Off Script

by Graham Hurley

  ‘Red wine,’ I shout. ‘Preferably Merlot.’

  ‘Big? Small?’

  ‘Silly question.’

  I nod at the table and fight my way through the scrum of drinkers. The teams have just emerged on to the pitch and the crowd in the stadium has erupted. Cameras pan slowly across a sea of waving scarves. The stadium, according to the commentator, is brand new.

  ‘That’s right.’ Brett has arrived with the drinks. ‘Nearly a billion quid. Life’s all money, isn’t it?’ He hands me a brimming glass of red and settles in the pub’s one remaining chair. ‘Top work, Ms A.’

  ‘Enora.’

  ‘Enora.’

  ‘My pleasure. Here’s to Spurs.’

  We clink glasses. Brett is drinking orange juice, his gaze anchored on the screen above our heads. The two captains are shaking hands with the match officials. Then comes another roar from the crowd as the game kicks off.

  I know very little about football but Brett’s news that Ajax are the team in black seems richly appropriate. Deko, I think. The figure at my bedside in the middle of the night. Clad entirely in black.

  Spurs appear to be favourites for this first home leg but it’s clear within minutes that the Dutch haven’t read the script. They’re a young team, quick, fearless, full of ideas, and they stroke the ball around, mounting attack after attack. Time and again, an Ajax player with the ball at his feet does the matador thing, goading the men in white to commit, and then pulling the Spurs defence out of shape. The pub has gone very quiet and even Brett is beginning to look thoughtful. Then comes the moment when the star Dutch attacker, a child called Van de Beek, finds himself in front of the Spurs goal. He takes a tiny step to the left, balancing himself for the shot, and then slots the ball neatly past the Spurs keeper.

  From the pub’s collective groan emerges a single raised arm. It’s a gesture of triumph, of celebration. The arm is leather clad, and even across the crowded bar I recognize the shape of the head, the fuzz of once-ginger hair, the sense of sheer physical presence. Then he turns his face up to the screen again and there’s no mistaking the grin on the broad face. Deep inside, I’m starting to shake again.

  Deko.

  I say nothing. He hasn’t seen me. I know he hasn’t. Neither does Brett have a clue that he’s here. The game has resumed. Spurs, eager to level the score, mount attack after attack. The pub, like the crowd in the stadium, is urging them on. Wave after wave of white shirts curl and break over the Dutch defence but the attacks come to nothing. The Dutch, I think, must have nerves of steel. Much like my ex-lover.

  I can’t take my eyes off him. There are three other men at his table. They all look like builders, and he doesn’t appear to know any of them. From time to time, he sips at his beer and then wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, a gesture I know only too well. Him and me, I think. Together one final time. The thought is all the sweeter because for once in my life I have total control. At a moment of my choice I can bring this whole sorry episode, the passion, the glee, the betrayal, the fear, to an end. And I will.

  Five minutes before half time, the thirstier drinkers are already heading for the bar. Both our glasses are empty.

  ‘Same again?’ Brett, too, is on his feet.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ I tell him.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I need the loo.’

  He nods. We join the press of bodies at the bar, of outstretched arms, of empty glasses. Every step we take brings us closer to Deko’s table. The game is still in progress, but the ref is checking his watch. Deko’s hand feels for his glass and he lifts it towards his mouth. He’s almost within touching distance. Almost.

  The ref finally blows for half-time and Deko’s big face turns towards me. For a moment, I’m not sure he’s recognized me, but I’m wrong. A single nod, just the faintest tip of his head, acknowledges my presence. I hold his gaze, aware of Brett checking me out over his shoulder.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I tell him. ‘Kiss me.’

  ‘What?’ He’s looking confused.

  ‘Kiss me. Properly. Pretend I’m Shaz. Just do it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Please? Like you mean it?’

  ‘You’re serious? Here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Brett shrugs, manages to turn around, and ducks his head towards my face. He must have been sucking mints because I can smell them on his breath. The kiss is perfunctory, a peck, like I might be his maiden aunt.

  ‘Again,’ I tell him. ‘Full-on.’

  This time, he puts some effort in, cupping my face between his hands. When I slip my tongue between his lips, he grunts and puts his arms around me, and all the time I’m looking at Deko.

