The Vanity Game (5 page)

"And that fucking knife... We'll bleach it and then bury the thing in the garden. It'll leave a space in the knife block, but I guess you can buy a new one."

He starts looking through the kitchen cupboards until he opens one and goes "Ah". It's the cupboard where Olga keeps her cleaning supplies. I'm still standing there, staring at the body, until I find a bottle of bleach being thrust into my hands.

I follow Serge's orders, finding some comfort in being told what to do by someone else. We work through the night cleaning up. I'm the walking dead – so tired I'm almost in a trance, on auto-pilot. As the hours pass I develop a resistance to the gore and it's just bone-crushingly mundane. Scrubbing, wiping, drying, more scrubbing, and then there's the body. She has become stiff and cold but the blood has stopped pouring out of the wound. Fortunately, you could say, we've just had a new carpet fitted up in the lounge and there's an off-cut of £500-a-metre deluxe cream shag-pile, which the carpet fitters had forgot to get rid of, still rolled up in the corridor that leads to the garage.

"Brilliant, let's wrap her in that," Serge says when I suggest it.

I remember when we picked that colour and how she fretted about how easily it would get dirty. How ironic that we're wrapping up her bloody corpse in it, staining it good and proper. After a struggle, because the carpet itself is so thick and heavy, we fit it round her pretty neatly, and we tie it all up with the silk hand-tasselled curtain holdbacks from the lounge because there's fuck all else to use.

When we've finished the cleaning, Serge takes all the cloths, brushes and pan-scrubs we've used and burns them, along with my bloodied clothes. Then Serge takes the well-cleaned knife and heads out into the garden, leaving me standing there, sweating in my pants in front of our large open fire, watching the flames lick up around my one-off, custom-made Nike trainers, and it's heart-breaking. I'm so tired my eyes sting and I can't even cry, even though I want to.

The body in its shag-pile wrapping is so heavy, like someone's added a hundred fucking bricks to it, and it's a complete bastard to move the thing into the back of the Land Rover. I take one end, Serge takes the other. I can see her bare foot just peeking out and I really want to avoid touching it as I crouch in the back of the car, hoisting the thing in as Serge pushes from the other end. The sharp smell of bleach is mingling with the warm, soft scent of the upholstery and as we struggle with it I'm thinking about how I love this car, and how tomorrow it's going to be purposefully stolen and torched. I think I should ask Serge more about this but I'm just so tired I can't be bothered to. The new t-shirt I've put on is already drenched in sweat. Suddenly, something gives and I fall backwards as the body launches forward and I find myself squashed between the front seats and the fucking carpeted-corpse. This is just so sick I can't get my head round it. Anyway, I manage to clamber over it and then we're both sitting up front.

I turn the engine on and music fills the car …within a few seconds I realise it's
I Want Your Sex
which doesn't really seem appropriate in the circumstances. I scramble to turn it off, thinking that it might wake someone, or more like alert them. Who exactly, I don't know. The neighbours live over a mile away, but what's lurking in the woodland, waiting, between us and them is any fucker's guess…police, paps, vengeful spirits. I tell myself this is crazy thinking, but then this is a crazy situation, no lie.

The void left by the music is filled with Serge sighing with relief, I guess he had the same idea.

"Let's just go," he says quietly.

As the garage door opens, revealing the night to us, I feel really exposed. I want to shut it down again, get out of the car and run to my bed, pretend this ain't happening. How can we possibly get to the docks and back with no-one seeing us? And what would be worse? Bumping into a police car on a late night prowl or some pissed-up members of the public who'd be sure to recognise me? Oh God, or worse, the paps with their cameras, snapping away at the future evidence. I can feel my chest getting tighter, and I'm finding it hard to breathe.

"Beaumont, Beaumont!" Serge is pulling my arm. "Get a fucking grip of yourself and just start driving this thing."

"But what if someone sees us?" I whisper, still panting, trying to ward off the panic attack.

