Dead Girl Walking

by Christopher Brookmyre

  The next day, he wrote me a letter about it, describing it from his point of view, and telling me what it had meant to him. I thought that was just the sweetest thing. His letter also said this didn’t mean he was making any assumptions about what was next, and especially how soon.

  What was next was not soon, but neither did it feel like there was a hurry. It was a gradual process, and every step felt like a gift, though not from me to him. It felt like something both given and received by each of us. And like that first morning, it always felt scary in a good way. We were tapping into something sacred and ancient; something innocent too, and yet exciting for an edge we were skirting, a fear of the forbidden.

  Each step brought us closer as a couple: and I don’t mean through the actual removal of the next material barrier – my nightie, my bra, my pair of M&S undies – but through the bond of trust that deepened with every line we crossed.

  To let someone see you naked is to give them a special privilege, like showing a secret self. So it has to be at your own deciding, and that decision must be a free one.

  Why am I saying this?

  Thankfully, the reason is not as obvious as it might have been.

  We didn’t hang around in Nice. The bus set off at nine the next morning. Heike got a lot of resentful looks as she boarded, and on another day it might have been funny to see so many people in Savage Earth Heart T-shirts giving her the stink eye.

  ‘They stuck to their script,’ she had told me the night before, just as I was about to close my eyes in search of sleep. ‘The girls who got taken off the bus said they were part of the tour, hired by Bad Candy’s marketing division, and of course fucking Jan had the accreditations to prove it.’

  Heike had told me this only once the lights were out. When she said the next part I understood why.

  ‘They also told the cops that I had pulled this whole stunt because I’m a dyke who was pissed off that they had all rebuffed my advances.’

  I couldn’t see her face but from her voice I knew she was crying.

  On this final leg, there were no incidents around the French–Italian border, and we made it to our hotel in Milan around the end of lunchtime.

  Having once heard some been-there-seen-it-done-it idiot colleague of Keith’s slag off Milan as a grim industrial place, I was ready for somewhere that at its best would look like Birmingham on a sunny day. Instead, within half an hour of dumping my bag in my room, I was at a pavement café with Heike, Scott and Damien, sipping cappuccinos while beautiful people cruised up and down the broad boulevard on Piaggio scooters.

  A group of locals came up and asked if they could have their photo taken with us. We obliged and signed autographs. They seemed so thrilled, bursting with disbelieving happiness at this chance meeting and probably posting on Facebook within minutes. It was a nice reminder of why we were in this. The sun was warm and the architecture all around me was captivating. In a few hours’ time I would be playing to a sell-out crowd at Alcatraz, performing with a band that was getting more electrifying with every show. Life was looking pretty good.

  Then I heard the chime of a text pinging into my phone, and a few seconds later everything was poisoned.

  My phone didn’t recognise who it was from, listing only a number. The text just said:

  Stay out of our business and we stay out of yours.

  With the sender anonymous and the message so vague, I thought it might have been sent by accident. Then I noticed there was an image attached. I tapped to download, my curiosity overcoming my caution at the possible roaming charges. It was my last act in a cosseted world where the price of an image was measured in pounds or euros.

  My phone screen showed a photograph of me naked, stepping out of the shower in what I recognised as the bathroom I had shared with Heike last night.

  I felt my face flush and my stomach tighten; confusion, anger, fear and disbelief threatening to overwhelm me. How was this possible?

  Even as I looked in horror at the image I heard a chime from another of the three phones on the table. I watched as, almost in slow motion, Heike reached for it.

  I wanted to stop her, wanted to tell her not to look, but I felt paralysed. It was like I was separated from the scene behind thick glass. Even if I could find my voice, I couldn’t warn her without letting the others know why.

  I watched the same horror wash over her, the same shock. She glanced towards me and noticed I was mirroring her expression and her pose, my phone suddenly held like it had become a grenade. A whole conversation took place in one wordless moment between us. We were both under siege but we had to pretend all was normal until we could get away from Scott and Damien.

