by Jonathan Coe
‘Me? How?’
‘I’m going to go into that studio and kill him. Right now, this evening. But I need someone who knows his way around, and you’ve been there before. I’ve heard the place is like a labyrinth. He mustn’t get away.’
‘Now look – ’ I started backing towards the door. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to you, you’ve been through some… terrible things. But I have to say I think you’re going about this in completely the wrong way.’
Karla was looking at me in disbelief.
‘However,’ I continued, ‘in the light of what you’ve told me, I’ll make a deal with you: let me go and I promise I won’t tell the police anything about it.’
She reached into her holdall and took out the shotgun.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ she said. ‘You’re coming with me or I blow your brains out.’
I took a deep breath and nodded.
‘Fine.’
I’d never had anyone aim a gun at me before: as an aid to decision-making, I’d say it can’t be bettered. I stood transfixed by the sight of Karla pointing this thing at my chest. When she saw how frightened I was, she started to chuckle and push me downstairs.
‘What are you laughing at?’ I said.
She chuckled even more.
‘You and your bloody folk songs.’ She prodded me in the back with the rifle. ‘Sorry, pal. I’m no Mary O’Hara.’
She put the gun away in her bag before we got outside, and then grabbed me by the arm and propelled me out into the street. It was a black, cold night, and there was nobody around to see us. Our driver was waiting by the doorway, and the three of us walked, without speaking, down to his car which was parked on the Essex Road. Karla and I sat on the back seat. She took the shotgun out of her bag and laid it on her lap, and from the pocket of her jeans she took out a piece of paper which had the address of Thorn Bird Studios written on it.
‘This is where we’re going,’ she said to the driver. ‘Now step on it.’
He took the piece of paper and turned to her, looking puzzled.
‘Step on it?’
‘Not the paper, stupid. I mean hurry. Rápido!’
‘Ah.’
He started the car and drove off at a furious pace. I thought for a moment about what Karla had just said. A new, astonishing suspicion was creeping over me.
‘What did you say to him?’ I asked.
‘Rápido. It’s Spanish for “quick”.’
Her eyes were bright with anticipation, now, and she was tapping both her feet excitedly. It scared me to see how much she was looking forward to the task ahead of her: the fulfilment, I suppose, of a craving which had been burning inside her for years. She certainly didn’t look as though she felt like answering any more questions; but I had to ask, in a whisper: ‘Is he Spanish?’
‘That’s right. His name’s Pedro.’
She continued to fix me with this mocking, teasing, irrepressible smile. At any other time, and in any other woman, it would have been captivating. I beckoned her closer and whispered in her ear: ‘I know him.’
‘You do?’
‘He’s been seeing my flatmate. He’s an absolute bastard.’
‘Really?’ She pretended to look amazed. ‘And I only hired him because he seemed such a nice sort of bloke.’
All the indignation I felt about what he’d done to Tina started to boil over, suddenly. Back at the flat, it had been held in check by a level of panic and mystification which wouldn’t allow room for any other feelings. Now it welled up into a kind of hatred.
‘He’s been giving my flatmate hell,’ I whispered. ‘Doing terrible things to her. She even tried to kill herself.’
‘Too bad,’ said Karla flatly.
‘If I could just have five minutes alone with him…’
She looked at me, smiling again.
‘What would you do?’
This was a difficult question.
‘I’d… give him a really good talking to.’
She permitted herself a quiet but emphatic laugh, and then turned her gaze on Pedro.
‘Well, let’s see if we can do better than that,’ she said.
We drove along in silence for a few more minutes. Then Karla leant forward and tapped Pedro on the shoulder.
‘Nearly there?’ she asked.
‘Nearly. I think so.’
‘I suppose when we get there you’ll want to be paid, eh, Pedro?’
‘That’s right. When we get there.’
‘And how much was I going to pay you again? Five thousand, wasn’t it?’
