Bang: Memoirs of a Relationship Assassin

by Wailing, David

  I remember enjoying it more than most of my undercover characters. It was great being Andy. Life was a piece of piss for that lad, he didn’t care about much. Just having a laugh, beer, footie, cigs, getting his end away. Sweet as a nut. Stay lucky, mate, stay lucky! Yeah, wearing that mask wasn’t bad at all. No wonder Darren was always so happy.

  It was always easier being somebody else, I’d found. Everything came quickly – I always knew how to act and react, could always make snap decisions. Like I had a script to follow. I loved my masks. Maybe a bit too much.

  I lit a cigarette, watching Mrs Raine walk in. She stank of money. It wafted through the pub like perfume: Money, by Calvin Klein. The clothes, the hair, the jewellery, the snappy little walk. She was class. Late thirties, what you might call a handsome woman, but so far out of her depth that she should have been wearing a lifebelt. Looking like that in this part of town, she was setting herself up as a big juicy target.

  My target. Tonight, I make the kill.

  Her husband was an architect, a successful one. Out of the country a lot that year, designing a sports stadium in the Netherlands. And convinced that his wife was playing around while he was abroad. Class act she might have been, but with a weakness for working-class boys. Liked it rough, did Mrs Raine. Her husband didn’t know this little detail yet, only that he didn’t trust his wife, and he was right not to. But he’d discover it later, if everything went to plan. When he received the photos of Andy the brickie pinning his wife to the bonnet of a transit van in the NCP car park.

  Mrs Raine lit up with recognition when I wandered across the pub to meet her. I grabbed her round the waist, pulled her against me for a sudden, hard snog – just the way she liked it. Cheers from the blokes round the pool table, whistles, nice one my son, lucky bastard, go for it mate. Mrs Raine was flushed as she pulled away, but smiling, breathing hard. Embarrassed but getting off on the attention. She didn’t get this sort of excitement from hubbie.

  I bought us a drink from the bar, letting her babble on nervously about this and that. She still wasn’t used to coming to the rough part of town. We sat at a table in the far corner of the pub, draped in shadows. The lady and the lad.

  At the next table, Barry stumbled into his chair and dropped his camera with a loud clunk and an even louder “Bollocks!”

  Enter: Barry O’Nion, ninja detective.

  I asked a question to pull Mrs Raine’s attention away from him. Out of the corner of my eye, Barry fumbled with his camera like it was covered in butter. Scraped his chair, shifted his table, tried to take off his coat and open a newspaper at the same time, muttering under his breath. I say muttering, but it was louder than Mrs Raine’s voice right in front of me. “Shite!” he snapped, spilling Guinness onto his trousers.

  She looked up at him again. Gave me a look as if to say What’s wrong with this guy! She was twitchy, on edge, and the weirdo at the next table wasn’t helping. I smiled reassuringly, dragging on my cigarette. Threw Barry a quick glare.

  Christ, he actually waved at me.

  Mrs Raine asked if I knew him and my stomach rolled. Shit no, I assured her. I turned on Andy’s brutal charm, telling her I’d been looking forward to ‘going up in the world’ again. Our little private euphemism. Her eyes sparkled, laughing along. Honestly, we were Billy Joel’s ‘Uptown Girl’ right there. Just like the song… we usually only lasted three minutes sixteen seconds as well.

  I pulled her to me for another snog. Slid a hand along her thigh. This’ll make a great picture, I remember thinking. I also remember thinking, as I noticed Barry struggling with the lens cap on his ancient camera, that I was gonna kill that fat useless bastard.

  I’d been hiring private detectives for a while now. My clients had started requesting some proper evidence, as opposed to just getting caught in the act – sometimes that didn’t work, it ended up being his word against hers. They needed proof. For one second, I’d considered asking Darren to come along and snap a few pictures for me… madness! Can you imagine? I’d have ended up with fifty close-ups of tits. No, it had to be a professional. So I’d started bringing small investigation agencies onboard, since they were used to performing discreet, covert surveillance on people. They recorded me at work and that gave the client the proof their divorce lawyers needed.

