Murder Most Fab

by Julian Clary

  We looked at each other for a moment, and I think Catherine saw fear in my eyes. She stroked my face. ‘It’ll be fine. You can do it. Don’t worry.’

  I got out of the car, longing to be anywhere but there. Then she drove slowly away.

  I went to the phone box at the end of the street and waited. I was jumpy and nervous, certain I was being watched by a host of nosy neighbours who were already practising describing me to the Crimewatch artist. The phone rang, as arranged, at exactly two fifty-five. I knew it was Georgie, phoning to make sure there were no last-minute delays or unexpected developments. I let it ring only once before I picked it up.

  “Ello, Georgie. ‘Ow yer doin’?’ I said, using the rough south-London accent that had turned him on so much in our more conventional encounters. I knew he’d like that touch.

  ‘An!’ He gave a little gasp of excitement. ‘All set here. Ready to go.’ He hung up.

  I felt sick. So, this was it. Time to test my resolve. I took a deep breath. It was too late to back out. All I could do was give it my all, and try, in the strangest of circumstances, to remain the epitome of professionalism. I put on my black leather gloves and pulled my Vivienne Westwood jacket collar up around my ears.

  No one was about but I managed a casual saunter just in case, looking, I imagined, like an innocent youth mooching home after a frustratingly chaste date with his frigid girlfriend. I had always been good at making up scenarios.

  A few moments later I moved silently down the side of the house. There was a single lamp on in the lounge and the french windows were unlocked, as agreed. I climbed over the balcony and let myself in as quietly as I could, glancing round to make doubly sure that no one was about.

  Inside, I drew the curtains and listened. There wasn’t a sound except the ticking of a clock. On the sofa were the overalls, surgical gloves and shoe covers Georgie had bought for me. I slipped them on, exchanging leather for latex, amazed at how calm and collected I was feeling. I moved into the bedroom and saw the shape of a sleeping form under the duvet. When I reached the bedside Georgie stirred and said, ‘Who’s there?’ just as arranged.

  His acting’s a trifle wooden, I thought. Never mind.

  I had memorized the instructions he had given me and ticked them off in my mind one by one, needing just the occasional glance at my watch to check I was on schedule. The sex I could do with my eyes closed (and frequently did) and the moderate S and M wasn’t unusual either. Once things began hotting up, though, I believe I went into automatic pilot. If someone asks you, pays you even, to hog-tie them and take a pair of pliers to their nipples, it’s important to remind yourself that their muffled cries are really of satisfaction, not pain.

  There was only one unexpected glitch: he choked rather violently on the lemon I pushed, as instructed, into his mouth. He went very purple and tears streamed down his cheeks. Should I remove the zesty fruit and offer him a glass of water, I wondered, or press gamely on? In the end the choking subsided and his cheeks returned to near-normal pinkness.

  I was as ready as he was for the end when it came. I took a couple of deep breaths, wound the strap twice round his neck and pulled. I guess I hadn’t bargained for how long it would take or the amount of thrashing about that ensued. I could see, as I looked into his eyes, that deep down, underneath it all, Georgie was having the time of his life, but that didn’t stop the involuntary struggling as his body tried to overrule his wishes. When he finally slumped, dead at last, I realized we were no longer on the bed but halfway across the room. I continued to hold the strap tight with both fists clenched and counted to a thousand.

  As a consequence I finished seven minutes later than intended.

  I laid Georgie’s body out as he had requested, and took the liberty of adding a squirt of Clinique’s Happiness. There had been some loss of bowel and bladder control, as you might expect under the circumstances. I cleared this up with surprisingly little squeamishness (that’s country folk for you) but a heavy faecal odour lingered in the air. Respectfully, I kit the incense and lowered the lights. I was hot and sweaty, but as my instructions were now to go out dancing it didn’t much matter.

  Before I closed the bedroom door, I stood back to admire my handiwork. I had done it, and it hadn’t been as bad as I’d expected. Clean and serene (if a little red in the face), Georgie lay with his hands clasped across his chest and he was wrapped in freshly ironed antique linen, folded about his face; it gave him an unexpected —and, I suspect, unwanted — nun-like appearance. The blue smoke from the incense curled round him. It all seemed rather Victorian.

