Off Script

by Graham Hurley

  ‘So, who gets to write the piece?’

  ‘Me. That’s the whole point.’

  ‘And O’Leary? He’d go with that?’

  ‘He’d jump at it. The man’s bone idle. He’s lost his appetite, his mojo. For a shared credit, he’d be happy to stand aside and let me do the heavy lifting.’

  I somehow doubt this. At the Premier Inn, O’Leary did his best to bully me into a proper interview and this morning he couldn’t wait to get to Karen before anyone else knocked on her door.

  ‘So how did he know how to find her?’ Mitch has given up on O’Leary.

  ‘The police, of course.’ I’m thinking of my conversation with Williams.

  Mitch nods. He’s had plenty of dealings with the Met, and discreet conversations with senior journalists in the margins of major enquiries don’t surprise him in the least.

  We finish up in the pub and walk Karen home. A third glass of cider and red has made her slightly unsteady, and when we link arms I can feel her leaning into me. On her doorstep, I ask her where she thinks O’Leary might live but she says she hasn’t a clue. London somewhere? No idea.

  As we drive away, Mitch tells me not to worry. He has a wealth of contacts. Give him an hour, maybe two. By the time I drop him back at Taunton station, he’s been on his mobile non-stop.

  ‘Edmonton,’ he says. ‘North London.’

  ‘Where, exactly?’

  He tears a sheet from his notepad and scribbles an address. 34b Lilac Avenue.

  ‘This place belongs to him?’

  ‘An old girlfriend. He kips there when he’s in London. She’s working in Brussels at the moment.’

  ‘Very wise. He’s there alone?’

  ‘As far as I know, yes.’ Mitch’s door is half-open. He nods down at the address. ‘So, what next?’

  I shrug, reaching for the ignition key. ‘I’ll be in touch, ‘I say. ‘And thanks for coming down.’

  ‘You’re telling me this is over?’

  ‘No.’ I’m checking the rear-view mirror. ‘Far from it.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  It’s an hour’s drive from Taunton to Flixcombe Manor. I haven’t been in West Dorset for a while, and spring has settled on these rolling hills. This is a landscape you could almost eat: hedgerows already frothy with cow parsley, trees in village gardens heavy with cherry blossom, lambs in the fields doing their April thing while their mums try and get a moment’s peace.

  I pause for a moment at the bend in the drive that offers the best view of the house through the trees. Newly repainted, perfectly proportioned, it’s a wonderful example of how the Georgians could make a landscape like this even more irresistible. H once told me what a wrench it was leaving his beloved Pompey. Portsmouth undoubtedly has its charms, especially if – like H – you were making a fortune in the drugs biz, but I suspect the move to Flixcombe has done wonders for his blood pressure.

  As if. Jessie, the ex-Pompey woman who makes his life run on time, lets me into the house. We share a brief hug and then she says I’ll find H upstairs in the room he uses as an office.

  ‘Shit day, so far,’ she warns. ‘See what you can do.’

  H is sitting at his desk. Balls of paper litter the floor. I stoop to retrieve them and find an empty can of Stella in the wastepaper bin. Bad sign. H rarely drinks before six o’clock.

  ‘Can you fucking believe this?’ No hello.

  He shows me a piece of paper covered in comments and exclamation marks he must have scribbled earlier. It seems to be some kind of official notification and I’m still trying to make sense of it when H spares me the effort.

  ‘Planners,’ he says. ‘Scum of the fucking earth. Waste our money and make life miserable.’ He nods towards the window. ‘And the tosser over the way, you know what he’s done?’

  I shake my head. I don’t. Is this the neighbour who won’t sell H the extra fields he wants?

  ‘Yeah. Him. And you know why? I should have guessed, should have sussed it. He’s trying to get planning permission for a housing estate and he thinks he’s on to a winner. A housing estate.’ He nods towards the window. ‘Right in the middle of my fucking view. It can’t happen. It won’t happen. The tosser doesn’t know what he’s getting into.’

  I resist the temptation to enquire further. In these moods, H can rant for hours and time is precious. I tell him I’m planning a visit to the Stroke Unit on the way home. Any chance of a brief chat?

