Delete-Man: A Psychological Thriller

by Johnny Vineaux

  “You want to pay me off?”

  “Considering all I’m asking for is that you do not attend a funeral, that would not be pleasant for you anyway, I think it’s a good proposition.”

  “How much?”

  “Well, how does two thousand pounds sound?”

  “How about one hundred thousand.”

  “Ha! Very funny. Ok, well four thousand is as high as I will go. Take it or leave it.”

  “One hundred thousand, and I stay away from the funeral. Also, I don’t write a letter to the papers with everything I know about your family.”

  His eyes glimmered again.

  “I doubt you know very much at all.”

  “I know where there’s a lot of smoke. A lot of loose ends conveniently misplaced. Is it your uncle who thinks he has a shot at prime minister? I wouldn’t vote for him, what with all I know.”

  He sat back, rubbing his brow again. The redness was fading from his face, replaced by a pale, sickly tone.

  “You do realise that what you think you know is all absolute insinuation and non-founded?”

  “I’m sure it isn’t, but even so, I know that it would cause a lot of trouble for your family. How many times have you had to settle out of court now?”

  “Trouble, yes. But that’s all it is for us.”

  “I love trouble though, that’s the thing.”

  “I’m sure you do. You will sign an agreement? An affidavit? Confirming that you will not say anything, and that you will not attend?”

  “Sure. Let me see you write the check.”

  He tetchily pulled out his check book and a shiny, metallic pen.

  “Your name?”

  “Joseph… Williamson… That’s it. One… zero… zero… another zero… another zero… another zero… one more zero… Now write it there. Good. And now sign it. Good.”

  “Ok?”

  “Ok. Now take that check, stick it up your arse, and get the fuck out of my house.”

  Once he had left, I went to the balcony and looked out over the front of the building. The apartment was way up on the eighth floor, so when Sebastien came out of the entrance hurriedly I couldn’t see much more than his coiffured hair. Still, I could make out a nod and a raised hand in the direction of a blue saloon on the other side of the street, just before he himself entered a black roadster parked a little ahead. As soon as I saw that I darted inside. I heard the rev of the powerful engine as he drove away.

  I waited for twenty minutes, then went back out onto the balcony and pretended to hang up some washing. The blue saloon was still there. I hung up a large bedsheet that covered almost the entire balcony. I went back inside and searched through Vicky’s things for her binoculars, then returned to the balcony, this time crawling behind the sheet. The balcony was surrounded by railing, and I contorted myself into an angle where I could just peek out over the edge and under the blanket without revealing too much of myself. From the ground I would have been impossible to make out—unless they had binoculars too.

  Vicky’s toy binoculars were dirty and it was difficult to focus properly with them. Eventually I managed to get the driver’s seat in view. I saw a thick-set man who looked to be in his thirties. He had his arms crossed across his chest, and was talking into a Bluetooth headset. His face looked mean, pockmarked, and worn-out. He had a military-style buzz cut and wore a dark, functional jacket. The car was littered with wrappers and plastic cups. He glanced up a few times, and I decided not to risk staying out there any longer.

  In a drawer I found the phone and the notebook I had taken from the guy in the green jacket. I tried turning on the phone again, but the battery was dead. It was nearly one o’clock. I stuffed them into my pocket and left.

  Chapter 10

  “I’m looking for a Karim Bedard. I’m a workmate of his. He had an accident a few days ago and nobody has heard from him. Please, I just want to see him and make sure he’s ok.”

  “Are you sure he’s at this hospital?”

  “Pretty sure, yes. The accident was nearby.”

  “Are you a relative?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Please wait over there.”

  I stood to the side of the hospital waiting room and watched patiently as the receptionist spoke to a few more people waiting in line then checked something on the computer. I wondered if the guy in the blue saloon had followed the bus I had taken to the hospital. I scanned the lobby for his buzzcut.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you go to the emergency department at the end of this corridor they’ll tell you where to go.”

  “Thanks.”

  I gave the lobby one last scan and made my way down the corridor. Upon asking a nurse at another desk I was directed amongst the beds to one in a corner. At first I wondered if it was the right one; beneath the head bandages and tubes it was difficult to make out a face that I barely knew anyway. The only indication I had the right bed was the dark skin and lank hair that peeked from the top of the cotton wraps.

  The nurse fetched me a chair and I sat beside the bed. She touched his arm gently.

  “Mr. Bedard. Mr. Bedard. You have a visitor.”

  His lips parted and his eyes opened slowly. The nurse promptly left, and I watched his thin, brown eyes adjust to reality.

  “Did you have a nice dream?”

  He turned his head towards me and groaned. In a thick accent he said:

  “I knew you come. I wait for you.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Algeria.”

  “Is that in Africa?”

  “Don’t ask stupid question.”

  I looked over at the other bed; in it there was someone only a little less bandaged up than Karim. He looked a little overweight, and in his thirties. He spoke at the ceiling, waving his arm as if talking to some imaginary audience. I got up and closed the curtain around Karim’s bed.