  And that’s why Barry O’Nion was sitting at the very next table, right bloody next to me, fumbling with a camera and swearing loud enough for half the pub to hear.

  Discreet and covert, like.

  Mrs Raine started saying how creepy that guy was. She suggested moving to another table, which I quickly dismissed, I was comfortable right there, I said, moving my fingers up further. That distracted her nicely. Her hand was shaking as she sipped her Babycham, nervous as hell but still excited.

  Another snog – and suddenly a flare of light. We both jumped, staring at Barry, who hurriedly raised his newspaper. Thump of a dropped camera.

  God’s sake, he’d had the flash on!

  Too much for Mrs Raine. She sprang up, spooked, and said she’d better not have a late night, things to do, best get going. I tried to stop her but she was already out from behind the table, heels clicking across the pub floor, perfume in her wake. The stink of money. Gone.

  I sat there, abandoned. No kill. She’d escaped.

  The look I gave Barry could have boiled a kettle. He started trying to apologise to me but I was already on my feet, knocking over the table and sending lager and Babycham tumbling. My fists were clenched as I stormed off, every muscle rigid with fury.

  My arm caught a pool cue as I strode out, just as the player was taking a shot. “Oi,” he shouted, “watch it!”

  And without hesitation, Andy Holloway whirled and spat right in his face: “Or what! What the fuck you gonna do about it!”

  Ready to go for it, ready to take him out, one punch and he’d be going down, bang! Unlucky, mate!

  The pool player recoiled. He was a hefty bloke, beer belly, taller than me, but with the eyes of someone looking down a gun barrel. He stuttered that it was all right, no problem mate, take it easy. Scared.

  I sneered at him like he was shit on my shoe. Turned and slammed out of the pub.

  Later, looking back on it, I wondered what the hell happened there. For a second it was as if I really was Andy! I can remember how taut my whole body was. I scared myself a bit, actually. Sure, I was angry and frustrated, but that violent urge… that was more than just being in character. Losing Mrs Raine like that had tipped me over the edge.

  I was different in the Old Days. Before I had my Rules. I’m not proud of what I was like back then, really. I was wild, a loose cannon.

  Not like now.

  Some time after that, I got a call. Larry Jones, head of Global Investigations UK Ltd. In his dry-leaves voice, Larry told me that Barry O’Nion had made him aware of my services, and they had a case on their books that was suitable for me. An American businessman needed some dirt on his British girlfriend, just in case she ever told his wife back in Minneapolis, and was prepared to pay ten grand to get it. I was gobsmacked – ten grand! Just in case! Well, he is American, Larry had said like that explained everything.

  This was new. Not just the amount of money, but private investigators hiring me, rather than the other way round! Larry offered a fifty-fifty split which I quickly beat down to seventy-thirty, since it was me doing all the work. And suddenly I was playing with the big boys.

  I called Barry to thank him. He apologised for making such a mess of the surveillance, admitted it wasn’t his strong point, hoped this American case would make up for it. When I asked how he’d arranged that, he told me all about his connections in the investigations industry, how Larry was his old boss, how fifteen years as a detective meant there wasn’t anyone he didn’t know. But then he said he’d been thinking about what I did. Found the whole thing fascinating, he’d said. Matrimonial surveillance was big business, he knew, and this was a new twist, a specialist service. He saw some untapped potent
ial there. Might even do some projections on how big the separation market could be…

  Yes, I thought, remembering this Right from the beginning, Barry had seen the possibilities.

  “So listen Scott, I was thinking… how d’you feel about having your very own agent? I thought we might be able to do business together.”

  And that, boys and girls, is how Infidelity Ltd began.

  I looked down at the business plan in my hands. It was soaked with blood.

  I’d ruined it. I could hardly pop it back in the filing cabinet in that state. But Barry would know it was missing… and also the photos of Emma, I realised. There was no way to hide the fact that they’d gone.