  He has the grace to ask how Pavel is getting on. We had a very brief phone conversation yesterday on his prospects but I’m not sure how much H took in. I tell him Pavel is on the mend.

  ‘Can he remember anything about it?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. One day he may tell me but so far he’s still not talking.’

  ‘Because he can’t?’

  ‘Because he’s still unconscious. Breathing is a major triumph. We live in hope.’

  H nods, pushes the pile of paperwork to one side. ‘So, what’s this about?’ he asks. ‘How can I help?’

  I tell him about finding Moonie’s mum, and about Seb O’Leary. I don’t bother mentioning Mitch because he and H had a major run-in a couple of years ago, and H has never understood the concept of forgiveness. Mitch tried to stitch H up over his links to UKIP, and Mitch was lucky not to end up on crutches.

  ‘Journalists are scum,’ H grunts. ‘Worse than planners. No fucking respect. Never know when to stop poking their nose into other people’s business.’

  This sounds promising. I explain how O’Leary talked his way into Karen’s bed-sit, and made off with a lengthy interview and a bunch of photos.

  ‘You’re telling me he helped himself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  I do my best to explain about O’Leary’s interest in highlighting the woeful state of mental health provision.

  ‘But that’s good, isn’t it? These Moonie guys should be tucked up somewhere safe. Then our Carrie might still be alive.’

  ‘Of course, that’s the whole point. But we don’t trust the man. He’s sitting on a big story. He’s got that boy’s life in his hands. He could do anything with it.’

  ‘You want the stuff back?’

  ‘We do.’

  ‘Who’s this “we”?’

  ‘Me. I want it back.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘And then I’ll find someone I trust to do a better job.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. There’ll be someone.’ I’m staring at him. ‘Are you trusting me here? Only it doesn’t feel like it.’

  H holds my gaze all too briefly, then reaches for a pen. When I give him O’Leary’s address, he pauses.

  ‘That’s North London. You’re sure he’s there?’

  ‘No, but he might be.’

  ‘You want the stuff back? His notes? The photos?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You want him hurt, as well?’

  ‘I want him away from the story. And I want him away from me.’

  ‘He’s been at you?’ H has tuned in properly now, and it shows.

  ‘He’s tried. It’s nothing physical. Nothing I couldn’t cope with. He’s way past his sell-by date but he’ll never admit it and that’s rather the point. The boy Moonie is damaged enough already. The last thing he needs is O’Leary.’

  ‘But the boy killed Carrie, didn’t he?’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘So, what are we talking about? Am I missing something here? He rips the poor woman’s guts out, he’s madness on fucking legs, and he’ll probably do it again. Why should we be bothered?’

  It’s a very good question and it deserves a proper answer. I pull up a chair, determined to keep H’s attention.

  ‘Everyone has a story,’ I tell him. ‘Even people like Moonie. Things just don’t happen by accident. There are reasons why people do things to each other, to themselves, why people just lose it. It isn’t enough to turn our backs. We need to understand.’ I c
an hear Pavel in this little speech, and so can H.

  ‘That’s nonce talk. You do what that boy did, you pay a price. But that’s another fucking conversation.’ He’s looking at the address again. ‘I’ll get it sorted. Leave it to me.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘Like tonight?’ H gets to his feet and has a stretch. He’s not a tall man, by any means, but I’ve always been fascinated by the way his sheer physical presence can fill a room. ‘Well …?’

  He won’t give me an answer. Instead, he wants to talk about Malo.

  ‘He was here a couple of days,’ he says, ‘before he pushed off back to London.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad for both of you.’

  ‘And we talked, like you do.’

  ‘Excellent. I could have done with some of that myself, if you’re asking. It was hard, losing Carrie.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, the boy seems to think you might have found someone down there to do the biz.’

  The biz. H has always been pathologically jealous, or perhaps territorial. He has no rights as far as I’m concerned, apart from being the father of my only son. We’ve made love once, just once, and that was twenty years ago. And yet he still seems to think he owns me.

  ‘Big guy? Bit of a voice on him? Looks like he can handle himself?’

  I nod. I know exactly where this has come from. Open-mic night in downtown Exmouth, I think, and Malo playing barman.

  ‘His name’s Deko,’ I say lightly.