  Somehow I forced down the rest of my coffee, but it tasted of nothing. I felt like the sun had dimmed, the colours faded, the buildings closed in.

  We ditched the guys and climbed into a cab, saying we were going to look at shoes, then as soon as they were out of sight, told the driver to take us to the venue.

  ‘That Dutch bastard was behind this,’ Heike hissed, keeping her voice low despite the driver appearing to speak no English. ‘He booked us into the same room and we only got one keycard. He must have used the other to get in and plant a miniature camera. Christ, I feel like I might throw up.’

  So did I, but weirdly the cab ride helped settle my stomach. As the driver sped along inches behind other cars, through gaps in the traffic, the tension stopped the churning sensation threatening to make me puke.

  We found Jan outside, overseeing the unloading of our gear from the truck. He gave us a relaxed smile and assured us it was going to be a great show tonight, as this was a fantastic venue. His complete lack of interest in why we had pitched up at two in the afternoon wasn’t quite a signed confession, but it definitely didn’t stand him in good stead when he claimed afterwards to know nothing about the naked photos.

  To be honest, his denials were so half-hearted it was clear he was just observing formalities by not cutting straight to the chase. He was fed up carrying out a phoney war.

  ‘So now you get why I tried to keep you out of this?’ he asked. ‘These are not people you can cross.’

  ‘Keep us out of it? You put a fucking camera in our bathroom.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Absolutely not.’

  ‘You had a keycard. You only gave us one.’

  He had the decency to look conflicted at least, but only, it transpired, because he was protecting someone else.

  ‘I was told to get the keycard. I didn’t know what they were going to do.’

  ‘Who did you give it to?’ Heike demanded.

  ‘One of the girls,’ he admitted tiredly.

  ‘What, and she happened to have a miniature spy camera on her that she could hide in our bathroom?’ I asked.

  ‘What can I say? She’s a hooker. This isn’t James Bond shit any more. These things are the size of a lipstick, plug into a USB port. For all I know, all these girls could be carrying them: record every trick in case the footage is useful.’

  ‘Utter bitch. I was trying to help them. Which one was it?’

  ‘I won’t say. It’s not her fault. She was just doing what she was told, same as me. You brought this on yourself, Heike. You made everybody nervous. Somebody must have reported back what you pulled on the bus yesterday.’

  ‘Reported back to who? Why were you holding their passports? Why did they lie to the cops?’

  ‘Because they’re fucking scared,’ Jan replied, exasperated. ‘Okay? They do as they’re told. This is not about me.’

  ‘What, you’re not seeing a slice of the action?’ Heike asked.

  ‘Yes, of course. I get paid. Everybody gets paid. Margins are tight on a tour. They ask me to do them a favour, they make it worth my while to say yes. But mainly I say yes because I don’t want to find out what happens if I say no.’

  ‘And that includes saying yes when they tell you to steal a key to our bedroom? They filmed us naked, Jan. They could release these images on the web and th
ey’d be everywhere in no time, irretrievable, out there for ever.’

  He hung his head, finding it difficult to look long at either of us.

  ‘Those pictures are just a warning, okay?’ he said, digging deep to find an even tone. ‘They don’t want to use them. They just want you to stay out of their shit. And believe me, there’s plenty more they can do. These people could end this whole tour right now. They have connections. Suddenly every venue has a power cut, or plumbing problems. You want things to run smooth? Stay out of their shit.’

  ‘And how deep is their shit, Jan? Prostitution? Human traffic? White slavery?’

  Jan stood up straight at last, meeting Heike’s eye. I got the feeling he’d weathered the worst of it and knew she was done.

  ‘You don’t like that these girls are hookers?’ he shrugged. ‘That’s for you to decide. But in this business, we all got to swallow some shit to keep the show on the road, okay? It’s up to you, Heike. You want to be a martyr, nobody’s stopping you. You want to be a rock star, then you don’t get to be a fucking saint too. It’s your choice.’

