‘Do you know a woman called Rose Waterford?’
‘Nope.’
‘You’ve met her though.’
‘Have I?
‘A month ago, at night, she was . . .’
I know what she is going to say. I don’t know who this woman is but I know who she isn’t. I hear the words before she speaks them, IN. THE. CAR.
‘And you were . . .’
NAKED.
‘You said you worked for my mum.’
‘No I didn’t.’
‘Well who are you?’
‘I’m a reporter for the Sunday Herald. It would be good to hear your side of the story.’
I hear Alf stirring, he’s not good when he wakes up. It never ends well. I try to whisper to him to stay calm, beg him not to inflame the situation but Alf isn’t a great listener.
BOO! He runs at her. In her face. BOO! BOO! BOO!
The girl who doesn’t work for my mum isn’t smug now. All of a sudden my side of the story isn’t so attractive. She legs it.
I want to tell her it was a mistake, I was attacked, robbed. I am the victim. But it’s too late, Alf has scared her away.
‘You freak,’ she says.
That’s me.
I don’t want to be in the newspapers. I don’t want to be in this house, to be in my life. I run upstairs, bury myself in the duvet, but I’m still here. It’s no good. Alf calls me to go to the window and asks me to follow him out on to the flat roof. We’re on the top floor, three storeys up. From my vantage point, life is toy people and buses and cars moving around the town’s tracks. And I can see that no one ever gets anywhere, they just dart backwards and forwards, buses breathing them in, spewing them out so they can go home with their pasty office faces and do the exact same thing again tomorrow. This is life.
Is that what you want?
Time splits. Down there, on the tracks, is one continuum. We break off into another where it’s safer and no one can touch us. Down there is a trap. It’s questions and name calling and people in my face staring and pawing at my skin, telling me who I am. Bad. Rotten. Freak.
Colour drains from the sky. Streetlights shoot out acid strobes. Heat radiates through me. Sensors are packed into every single hair and pore on my body. My head soaks up the noises that rise up to us and pump them through me. I walk to the edge. The wind raises my arms skywards like it’s showing me what to do. This is all completely natural. Any second the wind is going to lift me away from this. It’s going to make me fly.
This is it.
Wait. Something is pulling at me. Time to go. But I’m pulled the wrong way, back from the sky, back, back, back.
‘I can’t do it. I can’t.’ I don’t know what it is I can’t do any more. My words make sense only to themselves.
‘Gabriel . . .’ My name is soft. I sink into it like a warm duvet. ‘Gabriel.’ I’m pressed into someone. The smell. My mum. She won’t let me go. I don’t want her to let me go.
‘I can’t do it.’
My head is shedding thoughts that flutter about the room and she’s holding me tight so I don’t break up too.
‘Help me.’ I’m crying because I can’t work out what it is I am asking her to do, but it’s OK, Gabriel, it’s OK. My mum knows. I don’t need to say anything more.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll help you.’
The story doesn’t appear. Not in the Sunday Herald. Not anywhere. No one mentions Rose Waterford again. ‘What did you do?’ I ask my mum.
‘Nothing.’ She’s lying. My mum isn’t any regular mum, she was the Home fucking Secretary (before they lost the election). She can make things happen.
And here’s the thing, I’m glad she stopped it. But I wish she hadn’t done it to duck the scandal and the shame and the fallout. I wish she had done it because she knew the story wasn’t true.
Pity.
My mum is a powerful woman. She can do all kinds of things but she can’t bring herself to believe me.
Thursday 10.45 a.m.
Linda
On we go. B roads give way to dirt tracks flanked by unruly brambles and hedges. The car throws us around, dipping into potholes and mounting verges, squeezing us down narrow lanes.
Nerves seize me. The exchange with Anna has given my doubt oxygen. Those men would do anything to keep this covered up, I told her. And this time I wasn’t lying. The past is proof enough, the lengths they have gone to in order to silence me and my friend Jonathan Clancy. No one would believe us if we told them. I suppose that is the cruel beauty of their deceit.
