Matthew nodded unresponsively. “What time is it?” he asked.
“Can’t you work it out?”
He shrugged impassively.
“It’s ten past eight.”
He nodded his head sleepily. “Ah,” he acknowledged, heading towards his bedside cabinet. He picked a bottle of pills from his top drawer. He popped the cap and knocked three of the small tablets onto his palm before throwing them into his mouth, followed by a small swig of water.
“And another thing,” Jennifer said, her voice bellowing out behind him. “Those pills you take–”
“Antibiotics,” Matthew interjected.
“Bullshit,” Jennifer was quick to her words. “We’ve been together for three months now. Every time I ask, you tell me the same shit.”
“It’s true.”
“I went to see my doctor the other day,” Jennifer began.
“Oh, really,” Matthew quickly jumped in. “Are you okay?”
“That’s not the point,” Jennifer snapped. “I just happened to mention you and these antibiotics.”
“Coz if there’s something wrong, you really should tell me.”
“What?” Jennifer asked, confused.
“Nothing,” Matthew said. “Forget about it.” He stood and stretched. “I’m going to make breakfast. You want any?”
Jennifer shook her head, calmly took a drag from her cigarette, and then coughed out the smoke in anger. “Hey!” she said. “Stop trying to change the subject.”
“I wasn’t,” Matthew conceded. “If you want to talk about your problem, we will.”
“Nice try.” She took a drag from her cigarette and looked at him sternly. “As I was saying, the doctor says you shouldn’t be on antibiotics that long. Then I started thinking.”
“That happens to me a lot, as well.”
“Shut up! You never actually told me anything was wrong with you. There isn’t anything wrong with you!”
“Minor infection.”
“Bollocks,” she spat. “I checked the pills.”
“Just a little valium every now and then,” he said calmly.
“I found the dope.”
“Not mine.” He held up his hands. “Friend of mine, he smokes it all–”
“Cut the shit. I found your growing room. I don’t think your friend, no matter how fucking dumb, would leave something like that behind.”
“You haven’t met my friends.”
“I hardly know you,” Jennifer said, gesticulating in frustration. “I can live with the limited time we spend together: the majority of that is because of my work, because of what I do, it’s nothing to do with you. But don’t you think I should have the right to know if my boyfriend is high all the time?”
“Not all the time.”
“Stop lying!” Jennifer bellowed. “I found the other stuff as well. Sedatives, pain killers, anti-anxiety drugs, cannabis,” she paused. “Now I know why you’re so fucking merry, and well…crazy all the time.”
“To be fair,” Matthew argued. “A lot of the craziness is down to me.”
“Don’t you want to do something serious with your life?”
“Like what?”
“Something creative, something memorable, something outstanding, just something! You can’t just get rich and then spend the rest of your life sitting on your arse getting fucking wasted.”
“I disagree,” Matthew said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“You’re not taking this seriously, are you?”
“I’m making the most out of my youth,” he argued.
“Thirty-one,” she said. “You’re thirty one. You can’t make the most out of your youth forever. What happens when you run out of money?”
“Not going to happen. After today, I’ll have more money than I could ever spend.”
Jennifer could only look at him and shake her head softly in a gesture to herself. She watched as he disappeared out of the room.
“You know what?” he shouted from the staircase. “I might buy a statue of me. A solid gold one…or maybe an island.” He pondered, his feet slowly descending the entwining staircase. “Or both,” he blabbered. “I could put the solid gold statue on the island. Then I’ll build a civilisation…somehow. I’ll need civilians. Maybe I could advertise.”
Back in the bedroom, Jennifer Wilkinson shook her head, quietly muttering to herself. “Unbelievable.”
2
As soon as Matthew stepped into the kitchen, the phone rang. He stood by the fridge – its door wide open – and stared at the phone as he chewed casually on some leftover chicken pizza.
“Are you going to answer that?” Jennifer shouted from upstairs, interrupting Matthew’s silent chewing.
He looked in the direction of the stairs, licked his lips, and continued chewing, his jaw moving slowly and deliberately. On the seventh ring, with his mouth dry, Matthew Jester answered the telephone.
“Hello,” he said clearly.
“Hello, is that Mr. Jester?” The voice sounded distant, foreign. Sounds of dialling phones and gibbering people could be heard in the background.
“Yes.”
“Good Morning, Mr Jester, how are you today?” the voice said in a practised, bored tone.
“I’m fine,” Jester said with faked enthusiasm. “Thanks.” He hung up the phone and returned to the fridge.
“Who was that?” Jennifer shouted.
“Call-centre,” Jester shouted back. “Nice man.”
“What are you eating?” the voice from upstairs questioned again.