  I smiled at the shrouded figure in his chapel of rest and considered my work well done. I packed the rubber gloves and the other paraphernalia into a small black sports bag and left the flat silently through the french windows.

  ‘Remember me, Georgie,’ I whispered.

  Just as we’d arranged, Catherine was waiting outside in our new red sports car (she had already taken care of the first ten thousand pounds of my payment). She looked at me but I didn’t say a word. We drove away in silence. When we eventually stopped at traffic-lights on Vauxhall Bridge she said, ‘I don’t know why I’m shaking. How did it go?’

  Sounding rather like a doctor after a difficult operation, I said, ‘As well as can be expected.’

  ‘Good. Well done, I knew you could do it. How was he?’

  ‘He went with a smile on his face.’

  ‘That’s just what he wanted. Now — everything in the sports bag?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Off you go and enjoy yourself, then,’ she said. ‘Here’s a little pick-me-up for you.’ She handed me a miniature plastic bag with three thick yellowish pills in it. ‘Best to swallow them now to avoid any security nonsense. While you’re shaking your stuff, I’ll take the bag to the incinerator and watch it burn. Have you got the money?’

  ‘Here it is.’ I pulled the envelope of cash out of my pocket.

  ‘Take a hundred pounds or so for tonight, and give me the rest. It’ll be safer that way.’

  ‘Okay.’ I peeked off some notes and handed the envelope to her.

  ‘Good.’ She tucked it into the side pocket in the door. ‘I’ll look after it. Now go and have fun. I’ll see you when I see you, Cowboy.’

  I got out of the car. A light drizzle was falling but Catherine leant across, wound down the passenger window and said, ‘It wasn’t murder, sweetheart. It was an act of kindness.’

  Then she roared off. I watched as the tail-lights of our whizzy new car disappeared on the Vauxhall roundabout, then headed for the dark doors under the bridge that led to the steamy world of a club called the White Swallow.

  Once inside, I took my ecstasy and danced topless on a podium for a couple of hours, gyrating and gurning with the best of them. Drugged and delirious, I greeted even the vaguest acquaintance with uncharacteristic friendliness.

  ‘Nicholas! You’re looking fabulous!’ I squeaked at one. In reality, he was overdressed as usual, the stunted attempt at a Mohican he was sporting doing little to disguise his imminent baldness, but now was not the time to tell him the blindingly obvious. I wanted to escape reality, particularly on that night of all nights. ‘It’s so wonderful to see you!’

  Nicholas wittered on and I pretended to listen. Suddenly, through the steamy haze, a figure emerged, swanning into my vision with a sinister smoothness. ‘Well, hello, stranger,’ it said.

  To my astonishment, I recognized him. It was the unpleasant Sean from Lewisham School of Musical Theatre. ‘Sean,’ I said. ‘How charming.’

  He still looked bizarrely thin, his cheeks hollower than ever. He smiled, like a cheerful skulk. ‘It’s been ages. You seem to be having a good time. Mind if I dance with you?’

  The drug to make that an attractive proposition had not been invented, but here was another witness to my whereabouts, and I had to force myself. ‘Of course! It’ll be like old times.’

  Off he went, giving it his all. Sean’s step-balk-cha
nge style of dancing might have got him into the chorus of an Eastbourne production of Dick Whittington but it earned him few admirers on the dance-floor that night. Queens dressed as garage mechanics forgot their butch act and arched their backs, hurrying to get as far away from Sean’s display as they could, as fast as their Dr Martens could carry them. Sean did a perfect double-spin and was suddenly up close to my face. ‘You know something, Johnny?’

  He was puckering up to me, I saw with horror. ‘What’s that, Sean?’

  ‘We’ve had our differences, but I’ve always felt a special connection to you—’

  I had to stop him right there. ‘Sean, I once said to you that I thought anyone could sing or dance.’

  ‘You did, but you regret it now, I expect?’ He stroked my sweat-wet hair and gazed lovingly into my dilated pupils.

  ‘I was wrong. Not everyone can dance. You can’t.’