  “He talk about me.”

  “How do you know? I can’t hear him.”

  “I can tell. Racist.”

  “So why were you following me?”

  “You give my phone. You take my phone.”

  “Why were you following me?”

  “Give me phone.”

  “I have your phone right here. I’ll give it to you when you answer.”

  He groaned and shifted slightly, he looked deeply uncomfortable.

  “Who told you to follow me, and why?”

  “I didn’t follow you.”

  “Why did you run then? When I came to talk to you?”

  “You fucking crazy.”

  “I saw you watching me outside a café near Cowley street, and you followed me when I was shopping.”

  “Leave me!”

  He squirmed in the bed, seemingly in pain. He began to moan loudly.

  “Are you ok?”

  He kept squirming, as if trying to escape the bandages. I thought about calling a nurse.

  “Hey Karim. You want me to do something?”

  He wailed louder, and I realised he was saying things in his native language.

  “My phone! Bastard!”

  I scrambled around in my pockets until I found his phone then held it in front of him.

  “Look. It’s right here. Calm the hell down.”

  He tried to snatch it with his arm but flinched back in pain. I grabbed his arm, held it down, and put the phone in his hand.

  “There. You got it now. Stop wailing.”

  “My brother, I call him.”

  “The battery’s dead.”

  He began to moan again in his language, I would have bet money he was swearing. I watched his hysterics hoping he would get it out of his system, but he only got louder and wilder. It didn’t seem like he was going to calm down any time soon. I stood up to take a look behind the curtain. Nurses were passing by the other end of the ward without even glancing towards us. I guessed that it wasn’t the first time Karim had thrown a fit in the hospital.

  I checked that
no nurses were approaching, then drew the curtain fully around the bed and returned to the bedside. I leaned over him. He was speaking so vehemently I could see the spit flying from his face. I grabbed a handful of his bedsheet and stuffed it into his mouth, muffling his cries. I pressed some more in and held my hand over it until I couldn’t hear anything. He tried to wrench his head away but I had a firm grip. His weak, injured arm could only scratch at my side.

  “Look at me.”

  After a few more attempts to twist out of my grip he stopped struggling and stared at me with wide, fearful eyes.

  “You were following me, weren’t you?”

  After a second’s pause he nodded.

  “Did somebody ask you to follow me?”

  Another second and another nod.

  “Was it Sebastien? Or any of Josie’s family?”

  It took longer this time for him to process what I had asked, and eventually he moved his head down a bit in what seemed to be an attempt at a shrug.

  “How long have you been following me? One week? Two weeks?”

  Again the shrug.

  “More than two weeks?”

  A shrug and a nod. Tears were forming in his eyes.

  I heard a nurse talk to one of the patients in a nearby bed and leaned in closer so as not to be heard.

  “Look. I don’t have time to mess around. I have to go pick my sister up soon. If you just tell me what I want to know I’ll give you your book and your stuff back and leave you alone. If you start wailing again, and don’t answer me, I’ll come back tomorrow and every day until you do. I’ll make sure you stay in here until you tell me. Ok?”

  He closed his eyes in an expression of pain, and nodded.

  “I’m gonna take my hand away now. Don’t make a sound.”

  I let go of his jaw and yanked out the mouthful of bedsheet. He choked a little and gasped for air, his chest throbbing, but he remained quiet. When he had calmed down enough I spoke.

  “So who asked you to follow me?”

  “I didn’t follow you.”

  “Yes you were.”

  “No, I follow your girlfriend.”

  I felt my heart beat a few times.

  “Why?”

  He composed himself before speaking. It was obviously a struggle for him to talk English, and he would pause before complicated words.

  “Is long story.”

  “You’re not going anywhere soon though.”

  “Ok, I tell you. My brother live with me, here in the London. One time, he go out, and don’t come back. One day, two day, three day. I think maybe he find girlfriend, or maybe they find him for visa. I call him, but he never answer. I ask friends ‘where he go? What he do?’ They say he go with stupid people, do stupid things, drugs, party, painting walls.”

  “Painting walls?”

  “With can paint, spray, you understand me?”

  “Graffiti?”

  “Yes. Stupid thing. Everywhere. On the houses, on the big houses, work houses, you understand me?”

  “Office buildings you mean?”

  “Yes. Everywhere. One time, I come from work – very late, in the night. I see one people in street, painting like this. I follow. Your girlfriend.”

  “She was the one you saw doing graffiti?”

  “Yes, doing graffiti. Every night. Everywhere.”

  “Are you sure it was my girlfriend? Josephine?”

  “I don’t know name.”

  “Blonde hair, short, green eyes.”

  “Yes, yes. Your girlfriend. I see you always together. I don’t find her now, I follow you so.”

  “She died.”

  “I think maybe. Yes.”