  I looked around his office and the very first thing that sprang to mind was: smash the place up. Yeah, that’s exactly what I felt like doing. It was like I was channelling Andy Holloway again. Tear the place down, kick his computer screen in, upturn the furniture, and make it look like the office had been burgled – broken into through the window by Spider-Man’s juvenile delinquent nephews. Maybe steal a whole bunch of crap so Barry would never know the photos and business plan were gone, genius!

  Except… he’d soon discover it was me. He’d have his detective mates in there like a shot. Analysing everything, looking for fingerprints, fibres, hair, skin samples. He’d know, weeks before the police, who the culprit was. He’d know Infidelity Ltd had been destroyed by its own pilot scheme.

  Screw it. I didn’t have the energy to care anymore. I had to get out.

  I glanced at the broken window, with the drainpipe outside… sod that. There were spare keys in Barry’s desk. As I grabbed those and turned to leave, I noticed something. That huge map of the UK was still pinned up to the wall, with my past cases marked in red – the whole country sprayed with the machine-gun fire of my history. But there was something different. A large dot, made with bright blue felt tip, in North-West London.

  Where Emma had done the business with Sajjan.

  I shivered. One vibrant blue spot amongst the swarm of faded red. Brand new.

  I picked up the red felt tip pen. Peered closely at London, estimating where Finchley might be – very close to the blue dot, Becky’s flat being in the neighbouring borough to Sajjan’s – and drew a new red spot on the map. I gripped the pen and circled it hard, making my mark bigger than hers. Circling it some more, getting bigger, swallowing up the blue one. Losing control of my arm, the felt tip squeaking as I pressed onto the map harder, round and round, the dot becoming larger, going over some of the others, scrawling wildly, making mine bigger and bigger and bigger until the nib sank into the pen and I threw it hard across the office, turning away from a map now dominated by a blood-red stain obscuring the whole of London, like some gaping shotgun wound.

  I opened all the locks on the office door and stormed out of the building. Broke into a run when I hit the street, flinging Barry’s mangled document into the first rubbish bin I passed. As far as I was concerned, I’d done the business for good. Don’t look back.

  Rule Four: Walk away the instant the job’s done.

  Chapter 12

  The Rejects

  “Get out of the bloody way!” I muttered under my breath as I tried to get past the man and woman in front of me. They were holding hands as well as shopping bags, taking up the space of four people. I eventually had to step off into the road to go round them. Threw a nasty look over my shoulder at the couple. And I kept walking, hard and fast.

  Just keep on walking.

  Saturday afternoon in my local high street. Sunshine and shopping. Normally I spent most weekends indoors playing Secret Agent. Never know what to do with myself when I’m not working, to be honest… the hours can slip by just trying to beat my high score, with nobody else around to see it whenever I did. Prefer it that way, having my own space. But now playing pinball set my teeth on edge. That morning the ball just wouldn’t go where I wanted, the flippers weren’t responding like they used to. Couldn’t aim for toffee. Couldn’t hit any targets. I caught myself swearing viciously at the machine and knew something was wrong. Felt like I was losing at pinball, a game you can’t really ever win, but there I was, losing, over and over.

  After TILTing the machine for a fifth time, I’d snatched up my jacket. Had to get out. Had to go somewhere, anywhere. Do something, anything. See someone, anyone. A whole week cooped up by yourself will do that to you.

  I strode along the busy street, moving like I had somewhere urgent to be, someone important to see. In fact I had jack shit on the agenda. But if you’d seen me, striding along with my hands stuffed in the pockets of my leather jacket, you’d have thought otherwise. You’d wonder where the fire was. And then you’d have stepped out of my way before I knocked you down.

  Going nowhere, fast.

  No word from Barry for an entire week. Not even a phone call to say “Some bastard has broken into my office!” Nothing. The silence was worse than anything he might say. It felt like I’d cut Barry off. Like I’d resigned from Infidelity Ltd. Dear Managing Director, please stuff your exemplars up your fat arse, yours sincerely, the pilot scheme.