  ‘Deko? What kind of name is that?’

  ‘He’s Dutch.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘He’s been very kind. Very supportive. Just now, that feels important. Am I on a leash, here? Should I ask your permission?’

  ‘To do what?’

  This, of course, is the crux. H has already assumed that Deko and I are shagging each other to death. He’s not far wrong but that’s not the point.

  I give him a brief hug and tell him there’s nothing to be worried about.

  ‘Mr O’Leary,’ I murmur, ‘I’d be truly grateful.’

  H studies me for a long moment. In some ways he’s like the weather. The storms that fuel him come and go, blowing quickly through, volatile, occasionally violent, but never around for long. Just now, he seems to have forgiven me for Deko and there’s a smile on his face.

  ‘Edmonton’s full of blacks,’ he says. ‘This could be one for Wes.’

  I’m on my way home, exploring the maze of country lanes favoured by my sat nav. Wesley Kane is H’s enforcer-in-chief. He still lives in Pompey and he probably always will. He’s tall, keeps himself fit, and has hung on to his looks. When I was much younger, I’d have given anything for having Wes’s hair. H has shown me photos from the old days. Wes was always cool, never smiling for the camera, and his hair, an explosion of natural curls, looked like someone had just lit a fuse and run away. Nowadays, worn longer, plaited, beaded, and threaded with grey, it makes him look even sexier. Last year, when I was trying to disentangle my son from some deeply scary people in the cocaine trade, Wes was very helpful. Despite his reputation for being a bit of a psycho, I like to think we became friends.

  Wes, I suspect, will be on the train within the hour. His favourite party piece calls for an electric kettle and someone else’s steaming groin but before I left Flixcombe, I made H promise he’d leave Seb O’Leary intact. Just get the Moonie stuff back.

  At the Stroke Unit, to my disappointment, there’s very little news. They’re feeding Pavel via a tube down his throat. Everything below his head is behaving the way it should and he needs no mechanical help with his breathing. He’s on a daily dosage of blood thinners and – in the words of one of the nurses – there’s no reason why he should still be so deeply unconscious. The workings of the brain, she says, often remain a complete mystery. Too right.

  Back at the apartment I find a note from Felip. He hopes I don’t mind but he’s taken a couple of days off. He has a Spanish friend who’s working at a hotel in St Ives. Felip should be back by the end of the week and if I need him before then, all I have to do is phone.

  It feels strange having the apartment to myself. What’s happened – first to Carrie, and now to Pavel – has left me in limbo. I’m determined to be at Pavel’s bedside for the moment when he truly begins to surface, but in the meantime I’m in the hands of the gods of unconsciousness.

  I begin to put some music on – Ravel, another Pavel favourite – but then change my mind, and drift from room to room, enjoying the space and the silence. I’ve no idea what life was like in this apartment before we moved Pavel in, but I suspect you’d never tire of the view, and the low keening of the wind, and the faint chorus of oystercatchers on the roost across the water. I’m thinking of H, and another perfect view, when a text arrives on my mobile. It’s from Boysie. He’s due to make a presentation to his backers and he’s wondering whether I’ve managed to come up with a name or two for the Hotel Zuma showbiz weekend he has in mind.

  I stare at the tiny screen for a moment. The answer, alas, is no but it’s worse than that because my contacts book is very old and if Boysie is relying on little me to come up with any current A-listers, then I’m afraid he’s going to be disappointed. It was Deko who told me only days ago that things are tight out there in the world of business. Bits of the economy are falling apart, and Brexit doesn’t help. The average punter, he said, has a keen instinct for impending disaster and no one wants to part with their money. So maybe the Hotel Zuma isn’t quite as buoyant as I’d thought. Maybe even the casino is feeling the pinch.

  I make myself comfortable on the sofa and begin to list one or two thespy friends who might just fancy a weekend in Devon. Then, a far more interesting challenge, I start scribbling random thoughts about the places filming has taken me, and how the business of being paid to be someone else can be surprisingly liberating, not just on set or on location, but in the theatre or the recording studio. I’ve always treasured those moments when the character I’m playing takes over completely, and I cease to be Enora Andressen, and by the time I’ve run out of paper, it’s dark outside.

