The Afterparty
Page 18
He had killed someone.
Oh fuck! Oh Jesus! Help me please!
No. He had killed two.
For not only had he ended Calvin’s life (‘by accident’ meant nothing), he had just as surely finished off the Michael that he once had been. The one who watched bad films and nit-picked grammar. The timid failure whose story ended, likewise, with a moment of high spirits on a roof. And to replace him, a new Michael had been born. The killer. The Michael who ends. In place of Sally and the happy faces of his past, his fellows now were West and Shipman, the bonded boy teams of the Congo, the excruciation officers in Syria and Myanmar. That unassuming garden thud had stamped his entrance to their league. Name: Date: Victim: Method: His authorising signature in blood. And no remorse. Not for Calvin anyway. If anything, he felt resentment at the intimacy now that joined him always to that ignoramus. And fear, yes, of what would follow. Paramedics soon, then police, then press.
Though it was an accident. Hugo saw. He said he saw.
The cistern’s silence meant it had reloaded. Michael flushed, and quickly went downstairs.
‘I mean …’ The urgent whimper reached him from the drawing room. ‘Is there anything I can do? I don’t know what to do!’
Michael halted six steps high, his weary gait suspended in a tension jelly.
‘Yes,’ Hugo said meekly, to silence. ‘OK. I’ll go and do that. Yes, of course. Thank you.’
Silence replied.
‘OK. Bye.’
An object touched another. And then there was no sound at all.
Michael stood paralysed with interest. Was there some hidden importance in what he’d heard? Had Hugo betrayed him? Had they been caught?
No. He yanked back his thoughts. He was being paranoid. He needed to calm down. Information gained in secret always wore a sheen of intrigue. This was the overhearing spell, the intimacy hack. He sniffed with self-contempt, and the action seemed to produce Hugo, standing in the doorway.
‘You all right, Mike?’
‘Yeah, OK,’ Michael said. ‘Is the ambulance coming?’
‘Yes. They said I should wait by the door.’
‘Right.’
‘What did they say about Calvin?’ Michael asked, as they walked downstairs. ‘Did you say …’ he was dead? was meant to follow, but the words would not come. ‘Did you say … what happened?’
‘Yes. They just asked me a lot of questions and I answered them.’
Michael watched the back of Hugo’s head as it bobbed purposefully down into the hall.
He could not help saying: ‘Did you tell them it was an accident?’
‘They didn’t ask. They just said to wait by the door for the paramedics.’
He did his best to appear satisfied with this. Once the ambulance arrived, he would have to start saying it was an accident quite often.
They had reached the door.
Beside it, Michael noticed two small screens, relaying video of the paparazzi who remained outside, a pale and tattered band, grimly established in the intervening crevices of cars and urban furniture. One young man, taking his ease beside a monstrous zoom, was reclined across an elbow on the garden wall, two white filaments of flex converging from his ears into the upholstered interior of his coat. Behind him, another, older, sat smoking in a silver Mercedes, lens wedged into the crook of window and door, as two wasp-toned parking tickets flapped beneath its heavy windscreen mono-wipe. On the bonnet, with or without permission, another man loomed above the morning’s Sun, which he had weighed securely open with a flashgun and a Starbucks tub. Breaking off from the group, absorbed in a phone call, one of their fellows ambled into the road, gesticulating angrily. An old red-wine-coloured taxi rolled lazily around him, for hire.
Michael heard footsteps.
‘I, um,’ Mellody said behind him. ‘I think Calvin’s really hurt.’
She was leaning on the banisters with just a few too many degrees.
‘Yeah,’ Hugo said after a moment. ‘Well the ambulance will be here any second.’
‘Mmm …’ A crunch of puzzlement in her brow, and then nothing, as if she had forgotten what she wanted to say.
Everybody looked at everybody else.
‘I know CPR,’ she strenuously announced.
‘Listen, Mell, darling.’ Hugo approached her slowly, depositing a gentle hand on the junction of her waist and hip. ‘Seriously, why don’t you just go to bed? It’s going to get pretty hectic when the paramedics arrive.’
‘But he’s just lying there.’
‘I know. I’ve called 999. Help is on its way.’
‘Why didn’t you call before?’
The question was posed as a child would ask it – curious, unaccusing, ready for the reasonable explanation that would surely come. Michael returned to the door, trying to arrange his back like that of a man who was not listening.
‘You know that, Mell.’ Hugo was adult calm. ‘We had to tidy up. We couldn’t let people in with all that coke in the house.’
‘But, um … I think Calvin is really hurt.’
Michael stared at the screens.
‘Let’s wait and see what the paramedics think. OK?’
A transmitted ruffle of excitement swept across the faces of the men. Through a blue strobe fanfare, the ambulance appeared, a speeding block of purpose, liveried in yellow bright enough to disinfect.
‘I just think, in this situation …’
It hurtled to a halt, unmistakably in front of Hugo’s house.