"It's a chance we gotta take. We can't keep this bloody corpse here!" he hisses back at me. He's right, there's nothing for it, besides I'm so tired that right now I'd do anything to get it over with, even if it ends in a life sentence. I pull my beanie hat down so it's just over my eyes and ease the Land Rover out of the garage.

Soon we're driving through the deserted country roads. It's just nudging 3am and already the sun is showing signs of rising – the sky is turning a light grey on the horizon where the lights of the city glow like embers of a dying fire. But to the west it's still dark, and that's where we're heading. I just pray we make it in time.

3am… The kind of time when one party is ending and people are milling around looking for somewhere else to go, and you're still too high on drugs or still hoping to score, or you're stone cold sober in a foreign airport lounge, waiting, exhausted but wired on another time zone. Both shitty situations, but both better than this one: driving through the night to dump the body of your dead girlfriend. I'm a murderer; it suddenly strikes me, a killer. I swallow hard and try to push it away, but mug-shots flash through my mind – Ian Brady, Hindly, Huntley, me, staring dead ahead, evil in my eyes. Ah fuck it, I ain't like them – I'm not some perv who goes round killing kids, but I've killed her … taken the life of another human being … thou shalt not kill … fuck it, God doesn't exist, hell doesn't exist … prison does though … what will they do to me in there? I wish Serge would say something to break up these thoughts but when I look over at him he's staring at the road ahead as if it's the only thing that exists in the world, and I can't think of anything to say to him. Why is he helping me? Why put himself at risk too? Surely assisting a murderer is a big crime but when I try to think further I find myself going round in circles, seeing myself cleaning the floor … all that blood … the feeling as the knife went in … her eyes. It seems like a lifetime ago now, as if it's just a dream. If only.

Serge speaks – only to issue a direction, and we hit the motorway. It's quiet, which is a fucking relief, and the smooth drive under the bright lights makes me feel calmer.

"Oh shit, Beaumont," Serge suddenly whispers. And I see what he's looking at. There in my rear-view mirror is the worst sight in the world: a fucking cop car speeding towards us with its lights flashing.

"Oh Christ."

"Just keep calm. Keep to the speed limit. Move into the slow lane."

I'm shaking like hell but I do as he says. The cops get closer and the car fills with blue light and I stare dead ahead, just looking at the road…but then it's gone, zooming off ahead of us, round the bend before my heart has a chance to slow down again.

We both exhale.

"They've got some other fucker's scent tonight," Serge says quietly.

"Yeah."

Some other fucker … some other criminal. And what the hell does he mean? Does he really think one night it's going to be my scent they're onto?

So I'm shitting myself the rest of the way, expecting to see another flashing blue light in the mirror. None come though and soon we turn off the motorway and begin the approach to the docks.

It's about 4am. when he tells me to pull the car in. It's almost light, but the dock seems deserted. Serge starts cursing as we climb out of the car though, because it's lighter than he wants.

"Jesus, we might as well have got them to floodlight the place," he says as he goes to open the back of the car. It's pretty chilly and my breath leaves a trace of steam in the air, and it's totally silent. The old dock machinery looms above us. I imagine one of the cranes suddenly creaking into action and crashing down on the car.

"You not gonna come and help then?" Serge says.

Seeing the long, bulky package makes me feel so exhausted – it's become horribly familiar and it's hard to imagine the thing, my girlfriend's corpse, inside it was once alive.

Getting the fucker out is easier than getting it in though and, taking an end each again, we stagger towards the water. The tide is low and we have to walk some way down the slope. Several metres of wall rises up either side of us by the time we reach the water's edge.

"Right," Serge gasps, knackered by the walk, "after three… One…two…three—" and we swing Krystal forward as hard as we can. It doesn't exactly fly through the air, but owing to my strength it does rise up and then land in the water, with an almighty splash. My heart thuds as we watch it sink and I wait for the sound of a fleet of police cars screeching to a halt at the top of the dock. But the only sound is the gentle gurgling as the last bit of ghastly package sinks into the black water of the Thames. Serge chucks the dismantled components of her iPhone – including the stupid, glittery pink casing – in after her.