  Temptations

  Parlabane stood outside Mairi’s room, hoping the coffee and pastries he’d brought would make up for waking her. She hadn’t shown up at the time they’d agreed and wasn’t answering her mobile, so he’d figured she was still out cold, and unlikely to rally without caffeine.

  She answered the door in a fluffy white dressing gown, towelling her damp hair with her right hand as he proffered his humble offering.

  ‘Thought you might need breakfast.’

  Parlabane followed her into the room. It smelled of shampoo, moisturiser and body-spray. He wanted to drink it in: his nose hadn’t been assailed by such feminine scents in a long time. He took a seat on a low couch beneath the window, placing the bag down on a glass table and opening it to reveal the goodies inside.

  Mairi took a sip from the polystyrene cup.

  ‘Not your preferred Starbucks, I’m afraid. Had to settle for a family-run and tax-paying German bakery down the street.’

  ‘You’re a life-saver,’ she said, then seemed to catch herself. ‘Kind of need to recalibrate my scale on that, I guess.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about the Brauereihallen,’ Parlabane told her. ‘That roadie, Karl: I reckon he went off and called Boris the moment we started showing people the photo. He wanted my phone. The rendezvous at Museumsinsel was Plan B, after he had told Boris I wouldn’t hand it over.’

  ‘Why would he want your phone?’

  ‘This all kicked off after I took his photo on Alexanderplatz. I snapped him on the Islay ferry, and I might not have been as surreptitious about it as I previously assumed.’

  ‘Why would having proof that he’d been to Islay be something he’d go to extreme lengths to destroy?’

  ‘I don’t know. What’s even more confusing is that when we spoke on the phone last night I asked why he was looking for Heike. He said, “I’m not.” At the time I assumed he was stonewalling me, but what if he was telling the truth, in his own twisted way?’

  ‘Like how?’

  Mairi blanched as she answered her own question.

  ‘He isn’t looking for her because he knows where she is.’

  Parlabane nodded, opting not to mention the further possibility that he wasn’t looking for her because he knew she was dead.

  ‘Karl lied to us last night, but he wasn’t the only one. There was another member of the road crew who recognised the photo, I’m sure, and neither he nor Karl were on Altar State’s core crew.’

  ‘They work for Bad Candy,’ Mairi stated, reaching for another pastry.

  Her dressing gown flapped open slightly, and in that fraction of a second Parlabane was waylaid by a moment of déjà vu. He recalled another morning long ago, in the flat in Maybury Square, Sarah in a dressing gown that had similarly billowed as she leaned down into a low cupboard. He had been trying to be professional and detached up until that point, trying to keep his mind away from how attractive he found Sarah, and that moment had breached the dam and let it all flood in.

  This time he just about managed to avert his gaze. However, the instincts it stirred sparked a further connection.

  ‘Bad Candy crews have a rep for moving drugs,’ he said. ‘They run their own trade across the whole tour network. But remember what Damien told us about the merch girls: what if Bad Candy’s roadies aren’t just supplying bad candy these days?’

  As though responding to the sleaze factor that had been introduced, Mairi pulled the cord tighter on her gown.

  ‘Stan,’ she said. ‘Altar State’s sound engineer: he told us he had seen Boris with groups of girls in hotels, like he was a porn baron.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Parlabane remembered. ‘And he said this was in Milan and either Cologne or Frankfurt. Those are all big expo towns, and that’s the bread and butter for Bad Candy these days. I’m betting Boris has a close connection to a certain concert and exhibition logistics firm.’

  Mairi hurried across to the dressing table and lifted her iPad, quickly keying something into the touchscreen. She nodded approvingly at what it displayed.

  ‘Bad Candy have an office in Berlin,’ she told him. ‘Rosenthaler Strasse.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  Mairi worked the screen again, calling up a map.

  ‘Right here,’ she pointed. ‘Five minutes’ walk from Alexanderplatz.’

  ‘It’s a short jaunt from Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz too,’ Parlabane observed.

  ‘Why, what’s there?’