‘… that you might find it less stressful upstairs.’
First one, then all of the photographers hurried with their equipment to the far pavement – inexplicably, it seemed to Michael, until he realised that they were positioning themselves to frame both ambulance and house together. Two impassive paramedics stepped out into a fusillade of light.
‘Hugo,’ Michael said, not turning.
They were a man and a woman. They wore moss-green boiler suits and carried bags. They jogged towards the gate.
‘I think the ambulance is here.’
The doorbell was ringing.
Hugo snatched a slim zinc handset from its mount.
‘Come in,’ he said, and buzzed them through.
Everybody looked at everybody else.
Something was being shared. Relief? Conspiracy? Fear?
Hugo broke the moment and opened the door.
‘Hi!’ he called down the path, untroubled by a hail of shouts and flashes. ‘He’s at the back!’
‘Please show us,’ said the woman, running in with equipment.
And now Hugo was leading them down the hall. Michael hurried in attendance.
‘What’s his name?’ the woman was asking, as Hugo swung open the back door.
‘Calvin,’ he said, entering the garden.
‘And tell me what happened?’ She was middle-aged, maternal, her accent delicately Londonised.
‘I don’t know exactly.’ Hugo sounded desperate again. ‘We went up on the roof. He was lying down by the edge. And he just – I don’t know – slipped off.’
And there Calvin still was. Some part of Michael had been hoping he might have vanished. Or that he would be sitting up now, rubbing his head, perhaps, and wincing through a fag. But no. That crumpled shirt. Those same mistaken legs.
He felt sick again. He did not want to look.
‘The roof?!’ said Mellody.
Everyone ignored her.
‘Kelvin? Can you hear me, Kelvin?’
The woman could have been talking to an aged resident. The man passed her something. A torch. She shone it into the boy’s eyes, lifting the lids roughly with a grey-gloved thumb.
‘Kelvin? Just blink if you can hear me, Kelvin.’
‘The roof?’ said Mellody again.
Michael hung back. Neither paramedic had looked at him yet. Perhaps, if he went inside, he could avoid being noticed altogether?
‘Had he been drinking before he fell?’
Hugo was gaz
ing vacantly at the patient. He said nothing.
‘Sir,’ the man took over while the woman worked, ‘do you know if he had been drinking?’ His cockney tones were harder and his face was thin, with glasses, and the geek-gone-wrong demeanour of a tabloid perv.
‘Oh, er, maybe,’ Hugo’s voice was hollow, a withered thing. ‘Yes, probably.’
‘How about drugs?’ the man continued. ‘Any prescription medicines? Heroin? Amphetamines? Cocaine?’
‘I don’t know.’ Hugo turned to Mellody.
‘Coke,’ she said. ‘I think. Ketamine maybe. No heroin.’
Hugo was pale.
‘And it’s Calvin,’ Mellody added.
‘Sorry?’ If the man was excited about meeting Mellody and Hugo Marks, he gave no sign of it.
‘Calvin. Not Kelvin.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Pupils are fixed and dilated,’ the woman said.
‘Is he OK?’ Mellody asked.
‘We’re trying to find that out,’ said the man. ‘Thanks for your help. We can take it from here.’
Hugo was staring straight at Michael – had been staring, Michael realised, for a while. And the stare was loaded, delivering significance. It meant something.
Michael looked hopelessly back.
The famous eyes jerked downwards, and returned. Jerked downwards, and returned.
Michael did not understand. He tried to look sympathetic. He wanted to go home.
Frustration gripped Hugo’s face.
Something about Calvin. Something about Calvin was important.
Michael did not want to look.
The gaze congealed.
Michael did not want to see. The blood, the death, the consequences of his actions, the walls of his eternal cell.
He stepped forward.
There was more blood on the earth, but not much. A bump was forming where the boy’s head had met the railing. How touching it was that a corpse might still be busying itself with minor matters. And now the paramedic woman was fitting a clear mask and bag over Calvin’s mouth. Did that mean …? No. Michael saw no breath or movement. Masks, no doubt, were regulation optimism.
He aimed a glance at Hugo, formulating sorrowful and resigned.
Unsatisfied, the famous eyes jerked downwards, and returned. Jerked downwards, and returned.
Had Michael missed something?
He leaned over the male paramedic’s head.
On Calvin’s shirt. That was funny.
A garden snail and its sparkling scar of mucus were stranded in a dash across the silk.
The woman brushed it off with her sleeve.
‘Can you give us some room, please!’ she said.
* * *
From: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
To: williammendez75@gmail.com
Subject: Re: STOP PRESS! BLOOMSBURY INTERESTED!
