Bang: Memoirs of a Relationship Assassin

by Wailing, David

  “Exactly. And that gets me close to her.”

  “Okay. I’ll buy that. One question.”

  “Oh here it comes, go on.”

  “What’s your favourite movie?”

  “Um. The Man With The Golden Gun.”

  “…There you go.”

  “So do you need me for any of this?” asked Declan without looking up from his mobile.

  “Yes,” said Emma quickly. “It’s important to have you involved. We’ll need to monitor how Global Investigations report information to you. I’ll remain with you during the exercise, to gauge how they handle the situation from your point of view. So we’ll stay right here until the operation’s over.

  “Alone,” she added, eyeing flunky-woman.

  For a second it looked like she might object to that, but Declan said “Fine. Whatever. Just let me know when.”

  There was a pause. “If we’re done here,” said the flunky, taptaptap, “we’ve got a photo-shoot at eleven, studio in Shoreditch.”

  Declan nodded and got up. He told Megan he’d see her later, but the lean-down-for-a-goodbye-kiss I was expecting to see never happened. Declan Shea, pop star (famous smile not shown), left the room with the flunky closing the door behind them.

  I watched Megan, watching him leave. Then she caught me looking at her. She shrugged slightly with a tight smile: Oh well. And in response, I smiled with one side of my mouth, wryly: Never mind.

  Little bit of sympathy, to build on later. Small acorns.

  “So!” I clapped my hands again, Jason the performing seal. “If you’re okay with all of this, then we can set the whole thing up and get back to you with all the details.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” said Megan. Now that big exception was on her face too. I didn’t want that, I had to leave her on a high.

  “You know what? This is going to be fun.” Hand to side of my mouth, as if whispering behind Emma’s back: “Don’t tell my colleague, but this is what I became a security consultant for – to kidnap famous people!”

  That smile flared again. “Freak!”

  You have no idea. “You’ve got to admit, it’ll be something different from your usual routine. Pretending to be kidnapped and being rescued by your bodyguards! How cool is that!”

  “Yeah, that is kind of cool actually…”

  “It’ll be more than cool, it’ll be an adventure!”

  Megan’s eyes lit up. A safe little adventure for the bored, rich TV star. “How soon can we do it?” she bounced in her chair.

  And she was mine.

  That was that. We briefly discussed timescales, Megan reminding us that she would be in Edinburgh from next week, which meant it had to happen in the next few days. We’d be in touch. We said goodbye and walked down the stairwell to the front door. There were a few people milling around on each floor we passed: building staff, record company types, more flunkies.

  “I think that went well, don’t you?” said Jason King. I think we did it.

  “Yes, I agree. Largely thanks to your efforts,” said Jane Shields. You did it.

  I didn’t know what to say to that. It was true – I’d connected with the target. I’d got her to agree to our plan. But to hear Emma acknowledge it… well, it really stunned me. Those words from her were like someone else, someone normal, cheering and clapping and carrying me on their shoulders in a lap of honour.

  But neither of us did ‘normal’.

  We walked out of Meg ‘n’ Dec’s Luxury Love-Nest, still wearing our masks.

  Chapter 19

  Freaks Reunited

  Two days later, I went to the pub with my girlfriend, to see my best mate and his other half. The sort of thing normal people do all the time.

  I was undercover, obviously.

  We’d arranged to meet up at our old haunt, the Anchorage. Just an ordinary side-street pub in Islington, where I used to go for a pint with Darren and his mates every weekend, a hundred years ago. I always liked it because the owner was into disco as much as me, and usually had Seventies compilation CDs running in the background. Play that funky music, white boy!

  In fact, Becky and I walked in to the sound of Odyssey’s Going Back To My Roots. That should have made me laugh. Didn’t.

  Thursday evening crowd, half-full with locals. Chatter, laughter, clicks and clacks from the pool table at the back. Normal. And I could do normal if I wanted to, I told myself. Easy. Just watch. Here I go, look. Normal as anyone, me.

  “Oi, JOHN!” called a familiar voice.

  “Guessing that’s him,” murmured Becky with a smile. She led me over to my best mate, sitting at a table with his girlfriend. And that’s when the shocks hit me. Both barrels.