  I pulled out the notebook filled with foreign writing that I had taken from him. I waved it in front of him.

  “So this is what you found out? From following Josie?”

  He looked at me, bemused.

  “My girlfriend. You know where she go?”

  “Yes, yes. I know everything. Where she go, who she meet. I find many places, and I go ask for my brother. I think maybe she go one place where he is.”

  “How long did you follow her?”

  He grimaced and made a tiny gesture that seemed like a shrug.

  “One month? More than a month?”

  He thought for a second.

  “More one month. One month before she go, she die. You understand me?”

  “Yeah.”

  I flicked through the notebook. None of it was in English, but I could tell by the uneven, unorganised writing that it wasn’t very coherent anyway.

  “What did you find out? Where did she go? What did she do before she died?”

  “She go with you all the time.”

  “I know. What else?”

  I could see his face screw up slightly beneath the bandages. It seemed like even thinking caused him physical pain.

  “She go school.”

  “Of course. Where else?”

  “Many, many places.”

  “Come on! Tell me where?”

  “She go everywhere! I don’t remember!”

  I waved the book in front of him.

  “But you have addresses, yes? People she met, dates, things she did? In this book?”

  “No.”

  “What did you write in here then?”

  He looked away. Tears welled up in his eyes.

  “I write what I say to my brother. When he come back.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  He began to cry.

  “Fuck! This is useless then!”

  I threw the notebook at him on the bed and began to pace around him.

  “So you followed her all this time, everywhere she went, and you don’t remember?”

  I grabbed him by the collar.

  “Nothing? No strange places? No weird things that happened? ”

  “Fuck your girlfriend! I just want find my brother! He too young for this! All this crazy thing. I hate this country! This fucking shit!”

  I shook him.

  “I’m gonna find out where she went if I have to reach into your brain and pull it out physically.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “No, fuck you!”

  I let him go and paced around his bed again, filled with tense anxiety and racing thoughts.

  “You find my brother.”

  “What?”

  “You find my brother, I tell you.”

  “I don’t give a shit about your brother.”

  “Fuck you! You put me here! Look my leg! Look this tube! You take phone, you try kill me! You fucking asshole! You deserve find my brother for me!”

  I sat down again.

  “I follow you. All the time fighting, smashing the windows, making trouble. Always fighting. You bad person. Angry. You must make something good, for deserve. You know speak English, you find him fast. I help you, then you help me. Everything bad for-“

  “Alright! Enough. Fine, I can’t promise I’ll find him, but I’ll try. If you tell me everything you know about what Josie was doing, I’ll ask about him too. Ok?”

  “You will find him?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “You promise me.”

  “Yeah, I promise. What’s his name?”

  “Abdi Bedard. Abdoulaye.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “I have photo on phone. I show you.”

  “Can your phone email?

  “Email, internet, films, everything.”

  “Ok, I’ll give you my email address.”

  “Thank you. What is your name?”

  “Joseph.”

  “Like your girlfriend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Strange thing.”

  I opened the drawer of the hospital bedside cabinet and found a pen. I tore some pages from his notebook, and after handing him a scrap with my email address on it, I put the pages on my knee ready to write.

  “Ok, now tell me everything you can about what Josephine did.”

 
After fifty minutes of patiently gazing at Karim’s grimacing, thoughtful face; jogging his memory with every place, name and event from my own memory, I was finally satisfied that he had recalled everything. It turned out that he hadn’t followed Josephine everywhere at all, and had only been able to follow her when he wasn’t working. Even then, most of the time she had been with me. Much of what Karim told me was stuff I already knew, or wasn’t important. From the list of places he gave me, I recognised the meeting with Sewerbird in East London, multiple meetings with Bianca (a couple of times at her address, which Karim gave me a vague indication of), and Wednesday appointments at the psychiatrist.

  What I hadn’t expected were the frequent visits to Mixed Sources. In particular, to see a bald man with thick-rimmed glasses there. Karim told me the two had met up quite a lot away from Mixed sources as well, and I thought perhaps the bald man was Claude Packard—Sewerbird perhaps connecting the two. Then there was the painting; Josie had apparently been obsessive about it, painting walls and objects any time she left the house. I wondered why she had never told me anything about it, or done it in front of me. I had never even noticed a spray can in her house.

  The most bizarre discovery of all, however, had occurred just days before she died. In the middle of the night, Karim had followed Josie to a park, where she had jumped the locked fence carrying a camera, and seemed to be in hiding herself. Karim had kept his distance and not followed her inside. He didn’t see her come out. I asked him if she had gone there more than once, but he told me that was the only time he had stayed out that late to follow her.

  I shoved the notes in my pocket and checked the time.

  “Oh shit!”

  “One thing more.”

  “I should have picked Vicky up an hour ago! Shit!”

  I swung the curtains open and ran out of the hospital.

  “Another man follow you!”

  “Vicky! You home? Hello? Vee?”