Not the End of the World

by Christopher Brookmyre

  ‘But surely you must be pretty excited about, you know, just being in a movie, aside from what it might lead to?’

  Maddy smiled, sipping from the bottle. The bangles were revealing her scars again, but she was either no longer concerned or wanted them to think she was no longer concerned.

  ‘I am excited. I’m riding this thing for all it’s got, believe me. It’ll be fun, it’ll be different, it’s money in the bank, and it is a great opportunity. I’m not putting it down. Zip and Tobe have been great, they really have. But I guess it’s a little easy-come-easy-go. If I had striven all my days for this I’d be freaked out with worries, hopes, you know? But I didn’t get into adult movies because I wanted to be a “proper” actress, and Christ help anyone who does. This has fallen into my lap and I’m gonna take full advantage, but I’ve no delusions about it. Susan Sarandon can sleep easy.’

  ‘So are you worried about not having acted properly before?’ Jo asked.

  ‘I’m not sure quite what constitutes proper acting, but I don’t think it’s Angel’s Claws, you know? A film like this, if I can stand up and say my lines with a modicum of expression, the direction, the photography, the costumes and the lighting will all make me look at least competent. But they won’t make me an actress.’

  She had a long gulp of beer and shrugged. ‘This’ll be the last lead role I ever get. I was ‘ninety-eight’s news, my fifteen minutes are almost up. Next picture I’ll probably be the cop’s girlfriend, the one who gets murdered to piss him off before the showdown. Picture after that I’ll get murdered in the first reel. But like I said, I’m gonna ride it as far as it’ll take me. I’ve no illusions I’m gonna be a superstar, but I’d like to think I could learn enough as I go, and one day be a half-way-decent character actress. Maybe in ten years getting little roles just because the director knows I’ll do a good job, long after everybody’s forgotten why I got my first break.’

  ‘These sound like very modest dreams,’ Jo said.

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t know whether I suck yet. If I do a Sofia Coppola out there, the thought of being a small-time character actress might seem pretty far-fetched.’

  ‘You sure you want me to quote you on the Sofia Coppola thing?’ Jo asked.

  ‘Sure, go ahead. It’s not like Francis has me in mind for something and I’m gonna blow it.’

  Jo’s mobile interrupted the conversation. She pressed Receive and spoke quietly for a couple of moments, then stood up and made her excuses.

  ‘I’ll just walk over there and take this call,’ she said. ‘Back in a few minutes.’

  Steff was left sitting diagonally opposite Maddy, trying to appear nonchalant but ready to settle for anything north of lurking. He knew Maddy could have looked away, struck a pose, even just smiled to place an ‘intermission’ sign up while Jo was away, but she didn’t. She did smile, but it was a nervous smile, an ‘all right, I admit it, I don’t quite know what I’m doing here, am I coming across okay?’ smile.

  ‘You’re a much better actress than you make out,’ he found himself saying, perhaps injudiciously. He’d been searching for something to prevent a silence, and voiced his thoughts directly without the usual vetting he employed on those rare occasions when he really did care what the other person thought of him.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, a mite defensively.

  No way out but forward, Steff thought.

  ‘Well, you gave a very convincing performance earlier on at the press conference.’

  ‘Performance?’

  ‘As the actress, the star. Glamorous, composed, graceful, behaving like it was all second nature. That was acting, wasn’t it? That wasn’t you “just being yourself”.’

  She said nothing, simply met his eye, leaving the ball in his court.

  ‘I mean, everything about you was different, and I’m not just talking about dresses and hairstyles. You talked differently, you even walked differently. Obviously I’ve never met you before, but I’d guess – at least I’d like to think – that how you look right now, how you are right now, is more like the real you.’

  ‘So how do you know I’m not acting now?’ she asked. She wasn’t being coy. It was a challenge; she wanted to know. ‘That I’m not playing the no-makeup, casual clothes, honest-to-goodness unpretentious me because I think it would come across better for this kind of interview?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Steff admitted. ‘But nobody’s that good an actress. All roles involve masks. All roles require make-up. You’re not wearing any. You could have worn long sleeves too, but you didn’t. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’

  She rubbed at her left wrist, an automatic response, as though Steff’s words had made it itch.

