to herself.

Leanne made coffee and raked in the cupboard for biscuits. ‘I’m glad you stopped in,’ she said. She produced a box of organic wholemeal biscuits in the shape of gingerbread men. ‘Do you want one of these? Jimmy loves them.’ She looked dubious.

‘I’m OK,’ I said. ‘How’s things?’

‘Well, that’s just it,’ she said, settling in with the air of a woman who has much to impart and generations of imparting behind her. ‘On the face of it, everything’s hunky-dory. I’m getting my face in the papers, Scarlett’s getting her beauty sleep and nobody suspects a thing.’

‘But . . . ? I’m hearing a “but” in there.’

Leanne fiddled with the handle of her mug. ‘Can we go outside? I’m gagging for a fag and Scarlett doesn’t like us smoking in the house. With Jimmy, you know?’

I followed her out into the garden. Weak sunlight made us both look anaemic and there was no heat in it. But it was better than being shut indoors with Leanne’s cigarette smoke. We hunkered down on a couple of curved wooden benches that looked across a pond where bored goldfish pottered around among the water lilies. I wondered whether it should be fenced off now Jimmy was mobile.

‘Not that Joshu pays any attention,’ Leanne continued. ‘He smokes whatever he likes, wherever he likes. And Scarlett lets him get away with it. She spoils Joshu more than she spoils Jimmy.’

‘Maybe that’s because Jimmy’s still young enough to learn.’

Leanne squinted through the smoke at me. ‘You’re not that keen on Joshu, are you?’

I shrugged. ‘He wouldn’t be my choice of a life partner. But Scarlett obviously sees something in him that I’m missing.’

Leanne sipped at her cigarette like she didn’t really mean it. ‘That’s kind of my problem,’ she said.

‘Has he been coming on to you?’ It wasn’t much of a reach.

‘No. He wouldn’t dare. I made that totally clear right from the off. When Scarlett first came up with the idea, we all sat down and thrashed it out. We have to, like, hold hands and have the odd kiss for the cameras. But I told him, any more than that, any tongues, any hands where they shouldn’t be and I’d cut his cock off. And Scarlett said she’d have his balls for earrings. When she does put her foot down, she can be well scary.’

‘So he’s been a good boy?’

‘With me, yeah.’ She dropped her half-smoked cigarette and ground it out. ‘Trouble is, I’m not the only woman out there, if you get my drift?’

I closed my eyes momentarily. I got her drift, in spades. What I wanted to know was how bad things were. ‘Tell me what you know. And then we’ll figure out what’s the best way to go,’ I said.

Leanne’s face crumpled in relief. She might look spookily like her cousin, but she had none of the iron in the soul that had lifted Scarlett out of the shit and into the glitz. What she wanted was to hand off responsibility for what she knew, and I was the lucky patsy. ‘When we’re out, we’re always in the VIP areas, yeah? You see a lot of the same faces. A lot of them are total slappers on the make. Once or twice, I noticed women starting to come over to Joshu then noticing me and backing off. I reckoned it was because they saw I was with him and realised he was spoken for. Then it dawned on me that they couldn’t not know he was spoken for, if you get my meaning?’

I nodded. Women like that read the red-tops and the slag mags as religiously as a nun reads her missal. It’s their guide to who’s in and who’s out, who’s single and who’s taken, who’s irredeemably fucked up and who’s still worth a go. They’d have read all about the wedding and the baby and the game of happy families being played out at the hacienda. They’d know Joshu was off limits.

Unless of course they had reason to know otherwise.

‘That must have made you wonder.’

‘You could say that. It made me start watching him a lot more closely. I cut back my drinking a bit, you know? Just to stay more alert, like. Tried to fade into the background. And I started to think that some of those slags were a bit too touchy-feely with him, if you catch my drift? Too much flirting. Too much touching. It’s hard to explain. Hard to pin down. But it’s the way you are with somebody you’ve slept with, as opposed to somebody you just fancy. Or somebody you’re pals with. Do you know what I mean?’

‘I think I do.’ I’ve seen it at publishers’ parties sometimes. People stand a bit too close to each other. They contrive to touch in apparently innocuous ways. Except they do it a lot more than friends or colleagues do. It’s hard to pinpoint anything you could confront them with, but it’s there if you’re looking. I even remember watching one series of
Masterchef
where I was convinced two of the contenders were having a fling based purely on the way they touched in passing. Maybe I’m living on fantasy island, but I don’t think so. I’m good at reading people. It’s part of the reason I’m successful at my job. ‘I don’t think you’re imagining things.’

Leanne pulled a scornful face. ‘I know I’m not. I thought I was, to begin with. But now I know I’m not. A couple of nights ago, I had a bit of an upset tummy. I was in the bathroom for about ten minutes. In this club, right, you come down the hall to the main VIP area and there’s like a lobby off to the side before the main area. And there was a lass there who hadn’t been around when I left. Anyway, she didn’t see me come back and neither did Joshu. And they were going at it hammer and tongs, out there away from the main room. She was telling him he couldn’t just pick her up and drop her like she was a packet of fags. That she was fed up of hearing about other women he’d shagged, fed up of hearing him bullshitting about leaving his wife, fed up of him being Mr Unreliable.’ She stopped, visibly shaken at the memory, and lit another cigarette.

‘What did you do?’

‘I wanted to rip the bitch’s hair out, for our Scarlett’s sake. But I knew if I did that, it would turn into a major ruck and it’d end up all over the papers. And our Scarlett doesn’t deserve that. If anybody deserves to be humiliated, it’s that little shit Joshu, not her. So I sneaked back down the hall to the loo then made loads of noise coming back. I pretended I was shouting back at somebody in the bathroom. And when I got to the lobby, they were gone. She was in the VIP area, but I think Joshu must have gone down into the main part of the club because he turned up on the decks about twenty minutes later. Did a guest rideout, all scratching and scribbling and generally showing off like the prize pillock he is.’

Elbows on her knees, Leanne sighed and stared gloomily across the pond. ‘I can’t stand that he’s making a fool out of her.’

‘You’re going to have to tell her.’

She gave me an ‘are you crazy?’ look then shook her head vigorously. ‘No way. She wouldn’t believe me. She’d think I was after him for myself or some muppet thing like that.’

‘You have to tell her because if there’s a loose cannon bitch out there, it’s going to come out in the press. It’s going to come at her out of the blue. It’s going to be sensationalised and exaggerated and she’s going to be utterly humiliated. That would be so much worse. Not to mention the fact that she’s going to realise you must have known about it. She’ll end up feeling stupid and humiliated and betrayed twice over – by Joshu and by you. And you’ll come off worse, because he might be a twat but she loves him.’

Leanne muttered, ‘Fuck’s sake,’ under her breath.

‘I don’t see that you have any alternative. And you need to do it sooner rather than later. Because that bitch is out there and she’s not going away.’