by Jon Richter
‘Can I help you?’ he asked eventually. ‘I’m supposed to be out sunbathing.’
Mason regarded him frostily as the sound of the rain echoed his mocking remark.
‘Could you take your feet off my desk, please?’
The wrestler made a show of extracting his toothpick and sliding it behind his ear before he withdrew his feet, one at a time. He remained slouched in the chair as though he was determined to sit as disrespectfully as possible.
‘Will that be all?’ he asked after another pause, his Estuary accent dripping scorn.
‘No. We want to ask you some questions about Vic Valiant’s death.’ She didn’t bother apologising for bringing him in. ‘I gather you were at the show on Friday?’
‘Of course I was. See this?’ He patted the belt, which looked so lustrous it might have been polished that morning. It probably had, mused Sigurdsson. ‘It means I’m the best. The champ. The main event. I was supposed to come out and do a promo after Valiant’s match, tell him he had no chance of beating me even if he did win the tournament.’
‘And was he going to?’
‘I don’t know… I’m not psychic.’
Mason sighed. ‘Ethan, we’re not idiots. We know it’s scripted. I get that you’re… in character. It’s cute. But I really need you to help us out, if you want to help your friend.’
‘He wasn’t my friend.’
‘Is that so? How come?’
‘Would you be friends with someone you were fighting against?’
Mason pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes in infuriation.
‘Okay, have it your way, Mr Blake. But I’ll find out from Penman later anyway, so you may as well tell me now. Was Valiant going to win the tournament?’
Blake slowly removed his shades, placing them on the table and glancing around as though he was worried about being overheard. He leaned forward, his brown eyes radiating energy and confidence as he spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.
‘The script was that he was going to win the tournament and then we’d fight for the title on Saturday, at the last show. But I was going to run out straight after he beat Samson in the final on Friday and drop him with the Superiority Complex, so he was injured for the big match.’
‘Let me guess… that’s your “special move”?’
Blake laughed, a deep and hearty bellow, and wiggled his eyebrows at Mason.
‘You been watching my matches, honey?’
Mason looked like she was going to be physically ill. Sigurdsson stepped in, suppressing a laugh.
‘So you were going to beat Valiant at the weekend?’
‘You’re damn right I was. No one’s taking this title from me, not Wilshere, not The Necromancer, not even these American boys we’ve suddenly got on board.’
‘Are you unhappy they’re here, Ethan?’
‘What, the Yanks? Are you kidding? It’s a ton more publicity for Ethan Blake.’ He smiled, pointing at himself with both thumbs. ‘We had some scout there on Friday, you know. Should only be a matter of time before they’re falling over themselves to offer me a big contract.’
‘Are you aware that Valiant was taking steroids before his matches?’
Blake shrugged.
‘Doesn’t surprise me. He was a fucking junkie until recently, wasn’t he?’
‘But you never saw him do it?’
‘He had this big entrance thing through the crowd. You know, a real “man of the people”.’ He snorted his derision. ‘So no, I didn’t see him before the matches. I just saw his old, fat arse in the ring, and I wasn’t very impressed.’ He paused, catching Mason’s hostile stare. ‘What, just ‘cos he’s dead I have to pretend he was my best mate?’ He sat back in the chair, posing smugly as though performing for some invisible fans. ‘Ethan Blake doesn’t have friends. He just has rivals.’
‘Do you use steroids, Ethan?’ Mason asked.
He gave a look of mock indignation. ‘Baby, I’m au naturel. What you see is what you get. One hundred percent man.’
‘Good for you. Do you think your colleagues are using them? Paul Dixon, for example? He’s enormous. He doesn’t look very “naturel” to me.’
Blake shrugged again.
‘None of my business if the others feel they need a bit of enhancement. I don’t blame ‘em when they’re up against this.’
He gestured towards himself once again. Sigurdsson was almost impressed at how he managed to keep up his supercilious shtick. Mason’s eyes narrowed as she retorted.
‘I wonder if Dixon would see it that way. He looks like he might be quite a formidable “rival”.’
Blake retrieved the toothpick from behind his ear, chewing it thoughtfully.
‘If you say so. Why don’t you come and watch? We’ll probably have a match before long. He might be the one to win the tournament now. Penman’s running out of challengers for this.’ He patted the belt once again. ‘Did you know that I’m the youngest AAW champion of all time?’
‘Oh really? And how many holders have there been of this prestigious title?’ Mason couldn’t seem to help being drawn into the verbal joust.
‘Wouldn’t know,’ Blake countered. ‘I don’t live in the past. I only care about the now, baby.’
‘Look,’ Sigurdsson said, interjecting again. ‘That’s probably all for now, Ethan. Here’s a card with our details. Call us if you think of anything that might be useful.’
Blake took the card, slipping it into his jacket pocket as he rose. He adjusted the championship belt on his shoulder and flamboyantly replaced his sunglasses.
‘Please – don’t get up,’ he said with a smirk, and swaggered out of the room.
‘Jesus, what a prick,’ Mason mused, shaking her head. ‘I can see why they call him the Egotist.’
‘I wonder what he’s really like, underneath all that?’
