The Vanity Game (12 page)

I go back to the bed and crawl under the blanket again even though it's too hot, but it's a tiny speck of comfort in this hell hole. Mum must know by now, I wonder what she's thinking? And hopefully Serge is on the case, the lawyer too, they're the only ones who can get me out of this mess.

I must have dozed off as the next thing I know the door is unlocking again.

A guy in a sharp, pinstripe suit walks in, carrying a briefcase and dragging a chair. I just sit there and stare, wondering if he's some kind of crack detective. He's got sandy, slicked back hair and a reddish face.

He holds out his hand to me.

"Nicolas Feers-Simpson, nice to meet you," in an accent that could out-posh the fucking Queen. Of course – the lawyer, he's way too classy for a copper.

I take his hand and let him shake mine. He turns around to the copper at the door.

"Okay you can leave us to it."

When the door is shut he pulls the chair over to the bed, puts his briefcase on his knee and clicks it open.

"So Beaumont – you don't mind if I call you that? – these are some pretty serious allegations they're making against you."

"Yeah."

Like you don't say.

"They're searching your house now, they'll be going over everything with a fine tooth comb, and they've found a car. A black Land Rover burnt out on some wasteland in Hackney. They think it's yours."

He fixes his piercing blue eyes on me. Crap, they've found the car.

"Right," is all I can think of to say.

"It's in your best interests to be honest with me Beaumont, and tell me everything you know."

I don't trust this guy. He's way too stuck-up for my liking and I can't bring myself to tell him what's actually happened. But then again, he is a lawyer. I lean back against the wall of the cell and sigh.

"I've told them everything."

"Everything? As it actually happened?"

"Yeah…well okay maybe not everything." I'm half tempted to tell him what really happened. But something is still holding me back.

"Yeah, before she left we had an argument…about a
Chic!
interview."

Well, this is kind of the truth – a half lie, half truth.

"
Chic
?"

"It's a magazine – they do celebrity homes and stuff."

"Oka-ay," he says, like I'm an idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about.

"So you had an altercation with her over this…magazine? And that's why she left?"

"A what? Nah, we just had a bit of an argument, but yeah, I guess you could say she stormed out in a bad mood."

He sighs.

"Beaumont, they must have reasonable grounds for suspecting you. Is there anything in the car that they might find which might compromise you? I mean, suggest to them that you killed her?"

The car. I think about the TV crime shows where guys in white overalls look at every little speck of dust. But it's all burnt out, surely they won't be able to find any trace of what happened?

"No, I mean, it's weird it turned up in Hackney, but she took it. Surely it just means something's happened to her?" I say, trying to sound concerned now.

"Well yes, it does suggest that. They've not sent the forensic report back yet so I'm afraid I know no more than you. But if they do find anything they can link back to you it will not help your case."

"I don't see what they can find."

"Okay." He's been making notes, leaning on the briefcase. "Well if that is true then they'll find it hard to pin anything on you. And besides, it's massively hard to charge someone with murder without a body. We'll have to hope they won't find one. This is what I think they'll try to do: they'll claim you had a fractious relationship with Ms McQueen. Apparently in the diary DI Dante has got hold of she talks quite a lot about how she suspected, erm, how to put this…you were playing the field behind her back."

I stare at the black flecks in the grey floor. What must this fucking toff think of me?

"Circumstantial, but no doubt they'll bring it up. They'll perhaps try to claim you had reasonable grounds for killing her. I expect, in light of the lack of a body, they will go at it pretty hard, in the hope of drawing a confession out of you. But of course, if there is no confession to be drawn, then they won't have much luck, will they?"

I try to process what he's just said. I'm not that good with toff-speak, but it seems to be he totally doesn't believe anything I've said. Great, my own fucking lawyer.

"No, they won't get anything out of me," I say slowly, hoping this is the right response.

"Good. I'll keep an eye on what they are doing. But I suspect they'll want to question you sooner rather than later." He snaps the briefcase shut again and gets up to go.