  Putting the notes aside, I wander into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of wine. Tomorrow, I think, I’ll drive up to the hotel and try out some of these ideas on Boysie. If he likes them, if we stay friends, then I might invite him and Deko back here to the apartment for a meal. I ponder the thought for a moment or two, thinking about possible menus, then I change my mind. I want only one face at my dining table, and it isn’t Boysie’s.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Next morning, my sat nav takes me back to the Hotel Zuma. It’s still early, barely half past nine, and I’m having a companionable little fantasy about fresh coffee with Boysie on the terrace at the front of the property, when the woman at reception tells me he’s up in the woods taking yet another look at his pigs. She’s recognized me from the evening Boysie gave me the tour. The pigs, she seems to be implying, have become a bit of an obsession. Lately he’s been spending more and more time up there. Organic free-range pork is one thing, but there’s also the small matter of a hotel to run.

  ‘Shall I wait for him to get back?’

  ‘Don’t bother. He may be hours. I’ll draw you a map. There are two gates in the fenced area. I’ll mark the one you need.’ She stands up to check what I’m wearing on my feet. ‘Runners? Just as well.’

  The path I need to follow begins beyond a wicket gate at the top of the hotel’s veggie patch. The path has been well-trodden and is easy to follow. Almost immediately, I’m swallowed up by the darkness of the trees. The wind has dropped overnight, and the heat of the sun seems to have released the scent of pine resin. I pause to savour it. The breath of the forest, I think. Songbirds flutter from branch to branch, shadows in the gloom, wholly welcome after the chorus of squawky seagulls which seems to have become the soundtrack of my life. Then I’m aware of a tiny movement, barely metres away, and I look round to find myself looking a deer in the eye. It must be y
oung. It stands there, waiting for something to happen, then I slowly extend a hand and it bounds away. I watch it disappearing into the trees below me. Magic, I think. No wonder Boysie loves this place.

  Further up the hill, the path becomes boggier, thanks to a tiny stream that’s appeared from nowhere. I step sideways on to the knobbly bed of fallen pine cones and keep going, avoiding the path. Ahead, emerging from the trees, is a newish-looking fence with a gate. Beside the gate is a warning, in red capital letters. NO ADMITTANCE, it says. DANGER – WILD BOAR.

  No one has mentioned wild boar. At the restaurant table the other night, the talk was of free-range pigs, which I took to be regular porkers, sausages on four legs. Wild boars, about which I know nothing, sound altogether more exotic. At first sight the gate appears to be padlocked, but then I realize that the chain is hanging loose, unsecured. I slide the latch back and when I give the gate a little push, it swings open. I stand stock still for a second or two, wondering whether to go any further. The word ‘wild’ is the clue. A domestic pig isn’t small. This version might be a hooligan. If it’s having a bad day, it might hurt me. In extremis, say in a Pavel movie, it might eat me alive.

  I shut the gate and decide to follow the line of the fence through the trees and see where it leads. The other gate must surely be nearby. Maybe there are two enclosures, one for the wild boar, the other for the domestic version. I consult my map. No clues. If I was sensible, of course, I’d phone the hotel, or even Boysie, for directions but there’s something about the busy silence in these woods that appeals immensely. We all need an adventure from time to time, I tell myself, and this is mine.

  The fence has turned a corner and is climbing the hill again. I stop occasionally and peer into the enclosure, but there’s no sign of anything moving. What do wild boars look like? Are they pink, and fat, and rather endearing, like normal pigs? Or should I be looking for something altogether more feral? I’m still debating the difference when I spot the other gate. Had I followed the path, as instructed, it would bring me here.

  This gate is closed but there’s no chain, no padlock, nothing to tell me to turn around and go back down the hill. I step inside the enclosure and pull the gate shut behind me. The track continues up through the trees. I can see no sign of pigs, though there are plenty of footprints in the dampness of the flattened soil. Another minute or so and I’ve lost sight of the fence. When I stop and turn around to look for it, it’s gone. Then, through the trees, comes a squeal, almost human. How close? I simply don’t know. Rooted to the spot, I’m wondering whether to retrace my footsteps, but then comes a hoot of laughter, definitely human, and I tell myself it must be Boysie.