‘What, you think he’s got hidden depths?’
‘Surely he must have – it must take a lot of work to seem that shallow.’
‘God, do we really have to talk to more of them? I’m exhausted from all their bullshit already.’ Mason looked at her notebook. ‘Hmm, okay. Next up is Tommy Horan. He’s not a wrestler; he’s the sound man.’
Thomas Horan – sound and lighting technician
Horan was a tubby man in his late forties who worked freelance, and had been with the promotion for several years. He had responded to an advert from Howard Penman in the local press, as he had loved professional wrestling since he was a young boy, and was full of respect for the entrepreneur and how he had built the promotion from nothing. His own area of expertise was clearly his real passion, though.
‘The music is just so important. Professional wrestling is all about the characters, the mystique. The theme tunes are a big part of that. When you think of the biggest wrestlers, you remember their music hitting when they came to the ring. The crowd would be going crazy before they’d even stepped through the curtain, because they knew from the very first note who was coming out.’ His enthusiasm was endearing and they let him talk on. ‘All the greats had iconic music. Think of Dusty Rhodes with American Dream, or Ric Flair with the opening from Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra. The songs just fit their characters perfectly.’
‘So do you compose the songs yourself?’ asked Sigurdsson.
Horan glanced down modestly. ‘Well, Howard likes to use established songs for a lot of the AAW wrestlers, usually rock stuff. Not really my taste. But yeah, some of them are mine. The Necromancer’s I’m particularly proud of.’
‘What about Vic Valiant?’
‘When they’re a big star in their own right they’ve already got their own music, if they’re still allowed to use it of course, because sometimes it will be copyrighted by their previous employers. It’s a bit of a murky area legally, really. Valiant used Jump by Van Halen, because he’s meant to be this kind of hair metal rocker type, but also because he jumps off the top rope
to finish people off with a big elbow drop.’ He looked suddenly embarrassed, as though realising that Schultz would no longer care about such things, or about anything else, ever again.
‘Were you there when he died, Thomas?’
‘Please, call me Tommy.’
‘Okay Tommy. Were you at ringside when it happened?’
He shook his head.
‘My rig is right next to the ring. I even have to sound the ringbell, you know. We’ve finally got a real bell for this tournament, instead of my old “ding ding” sound effect… I knew it wouldn’t be long before somebody hit somebody with it in a match. Sorry, I keep rambling. So yeah, I should have been there, but the match wasn’t supposed to finish for a while, and I’d had to nip off to the gents. I hear David isn’t doing so well after he saw… is it wrong that I’m glad I missed it? When I came back out it was already complete chaos.’
‘We think Valiant was self-administering steroids before his matches, Tommy. Did you ever see him using anything?’
Horan shook his head. ‘No, I’m sorry, I didn’t see anything like that. I don’t really mix with the wrestlers that much. They’re all these big strapping men, and I’m…’ He looked down at his plump frame. ‘I feel a bit like an outsider, I suppose.’
‘Can you think of any reason anyone would want to hurt him?’
He shook his head again. ‘I’m really sorry. I want to help. It’s awful what happened, just awful. But I don’t… I can’t begin to imagine why someone would want to do such a thing. I mean, we’re a tiny little wrestling promotion. This is all supposed to be fun.’
They bade him a polite farewell, handed him their details once again.
As he left the room, Sigurdsson leaned back in his chair and exhaled deeply, looking up at the ceiling.
‘We’re not getting much so far are we?’ he mused.
‘At least we’ve got a reason to bring Dixon in,’ Mason responded. ‘Two people have mentioned him as a potential steroid user.’
‘Hardly conclusive proof though, is it?’ He continued to stare upwards, deep in thought. ‘What if Valiant was getting the drugs from somewhere else, outside the promotion?’
‘Then why would Zheng have said what he said? And do you really believe that Dixon isn’t jacked up to his eyeballs on the stuff?’
‘Hmm,’ he murmured in reply, and then turned to her with a smile. ‘Time for lunch?’
He pointed towards Mitchell, who they could see through the blinds was lumbering towards them once again, this time carrying a couple of brown bags.
‘I asked him to get us some,’ Mason explained. ‘Better eat quickly though – we’ve got ten minutes before the next one.’
‘Who is it?’
She checked her notepad and raised an eyebrow. ‘Should be interesting.’
The Necromancer (real name unknown) – wrestler
Their next interviewee padded silently into the room, wearing plain black jogging pants and a similarly unadorned hoodie. Over his bare feet he wore sandals, as though he belonged in a country much hotter than this one. Up close, he exuded even more potently the sense of reserved strength and dexterity that Sigurdsson had discerned during his match at the show, his lean and muscular frame seeming like a tightly coiled spring. He stood poised near the doorway.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Sigurdsson began. ‘It says here that AAW don’t have your real name on record. What is it?’
‘They just call me “Mance”,’ he answered in an accentless voice that seemed almost to echo itself.
‘But what’s your real name, when you aren’t performing?’
‘I’m afraid I forgot that a long time ago, detective,’ the strange man responded with a smile.