I ask him what time it is, he tells me it's twelve thirty in the afternoon, and then a copper comes and lets him out and slams the door behind him.

As soon as he's gone I wish I'd told him everything. I sit there, on the hard little bed, thinking it over and over. They've found the car. Could there be anything in it? They're searching the house. But we cleaned up pretty well. Those guys in the white overalls though, with their magnifying glasses… And Krystal, why did she stay with me? Just for the fame and the money? I didn't do an awful lot to make her love me. I think about all the girls there's been, and finally about Monique, the last one. A rapist and a murderer, that's what I am. A dirty rapist and a murderer. The thoughts swirl around my head, and things people have said. I hear Krystal saying 'fuck you', Monique saying 'No', I hear Serge, the splash of the water as the carpeted-corpse hit it, Dante reading my rights to me, Michael, the snap of the paparazzo camera. These sounds and voices go round and round in my head and it seems like I'm here for hours with the cell walls bearing down on me.

The clanking of the lock again … two uniforms come in, neither of them I recognise.

"They're ready for you now, mate," one of them says. 'Mate'... Are they on my side? They stand right over the bed, take one of my arms each and pull me up, not really forcing me, but still kind of before I'm ready. I feel a bit dizzy, like I've just come out of some kind of trance. Then they walk me out of the cell and down the corridor. Who is ready for me? I don't have a fucking clue what's going on. There's a black guy being frog-marched the other way and he stares blatantly at me as he gets nearer, with these deranged eyes.

"No fucking way!" he says, but I just look away.

They take me into another room – this time with a huge, but dark, window on one wall and a table with Dante and another middle-aged man sitting at it on one side and on the other an empty chair and Feers-Simpson.

Shit, I should have prepared. Feers-Simpson turns round as I enter, raising his eyebrows as if to say 'you're fucked'. I can sense the bad vibes between this sleek City boy and Dante – the hardened northern detective. The two of us, me and posh-boy, must make him sick.

I sink into the chair next to Feers-Simpson, opposite Dante. Our eyes meet for a second, and I can tell Dante is laughing at me, inside.

It feels like there's a snake in my guts, slithering around, tangling itself up in my insides. There's a tape recorder at one end of the table, which the guy who isn't Dante loads up with an actual old-school cassette.

"We're going to record this interview. I'm going to turn this on and ask you to say your names," he says, nervously. It's like everyone is on edge.

"This interview is taking place on twelfth of July 2009, time," (he checks his watch) "6:20pm. I'm DC Robinson."

"Detective Inspector Dante." Dante says, staring at me the whole time.

"Nicholas Feers-Simpson, QC," the toff says.

"Name," Dante booms at me.

"Beaumont Alexander." (International Superstar, I don't add.)

Six twenty … a whole day I've been locked in that cell, going slowly mad. Is this what prison is like? Endless days of doing nothing and going out of your mind? I've only had a few hours of jittering, jagged sleep and there is no way I'll be able to concentrate and keep a cool head. I don't even know if I've got the strength to carry on with the lies. But there's nothing I can do to stop it now. I take a deep breath.

The Robinson guy says something about a caution and court.

Court. I imagine myself standing there in the dock with a stern judge peering down at me.

"Beaumont," Robinson says, his voice is soft and patronising, "can you tell us what happened the night Krystal McQueen disappeared?"

"I… I've told you already," I find myself saying, but my voice seems detached from my body, as if it's not me speaking at all.

"I came back at about four in the afternoon. She was talking on the phone to Michael, her agent, I went into my games room, when I came out at about half seven she was gone, I've not seen her since."

"Had you argued at all? What did you say to her when you came in?"

"She was on the phone, she, she asked me if I was free the following Tuesday to do a
Chic!
shoot. Erm, we had a bit of argument, yeah, before I went to the games room."

