Model Guy

by Brooke, Simon

  "Charlieee. Look...look," she runs her hands through her hair, thinking. "You can tell the police after you've spoken to him. After all, you don't even know if he really is where Anastasia says he is until you've seen for yourself." She does have a point. She realises that she's making progress here. "Look, if it is him, if he is there, we'll go outside and call the police immediately, okay? And, I promise, I won't speak to anyone else about it."

  "Alright." It does make sense, I suppose. "You'd better not write anything, though."

  She looks at me for a moment.

  "OK, OK, I won't write anything until I've spoken to you about it."

  "Until I've approved it."

  "Approved it? Oh, honestly -"

  "Or I don't tell you the address,"

  She looks at me hard.

  "OK," she says. "OK. We'll work on the piece together."

  Nora goes back to her office after another severe warning from me. We've arranged to meet back here at seven to await Anastasia's call. Even then, I decide, peering out of the window at the traffic and people below, I don't have to tell Nora where Piers is. I could just ring Slapton straight away and hand the whole thing over to him.

  I sit down at my desk and spread my hands out before me. What would Lauren do in this situation? If you think you know the answer ring this number, calls cost 50 pence per minute and don't forget to get permission from whoever pays the bill. Hey, I think I do know the answer.

  But I'm not Lauren, though, am I? So am I Nora? Or is it Noor? The light of his life. Oh, God, that poor man.

  I shuffle some more bits of paper around. No sign of Scarlett or Zac. I realise I'm sort of missing them so I go out and do some window shopping. A couple of people in the street take a second look at me and the people in the sandwich shop exchange very unsubtle glances as I order a turkey salad sandwich to take away.

  It's funny, so many people at my agency, I mean my old agency, want to be celebs. I remember a guy called Dave, a complete tosser, had five pages of editorial in The Times magazine, beautiful stuff - winter coats shot in Scotland, I think - but he spent almost the whole day, it appeared, standing by the bar in a cafe in the King's Road, looking around waiting for people to recognise him.

  He was there at 10am when Lauren and I were having a quick coffee before we tackled the shops and he was still there at gone four o'clock in the afternoon when we went past on a bus on our way home. Like anyone was going to recognise his face from the magazine.

  "People just look at the clothes, go 'Blimey! I wouldn't pay that', and turn the page," said Lauren in a rare moment of cynicism.

  I watch telly in the office a bit. The same quiz show that Zac was watching the other day. I can do the abuse - 'you pea brain', 'you ding bat' - but I can't always get the answers right like he can so I turn over and watch a women telling another woman how much she hated her former, fat self. I flick over again and another woman is telling yet another chat show hostess about how dieting took over her life and how she is now, finally, happy with who she is - a size twenty. The hostess, a stick thin blonde, smiles sweetly and invites the audience to give the fat woman a round of applause.

  The door buzzer goes. The Police? Reporters? Creditors? Not again. I look at my watch, it's a quarter to seven already. I let Nora in. She rushes upstairs, throws her arms around me and gives me a passionate, slurping kiss, pulling me towards her. Then she pushes me away.

  "Has she rung yet?"

  "No, it's only quarter to seven."

  "Good, good," says Nora taking off her coat. She sits down on Scarlett's desk, still breathing heavily from the running up stairs and the kissing and leans back, her arms sliding back behind her. "Isn't this exciting? Got anything to drink?"

  "No and no," I tell her.

  "Oh, Charlie, don't be boring." She comes over to where I'm sitting behind my desk with a sultry sashay.

  "I'm not, I'm just...a bit anxious that's all."

  "Oh, so am I. I've been thinking about it all day."

  "I just hope we're doing the right thing."

  "I'm sure we are," she says, too quickly to sound convincing. I sigh deeply and start an aimless tour of the office. "What have you been doing today?"

  "Erm, just pissing about here really. You?"

  "Oh, I've had one of those days - a lot of fire fighting, you know, crisis management, trying to sort things out for people," she says, shaking her head.

  "What? Where they've cocked things up?"

