Stark

by Ben Elton

  It did look interesting, Chrissy couldn’t deny it…Maybe she should take a look? On the other hand, maybe she should finish the article that she was writing about the aftermath of the unprecedently hot northern summer (suntan lotion and ice-cream futures were very big). Then again, she was long overdue to write to her sister in Wisconsin. Maybe she should do that…And she hadn’t done her aerobic home workout in seven months — God she was definitely going to have a heart attack. Also, the toilet needed cleaning in the corner. The ‘stuff to do’ pile seemed to have grown, nothing had been added in the few minutes since she had last looked but it had definitely got bigger…

  ‘OK,’ it hissed at her maliciously, fluttering its papery arms, ‘So there ain’t no final bills, so what? How about that insurance form? Huh? And the new cheque card application? You still have that to do don’t ya? And the register of voters, that’s two weeks old already, do you want to get disenfranchised? You will be, if you don’t do it! Come on, Chrissy, look at me! There is so much stuff to do in the ‘stuff to do’ pile.’

  98: THE HONEST, DEDICATED JOURNO IS A RARE AND ENDANGERED SPECIES

  The next day, during her first cup of coffee, Chrissy thought she’d ring Linda to apologize for being so dismissive on the phone before and say that having read the letter she now thought that perhaps there might be something in it.

  Chrissy was hoping that she could persuade Linda to send the programs she had used for her book on the rich guys, down the line so that Chrissy too could pick up quickly on their movements wherever they were dealing. This would be stretching a pen-pal friendship quite a long way. After all, it would have taken Linda a very long time to put those programs together. Still, if Linda wanted Chrissy’s help…

  ‘Hello, Linda Reeve’s phone,’ the voice said.

  ‘Hi, is Linda around?’

  Looking back, Chrissy was sure that she had sensed something wrong even in that moment.

  ‘Uhm, might I ask your business?’

  ‘My name’s Chrissy Waldorf, I’m on the Wall Street Examiner, we’re friends.’

  ‘Uhm…well, she’s unavailable at the moment,’ the man replied.

  ‘Well, can you get her to call me?’

  ‘Look, I’m awfully sorry, we’re rather upset at this end, I’m afraid Linda’s dead…’

  Chrissy ran cold. Maybe there is something in sixth-sense, she felt like she’d known even before she picked up the phone. She did not reply, her mind was racing. The man on the other end clearly felt obliged to offer some further explanation — he had been doing it all morning.

  ‘Dreadful business. It seems that she surprised a burglar and, well, uhm, he killed her…’

  ‘A burglar?’ said Chrissy, ‘in her apartment?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Did he get away with anything?’

  The man at the other end was slightly put off that this was the American woman’s first consideration. But, there you go, that was Yanks for you.

  ‘I believe it was a very professional job. A great deal was —’

  ‘Listen, are you at her desk?’ Chrissy spoke urgently. Maybe poor Linda had been murdered coincidentally. First the letter, now this…

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact I am but —’

  ‘Will you do me a favour? Lock it, put everything inside and lock it right now and keep the key.’ The man at the other end explained that he would be happy to but that he saw no point as it had already been emptied and the top had been completely cleared. All that remained was a half-empty box of chocolates and he didn’t suppose that she wanted that. No, he didn’t know who had done it. It had certainly been done when he arrived that morning. Perhaps the police…

  Chrissy checked with the police. Then, posing as a relative, she checked with the editor. Neither knew who had emptied the desk. The editor thought perhaps relatives or one of Linda’s colleagues, really he was very busy and everybody was very upset.

  After that it was evening in Britain and Chrissy had to wait out the rest of the day and until early the next morning for London to wake up again. When it did she checked as best she could with the relatives, managing to contact Linda’s mother. Mrs Reeve was clearly strung-out but hanging on. She believed that it was important that one contained oneself. Refusing to break down she dealt politely and clearly with Chrissy, who claimed to be a closer friend than she was. Unfortunately, Mrs Reeve knew nothing of who had emptied the desk, nor did any of Linda’s colleagues that Chrissy managed to speak to. None of them were particularly interested either. It appeared that as far as anyone knew, Linda did not keep much of interest in her desk.

  This was not the point as far as Chrissy was concerned. The point was that it had been emptied and nobody knew who had done it. Clearly a stranger had emptied it, hence obviously they thought she might have something of interest in it. Interesting enough to risk a search. Interesting enough, it seemed, to kill her.

  The police report made it clear that the burglar was a professional. There had been a highly accomplished, no- nonsense entry, a swift, silent clear out, the lot. If that was the case, thought Chrissy, why had he killed her? Professional burglars are rarely murderers. You don’t last long in a job if you start killing people. It’s the one-off thug who normally panics and lashes out. The conviction was firmly growing in Chrissy’s mind that this fellow had killed first and burgled afterwards.

  99: PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS

  100: DISCOVERING MURDER

  Linda’s last letter to Chrissy, those few pieces of paper that Chrissy held in her hand, was, it seemed, the single and only piece of Linda’s work left in existence. Chrissy felt cold even to think about it.