Jesus. For a moment it feels like it's my own life sinking below the water and disappearing forever and I feel the overwhelming urge to fall to my knees and scream here by the side of the river but Serge is tugging on my arm, saying we should go. By the time we get back into the car I'm shaking so much I can hardly get the key in the ignition. No doubt about it, a part of me
is
slowly making its way to the filthy floor of the Thames right now.

We bomb it back down the motorway. It's fully light, and as we near home the roads are beginning to get busy with Essex commuters heading into the city. I'm beyond giving a fuck if anyone sees us now though, my body craves sleep, my mind craves oblivion, cold has set into my bones.

When we finally reach home Serge tells me to get a few hours kip. It won't do any good if I look like death warmed up when I report Krystal missing later this morning he says. I don't want to hear that, I don't want to think about how this nightmare has only just started. But I'm happy to get upstairs, pull my clothes off and crawl under my duvet. It's bliss as my body relaxes on the mattress for a second. But then I'm suffocating under the scent of her on the bedclothes, and I can't shut my mind down. I can hear her talking, her voice, like she's in the room with me. I can feel her. There's a photo of us on the bedside table, and the light seeping through a gap in the curtains falls on it. It's the two of us in Portugal, our first holiday together. We're laughing, I seem to remember, at something Krystal had just said. I turn it face down and I can't hold it in any longer, the tears sting my tired eyes as they come streaming out. And I don't even know what exactly it is I'm crying over – her or myself.

I wake with a start, awoken by an alarm I don't remember setting. My eyes feel swollen and my head throbs with a dull headache. It don't take long for the confusion of waking to settle into the nightmare of reality. She is dead, I killed her. I'm a murderer. It's 10am, I have to report her missing this morning. I feel sick, knackered after hardly any sleep, and absolutely fucking starving.

The door to the spare room is open and I look in as I pass. Serge is sprawled on the bed; the duvet twisted around what I hope is not his naked torso, revealing the blurry green mess of tattoos on his arms and chest. He's snoring slightly.

I make myself an espresso and knock back a couple of Xanax. If I've ever needed these, it's today, no doubt about that. I'm going to call round her friends first, ask if they've seen her, and then build up to calling the Fuzz. I wonder how good I actually am at lying. Serge said to tell the police that she told me she was going round to her agents. That might put the idea in their heads that she was either having an affair with the greasy little jerk, Michael, or was back on the drugs and something's gone wrong on a late-night scoring mission. Is this believable? Fuck knows. I find her little pink address book on the coffee table and flick through it. Stylists, producers, girls she knew through modelling, nightclub owners, a couple of American rappers, a few drug dealers (I could do with calling them now), lots of journalists (who I definitely could not do with calling right now), Jon Donald – why did she have his number? There's a few other guys listed just by their first names. I go back to Jon's number … hadn't they always been a bit flirty around each other?

"Morning."

I spin round to find Serge standing at the entrance to the dining room. He's naked except for a towel round his waist, and I'm repulsed by his beer belly and how hairy it is. He's like a half-gorilla, half-man monster.

"You started making the calls yet?"

I shake my head.

"Well you better get bleeding started, it's almost lunchtime," he snaps at me, and disappears again. After he's gone I tell him to 'fuck off' under my breath. I wish he would, I want to be alone right now. And the word 'lunchtime' reminds me how hungry I am, but no food appeals. A vodka and cranberry juice and a nice line of charlie would be the ideal thing right now, but I head back to the kitchen, make myself another espresso and shove some cracked rye and honey bread into the toaster. I eat the first piece dry and when that goes down okay, spread a little low-fat marg on the other piece. Who would I genuinely call if I was worried about her whereabouts? She has no family, apart from a dotty old grandma in a nursing home and a step brother she never sees. There's the slimy Michael, obviously, then there's her friend Shona, another ex-glamour model, and Julio the hair stylist. There's Kelly, Jon's fiancée, who I feel well bad about having that drunken fumble with now, but hell, maybe Krystal
did
shag Jon. Maybe.