  It was about noon when I got back to the flat, completely washed out and very depressed from the inevitable comedown. I had shaken off Sean, but it hadn’t made me feel any better.

  Catherine was busy on the phone to John Lewis. She mouthed, ‘Ciao!’ at me as I slumped on to the sofa, eyes like saucers and a cold sweat on my brow. Then she went on, ‘And have you got one in stock now? With the glitterball? How soon can you deliver? Great. We’ll be in this afternoon to pay in cash. Thank you.’ She looked me up and down. ‘Go and have a shower, Cowboy,’ she said, waving a hand under her nose. ‘You smell like an abattoir. Then we’ll go shopping. The Italian sofas and the fridge will be with us by next Wednesday. Doesn’t that make it all worthwhile?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, you’ll soon forget about dispatching the old trout when we’ve got ice cubes at the press of a button.’

  I left her to her shopping and went for a shower and a lie-down. I wouldn’t say I had a clear head, but for the first time I allowed myself to contemplate my actions.

  So. Now I was a murderer. It didn’t feel as bad as I’d thought it would but perhaps that was because it was so hard to believe I’d never see Georgie again. The whole thing still felt like one of the games we played, where I was tough and merciless, punishing him in just the way he liked. Would he really never greet me at the door, paunchy and pink-cheeked, telling me what a saucebox I was and could I do it again next week?

  Come on, I told myself sternly. It’s not as though you’re going to make a habit of it. This was essentially self-harming — and was what Georgie had wanted. He’d just done it by proxy.

  I repeated this to myself until I felt innocent. I was almost able to forget what I’d done, but not quite. I felt a vague, distant sense of worry and regret, as if I’d run over a cat or been needlessly rude to a shop assistant. I must learn to live with this feeling, I thought. In case it never goes away.

  But I very much hoped it would.

  It was about four o’clock when Sammy called.

  ‘I’m afraid I have bad news,’ he said calmly. ‘Our dear friend Georgie is dead.’

  ‘Oh, Sammy, I’m so sorry,’ I replied. I sounded convincing, even to myself I’d done a very good job of persuading myself that I’d had nothing to do with it. ‘That’s a terrible shock. He told me he was unwell but I thought he had some time …’

  ‘I’ve been away for the weekend and there was no sign of him on the veranda this morning. I was worried because his curtains were still drawn. I had an awful feeling that something—’ He stopped, and a big sob of grief distorted the line.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said carefully. I had to remember what I knew and what I didn’t. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I went in and he was laid out on the bed, covered with a sheet. I had a little peep — it was awful, he was obviously dead — then ran back to my flat and called the police at once. There are dozens of them, forensics, photographers, yellow crime-scene tape everywhere. ‘‘Sammy,’ I said, in a deep voice, ‘how terrible. Whatever happened to him?’

  ‘I think he was murdered. He must have gone out again and picked up someone dangerous. I told him not to, but he was always hot-headed. But, then, he was laid out so beautifully. Why would a thug go to such trouble? I don’t understand. And no one will tell me anything.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I’m just so shocked,’ I said — rather believably, I thought.

  ‘Georgie was my sister,’ Sammy almost whispered. ‘Why would someone want to hurt him?’

  ‘Did he have any enemies?’

  ‘Lots. But mainly silky queens he’d lacerated with his vicious tongue over the years. No one who hated him enough to lay him out like a dead pope. I wish you could have seen it, JD, it would have broken your heart. Poor, poor old Georgie …’ Sammy started to weep.

  ‘How vile. He didn’t deserve that.’

  I felt rotten again. Poor Sammy. Right through all the planning and the execution of Georgie’s fantasy, I had never considered him. Their lives had been bound together for so long and his ‘sister’s’ death had come as a terrible shock. How was he to pass the long, lonely days? Who would he gossip and drink with now?

  Come on, I told myself. He was going to be bereaved anyway, what with Georgie’s cancer. Separation was inevitable. As it always is.

  Georgie’s murder made the evening news and most of the next day’s papers. It was reported in various tones. A broadsheet called it ‘Suspicious Sex Death Of Retired Theatre Man’. A tabloid screamed, ‘Killer Queen! Gay OAP Murdered At Home In Bizarre Sex Games Twist’. One even said that Georgie had died in a frenzied attack, which I was quite upset about: there had been nothing frenzied in my actions — I’d been most careful.