I have been careful, as cautious as progress will allow, because I know they have eyes everywhere, ears to the ground. Only Jonathan is aware of what I am doing, and Michael, another old friend who I approached in the hope he may publish the book. I’d trust both with my life. As for Naomi Parkes, I have done as much due diligence on her as I can. A search on the electoral roll confirmed a woman of that name lives not far from here. I have pored over her posts on www.whathappenedatkelmore.com and, so far as I can tell, her story chimes with the others.
But.
Beyond that, this is a leap of faith.
A necessary one at that. Without any testimonies, the book is nothing more than the work of a woman with an axe to grind. It dies before it is born. And they win. Again. Again. Again.
‘Are we going the right way?’ I ask Anna. Sheep excluded, I haven’t seen another sign of life for miles.
She hands me her phone to look at the satnav. ‘These are the details you gave me. Check them.’
I do, against the address I have in my diary.
‘We’re on the right track, unfortunately,’ I say. Her phone vibrates in my hand. ‘You have a voicemail.’
I place the phone in the tray between our seats. She risks a look down, an ill-advised move that forces her to swerve in order to avoid a tree.
‘I’m sure it can wait. It would be nice to come out of this alive,’ I say.
The sudden movement makes my heart judder. I shift uncomfortably in my seat. Can’t say I expected it to be this far out, so completely off the beaten track. Never understood why some people deliberately seek out solitude; life doles out enough of its own. Give me the buzz of a crowd, a coffee shop, the whir of traffic any day.
This isolation unsettles me. Thank goodness I’m not alone.
The car slows to a crawl. Ahead I can see the shape of a building frayed at the edges. It is desolate and unwelcoming and as we drive closer my mood slips into despair.
Here?
‘Christ,’ Anna says. ‘I’m not sure about this.’ She looks to me for reassurance but I have none to give.
‘I suppose I should get out, check for signs of life,’ I say. Anna nods. ‘Are you coming with me?’
‘I’ll catch you up.’ She cradles her phone. ‘I need to check my messages first.’
It is an old farmhouse, Naomi was correct on that account, but it is far from the meeting place I had envisaged. For starters, the surrounding fields show no evidence of farming. Nettles fur the drive, bushes sway towards me. I plunge straight into a puddle, sending freezing water up my trouser leg. ‘Shit!’ There is no sign of a car. She could hardly have flown here. This can’t be the place.
‘Hello! HELLO.’
Nothing. Only the adrenal roar of my fear.
I look back for Anna, find her propped up by the car, phone stuck to her ear. Her presence reassures.
A little.
I inch closer to the house. Neglect has ulcered the paintwork, shrinks it from the door. Through the windows, cracked and cobwebbed, I find shades of darkness but no sign of life. I press the bell, a final flourish before surrender. Don’t wait for an answer.
I circle the property. Everything I see and all that I don’t builds up an invento
ry of dread. My muscles strain to leave, take flight, and yet I wait. To leave would be to abandon everything I have come for, the hope of justice. Five minutes. Ten. The slow clap of terror ringing in my ears. What is going on? Why has Naomi Parkes brought me out here for nothing?
Unless . . .
My breathing becomes thick and jagged and I grasp at the air for breath. I need a sign to tell me it is time to go.
Turning, I search the yard for Anna.
I find my sign.
She is running towards me, lightning fast, speed twisting her face into someone else.
And somehow I know.
‘Linda.’ Her scream pierces me, stabs the air. The pitch is all wrong. It is not Anna. The sky splits and shatters and crashes down around me.
‘Get in the car.’
‘Who are you?’
She answers with her hands, digging, pressing, pulling. ‘Get in the fucking car.’
She’s stronger than me. Younger, angrier. I’m dragged along with her.
I shout until my voice cracks but the emptiness buries my screams in silence.