  ‘Don’t apologise. It’s been a while since someone didn’t tactfully ignore it to avoid embarrassment – usually theirs.’ She waved a hand. ‘You’re right. This isn’t an act, or at least as little of an act as in any conversation. You and me aren’t even playing interviewer and interviewee any more, are we?’

  ‘Doesn’t feel like it.’

  It certainly didn’t. Nobody had smiled for a while, for a start, politely or otherwise.

  ‘Unless this is how you get your subjects to open themselves up before you shoot them, to get to the heart of their characters.’

  ‘Believe me,’ Steff said, ‘I’m not that sophisticated. But this is how I’d like to shoot you. No makeup, no dressy gear, no hair-stylist waiting in the wings.’

  ‘So you don’t see me as glamorous? Don’t worry, I can take it.’

  Steff shrugged. ‘I didn’t say that. I know you can do glamorous, I just think it isn’t you . . .’He swallowed. Normally the photographer could say this and it didn’t matter. Today it mattered to him. Would it matter to her? ‘. . . at your prettiest.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Maddy said, as though it was the weirdest thing in the world. ‘Really, thank you.’

  ‘You sound like that was the first time anyone ever paid you a compliment.’

  ‘Well, it was the first one in a long while that actually meant something.’

  Steff saw Jo walking back towards them. He wished he could teleport her to Paisley. Her timing was mince.

  Jo sat down again and whatever had been going on between them – real or optimistically imagined – evaporated. What was worse was that the females’ easy rapport resumed instantly, not only making him feel isolated and excluded, but eating excruciatingly into his appointed shoot time.

  Jo finally finished up and took off, at last leaving Steff and Maddy alone together once more, but just as he was about to suggest a location Maddy overheard someone at a nearby table tell his companion the time, and sat up straight, eyes wide with shock.

  ‘Oh shit. I’ve got to be somewhere in like four seconds. I totally lost track. Oh God, I’m so sorry, but I’m gonna have to run out on you.’

  Steff’s heart relocated to a snug part of his colon as he watched her prepare to disappear from in front of him. No fair. Referee.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she repeated, sounding harassed. ‘And we’re supposed to be doing this picture thing, too, God, I’m so sorry . . .’

  ‘Could we maybe rearrange the shoot for later in the week?’ he asked, sounding professionally calm and pragmatic, disguising the mixture of dire pessimism and full-on huff that his tone would have otherwise conveyed.

  ‘You can do that? I thought you must be on a tight . . . Well if it’s okay by you, yeah, just whenever you can . . .’ She closed her eyes, apparently attempting to defluster herself. Steff found it adorable, but he didn’t know if it was the gesture or the fact that it meant she was still really up for the shoot.

  ‘How’s tomorrow?’

  ‘Fine.’ He nodded, hoping he didn’t sound too surprised and ecstatic. ‘It won’t take long, really. What time? Where else are you meant to be, because I can meet you wherever?’

  ‘Well, I’m supposed to be on a boat all day, drinking champagne, eating lobster and generally schmoozing. I’m
on the invite list for the Moonstar hospitality cruise.’

  ‘So when will you be back?’

  ‘I won’t be going.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I got a better offer.’

  Daniel Corby had never been so close to evil before.

  In the flesh, living and breathing, mere feet away. So near he could have reached out and touched her. The Whore of Babylon, walking, talking, posing, preening, clad shamelessly in black, painted like the mega-slut she was. And all around her the idiots, the fools, taking her picture, practically bowing before her, treating her like goldarn royalty.

  His anger and hatred were tempered by the thrilling sense of power he felt, standing undetected among the sinners. It had taken billions of dollars to make the Stealth bomber invisible. All he’d needed was a laminated press pass. Looking at the Whore through the lens of his camera, it might as well have been through the scope of a rifle. So much smaller than he’d imagined, so much more vulnerable, it was easy to feel that he had her in his grasp as she stood there, like all the others oblivious to the true meaning of his presence: no dumb paparazzo, but the instrument of God’s will.