‘Okay, well we’ll only check it later, but I suppose Mance will have to do for now. Take a seat, please.’
The wrestler lowered himself into a chair, his movements possessing an otherworldly, fluid grace.
‘So you’ve been with the promotion for a while?’
‘Five and a half months.’
He was staring at a fixed point on the table in front of him as he spoke, and Sigurdsson was struck by his immense stillness – his hands rested unmoving on the desk in front of him, his back ramrod-straight.
‘Did you speak with Vic Valiant much?
‘We battled each other, for a time,’ he answered cryptically.
‘What did you think of him?’
He didn’t answer straight away, instead reaching upwards to slowly remove his hood. The same odd collection of symbols that they had seen during Sunday’s performance still adorned his head, and Sigurdsson realised that they were real tattoos.
‘He was… a troubled man,’ came the eventual reply.
‘What do you mean by “troubled”?’
The Necromancer’s eyes rose to meet Sigurdsson’s. They were a striking blue – Sigurdsson had heard the phrase ‘piercing stare’ many times, and had been subjected to such a look just last night from Paul Dixon, but this was different. The Necromancer’s eyes seemed to be reading him like a book, feeding data into a formidable intelligence that lurked behind them, like a machine.
‘He was a man of neurosis and paranoia. He portrayed a confident exterior but his insides were like a nest of writhing snakes.’
Sigurdsson felt as though these words were somehow meant for him instead, their accuracy cutting him like scalpels. He thought about the death and darkness that the Necromancer seemed to court. He thought about his brother.
An image of a little boy running into the road
‘Did he…’ He stumbled over his question, choking down the memory. ‘Did Valiant talk to you about his problems?’
The wrestler shook his head with slow deliberation.
‘None of the others speak to me a great deal,’ he intoned.
‘So… you’re quite a loner, would you say?’ Mason asked, addressing him for the first time.
His gaze returned to the desktop.
‘I suppose I fit that description. I live alone without a wife or children, and have few friends.’
‘So why the wrestling?’
The Necromancer paused for so long that it seemed he hadn’t heard the question. Just as Sigurdsson was about to prompt him, he finally responded.
‘I have mastered several martial arts. I am an accomplished yogi. I am at peace with myself and know my place in the cosmos. The art of combat has long been entwined with the art of theatre, and it is common for many grand masters to perform publicly. Unlike them, I have not forgotten humility – I wrestle because I want to bring delight to others, and because I do not take myself too seriously.’
Mason glanced at Sigurdsson. Could’ve fooled me, he read in her expression.
‘And why “The Necromancer”?’
The strange man inclined his head slightly, giving a slight shrug. His eyes locked Sigurdsson in their penetrating hold once again.
‘I have read extensively upon many subjects, Detective Inspector. There are many points where eastern mysticism intersects with the occult. A necromancer is an ancient wizard who communicates with the dead. Sometimes they would seek to raise them from their graves, sometimes spiritually… sometimes in physical form.’
Sigurdsson felt a shiver pass through him.
‘And… what does that have to do with wrestling?’ he asked.
The man opposite him smiled for the first time, a sinister grin that displayed rows of lupine teeth.
‘I thought it sounded cool,’ he said.
‘Okay, enough of this rubbish,’ Mason cut in. ‘We think Valiant was using steroids. We think some of the other wrestlers are using them too. We want to know who their supplier is.’
The Necromancer turned his head to face her, the rest of his body stock-still. Sigurdsson half expected his head to complete an entire 180 degree rotation, like something from The Exorcist.
‘I’m sorry, Inspector. I don’t use anything of the
sort. I’m more than happy to undergo a blood test if you so wish. And, as I said earlier, I don’t socialise a great deal with the rest of the group.’
‘What about backstage before the performances?’
‘I meditate,’ he responded.
She met his glacial stare for a few moments, and then made an exasperated noise.
‘Okay, well, I think that’s everything for today. If you think of anything that could be useful, here is the number to call.’ She handed over the details once again.
He extended a slender hand to accept the card as he rose to his feet.
‘I apologise that I cannot be of more assistance,’ he said as Mason held the door open for him. ‘I wish both of you every success in solving this case. I have a lot of respect for my fellow performers, and the idea that someone deliberately poisoned Mr Valiant is abhorrent to me. I will certainly be in touch if any… epiphanies occur.’ He slid the card into his pocket and stalked out of the office, seeming to glide across the carpet like a shadow.
Mason turned to look at Sigurdsson, shaking her head.
‘Bloody hell, what nuthouse did he escape from?’
‘He was… a little peculiar,’ Sigurdsson agreed. ‘Didn’t Wheeler say something about him always being in character?’
‘Do you think he could be the killer?’
Sigurdsson frowned. ‘He’s clearly an oddball. But he seemed… honourable, somehow. And if he’s a yoga or karate expert or whatever he is, I can’t imagine he’s taking steroids. He doesn’t have the right build for it, and he offered to take a blood test. I agree with you that we should go after the knuckleheads for now.’
She nodded, glancing back out the way the Necromancer had exited. ‘Still, we should keep tabs on him. At least let’s find out his name, where he lives, where he works.’