  But it was rather terrifying when I saw on the news that the police had launched a murder investigation. I hoped we’d been careful enough, but after all my precautions and the evidence Catherine had incinerated, things ought to be fine. I’d been at the club that night, anyway. And they found it hard enough to catch genuine murderers, with proper motives, so why would they possibly suspect me? I just had to sit tight and keep quiet.

  There were a few further reports, but mainly to the effect that Georgie had probably taken a stranger home for sex that had gone too far. That nothing appeared to have been stolen seemed to rule out robbery, and the calm nature of the crime scene meant that the killer had not acted impetuously after it happened. The general feeling was that it was one of those mysteries that would remain for ever unsolved, though the police said they were still investigating and hopeful of catching the person responsible. They always said that, though.

  ‘You’re home and dry,’ Catherine said, when we’d watched the news that night. ‘No one can really be bothered, can they? See? Just as I said. And to think you nearly turned down all that money! Honestly, if it were always so easy, we could open our own business putting the terminally ill out of their misery in a blaze of glory. Forget shoddy little hotel rooms in Switzerland and a paper cup of poison, think champagne, caviar, sex and an exit to be proud of.’

  I tried to smile but it occurred to me that Catherine sometimes lacked a little in the good-taste department. ‘Once is enough,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ Catherine agreed. ‘Shame, though.’

  Because of the nature of his death, Georgie’s funeral arrangements were somewhat delayed. Catherine and I had screwed our way through the sand dunes of Gran Canaria and were already lamenting our fading tans when Sammy called me. He couldn’t bear to live in Barnes any more, he said, and was soon going to stay with friends on the Isle of Wight. ‘Will you come to Georgie’s funeral, JD? Only he left very specific instructions and you’re on the invitation list.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know — I still can’t believe he’s gone.’

  ‘Please. He’d be devastated if you weren’t there. The police have finally released the body and after six weeks in a fridge drawer he deserves a good send-off. It’s going to be quite a show.’

  ‘Of course I’ll come, Sammy. I wouldn’t miss it.’


  I didn’t particularly want to go — in fact, I dreaded it — but Catherine said it would be suspicious if I didn’t show up.

  ‘I’ll come with you. I’ve got a dinky little veil,’ she said. ‘It’ll be fab with those jet earrings I saw in Old Bond Street the other day.’

  Barnes Crematorium was done out with pink bunting when we arrived. The only flowers permitted were red-hot pokers flown in at great expense from somewhere exotic. ‘It’s Raining Men’ was played at full volume as the coffin — shiny black gloss with yellow polka dots and marabou trim — was carried down the aisle by six Tom of Finland builders in overalls and hard hats.

  ‘This isn’t a send-off, it’s a send-up,’ muttered Catherine. ‘Do you fancy a Valium? It might help you cry.’

  ‘I’m managing without thanks,’ I whispered back, wiping my eyes. ‘I think it’s rather lovely, actually. It’s just what he would have wanted …’

  ‘And what Georgie wanted, Georgie got.’

  The funeral was followed by drinks and camp food from Georgie’s favourite era, the nineteen fifties, at a local pub. We dutifully tucked into Coronation Chicken, ham and pineapple on cocktail sticks, stuffed tomatoes and satsuma jelly.

  Sammy said a brief hello and lingered only long enough to tell me that he was heading back to the Isle of Wight straight after the wake, where he would be staying in Sandown with a retired judge and his house-boy from Singapore until he had recovered sufficiently from the shock and could make plans for the future. He’d call me soon. Then he was off, circulating slowly and sadly like a grey carp in a murky pond. Sammy was chief mourner and organizer, however painful it was for him, so he had to comfort everyone and say a few appropriate words.

  ‘Hello, JD,’ said a small voice behind me.

  Bernard was wearing an uncharacteristically sombre suit with a ghastly maroon tie and a pungent floral aftershave.

  ‘Long time no see,’ he said, looking a little flushed. ‘You haven’t returned my calls.’