  "No, where I've cocked things up," she says blandly.

  "That figures."

  Just then my mobile rings.

  "Oh my God. That'll be her," says Nora, leaping up off the desk and starts rooting around in her bag. "Quick, take this. You stick it on to the back of the phone and it records what she says. Oh, fuck where's the tape? I'm crap at technical things. Hang on, here it is."

  I wave Nora and her recording gear away as I answer the phone.

  "Hello?"

  "Charlie? It's Anastasia."

  "Hi, thanks for ringing back."

  "No, probs, I said I would. Right, I've got this address..." I scatter papers around my desk as I find a pen and something to write on then I swap hands to stop Nora trying to listen in but she goes round to the other side of me.

  "Sorry, Anastasia, go on."

  "Right, I've never heard of it, I never go there myself, always get a mate to do it, or a bike from one of Dad's companies, it's the absolute back of bloody beyond, you'll need passports and injections to go there."

  I laugh encouragingly.

  "Oh, get on with it," whispers Nora from beside me.

  "It's number 79 Fairisle Road, SE27. Where the hell's SE27? Never been very good on my SEs."

  I repeat the address to make sure I've got it.

  "That's great Anastasia, I really appreciate it."

  "So, you're going to go down there?"

  "Well, we'll go and have a look."

  Nora is already feverishly consulting an A to Z.

  "Be careful, Charlie."

  "Of course, don't worry. I'll let you know how I get on. Thanks again, Anastasia. Bye."

  "Bye. Oh, and Charlie, try and get me some stuff while you're there will you, I'm running dangerously low."

  I laugh.

  "Will do."

  I finish the call and look round at Nora.

  "Found it," she says, triumphantly. "It's near...near...absolutely fucking nowhere. Don't worry, though, I've got a car."

  "A car? That'll be useful."

  "Right. You can map read, I'll drive." She is already half out of the door.

  I'm wondering again whether I should just ring the police and give them the address. It would make life easier. But I can't bear to speak to Slapton again, let alone help the bastard in his stupid enquiries so I pick up my stuff and follow Nora out. We'll talk to Piers and then perhaps ring the police and tell them his whereabouts. It's already getting dark and a large spot of rain lands on my face as we step outside.

  She is illegally parked - horribly, outrageously, illegally parked so that a couple of passers-by stop in disbelief to look at the little blue Renault sitting next to, almost on, the zebra crossing but, of course, she has managed to avoid getting a ticket.

  She lets me in just as the rain really gets going. We set off down Charing Cross Road ready to cross the river. She is silent and intent. We haven't been going long before I realise that she isn't going to pay much attention to traffic regulations and other drivers.

  "Fucking hell, Nora," I say leaning back in my seat as we seem to be driving straight towards a bus. Traffic lights are a minor hindrance and she seems to pass most as if they were at green. She also seems to think that she has right of way, whatever the road markings and the position of other vehicles. But her erratic performance is clearly not just a result of her excitement and determination to get to Fairisle Road ASAP. As we hurtle over a mini roundabout, causing a couple of other cars to screech to a halt on my side, I find myself saying what has
been dawning on me since our last near miss but two: "Nora, you can't drive, can you?"

  She laughs uncomfortably.

  "Derr! Huh! What do you think I'm doing now?"

  "No, I mean you don't have a licence. You haven't passed a test, have you?"

  "Oh, honestly."

  By sheer fluke we seem to heading down the road without any obvious crises for a moment but I don't let it go: "Nora, whose car is this?"

  "A friend from work. She does know."

  "That you've got it, yes, but she doesn't know that you haven't got a licence."

  "Oh, Charlie, for goodness sake. Who knows whether I've got a Goddamn licence or not?"

  "Well, everybody else near us on the road, I'd say. Look, just stop the car and we'll get a taxi or something." Face set in grim determination, she carries on. "Nora, I said stop the car. Look, you can park in one of these side streets and we'll get a taxi."

  "We're nearly there now, aren't we?"

  "No." We are actually but I can't stand this. We must have used up our luck by now.

  "It's at the end of this street, isn't it?"