Matthew looked down at the stale, cold pizza. “Salad,” he shouted upstairs, casually taking another bite of pizza and wandering around the kitchen. “You want some?”
“No.”
He found a salt cellar in one of the cupboards and held it over the slice of pizza. The salt fell faster than he had expected, and soon a small mound of white salt crystals decorated the slice. He used his fingers to spread the white powder around as much as he could and then took a large bite. Back in the fridge, he found a jar of pickled onions, took out three with the aid of a teaspoon, and layered them out on top of his pizza. Then, finding a jar of relish, he added a small dose of that to the slice. Still not happy, he added a dollop of coleslaw and a few slices of cold salami. He paused to appreciate his creation, and then took a large bite.
His face twisted as the mass of taste slammed his taste buds. He spat the vile concoction into a sheet of kitchen roll, which he then disposed of. Picking up the slice of pizza, he balanced it in one hand and rummaged around in the fridge for a while.
Upstairs, Jennifer Wilkinson was finishing another cigarette. Her eyes fixed on the view outside, her mind elsewhere. Downstairs she heard a splat sound from the kitchen. The room was directly beneath her; despite the size of the house, she could hear every sound in the deathly silence of the bedroom. The splat was quickly followed by a clumsy curse.
Standing away from the windowsill, Jennifer retired to the bed, taking her mobile phone with her. She flicked through her messages and reread the last few. Matthew called to her when she began to compose a new message.
“Jennifer,” he shouted. “Where the hell are the dogs?”
“I woke up early,” Jennifer called back, “so I took them to my mother’s early.”
“Oh,” Jester muttered.
Moments later, he shouted again. “D’you know where the mop is?”
“What the hell are you doing?” she shouted to him. “Just get dressed. You have an important court case soon; stop fucking around.”
“Okay, I tell you what. You clean the mess up, I’ll go get ready.”
“What kind of bargain is that? What’s in it for me?” she paused, placing her phone to one side. “What mess?”
“Why aren’t you getting ready anyway?” he shouted up, changing the subject.
“I told you. I’m not going. This whole case is silly. I want nothing to do with it.”
“If I win,” Matthew shouted, pausing t
o gather a mass of kitchen roll, “you’ll want something to do with it. One hundred million more to add to my fortune. Plus all the money I can make from interviews and endorsements.”
“I have my own money,” Jennifer shouted back gamely.
“Are you even going to watch me on TV?” Matthew asked.
Jennifer shrugged her shoulders and lied, “No.”
“Fair enough,” Matthew said with a smile, knowing she would.
3
Matthew heard the roar from the engine of the stretch limousine as it rolled its way onto his driveway, crushing gravel chips and pebbles underneath its smooth tyres. He turned off the television and glanced out of the window. The driver, dressed in a smart black suit, had pressed the horn and now waited outside the vehicle, his hands clasped in front of his body, his posture straight and purposeful.
Matthew rushed to a walk-in closet cum-porch, and emerged holding a suede jacket. “The driver is here,” he shouted upstairs.
Jennifer had remained on the windowsill. She looked towards the stairs, nodded a faint acknowledgement, and returned to her cigarettes and her view.
“Aren’t you going to wish me good luck?” he asked.
She cursed in his general direction. “I don’t think you need it.”
Matthew shrugged, slipped on his coat, and headed for the door. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“You won’t,” Jennifer shouted back.
“Why not?”
“I have a recording session this afternoon. I won’t be home till late.”
“Oh,” Jester muttered. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
Jennifer opened her mouth to speak but the sound of the front door slamming on its hinges stopped her.
Outside, the sun was shining with a great deal of ferocity. The heat was intense and yet pleasant. The past week had been the hottest on record for over fifty years. “Even the sun comes out to watch you and your bloody idiocy,” Jennifer had told Matthew yesterday afternoon. He could only agree, adding salt to his girlfriend’s wounds by claiming that the sun was probably a big fan of his.
The chauffeur sidestepped as Matthew approached, ushering him into the back seat. He wasn’t a man of formalities. Instead of sitting, he held out a hand. “Matthew Jester,” he said.
At first, the driver looked bemused. Slowly but surely, he held out his own hand, shaking the hand of Matthew Jester timidly.
“Edinburgh,” the driver said. “Charles Edinburgh. You may call me Charles.”
“Is that really your name?” Matthew asked.
“Yes, sir,” the driver replied without fault.
“You know any Limo drivers called Fred?”
“I can’t say I do, sir. No.”
“What about Steve…or Colin? That’s a big man’s name.”
“No, sir.”
“But I bet you know a few Georges.”