Anna drags me towards the car, my feet kicking up against the gravel. The momentum is with her, my body is robbed of substance and my futile attempts to throw her off only tighten her grip.
‘We have to get out of here.’
‘Who are you?’ I spit.
Everything I believed to be true, the conversations, the heart to hearts, the laughs that grew our working relationship into a friendship explode in my face.
Because I don’t know how or why, but I know Anna is their eyes and ears. The sneaking into my room, reading my book, all the questions she’s asked over the last nine months that I thought were driven by curiosity.
Why?
Why would she do it? Does she have the first idea what these men do? What they will do to me?
The thought turns my blood to ice.
‘GET IN THE CAR.’ Her voice is shrill. Fury bleaches her face. I push back, my last chance, scratch her with my nails.
Her hand slices my face and the white heat of pain radiates through me. But worse, much worse, is the pain of her betrayal and the evidence of my own stupidity.
‘Just do as I say.’ She throws me into the car, where I sit defeated, nothing left inside me to fight.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask while I still have the breath to speak.
No answer, she’s too focused inserting the keys in the ignition.
There’s a pulsing behind my eyes and in a vain attempt to block reality, I snap them shut.
‘Shit!’ Anna’s scream curdles the air. My eyes flick open again. She pushes her body back into the seat, grips the steering wheel as if to steel herself against what is coming. A van is heading our way, spraying up stones and mud as it comes towards us.
The passenger door flies open before it has stopped.
The face. Out of context here. It takes a moment to process before the sweet relief feeds through.
DS Huxtable.
I haven’t the first idea what he is doing here or how he knew to come.
But I know I’m safe.
Eleven Months Before
Gabriel, aged 29
If I had known it would be like this, I wouldn’t have stood up that night and given the monster a pass to enter my life.
We were at the Comedy Club, an open mic night. My mate Bay had tickets. I was skint as usual, paying my way with moral support. It was going to be his big moment, the first step in his stand-up career.
Don’t get me wrong, Bay is a funny guy, just not as funny as he thinks. He’d invited along some girls, Jax and Abbey, so they could witness his moment of discovery (his own words, I swear to God). One of the girls was supposed to be for me, but my attire – hoodie and ripped jeans, scruffy Vans – weren’t the aphrodisiac she needed. She pretty much ignored me all night, directed her attention at Bay instead, until the vodka rendered him mute. That’s the other thing you should know about Bay. He can’t drink. I mean, he can, and he does, but it never ends well. Which is exactly what happened on the night in question.
It got to his slot and he was wasted. Head-on-the-table kind of ruined. Stand-up was out of the question. His legs wouldn’t hold him.
The compere called out his name. Cue awkward silence. People started to boo and clap, they didn’t like being made to wait. I’d had a few shots of tequila and before I knew it I was walking towards the stage. Moses parting the fucking sea. Everyone hushed and this fierce confidence shot through me. When I opened my mouth, I knew exactly what to say. The crowd laughed. We bounced off each other. The room was warm, like a massive cuddle surrounding me with electric love. I wasn’t a disgraced politician’s son (thanks, Mum) or a fuck-up serving PERi PERi with a side of corn on the cob at Nando’s. I was Gabriel Miller. Funny man.
I hadn’t had a knockout buzz like that since Tommy and I did our first bong when we were fourteen.
After I’d finished, a guy intercepted me at the bar. Slapped me on the back. ‘Man,’ he said, ‘where did you come from?’
‘Clapham.’
And he laughed like I’d cracked the funniest joke.
‘What do you do?’
I told him about the PERi PERi.
‘Fuck the chicken. I can make you big. I’m Palab, by the way.’
Palab Joshi turned out to be one of the best comedy agents around.
I could have fame or another week of shifts at Nando’s.