  So that was that. I was on my own again. “I’m free!” I’d tried to tell myself that week, spending day after day pacing round my flat and trying to think of something to do. But the truth was that with no agent working on my behalf, no new cases coming my way… I was adrift. I’d been rejected, not good enough to work for his little enterprise. I felt like pouting – like a boy abandoned on the street corner by his parents. Funny how all those little-kid emotions still sit there underneath your grown-up brain.

  What now? Should I be looking for a new case? Didn’t know where to start – it had been so long since I’d had to drum up work for myself. Barry had been taking care of all that for years. The thought of having to start all over again, make some new contacts, get the word out there… it weighed down on me like a rucksack filled with dog turds. Too much hard work to carry alone, and the whole thing just stank.

  Did I even want to be a relationship assassin any more?

  That question raced round my head even as my feet pumped pavement, walking past shops and people. I had no idea. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. Or who I wanted to be.

  But if not that, then… what else was there?

  Just keep on walking.

  I pulled out my mobile to give Darren one more try. Where the hell was he! All I ever got nowadays was his stupid voicemail: “’Allo, it’s Darren ‘ere, I’m probably pissed so leave us a message, cheers!”

  And damn it, that week I really needed to talk. I just wanted to tell him everything. I’d been rehearsing it in my head: Darren, you’re not going to believe this, not going to believe what my agent’s been up to behind my back, not going to believe this business plan crap… But I never got the chance. He never answered his bloody –

  “Yello?”

  “Darren! Jesus Christ, man, where you been!”

  “Oh all right mate, yeah I got your messages. Just got back last night, not had a chance to call ya.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Been on holiday, in Spain! Had a week out there with Vicki, it’s a great laugh. You should go man, you’d love it, loads of fit birds for ya!”

  “Right, well listen, while you’ve been off sunning yourself, I’ve had the week from hell. You’re not going to believe this…”

  “Sorry, mate, I’m not gonna be able to chat long, got loads more stuff to bring in from the van. We’ve only got it till six so I’d better get a move on.”

  “What van? What’s going on?”

  “I’m moving! I told you this, didn’t I? Moving in with Vic? Had enough of my shithole, and can’t afford it anyways, so we’re gonna share the rent on her place! Clever, eh?”

  If Darren had said “Mate, I’m gay, and all these years I’ve been shagging boys instead of girls, the truth is I’m into cock, mate, sorry,” then… well, I would have been shocked, obviously. I’d have been gobsmacked. B
ut it would also be funny in a way, and Darren would still be the rampant sex-hound I’d known half my life. So it would have gone in my head. It would have been all right.

  But this wasn’t going in. My brain was sending it back stamped REJECT.

  Darren had a girlfriend.

  “Listen, once I’m all done and settled in and all that, why don’t you come round? You haven’t met Vic yet, have you? Come round for dinner or something and we’ll get the beers in, yeah?”

  REJECT.

  “So we’ll meet up soon mate, that all right?”

  REJECT.

  It wasn’t all right at all.

  I ended the call, didn’t bother saying goodbye, and immediately this bunch of girls in front of me started getting on my wick. Crying out loud, could they move any slower! Half a dozen of them, chattering away, texting on their mobiles, strolling along the pavement like they were on a beach. No way past them, taking up the whole width of the street. Why were women always so bloody slow! This was something I’d noticed years ago and it always bugged me, women always dragged their feet, always took their own sweet time.

  So I barged right through the middle of them. Should have heard it. Every swear word that had ever been invented got fired at my back in a sort of shrill chorus. I didn’t give a shit. I wasn’t slowing down for anyone.

  Nasty taste in my mouth from talking to Darren. I’d spent so long trying to talk to him and now wished I hadn’t. Who was this Vicki girl? How had she gone from being a one-night stand to someone he went on holiday with? Someone he felt he could actually live with? In two weeks!

  Women can move fast enough when they want to.