“As a matter of fact, yes, yes, I do.” There was a twinkle of mischief in the driver’s eye.
“Yeah,” Jester said, smiling and nodding. “I bet. Come on then, Charlie,” he called, climbing into the backseat of the Limo. “Let’s get moving.”
Moments later, they had pulled out of Matthew Jester’s estate and were cruising towards the court house. The journey would take them over an hour. The court case was due to start in two and a half hours’ time.
“So what d’you think of all this business, then,” Matthew said to the back of the driver’s head.
“The court case?” he asked, his eyes briefly meeting Jester’s stare through the rear-view mirror.
“Of course.”
“In all honesty?”
“All honesty,” Matthew agreed, catching the driver’s eyes every now and then as they flicked from the road to the mirror. “Don’t throw any punches.” Jester opened his arms to express his openness.
“Well,” the driver began. “I think it’s slightly absurd, but,” he was quick to add, “absurd cases pass through court all the time. Ridiculous lawsuits are common practice these days.”
“Not this ridiculous, but true. Continue.”
“I want you to win,” the driver said after a moment’s deliberation. “But probably not for the right reasons.”
“What do you mean?”
“I hate banks. I despise them through and through. I had a few problems with them in my youth. I took out a lot of loans to pay for my education, to pay for life in general, really.” He looked at Jester through the rear-view. “Know what I mean?”
Matthew nodded.
“I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, being so young…but to cut a long story short,” the driver sighed. “I was charged a rip-off interest rate and spent the majority of my twenties – the eve of my working life – paying it back.”
“So,” Matthew contemplated. “You want the banks to suffer…a lot, but you think it’s absurd that they’re suffering because of something as trivial as this.”
The driver nodded slowly. “I hope you don’t take any offence.”
“Offence? Don’t worry about me, I’m fucking loaded.”
The driver raised his eyebrows.
“And I agree with you. It is absurd,” Matthew said solemnly. “But,” he paused for a moment of reflection, “what if you can’t die? What if you are immortal, or at least you suspect you are immortal?” Matthew leaned forward in his chair, close enough to the driver for his breath to tickle the back of his neck. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’m immortal, but, take a look at that scenario for a moment. Wouldn’t you want to find out if you really were immortal?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you suspect you are; hell, you’re 99% positive you are, but you have no real proof. If you know you have immortality, then you can plan your life accordingly. Maybe join a few more wars, take sky diving lessons, whatever. If you know you’re immortal, you’ll certainly make a few drastic life changes. If you suspect you’re immortal, on the other hand, you’re in limbo. Why plan your life on something that’s not a certainty? Do you follow me?”
“I think so,” Charles answered. “Immortality is only really worthwhile if you know you have it,” he explained, catching on.
Matthew fell back into his seat. “Exactly!” he snapped his fingers at the same time. “And how does the luckiest man in the world test his luck?”
“By suing the Fadel Bank.” The driver nodded his head in recognition.
Matthew smiled to himself, took a pair of earphones from a small compartment in front of him, and plugged them into a nearby jack. Soon a collection of MP3’s was filling his senses. He closed his eyes, allowing every lyric, every tune, and every emotion to sink in.
The driver looked through the rear-view mirror, his eyes on Matthew Jester, who was swaying tranquilly to the music. Crazy, the driver thought to himself, but, he considered, it’s the crazy ones who change the world. Turning the mirror so Jester’s reflected image no longer appeared, he flicked on the radio, tuned into a news station, and lowered the volume.
***
Matthew Jester opened his eyes as the Limo stalled near a set of traffic lights. He didn’t know how long he had been out, how long he had been in a trance, listening to the music as the valium slowly caressed his mind.
He’d fallen asleep somewhere in between Johnny Cash and The Beatles, but he wasn’t sure where. The music and pills had taken him to a world of his own. Now, the sound of Let It Be and the sights of the traffic lights and the queuing cars brought him back to reality.
He plucked the earphone out from his left ear and leaned forward in his chair. “Hey, Charlie,” he hissed. “Where are we?” he asked.
Charles Edinburgh turned to look at Matthew Jester, removing his tapping fingers from the idle steering wheel. “Just around the corner,” he replied, before adding, “more or less.”
Jester sat back and removed the earphone from his other ear, allowing the device to fall onto the leather seats. “That was good timing,” he muttered.
Matthew Jester watched, with his head sunken into the plush leather, as the lights turned green and the Limo set off again. It accelerated past a street corner where a number of young children gathered. They all shot admiring glances towards the flashy vehicle. Ahead, approximately two hundred metres down the road, a gathering of vans, cars, people, and cameras had blocked the entrance to the court house.
Running Stupid: (Mystery Series) Page 2