  He’s staring at us, totally impassive, his big hand still wrapped around his empty glass. Then he seems to physically flinch, the way you might react to a wasp sting, and heads at the bar turn as his glass comes crashing down against the edge of the nearest table. Deko in a bar in Algiers, I think. Deko in a thousand of life’s tighter corners. Deko totally out of control. Deko the killer.

  Brett, too late, has recognized the face in the photo. He raises an arm to try and protect me as Deko lunges forward, but the first jabbing blow is for Brett, not me. I hear the faintest groan, part surprise, part alarm, as the young cop clutches at his throat. The jagged mouth of the broken glass has torn through the flesh and nicked the big artery on the side of his neck, and blood – the deepest red – is seeping through his fingers.

  A woman two tables away begins to scream. Deko is very close now. I’m looking into his eyes, knowing that it’s my turn next, knowing that nothing on earth can save my face, but nothing happens. He just looks at me, his eyes expressionless, blank, terrifying. This is a frozen moment in time, one of those single frames, no soundtrack, that Pavel – when sighted – would have adored. The man is a shark, pitiless, always on the move, possessed by his own needs, his own appetites. I, far too late, at last understand that. There is nothing, no single life, no single individual, that will stand in Deko’s way. Then, with a roar, the pub is suddenly alive again, as he submerges beneath a blizzard of flailing arms, half a dozen men forcing him to the floor.

  These guys, too, are no strangers to pub brawls, but I know Deko will never give up, and I’m right. Fights like these are clumsy, no space, no scope for real violence, and as the kicks and punches go in, he shrugs them off. One of the barmaids, her face the colour of chalk, has a phone pressed to her ear. Another throws me a bar towel. I wind the scrap of wet cloth around the gaping wound in Brett’s neck, trying to stem the blood loss.

  Then, suddenly, it’s all over, and the fight has gone out of Deko. As the men on top of him slowly disentangle themselves, he’s lying on his back, his own throat slashed, blood pumping on to the whiteness of his T-shirt, the glass still in his hand. Something else arrives from the bar, a towel this time, but no one lifts a finger.

  ‘Let the bastard bleed,’ one man grunts, rubbing his arm.

  ‘Too fucking right,’ says another.

  The crowd have backed away now, leaving Deko on his back. His eyes flicker briefly open, gazing up at me, and I swear there’s the hint of a smile on his face.

  ‘What’s his name?’ someone asks. ‘Anyone know?’

  ‘Miedema,’ I say.

  Brett survives, just. A paramedic transfuses him in the ambulance while I squat beside the stretcher, keeping pressure on the wound. This, I know, is my fault and under the circumstances it’s the least I can do. At A&E, staff fast-track him to the operating theatre where surgeons suture the torn artery in his neck and give him yet more blood.

  I stay at the hospital all night, curled up in the waiting room, and at dawn comes the news from one of the Mandolin team that Deko never made it. His choice, I suspect, and his doing. Interviews with the men who took him down are inconclusive, but the consensus seems to be that he slashed his own throat. The Deko I once loved. In charge until the very end.

  FORTY
-FOUR

  Over the days that follow, Operation Mandolin winds down. There are still no sightings of Moonie, despite all the publicity, and I’m too busy making arrangements for Pavel to pay much attention to anything else. That Deko is dead is all I need to know.

  Then comes a call from DS Williams. She’s in her office at Exmouth police station and she wants to pay me a visit.

  ‘Is this official?’

  ‘Yes, in a way.’

  ‘Should I phone a lawyer?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  This comes as something of a relief. Mandolin’s SIO has given me the impression that I won’t be facing any charges over the cocaine, but so far there’s nothing in writing. Williams arrives ten minutes later. The moment she walks out of the lift, I realize I’ve never seen her looking so well. My mum has a phrase for it. Plein d’entrain. Spry.

  I brew a fresh pot of coffee and ask her about Brett. She says he’s out of hospital now, recovering at home, but he should be back at work within weeks. Already she’s browsing Carrie’s collection of recipe books. This morning, she’s a woman, almost a friend, not a cop at all.

  ‘Well …?’ I say.