"A
Chic!
shoot!" Dante says, raising his owl-eyebrows in mock amazement, while he scribbles down some notes. There's silence for a moment as he finishes writing.

"That's not what you told me when I came to speak to you," he says, eyes still fixed on the notepad. "You didn't mention an argument."

Nicholas sighs.

"N-No, I, er, well I thought it wouldn't look good, I mean I—"

"It doesn't," Dante says before I can finish.

"Beaumont," he says, eyebrows knitted together, "where is Krystal?"

"I don't know." It comes out as a croaky whisper.

"We believe you do."

"Well I don't."

"We believe she's dead."

"No, I don't know. I don't think so."

"My client…" Nicholas starts saying, first time the bastard's spoke, but Dante is leaning down, like he's picking something up off the floor, and Nicholas shuts up and looks worried as Dante puts a plastic zip-up bag on the table.

I stare at it, confused – it looks like a tatty red piece of cloth.

"Showing suspect Exhibit 2a: a piece of hand woven silk rope, believed to originate from Nepal, found washed up on the beach at Southend … Mr. Alexander, this was previously used to tie back the curtains in your living room, wasn't it? How did it end up on Southend beach?"

"What? I don't know, I've never seen it before," I'm really starting to panic now. I know where that came from – it had been tying up the body.

Dante reaches down again and this time pulls out a plastic bag which has some kind of document in it. He pushes it under my nose and I see that it's an edition of
Peek!
magazine, the pages folded back to page twenty five: 'Soccer ace Beaumont Alexander and his beautiful girlfriend Krystal McQueen invite us into their new home'. It's from about a year and a half ago and the picture shows the two of us sitting in the living room. I've got blonde flecks in my hair, I look like a poof.

Just behind Krystal's head they've stuck a small red arrow, pointing to the hand-woven silk curtain tie-back. I want to cry.

"There it is, in your living room." Dante says flatly. "We contacted the small Nepalese company that makes these ties – they said your residence was the only UK address they supplied any to. We believe that this was used to tie up Krystal's body after you killed her."

"No," I whisper, "it, it went missing months ago, I don't know what happened to it."

I'm free-style lying now. Damn Krystal and her fucking hippy ideas. She got those curtain tie-backs because she believed they brought good luck or something. Well, fuck-all luck they've brought me … or her.

Dante produces another plastic bag, like he's some kind of fucking magician. "Showing suspect exhibit 3a, burnt remains of a pair of custom-made Nike trainers, identified as belonging to the suspect, found in a fireplace at the residence of the suspect. Why did you burn your trainers, Beaumont?"

I think I might shit myself.

"I didn't burn them," is all I can think to say, and shake my head.

Now Dante is shaking his head as if he's disappointed by something.

"Did you burn them because they were covered in blood?"

"Did your forensics team find any blood on them?" Nicholas butts in, finally contributing to the conversation. Dante ignores him.

"Why did you burn them, Mr. Alexander?" he asks, again.

My mind is completely blank, a plane of white nothingness, empty as fuck.

"Now," says Dante, reaching for another bag. I catch sight of what's inside and it feels like my heart might explode out of my chest, spraying bits of red gore all over the bastard's face. It's the knife, they've found the knife.

"Showing suspect exhibit 4a, a Wusthof carving knife found under a patch of recently disturbed earth in the grounds of the suspect's main place of residence... the Love Palace."

Nicholas opens his mouth as if to say something then closes it again. Fuck, how did they find it? Had Serge not hidden it well enough? Fuck, fuck, fuck. What next? The bloody, decomposing body, wrapped in the rotting carpet to be miraculously hauled onto the table like a rabbit out of a hat? I might as well just confess now, the game's up, but I can't make my mouth say anything. In fact, I think I might actually pass out. There's this blackness creeping round the edges of my vision, around Dante's head until all that is left is those eyebrows. I want to confess, confess everything to these eyebrows, tell them how it happened, what had gone through my head, what I – we – had done with the body.