  Outside it is dark and wet. I look in vain for cabs but there are none.

  "OK, but let's take it slowly from now on."

  "Of course," she says, putting her foot down.

  We find Fairisle Road soon afterwards and decide to leave the car at the beginning of it, just off the main road. I do the parking since even Nora admits she's not too hot on parking.

  Fairisle Road is a Victorian terrace in which most houses are shabby but still inhabited. There are five that are seriously dilapidated and number 29 is in the middle of them. There is no sign of life from it whatsoever. My first thought is that Anastasia must have made a mistake. Surely even a squat must have something to show that it's inhabited. I walk up to the gate and open it. The downstairs windows have been boarded up with corrugated iron and there is a pile of litter, Big Mac containers and rubbish around the front door.

  "This place looks deserted," I say to Nora, willing this to be the case.

  "What a perfect place to hide, then," she says brightly, a drop of rain hanging off her nose. "Go and try the door." I look at her for a moment, wondering whether there is still time to call the police and get out of here. "Go on."

  I walk up to the door and knock gently, hoping that is there is anyone inside they won't hear me.

  "Oh, for fuck's sake," she says, pulling me out of the way. She boots the door as hard as she can, staggering backwards with the impact.

  "Nora!"

  "Well, what are you? The Avon Lady?"

  Unfortunately the door, obviously rotten and with a knackered old lock, has given a bit. There really is no excuse for not trying again. I have to admit to a touch of macho self-satisfaction as it opens properly with a shove from my shoulder.

  "Psst," hisses Nora from the gate. I look round and see a couple walk by, giving us a surreptitious glance as they pass. After a few moments I step back to give it another assault but before I can make my move Nora has pushed me out of the way and kicked the door hard again so that it flies open.

  "I hope whoever's in here is deaf," I whisper to her. We both peer in. I shudder involuntarily at the thought of rats. The place smells of rotting wood, damp and urine. I nearly gag. "We can't possibly go in without a...torch," I say, as Nora produces one from her bag. Oh, shit.

  "Luckily someone's come prepared," she says.

  In the light of the torch the place itself doesn't look too bad. It's very grimy, with wallpaper and even bits of plaster hanging off the walls in the hallway but the floor boards look sound. Nora steps inside and I follow her.

  "Close the door," she whispers. Reluctantly I push it closed behind us. We move further in, on the right is a doorway to the living room. I'm so close to Nora that I'm almost pressing up against her. She flashes the torch around. The room is empty except for a deck chair and some old lager cans dotted around a filthy old rug. The hearth shows signs of a small, incompetently constructed fire.

  We move on along the corridor further. In front of us are the stairs and behind them the way to the kitchen. We choose the kitchen route, a tense, shambling, two person conga. I'm beginning to think about a big drink after we get out of this. If we get out of this. There are more old lager cans and wine and whiskey bottles in the kitchen plus some cardboard boxes. Oh, shit, obviously full of giant rats. They say, you're never more than ten feet away from a rat in London, we're probably inches away from them. Don't they go for your jugular? Or your genitals? Or is that wild dogs?

  "Go back," hisses Nora.

  "Why?" I gasp.

  "Because there's nothing here."

  "Oh, OK." I turn to head backwards and it's then that we hear a creak from above us.

  I turn to look at Nora and she holds the torch up to her scared face. Suddenly all the comparisons with the Blair Witch Project which I've been suppressing, come flooding into my mind and I'm ready to just sprint out of there - what the hell.

  "Did you hear that?" says the mask of terror in front of me.

  "Yes, it came from upstairs," I say, taking the torch from her and holding it in a way to give her a more gentle, flattering light which is, of course, for my benefit, not hers. "Let's get out of here." Even she seems to be contemplating a fast exit for a moment.

  "There must be someone up there."

  "Exactly! So let's just get out of here."

  She takes the torch off me and moves back towards the hallway. I'm breathing more steadily already at the thought of escape but she stops at the foot of the stairs.

  "Come on," I tell her.

  "Just a quick look upstairs."