  Darren… wasn’t Darren at all! In fact, at first glance I thought it was his younger brother, Justin. And let me tell you, if there’s anyone cockier than Darren, it’s Justin. When we were teenagers he’d been an irritating little brat following us everywhere, but had grown up into a swaggering Jack-the-lad. Designer clothes, loads of bling, fast car, mouthy like you wouldn’t believe. The sort of kid who reckons he’s king of the world before he’s even twenty. (Didn’t the little shit know it was me that was king of the world?)

  But no, I saw as I got closer, this was Darren after all. New Darren. Clean shaven for once, making him look a lot younger, almost Justin’s age. Black hair grown longer than his usual number two crop, properly cut and styled. Adidas tracksuit replaced by Diesel jeans, with a Levis denim jacket over a fitted Brand t-shirt. And leather shoes instead of trainers. Shoes!

  He looked so different. It threw me. It was almost like he was the one undercover.

  “All right JOHN, good to see you mate!” Big cheesy grin. A man with a secret.

  Okay, subtle as a tyre-iron to the nads, but I still breathed a sigh of relief that Darren had remembered. I’d prepped him the night before, explaining how as far as Becky was concerned, I was John, which meant as far as Darren was concerned, I’d always been John. I knew he’d love that, bit of play-acting. My only worry was that surely Vicki, his girlfriend, knew my real name? But he said she didn’t, they’d never talked about me.

  I was surprised. Not once? Nope, he couldn’t remember ever mentioning me to her. What about when I called and spoke to her? No, she never asked. Not once.

  Well… that was all right then.

  “Nice to meet you, John,” smiled Vicki, standing up and shaking my hand, hitting me simultaneously with the second shock.

  “Fucking hell,” I felt like saying, “you’re black!”

  What a thing to think! My face reddened, ashamed. But I couldn’t help it, the shock was genuine. If I’m honest, a black girl was the last thing I’d expected. When Darren told me he was going out with a teenager called Vicki, I’d known precisely what she looked like. She’d be like all the other tracksuit-wearing, chain-smoking, foul-mouthed Vickis my mate went for.

  I stared at her like she’d just stepped off a flying saucer. Tall-ish, slender, lots of jewellery, long braided hair with a few braids hanging over her high forehead. One of those super-pert bums that kind of juts out and demands that you notice it. I wondered if that’s what had caught Darren’s eye. Suppose it didn’t matter to him what colour a girl’s skin was with a rear end like that. Weird that it mattered to me.

  Vicki’s expensive skirt and top made Becky’s jeans and t-shirt look a bit ordinary. Quite classy for a nineteen year old. I remembered girls like her from my university days… in a serious hurry to grow up. Having an older bloke like Darren on her arm was the icing on her woman-cake.

  Looking at them now, side by side, you’d never guess there was ten years between them. What with Darren looking younger and Vicki trying hard not to be a teenager… it kind of worked. They looked like a couple.

  Darren went to the bar, throwing me a wink as he noticed me staring at Vicki. Burst of mate-telepathy: Yeah, well nice, ain’t she? Bet you never thought I could get a classy bird like that, eh?

  I transmitted back, kno
wing he was out of range: No. I didn’t.

  The four of us sat around the table with our drinks, chatting. I didn’t say a lot. Becky was on form, Vicki smiling (super-white teeth), Darren on his best behaviour but still lively. He paid attention to Becky, eyes occasionally dipping to her breasts. Another surreptitious wink at me: Yours ain’t bad either, nice pair on ‘er. I smiled thinly at him, Cheers mate.

  Vicki warmed up a little, telling us about how she’d just finished her degree, hoping to get a 2:1, planning to take the next year off before going back to do her Masters, maybe teacher training college after that. Darren adding how important education is, he’d be up shit creek without his GCSE in Technical Drawing. Big laughs all round. Except from me, who knew he’d spent that exam at home, smoking spliffs and getting a blowjob from Carla Richardson’s big sister. So I didn’t laugh. I just drank my pint.