Date: Wednesday, 9 December 2009 09:22:56
Morning William – mightily relieved that you’re OK! I just got an email from Jane as well, pressing for a meeting with you at their offices, so I think we do need to fix a date today. You don’t have to be a charmer or a genius, just turn up and show her you’re a chap she can do business with. (And Cape’s sales and marketing people may want to say hello too.) So: please name the day. I need one for Bloomsbury too. I have a cattle prod in one hand, and a bullwhip in the other. Don’t make me use them…
Now I think about it, your book does have quite a strong foundation in the Alfie Marsh/Harvey Green case, doesn’t it? I remember Green also talking about Marsh’s legs being ‘at funny angles’ in his 999 recording. Perhaps you’re right about Marsh, in retrospect. He has been canonised somewhat.
Valerie x
PS I’m off out later this morning, but I’ll be on my BlackBerry all day. Why not give me a call on 07700 900412?
* * *
From: williammendez75@gmail.com
To: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
Subject: Re: STOP PRESS! BLOOMSBURY INTERESTED!
Date: Wednesday, 9 December 2009 10:54:04
Morning Val – very promising stuff all this, and do tell Jane how excited I am, but I have my diary in front of me, and work is simply torrential just now. I really don’t see a window coming up. Why don’t you ask them to email me? I’d love to hear from them, and would be happy to answer any questions.
And yes, for the record, I was partly inspired by the whole Harvey Green affair, although I would not describe it as the foundation of the novel. If anything, Chris Heath’s book Feel, about Robbie Williams, and The Insider by Piers Morgan, have been greater influences.
W
* * *
From: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
To: williammendez75@gmail.com
Subject: Re: STOP PRESS! BLOOMSBURY INTERESTED!
Date: Wednesday, 9 December 2009 10:59:02
Hi William – email won’t cut it, I’m afraid. Partial deal is leap of faith for these guys, so you need to show your face. Why not just call in sick tomorrow and meet then? Get it out of the way?
Vx
* * *
From:williammendez75@gmail.com
To: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
Subject: Re: STOP PRESS! BLOOMSBURY INTERESTED!
Date: Wednesday, 9 December 2009 11:41:33
Sorry Val. This is so frustrating. I do desperately want to meet Jane and Matthew to talk about this – I’d do it today if I could. But I can’t. I’ve thought about it, and I just can’t. Maybe we could ask them to make their offer first? Or see if they can wait a few weeks? I should have foreseen this situation; it was stupid of me to let things get this far. But I’m working like crazy right now. Surely both of them will still love it in a few months?
* * *
From: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
To: williammendez75@gmail.com
Subject: Re: STOP PRESS! BLOOMSBURY INTERESTED!
Date: Wednesday, 09 December 2009 11:58:56
Doubt they’ll be so keen, to be honest. Want this deal now, to pre-empt competition. And you will look v flaky if you back out. Any publisher will expect to meet you anyway. Why not swap a few hours’ work on the book for 2 meetings with adoring editors? We are on the pot, I’m afraid, and it is time either to relieve ourselves or disembark. Which? V
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device.
* * *
From: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
To: williammendez75@gmail.com
Subject: Need that decision
Date: Wednesday, 09 December 2009 13:20:21
Just got a call from Jane. I said was not sure on meeting yet. Need date asap pls. Vx
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device.
* * *
From: williammendez75@gmail.com
To: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
Subject: Re: Need that decision
Date: Thursday, 10 December 2009 10:08:42
Morning Val,
I’ve been thinking about it, and I might be able to arrange for someone I know to go along and represent me. If so, it would probably be next week. Could you check with Jane/Matthew if that’s OK?
Thanks,
William
* * *
From: valerie.morrell@nortonmorrell.co.uk
To: williammendez75@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Need that decision
Date: Thursday, 10 December 2009 11:17:20
Not a hope, William. Sorry. Why can’t this bloody fellow come himself, they will want to know. And, to be honest, I do too. … Though I’ll admit I have a theory.
I may well be brandishing the wrong end of this stick, but are you, by any chance, working under an assumed name? People do. The thought occurred to me a couple of weeks ago, when you were away and I was trying to get in touch quite urgently. I called the Times to see if they had a phone number for a William Mendez, but they said you didn’t work there. I explained you were freelance, and someone went through a list t
o check, but there was no Mendez of any variety. Then my assistant called round the other major papers (she gets bored and tries to impress me), and none of them said they knew you either. A bit of a mystery, you will agree…
But look, here’s my view on all this: piffle! I’ve got most of a splendid book in front of me. The author’s neither dead nor loopy. Who cares if he masquerades as a subeditor called William Mendez in his spare time? I’m sure he has his reasons. Trouble is, I need the author of this book, whatever his name actually is, to meet a publisher, smile and take their money. Otherwise no book deal, no funny blurb on the jacket, no 15% for Valerie. People don’t swap contracts with invisible men.
So tell me, is your real name William Mendez? Because if it isn’t, and you own up, then we can still save this. I’ll tell Jane you’re writing under a pseudonym; she’ll say, ‘Oh, how exciting!’; you’ll turn up to meet her incognito; then we all get rich off your talent. And no one need find out who you really are. Please think it over. I’d hate for this to fall through.