  It had not been difficult to work this out. Chrissy had spoken a number of times to Linda’s parents who were kind, helpful people. They had found out what she asked them to. Linda’s flat, it seemed, still contained an awful lot of paper, love letters from Linda’s one affair, bills, her attempts at poetry, but there were no papers relating to any aspect of Linda’s work left whatsoever. Nothing, not a note, not an old article, not a floppy disc. Her entire career had disappeared.

  ‘But I really can’t see that it’s at all sinister,’ Linda’s father, a quiet, sad voiced, ex-army officer, said. ‘The police assure us that the burglars were very thorough. They really gutted and filleted the place. Even took the clocks, anything of value, the food mixer, the more expensive clothes, everything.’

  Of course they did, Chrissy thought to herself. The only way to avoid arousing police suspicion was to make what was in fact a premeditated murder, appear to have been committed absolutely and indisputably for reasons of professional burglary.

  Any burglar together enough to remove only the expensive clothes, is together enough to know that a girl’s journalistic research is worthless to him…Unless, of course, it isn’t.

  That had been their mistake, that was what made Chrissy absolutely certain that something terribly wrong was going on. They had constructed the facade of a serious, tidy, professional burglary in order that the police would presume that they could see at a glance what had been stolen. There was no ransacking here, no shadowy motive. It was all very clear, the police would not think to start looking for scraps of paper and note books that they did not even know existed. But Chrissy knew they existed. They must do, Linda was a very conscientious journalist. It was unthinkable that she would not have research data at home. Therefore, this supposedly pragmatic and professional burglar had taken the trouble to sort out and steal something he could not possibly want. The burglary must be a front, and what’s more, a front based on the assumption that only the people who took out the contract on Linda were aware that her research was in some way compromising. This meant that Chrissy had a short start on the killers. Clearly they could not know that Linda had passed on the body of her research to Chrissy, or, Chrissy presumed, she would already be dead too. For the moment at least, although ‘they’ remained invisible to Chrissy, at least she was invisible to them
.

  Poor Colonel (retired) and Mrs Reeve were bewildered by Chrissy’s questions, but it was obvious to them that this strange American girl thought that something was wrong.

  ‘Look, if there’s anything we can do…‘ the Colonel said, having to make an effort to keep his voice steady. ‘Linda really was a marvellous sort, you know…terrific…really terrific. What I’m saying is, if you think that there’s something, well, uhm, fishy in all this…?’

  Chrissy reminded herself that the enemy had already killed once, killed a girl for reading a computer screen. She did not wish to provoke further tragedy.

  ‘No, really, please forget it, Colonel. It’s nothing, just a little project Linda and I were working on…about beetroot,’ she added for some unknown reason. ‘I suppose it’s selfish of me, I just didn’t want to have to re-do her work, that’s all. Sorry…’

  ‘Beetroot you say?’ said Colonel Reeve absently,’…Linda never liked beetroot, but nobody does really, do they? I mean, not honestly. Stains the lettuce and puts you off…’

  Chrissy excused herself as gently as she could and put the phone down, leaving the old Colonel thinking about beetroot and his dead daughter and trying not to cry.

  101: FOR THE LOVE OF A GOOD WOMAN

  CD was also puzzled. He reckoned he understood Silvester Moorcock. He had more in common with him than the same taste in women. CD could spot a smooth operator when he saw one. After all, it took one to know one. Of course, CD acknowledged that there were differences between the two of them. For instance, Sly was worth several billion and CD had about forty bucks -but CD did not believe in getting hung up on minor details, they obscure the broader view.

  Rachel and Walter had pretty much accepted Sly’s protestations of innocence regarding the Nazi attack. After all, there was no reason for the Bullens Creek police chief to lie about it. But CD wondered why Sly had bothered to go to the extent of trying to prove it. After all, what were they to him?

  CD pondered this question in the week or so after their meeting at Facefulls and the only explanation he could come up with was that Sly had something to hide. How, CD asked himself, would an entirely innocent multimillionaire react to being confronted by four penniless scruffs accusing him of promoting fascist race attacks for personal gain? Well, CD reckoned that there was a pretty strong chance that he would sue them. He might have them beaten up, he would certainly tell them to fuck off, what seemed unlikely was that he would ask them to join him for a drink and give the craziest one his hamburger. And yet this was exactly what had happened. The man had positively cooed at them, going to quite a bit of trouble to prove that he had not been involved in the attack. More than that, he had exposed to them what was clearly a rather dubious relationship with a police chief, purely in order to show some strange hippy that he had nothing to do with something. In CD’s mind this suggested extremely strongly indeed that Sly did have something to do with it.

  Love is a great motivator. CD still loved Rachel, truly and achingly. If only the strength of the love that people feel when it is reciprocated could be as intense and obsessive as the love we feel when it is not: then marriages would truly be made in heaven.

  With every day it hurt more. The longing, the frustration; the frustration was definitely the worst. He absolutely ached to make love to Rachel, he would have done anything to see her naked. He would sit up long into the night tearfully whining to Zimm about it and drinking Zimm’s home-brewed beer. CD was lucky to have such a willing confidante. Normally the ridiculously over-in-love are an utter and total drag to their friends and intimates, but Zimm loved hearing about CD’s problems — it made him feel better about not having any balls.