  ‘It was Boris’s first choice for last night’s prisoner exchange.’

  He got to his feet.

  ‘Okay, I’m going to leave you to get ready. Take your time: I need to do a bit of an inventory, work out what tools I’m going to need.’

  ‘Tools? For what?’

  ‘Journalism,’ he replied, feeling a glint forming in his eye for the first time in months. ‘Of the kind that we as a fair-minded and respectable nation no longer consider acceptable.’

  Defiance

  I was brooding upstairs in my room after the soundcheck when I heard a knock at my door. I had been sitting there on the edge of the bed for I don’t know how long. I couldn’t remember feeling more in need of a shower, but I was afraid to have one.

  I had looked up surveillance hardware on the internet, which was probably a mistake. It turned out you could get pinhole cameras everywhere, and they were tiny, often disguised and worryingly cheap.

  I removed every loose object from the bathroom but it still had so many suspicious possibilities. What was on the other side of that mirror? Were those screws really screws? Was every hole in that fixed showerhead there to spray water?

  I checked the spyhole – an aperture ten times the size of the cameras available for twenty quid on the web – and was relieved to see that it was Heike who was waiting in the corridor.

  ‘I just came to say how sorry I am for dragging you into all this,’ she said, stepping into my room. ‘I was so caught up in what had happened that I forgot there was collateral damage. I brought this down on both of us, and I apologise.’

  ‘You’ve nothing to apologise for. Let’s not forget who the bastards are here. Besides, it can’t be collateral damage if I’m a willing participant.’

  She liked that, though it sounded braver and a lot more defiant than I actually felt.

  ‘Still, it was my crusade, and I feel terrible about what’s happened to you. I just want you to know it’s finished now.’

  I was relieved to hear this. One of my worst fears as I sat there mulling it over was that Heike would do something self-destructive in her rage. I had no doubt at all regarding Jan’s claims that these were dangerous people.

  She looked tired and beaten. I wouldn’t exaggerate and say that we had aged over the past few hours, but we did both look like we’d been up all night.

  Heike sat on a swivel chair in the corner, clasping her arms around her shins and rocking slightly. Sh
e could only have looked more defensive if she’d tucked her head between her knees and thrown a blanket over herself.

  ‘It happened to both of us,’ I reminded her. ‘You were trying to help those girls. Don’t apologise for that.’

  Heike looked at the carpet, a scared and pale version of herself.

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s just it, isn’t it? I think the real reason I’m feeling guilty is that Jan named my price. I hate him for that, but I hate myself more for the choice he knew I’d make.’

  I thought about Heike’s words while I occupied myself with ironing my trousers and top for the show, forty-eight hours stuffed into my luggage not having done them any favours. I felt guilty about the relief I had experienced, but this quickly turned to anger. We had nothing to feel guilty about.

  Heike was wrong. Jan hadn’t given her a choice: he just dressed it up to look like one. These bastards were holding all the cards. If she dug her heels in, she could ruin her own career, not to mention both our reputations, and still not make a dent in whatever was going on here.

  Unlike Heike, I wasn’t going to hate myself over what had happened to us. I didn’t have any going spare, as all the hate I had was going to those who deserved it.

  I hated the way they had used our bodies against us. I hated that they’d made me paranoid about undressing in my own bathroom. I hated that they had caused me to feel disgust at my own body, and I really fucking hated that they had made me want to go out on stage tonight in a baggy jumper and possibly a duffel coat.

  I had to put the iron down before I threw it through the window. My anger was so great I couldn’t articulate it beyond the two words pounding like a rhythm in my head, repeating themselves over and over.

  Fuck them. Fuck them. Fuck them.

  Whoever they were, fuck them.

  I went into the bathroom, turned on the shower and stripped off, but not before looking out something totally different to wear tonight.

  I turned up at the venue in my usual attire, the dress Heike bought me in London carefully tucked into my bag. I got changed at the last minute, hanging back out of her sight as we waited to go on-stage.