  She’d flashed a smile at him, his own face hidden behind his camera, the empty film spindles whining as he pressed the shoot button.

  That’s right, he thought. Smile, you bitch. Smile and flaunt yourself like you’ve always done, proud, vain, shameless and arrogant. But soon enough you’ll be humble before the Lord, and you’ll be begging on your knees for His forgiveness.

  He’d made his way from the swimming pool to the lifts with his camera still dangling around his neck, the aluminum flight case gripped tightly in his right hand, its weight a constant reminder of the importance of his mission. He stood a few yards from the doors, pretending to fuss over his camera as the people nearby got into a lift and its former occupants dispersed. Then he waited for an empty car to arrive and stepped in.

  Once inside, he pressed the rooftop terrace button and pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head. The lift began to climb and his heart-rate seemed to plot the same trajectory until it was past the residential floors, where there was a chance of it stopping for some idiot who’d pressed up instead of down, or worse, fancied checking out the view from the roof.

  The car continued up unmolested, announcing its arrival with a loud ‘ding’. The lifts didn’t go all the way to the roof, due to the stupid design of the building, so there was a last flight of stairs to reach the terrace where the famously under-used swimming pool was located. Daniel walked out, head bowed, eyes lowered. The surveillance camera would be on his back, but he should be out of sight once he’d ducked under the stairwell.

  He reached into his pocket and retrieved a screwdriver, then proceeded to remove the access panel in the wall in front of him. Behind it was the rooftop swimming-pool’s regulation controls: valves, pipes and filters, plus gauges for monitoring temperature, chlorine levels and pH. Below all that was a storage space piled with plastic gallon jars full of blue-tinted chemicals, plus spare or used filters that looked like they fitted into some of the pipes.

  Daniel flipped open the locks on the flight-case and gently pulled up the lid. He keyed the authorisation code into the number-pad, ex of a pocket calculator, and watched the blue light change to orange. He looked at the neat wiring, the snugly fitted circuitry, and felt such a pride in his construction that he was almost sorry to have to leave it there. He had sure come a long way from that abortion clinic in Pocoima, when his first-time incompetence at bomb-construction had saved his life. His estimate of required quantity had been based on watching movies, in which they tended to use C4 rather than controlled-demolition shaped-charge explosive.

  He had downloaded his amateur anarchy information from the Net back then, and through other cyberspace contacts procured himself a fake driver’s licence. He bought a tenth-hand wreck in Tijuana and drove it to Nevada to buy the demolition explosives under the name on the phoney ID. Then, having constructed his bomb, he drove the wreck into the parking lot of the abortion clinic and walked away.

  When he made it to the Greyhound depot to buy his ticket back to Glendale, he discovered he had lost his wallet, and realised there was a chance it had fallen out of his jacket when he last picked it up off the passenger seat. It contained all his cash, credit cards and the forged licence. He knew that in all probability it would be destroyed in the blast, but what if it wasn’t? What if it was blown out of the windows, or the leather proved a lot more flame-resistant than withstanding the department store demonstrator’s lighted-match test? He had checked his watch and estimated he would still have time to get back there, retrieve it – or at least establish that it wasn’t in the car – and get away again.

  According to his wristwatch, he still had three minutes’ grace after he picked up the wallet from the foot well and quietly closed the door. The watch in the trunk disagreed.

  God spared his life, but sorely chastised him for his folly. Daniel had sought to punish, and that was neither his role nor his right. That was the prerogative only of the Lord, a fact the Lord underlined rather stiffly, at the cost of three fingers, four toes, half his face and an awful lot of skin. Such isolated punishments were futile anyway. If you killed one abortionist doctor, for instance, they’d have his or her job filled by another child-murderer before the end of the week.