That was six years ago and Palab was true to his word. I should be happy. And for a while I was. Ecstatic. All this adoration thrust my way. Love, or more specifically attention, now there’s a thing. I didn’t realise how starved I was of it until the love-bombing commenced. The women wanted me. Women with pneumatic tits and sprayed-on clothes and magazine-ready bodies. They reckoned I was the business in bed and you know what, they probably had a point. No one could get enough of me: the papers, talk shows, quiz shows . . .
So why am I moaning? Good question. Well, let me tell you, fame isn’t what you imagine. It’s not Emerald City. It’s a baby monster that comes to live with you bearing gifts, a house, a car, guest lists, free clothes, new friends whose names don’t stick. And love, yes, or a synthetic form of it.
Then the monster grows, it doesn’t look so cute any more. It takes up too much room in your life. The house gets bigger and the car flashier. It throws more women at you than you really care to fuck, ones who’d never have spat in your direction before. I can’t even have a shag without reading about my performance in the tabloids (FYI: pretty good). Women read these stories and before you know it they’re multiplying, launching themselves at me. They all assume I want it dirty and they give me what I want because I’m Gabriel Miller. How they twist their bodies into those positions I have no idea. Yoga has a lot to answer for. And there’s me, hankering after a bit of vanilla sex, a simple missionary now and again, maybe with the same woman so I can get past the games and get close to someone. But the monster won’t let me. I have to give it what it wants.
The monster brings paps who snap their cameras in my face to get a rise out of me so they can make an extra few quid (always smile, especially when you want to punch them, Palab advises).
I want the monster to go but I need him to stay.
I worry that without the monster I’d go back to being Linda Moscow’s disappointment of a son. It’s taken years of therapy and medication to work through that. Mind you, who’s she to talk? Got turfed out of her job a few years ago – cash for contracts. Yes, you heard correct, my mother who made a career out of bringing other people to book and lecturing me. The sheer fucking hypocrisy was staggering. The press was all over it. I had to stay clear. ‘You’ve got your reputation to think of,’ Palab said, but he agreed I could weave a few jokes about her into my stand
-up routines. The audience lapped it up, a bit of self-deprecation goes far.
‘It’s not true,’ my mum said. She expected me to believe her.
Shoe on the other foot now.
It’s not all bad, this fame thing. Take Thursday night. I’m on live at the Apollo and they’re filming it for the BBC. I’m soaking up the congratulations backstage when Palab approaches me.
‘There’s someone who wants to meet you.’
‘I don’t want sex tonight.’
‘Good, he doesn’t want to have sex with you.’
I don’t get a chance to argue because he’s there in front of me, holding out his hand. Curtis Loewe.
‘I’m a big fan of your work,’ he says.
We chat briefly. He mentions a film he’s working on, a big kids’ animation. He’s looking for voices, likes the pitch of mine.
‘Let’s talk more, some time soon,’ he says. Palab is hovering over my shoulder, practically pissing his pants with excitement. I’m not saying being a talking car or plane or a pig – which happens to be the part he wants me to fill – is the summit of my ambition, but I have to admit, I’m flattered. The guy’s a legend.
‘The Bear Chronicles was my favourite film as a child,’ I tell him.
Tonight I’m going to a party at his country house. The monster is in favour again. He’s sent a car. There’s a bottle of champagne in the back seat just for me. I’ve drained it by the time we arrive.
The house is comically large, reached by a grand driveway that’s lit all the way from the main road. I can’t help feeling like I’m about to crash the set of a costume drama. I’ve come smart but not this smart. As I approach the entrance, the door opens by magic. I turn around to see the car pulling away otherwise I’d run back and demand the driver takes me home. I’ve obviously been asked here for a laugh.
My coat is removed and I’m shown into a room, expensive soft furnishings in various shades of mud. Velvets wink in the light of the candles that line the mantelpiece. Champagne appears in my hand. Laughter bursts out of chatter only to fall back again.
‘Gabriel!’ the voice booms at me, accompanied by a back slap. ‘Glad you could make it. You know Alexander, don’t you?’
An Act of Silence Page 9