  "No, for fuck's sake. I told you, this isn't Scooby Doo. Let's just go... Nora?" The step creaks and by the light of the torch I can see her beginning to walk up. "Come back."

  But she ignores me and carries on up. There is another creak from the first floor. We get half way and she turns round for a moment but it's obviously just to check that I'm still here behind her. Finally we are on the landing. The street lights throw a gentle yellowy light into the front bedroom. It is also empty apart from the obligatory cardboard boxes. The torch is shaking in Nora's hand, I notice.

  Although there is no actual noise, somehow we both sense it at the same time: there is someone in the room next to us. The door is closed; there is total blackness at this end of the hallway. Again Nora turns to look at me, her face a mixture of fear and curiosity in the harsh torch light.

  This is the moment. I'm a big bloke; I've got the element of surprise. Don't think about, just do it. I turn the handle and throw the door open as fast and as hard as I can.

  Initially it moves smoothly and easily but a split second later it comes into contact with someone or something. From behind me I hear Nora scream and she drops the torch, a flash of light revealing a shadowy figure in the room. Already reeling from the impact of the door, it has no chance of seeing off a badly aimed but forceful blow from my right fist. It feels like I've hit someone's head or cheek bone.

  "Awwwfff!" There is crack as a head hits the crumbling plaster of the wall. I stagger back for a moment but realise that it isn't my head so I take a deep breath and look round for Nora. She is nowhere to be seen in the inky blackness of the hallway.

  "Nora?" I'm still whispering.

  "Yes?" she gasps.

  My heart and my lungs are both hammering away so hard that I can hardly get the words out.

  "I think I hit someone."

  "Sounded like it."

  We both stand in silence. I'm almost bracing myself for my assailant to come back at me but there is nothing except the sound of the traffic outside and distant thump of a reggae beat from across the road somewhere. The pain from my hand begins to kick in - a dull, throbbing ache. I hope I haven't broken something.

  "Where's the torch?" I whisper.

  "I don't know, I think it's broken."

  "Oh fuck, it better not be," I say stepping back very slowly a
nd bumping into her. We both crouch down and begin to feel around on the damp, rough floorboards for it.

  "Got it," she says. A second later the light begins to flash around crazily as she shakes it back into life.

  "Give it here," I hiss. I take it and shine it into the bedroom.

  There is a figure on the floor, lying motionless. I think I'm going to be sick for a moment then I'm conscious of Nora looking round from behind me.

  "Who is it? Is he all right?" I can hear her words and I want to go and find out but somehow my body won't move. After what seems like hours but can only be a few moments, she pushes past me and walks gingerly into the room, looking behind the door. I've at least managed to shine the torch in there. She looks around for a moment and then crouches down by the body.

  "Oh, my God! It’s Piers," she says in a strange, husky voice. I see her touch his face and then reach down towards his wrist. She holds it for a moment and looks back at me.

  "Well?" I hear myself whisper.

  "He's dead."

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  "What made you think I was dead?" asks Piers, brightly.

  "You had no pulse," snaps Nora as if he's not playing fair by still being alive.

  "Well, obviously he had a bloody pulse," I tell her.

  "Oh, very clever, Dr George Clooney. Next time you knock someone out cold you can check they're still alive."

  "I will, don't worry."

  "Actually," says Piers. "You might be right. I play a lot of squash and I'm pretty fit so I've probably got a very slow pulse, that's all."

  "Oh, shut up," Nora and I chorus. We look at each other in surprise and then look away crossly. Why the hell didn't I call the police right away? I decide I'll do it as soon as we leave, whatever Nora says. How did I get talked into this, anyway? I'm still feeling a bit sick and faint after the shock of thinking I'd killed someone.

  "Gosh, my head hurts though," says Piers, rubbing the side of his forehead which is already beginning to swell.

  "Good," I say. My hand is killing me. I can hardly straighten out my index finger. Bang goes any more hand modelling work.

  "Charlie," says Nora. "I think you should apologise to Piers."

  "What? Me apologise? After what he's put me through."