  She’s looking at a Rick Stein take on poached halibut. She glances up.

  ‘Boysie? You remember him? That Hotel Zuma?’

  ‘Of course I do. Deko’s mate.’

  ‘We arrested him yesterday. I thought you might like to know.’

  A Mandolin forensic team, she explains, had been crawling over the hotel room by room, finding nothing. Only when they took a proper look at the derelict bungalow in the woods did they hit pay dirt.

  ‘What did they find?’

  ‘Blood. Most of it turned out to be animal, we’re assuming pigs’ blood, but there were tiny traces on the teeth of a chainsaw that were human.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They got a match to DNA from the room in Miedema’s nursing home.’

  ‘You mean Moonie?’

  ‘Yes. And I’m afraid it doesn’t end there. You’re aware of the wild boar enclosure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We went through that, too. Proper POLSA search, hands and knees, a dozen officers.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Human bones. From here … and here …’ She touches her thigh, and then her upper arm.

  ‘Moonie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They chopped him up and fed him to the pigs?’

  ‘To the boars. Apparently, they eat anything.’

  I nod. There’s no way I can avoid the next question, no matter how hard I try.

  ‘They?’ I ask.

  ‘Boysie. And your Dutch friend, Miedema. Boysie coughed it last night, first interview, open account. Full confession. We didn’t even have to try. He’s up before the magistrates first thing tomorrow. We’re thinking Crown Court by the autumn, latest. He’ll be away for a long time.’

  ‘He was in love with Deko. Did he tell you that?’

  ‘He did. He told us he’s heartbroken and I believe him.’

  ‘Heartbroken about what?’

  ‘About the man killing himself. The word he used in his interview was “immortal”. Does that make any sense?’

  ‘It does. Deko was a god. A man like that, you stop asking the awkward questions. He fooled me, too.’ I’m frowning at the memory. ‘What else did Boysie tell you?’

  ‘You really want to know?’

  ‘I do. Of course I do.’

  ‘The boy Moonie stayed at that home Miedema was doing up, just like you told us. According to Boysie, Miedema took him under his wing, listened to the boy, talked to him. Apparently, he was obsessed by the Paras and what happened at Goose Green.’

  I nod, remembering Karen describing her son’s passion for books about the Falklands War.

  ‘Did he ever make contact with his mother?’

  ‘No, but the boy gave Miedema a number, asked him to call. Apparently, the boy did the same thing to Carrie, that night he paid her a visit. He never wanted to talk to his mum himself. He wanted strangers to do it, just to let her know he was OK.’

  ‘OK?’ I’m staring at her. ‘You’ve just terrified a woman out of her skin, and you leave your mum’s number at her bedside? That’s crazy.’

  ‘Indeed. Completely insane.’

  ‘But why didn’t Carrie make the call?’

  ‘Good question. Our best guess is she wanted nothing more to do with either Moonie or his mum. She made a note of the number and left it at that.’

  I nod, remembering how hard it was to get any kind of account from Carrie when I went round after Moonie’s visit. Williams is right. She was in denial.

  ‘So who killed her?’

  ‘Miedema.’

  ‘You’re sure? Not Moonie?’

  ‘No. The boy died the previous night. Killed at that place up above the hotel. They’d had him chained to the radiator. Miedema again. He needed a prime suspect. Someone who’d obviously done it, but someone who’d simply disappear. Clever. And totally psychotic.’

  ‘And Boysie saw all this?’

  ‘He did. Miedema cut his throat. Then they sawed him up and fed him to the wild boars. After that, Miedema took care of Carrie. Job done.’

  ‘But why? Why did he do it?’

  ‘Because she blew him out. Because she wouldn’t do his bidding. Carrying someone else’s baby was the final straw. According to Boysie, your friend took that personally.’

  ‘He knew?’

  ‘Yes. There was an old lady at the home. She was very close to Carrie.’

  ‘Peggy,’ I say at once. ‘She drank red vermouth by the bottle.’

  ‘That may be right. I’ve no idea. But Miedema knew where she’d been transferred and went to see her. What he really wanted to know was whether Carrie was missing him. Instead he found out she was pregnant by the Frenchman. Carrie had shared the news with Peggy, and Peggy told Miedema.’