  So there I was, face to face with Darren for the first time in weeks. Full marks, Becky! She’d been right after all. This whole thing was her idea, after I’d whinged again about losing touch with my best mate. She suspected Vicki was keeping Darren close, worried he might go back to his single-bloke ways. Lots of girls think this, Becky told me – that they’ll lose their man if he goes out on the town with his friends. All I had to do was show Vicki that I wasn’t a threat, then she’d probably let Darren out to play.

  How do I do that, then? Easy, Becky had grinned, just take your own girlfriend along. Double-date! That’ll put her at ease. Show her you’re not the serial shagger she probably thinks you are, that you’re safe.

  It was true. I was safe now. Settled down. Declawed. Reined in. Pick up receptionists on my motorbike? Dirty weekends behind their fiancé’s back? Not me! Give me Billy Elliot any old day!

  And it was working. Vicki was relaxed and friendly, not at all the possessive bitch I’d imagined. She was really nice, actually, which made it hard to hate her.

  Becky was our ice-breaker, flipping into entertainment mode the way she used to on her reception desk. She told them how she’d picked up the phone at work that morning, thinking it was an internal call from her mate Teri, said “Welcome to Ass-Whip and Cream Constipated, has someone been a dirty little boy?” and got the Assistant Director – who’d replied “Sorry, wrong number.” Darren roared, loving it, Vicki giggling behind her hands. I said it was my round.

  Elbows on the bar, ordering everyone’s drinks. Plus two glasses of whisky.

  “What wrong with me?” I muttered.

  My chest was tight. Teeth grinding. Being there with both Becky and Darren was just too much. When worlds collide. They should never have met. So many things could go wrong… all it took was the wrong word from either of them… it felt like my whole life was hanging by a thread. All my lives.

  I leant round the bar to peer at our table. Darren and Vicki – shit, she was black! – sitting close. He had one arm behind her protectively, probably touching up that pert bum on the quiet. All coupled up. Becky chatting away happily, waiting for me to come back, fingers table-tapping to the music.

  I downed the first whisky glass, wincing, like antiseptic hitting a wound. Looked round the pub. I realised that 90% of the people in the Anchorage were couples, or groups made up of couples. Men and women with their partners, out for a quiet mid-week drink. Nice and safe and normal.

  Normal life. This is what I’ve been missing, I thought, draining the second whisky. This is what I wanted.

  Since when?

  What?

  Since when? This ain’t what you wanted. You’re kidding yourself, mate.

  No… no, I’ve always wondered what –

  Yeah you’ve wondered about it, but you never wanted it, did ya? Who’d want this every night? Christ, you’re bored now, imagine doing it for years! Doing it till you get old!

  I actually looked around the bar, my imagination visualising him: Andy Holloway, slouched by the cigarette machine with a pint in his hand, smoking, sneering, his eyes beaming that same sort of mate-telepathy at me. My thoughts had adopted the same coarse accent I’d used back when I was on the Raine case.

  Why was Andy Holloway on my mind so much these days? I was finding it easy to talk like him, think like him, and… be as angry as him. Angry with Darren.

  That was it. Only when I thought about Darren did I hear Andy… that seemed to be what was bringing him to the surface, being with my oldest friend.

  Oldest friend, bollocks. He don’t need you no more. Not now he’s got his bird. You’re old news mate, he’s got what he wanted, what he’s really after. Just like last time, remember? When you were kids?

  I shook my head, not wanting to think about –

  REMEMBER?

  No! Stop doing this to yourself, I thought, you’re just winding yourself up! Quickly, I gathered up the drinks and went back to the table. Good old John getting his round in. Yes. I wasn’t Andy, I hadn’t been Andy for years, forget about him, I was John now.

  Except… John seemed to have deserted me. I didn’t feel his smile on my face, his twinkle in my eye. The evening wore on, Becky and Darren cracking gags, Vicki enjoying herself, while I just got through my pint with nods and smiles. I should have been having a good time too. Or at least faking it. Faking was my thing. No different from going on a mission, so why couldn’t I just be John?

  But this wasn’t John’s life any more, was it? It was mine.

  Becky flicked a tiny warning glance my way as she sipped her white wine. Loud and clear: What’s wrong with you, wake up, don’t leave me to do all the talking! I could hear it clearly, in my head, like she’d said it dozens of times. Like we’d been together for years and years.