  Daniel closed the lid again and placed the case gently into a space between two of the gallon jars. Then he replaced the access panel and returned, head down, to the lift, which took him back to the ground floor where he walked once more among the sinners. He made his way through the lobby towards the exit, the booths and stalls either side of him advertising their lewd wares, the whole sordid circus surely a far worse infestation even than Jesus himself had railed against in the Temple. It was inevitable that some of the casualties would deserve their fate more than others, but like Lot had found, he knew there would not be enough of them to justify staying the hand of justice. Everyone inside that hotel was guilty, because everyone who was allowing the UnAmerican Festering Filth Market to proceed was complicit in the evil it disseminated. Everyone. From the organisers to the participants, to the hotel staff, to the journalists reporting it and the photographers recording it.

  This was not an act of terrorism. He was not rattling a sabre or publicising a cause, advertising a potential future threat or demanding shallow political gains for a ransom of human lives. Again, God’s disapproval of such behaviour was writ large down the left-hand side of his body.

  He tried not to look at any of the faces that surrounded him, faces of people; he thought only of their sin and the greater cause for which he was fighting. He felt a momentary sickness as he passed through the bustling human throng, thinking of the device upstairs, and it danced fleetingly into his head to go back and retrieve it. But he had known that such moments, such temptations, would come. He knew he had to be strong, that God needed him to be strong. And he knew that when it came to the Fifth Commandment, sometimes there was a difference between honouring it and hiding behind it.

  St John had taught him that.

  ten

  The icon blinked in changing colours on the screen in front of him. Pale pink, dark red, pale pink, dark red, against the blue all around. He could zoom in and zoom out, overlay the longitude/latitude grid at whatever calibration he desired. He could scroll the image to display the distance travelled and the route ahead. He could hit a key to pull up a box showing the exact current co-ordinates, triangulated by satellite. He could feed in average velocities and windspeeds and receive a figure for Projected Remaining Journey Time, and with the click of a mouse change that to plain old ETA.

  He could monitor the ship’s progress to whatever decimal place from these thousands of miles away, the view on his computer monitor like that from the eye of a digitised seagull. But what he could not do was affect it.

  Blink. Blink. Blink.

  God’s will, like time, set in motion. You c
an’t speed it up, you can’t slow it down, you can’t alter its course. You can only wait.

  Blink. Blink. Blink.

  This was the hardest kind of patience. There had always been waiting, always been limbos, the necessary relegation of the ultimate goal in his mind for months at a time while pieces moved themselves gradually into place. Patience came easily then, welcome time to shape the project’s evolution. Time for consideration, time for contemplation, time for anticipation. But this now was a purgatorial impotence, after the decisions had been made and the process initiated. This was when control passed from his hands.

  Blink. Blink. Blink.

  This was the vigil of the countdown.

  From one of the pull-down menus he could display the date and time the ship had set sail, but was that really when the countdown had started?

  No. It was in progress before that, before the engines were started, before the cargo was loaded on board. So what moment had set it in motion, what word or deed had been the irreversible instigator? Perhaps it had been when he handed over the money, that second of knowing, overt purchase, that second when he went from desire to ownership, intention to means. He didn’t lay hands on the merchandise himself, but when he had let go of the briefcase in that lousy Kiev hotel room, there was no question that it now belonged to him.

  Or perhaps that was just another blink of an icon. A flashing church, or jet, or briefcase, or statue, like this flashing ship. Maybe the clock started when the computer program confirmed that the idea was feasible. Or earlier still, when he commissioned the software. Maybe it was before even that, in the moment he told another soul what he wanted to do, enlisting Liskey as the first conspirator. Because in speaking he had committed the first action, when thought became word, and word could not be unsaid.

  Back in the 1980s, with so many millions of dollars piling up in his personal fortune, it had pricked Luther’s conscience that he should donate some of the cash to a charitable cause. This kind of went against the ideological grain prevalent in America during that avaricious decade, but it would have been simply unChristian not to. And there seemed no cause more deserving than those brave souls who were fighting to free poor Nicaragua from the tyrannous shackles of the Sandinistas.