  I turn away, shaking my head. I’d mentioned the pregnancy to Deko after Carrie had died, and the news appeared to have come as a surprise. More games, I think. Another sleight of hand.

  ‘Something else.’ Williams hasn’t finished. ‘Miedema sent Moonie round to Carrie’s place the night after he’d seen the old lady. He told the boy to frighten Carrie and that’s exactly what he did. Your friend was canny. All he had to do, according to Boysie, was feed him a line or two. Swear her to silence, he’d said, on pain of death. It worked a treat.’

  ‘This was some kind of punishment?’

  ‘Exactly. She’d stepped out of line. She deserved to be frightened. It wasn’t enough, of course, but Carrie wouldn’t have known that. Moonie was Moonie. As far as she was concerned, he had nothing to do with your friend.’

  My friend. I nod. Thanks to Williams, the order of the killings at last tells me everything I need to know about Deko. Most killers sort out an alibi afterwards. A rush of blood to the head, a squeeze of the trigger, or a thrust of the knife, or a volley of blows, followed by a hasty covering of tracks. Not Deko. Everything pre-planned. Everything under control. Should I be surprised? Probably not.

  ‘So how did Moonie get into Carrie’s flat?’

  ‘Miedema gave him a key. He’d bought the flat for Carrie when they were still together, and she’d never changed the locks. The damage to the door frame was a bluff.’

  ‘To take you to Moonie?’

  ‘Of course. And it worked beautifully.’

  Psychotic indeed, I think. I shake my head, imagining Moonie chained to the radiator in that tomb of a bungalow. This is a scene that belongs in the Third World, I tell myself, the infant Moonie taken hostage by a sequence of events beyond his comprehension. Then poor Carrie, sprawled in the darkness of that hideous bedroom, bleeding to death.

  ‘They never had a prayer,’ I mutter. ‘Meet someone like Deko and the rest writes itself.’

  This realization is deeply shocking, and it takes me several days to come to terms with how fortunate I’ve been. I wander round Pav
el’s empty apartment, only too aware that – for whatever reason – I’ve been spared. Sitting on my bed, the front door treble-locked, I replay those moments when I awoke to find Deko in the darkness. I’d denied him what he needed. I’d told him he was no longer welcome in my life. So why didn’t he kill me, too? There and then, in my bedroom? Or later in the pub? This is a question to which I have no answer and it’s no comfort to realize I probably never will. Luck? Fate? The black hole? God knows …

  The weekend’s Observer carries Seb O’Leary’s piece on mental health. To my surprise, it’s beautifully written, a tour de force. It’s obvious that O’Leary still has the inside track on the Mandolin investigation, and he’s cleverly interwoven the brutal facts of Carrie’s death, and Moonie’s disappearance, with the limbo that passes for mental health provision. No beds, no assessments, no places of safety. Just three more bodies in the mortuary and a government without the grace to hang its head in shame. Mindful of the Coroner’s Court, O’Leary’s piece stops short of a full account, but he’s done Moonie’s story more than justice.

  Chastened, I hunt out O’Leary’s phone number and give him a ring. He claims to be surprised to hear from me, but I don’t think it’s true.

  ‘I just wanted to say well done. I got you wrong. I’m sorry.’

  ‘No problem. Occupational hazard.’

  ‘One other thing. Do you mind?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Did you get a visit from a black guy? Tall? Fit-looking?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’d have noticed something like that.’

  This comes as a relief. As an afterthought, I ask him whether he still lives in Edmonton.

  ‘Christ, no. That was the woman before the woman before last. It’s Muswell Hill just now, my dear. And her name’s Rhona.’

  We say our goodbyes to Pavel at Exeter Crematorium the following week. A couple of obituaries in the Guardian and The Times have paid tribute to his screenwriting talents, and I know from Pavel’s agent that a number of actors and producers want to say their goodbyes in person, but Pavel has always insisted on just a handful of true unbelievers – his phrase – at his funeral, and so barely half a dozen of us are awaiting the arrival of his coffin: H, myself, Felip, Pavel’s agent, Ndeye, and the male nurse from the Stroke Unit.