  Anyway, suffice it to say, CD had only got involved with the whole protest thing in order to endear himself to Rachel, first as a hippy and then following into association with Zimm and Walter and becoming an activist. He reckoned now he was in, he might as well go the whole hog. In for a penny, in for a pound, so to speak. If he could find something out, come up with something interesting, then maybe he would be worthy of her. Then maybe she would love him and let him up her dress.

  She wouldn’t, of course, the world doesn’t work like that, but love is blind and hope springs eternal.

  CD could not think what it was he might find out. Whether Silvester Moorcock was involved with Nazis perhaps? Why he wanted the land so much? Maybe nothing at all, but for the love of a good woman he was at least prepared to have a bash. He only had one lead; this skinhead bloke, therefore he would have to follow that.

  102: CONNECTIONS

  Even before the terrible news of her death, Chrissy had been dubious about Linda’s naive contention that the various financial dealings that she had pinpointed were unconnected. Linda’s theory that a kind of atmospheric change was occurring in the money markets and hence causing a bunch of people to act in exactly the same way, but independently, was far too airy- fairy an idea for Chrissy to give any credence to at all. In her mind, Linda could not have it both ways. If the various deals were unconnected, then they were of no significance. Conversely, if they were of significance then they had to be connected. Therefore, since, due to the manner of Linda’s death Chrissy had already satisfied herself that something significant was going on, it had to follow that the various billionaires isolated in Linda’s reserarch were, in fact, all in cahoots with one another. If this was the case then Linda had clearly stumbled on something enormous, which was why she had been killed.

  A quick bit of mental arithmetic was enough to make Chrissy weak at the knees. A significant percentage of all the money in the world appeared to be working together. What’s more, it was doing it in secret and it was prepared to kill to keep that secret. What the hell was going on? Chrissy’s mind reeled at the possibilities. So far they had only released a tiny potential of their spending power. If they wanted to, collectively, these men had the power to purchase entire countries. Christ Almighty! Capitalist predators working together. It was contrary to the whole system. But what power they would have! They could buy out national debts, hold governments to ransom, close down whole economies if they wanted to. Had these people got bored with making cars and stereos and aerosols? were they going to start making history?

  Clearly speculating as to what they were up to was fairly pointless. First of all she needed to firmly establish the connections. She did not have remotely enough at the moment to make any kind of case. And what if she did? putting the murder aside, people were legally allowed to move their money about if they liked. It was what they were planning to do with it that she had to discover.

  She knew that she could not say a word until she had something. Once you put your head above the parapet these people clearly shot at it. Maybe what they were planning would count as some kind of insurgency, treason perhaps? They were international figures — could one be treasonous against the whole world? Maybe the CIA were already on the case, it was certainly their territory, but these people were so enormous perhaps they owned the CIA? Maybe they owned the President? they certainly paid to get him elected. Chrissy realized that she had nothing and could trust no one. She was on her own.

  She quit her job — she was freelance anyway — cashed in her stocks and shares and began to dig — to dig as secretively and as anonymously as she possibly could. She had no desire to share Linda’s fate.

  Using the names in Linda’s letter, Chrissy began to try to trace the movements of the super-rich over the past few months, trying to establish that connection. It was tough, tough work, but not impossible. These were very high profile people. One useful source was the huge number of glossy magazines about money that had proliferated as the yuppy decade ran its course. They were basically gossip pretending to be theory and criticism, hence they chronicled peoples’ movements when they could just to fill up the hundreds of useless shit pages that they published every month.

  Hotels were another good source. It was comparatively simple for Chrissy, posing as a reporter from one o
f these appalling mags, to persuade publicity-minded managers to discreetly confide the names of the more illustrious members of the business community who saw fit to patronize their establishments. Also, Chrissy had a friend in American Diner. It was a big favour, but she managed to persuade him to divulge one or two details concerning where various Platinum cards had been active over short periods of time. Eventually, hollow-eyed and a half a stone lighter, she pinpointed the evening in Los Angeles.

  She was in a position to prove that at least fourteen of the names mentioned in Linda’s letter had been in Los Angeles for less than ten hours on the same evening. Obviously this was not conclusive, LA is a pretty vital business centre, you would expect millionaires to congregate there. But it was all she had. Praying that they had not met at a private house, Chrissy started to contact all the major hotels and restaurants in LA. She chose Silvester Moorcock’s name, they probably wouldn’t bother phoning Australia to check him out.

  ‘Hallo, my name is Patty, I am the personal assistant in the US to Mr Silvester Moorcock, the Australian industrialist. I believe he dined at your establishment on the — th of the — th this year. We cannot locate a solid gold watch that was inscribed ‘to Sly, stay real, Jimmy Carter’. It is of considerable sentimental value and Mr Moorcock wonders if he lost it that night and if you had found it. Obviously, if you had you would not have known who to send it on to.’