  Tonight wasn’t just about seeing Darren. This was bridge-building between me and her, too. After the awkwardness of last weekend, we had to paper over the cracks. Go out and pretend everything’s fine, put on a show for our mates. Pretend nothing’s wrong. That’s what couples do.

  Darren and Vicki met each other’s eyes frequently, gave each other little touches here and there. I stood it for about ten minutes. “Who wants another?” I asked, ignoring everyone’s half-full glasses.

  It was as if Andy Holloway was waiting for me at the bar. As soon as I got there, I started thinking the way he would think. Angry that Darren would only come to see me with his new girlfriend in tow. He was meant to be my best mate, but where had he been lately, when I needed him? When I needed to talk about getting taken for a ride by my agent, about having to work with the woman who wanted my job, about the stress of a quarter-million pound case, about one of my targets ending up virtually living with me, where was he? And now he turns up in his new clothes and haircut, looking good, looking really happy and healthy and handsome (but I was meant to be the handsome one) like everything was normal…

  “Where the fuck were you!” I hissed, the way Andy would have done.

  Even though the whiskies were kicking in and things were starting to get hazy, it dawned on me why this mask from five years ago had crept back into my head. I’d based Andy Holloway on memories of what I’d been like as a teenager. Back when both Darren and I had been just another couple of crop-headed scally lads, riding around the estate looking for trouble, desperate for sex. It was all we talked about, all we wanted. That was me at fifteen. And that’s who Andy was: me, if I hadn’t changed. Me, before my Dad was taken away and my Mum tried recover her own youth. Me, before I learned how to reinvent myself and be whatever other people wanted me to be.

  Andy was what I’d be today. A teenager writ large. The same pent-up urges, the same frustration… and the same anger at being let down by Darren.

  Just like the last time Darren had abandoned me, back when we were fifteen. The time when he…

  REMEMBER?!

  I wrenched myself away from my own thoughts, scared at where they were heading. My legs were trembling a little as I went back to our table, bumping into a barstool, rebounding into the cigarette machine. Pub pinball.

  Only Darren was there. I ges
tured at the empty spaces. “Where’s…?”

  “Ladies. Why do girls always do that, go to the bog together? It’s weird, innit?”

  I shrugged, no room in my head for the great mysteries of the world.

  Darren leaned forward. “Mate, you’ve done well there, seriously. Becky’s a babe. Great tits on her. Looks like she could be a bit dirty as well, she’s got that sort of laugh, know what I mean?”

  Masks off. The real us at last.

  “I like her, she’s cool. I can see why you’ve hung on to this one, she’s your type.”

  “Is she?” I could remember wondering, not too long ago, what my type was.

  “Why, summat wrong with her?”

  “It’s just… having her around doesn’t exactly go with my job, does it?”

  Darren waved this away. “Ah, she don’t have to know.”

  “But… what if she finds out?”

  “She won’t, don’t worry about it, just don’t tell her! It’s not like I’ve told Vic about all the stuff I’ve done,” he laughed. “Shit the bed, can you imagine? She’d run a mile!”

  Yes. She would. Darren had to pretend to be somebody else if he wanted to be with Vicki. He had to do what I did all the time. Maybe every man in the world has to do this, I thought, if they want to hold onto someone.

  “It’s sweet having her about, I gotta say. I love just, you know, walking down the street with her, showing off that arse of hers… seeing other blokes check her out, it’s a great laugh!” A wistful look, alien on Darren’s face. “I kind of get bored when she’s not around. Thought I’d only get a shag or two out of her, but then I was round hers every night. That’s why we ended up getting our flat. It’s well nice, you gotta come round see it. The kitchen’s all modern, classy, you’d like it.”

  “Yeah.” Kill me now.

  “Bit freaky, innit, both of us getting proper birds at the same time. We must be getting old, mate!”

  Freaky. That’s us.

  Darren kept talking, going on about how great his life now was. I couldn’t help but imagine Andy Holloway sauntering over from the bar, throwing himself down and telling Darren what he thought of him. I could almost see him, right there, viciously laying into my closest friend like they were old enemies.