‘That’s right, five thousand pounds. Cash in the nail.’
She drew in her breath.
‘Five thousand pounds – that’s a lot of money, isn’t it?’
He giggled stupidly.
‘It is, señora. It’s a lot of money.’
‘What are you going to do with all that money?’
He giggled again.
‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be going back to Spain.’
‘Is there someone waiting for you out in Spain, eh, Pedro? Some little Spanish señorita?’
He grinned and fondled his stubbly chin.
‘Maybe. Maybe there is someone, yes.’
‘But I bet that hasn’t stopped you from having a bit of fun while you were over here, eh, Pedro? We all like a bit of fun, don’t we?’
‘That’s right, señora,’ he said, laughing. ‘We all like a bit of fun.’
I interrupted them. ‘You turn left here. The studio’s only about fifty yards up the next road.’
‘OK. Stop the car here, Pedro. Stop the car.’
We were parked in the darkest and most deserted of back alleys. Pedro turned off all the lights.
‘So are you going to get her a present before you leave, Pedro? A present for your little bit of fun?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I will.’
He was grinning again, and his teeth, reflected in the driver’s mirror, looked yellow and shiny in the darkness.
‘Does she know what you do for a living, this girl, Pedro? I bet you didn’t tell her what you really do.’
‘That’s right,’ he said, between more of those stupid giggles.
‘What did you tell her, then? What does she think you do?’
‘She thinks I drive cars. You know, for passengers.’
‘You’re an old dog, aren’t you, Pedro, eh?’ said Karla, provoking fits of laughter. ‘You’re a bit of an old rascal, aren’t you?’
‘That’s right. I am a bit, yes.’
‘Now – I’ve got this little problem, Pedro, which is that I can’t give you all the money right now. I’m going to have to give you something else, to be going on with.’
‘Something else?’
He turned, and she leant very close to his face.
‘Something else. Do you know what I mean?’
His long, slow smile spread itself again.
‘I think I do. I think maybe I do.’
‘You like British girls, don’t you, Pedro?’
‘Oh yes. I like them very much.’
‘This other British girl – I bet she’d do anything you asked her to, wouldn’t she?’
More giggles. ‘Well… she’d do a lot of things. And sometimes, you know, what’s wrong with a little…’
‘Gentle persuasion?’
‘That’s right.’
‘A bit of pressure?’
‘Yes.’
Karla raised the shotgun to the level of his head.
‘Pedro,’ she said. ‘You’re a waste of space.’
The noise of the shot was deafening, and – well, I’ve never seen anything like what happened then. His head exploded. Literally. It went everywhere. Bits of Pedro were splattered all over the windscreen, the dashboard, the seat covers, the roof. Blood shot in all directions and I got drenched in the stuff. In was in my hair, warm and sticky, and it was on my face and on my coat and on my hands. I was covered in Pedro. He was all over me. I must have
been screaming or crying or some thing because suddenly Karla hit me in the face and shouted: ‘Shut up! Shut the fuck up! Now get out of the car!’
She pushed me out of the car and I fell into the street. Then she dragged me up off the floor and started pulling me along with her. I looked back at the car. The driver’s door was open – he must have grabbed the handle just as he realized what she was going to do to him – and what was left of Pedro was lying, half in and half out, slumped against the kerb. When Karla saw that I was looking back she struck me in the face again and pushed me on.
We reached the main door of Thorn Bird Studios, which she kicked open. I went in ahead of her. It seemed light and warm inside, almost homely. Vincent was sitting behind his desk drinking a cup of tea and reading a Sunday magazine. Seeing me, covered in blood, shaking, barely able to stand, he dropped the magazine and got to his feet. He was about to say something when Karla appeared. They stared at each other for perhaps three or four seconds: it was the first time he had seen her in ten years. Then she said, ‘This is for Sandra. And this is for Claire,’ and fired twice.
Both shots missed.
She lunged at him, then; but with a show of unexpected strength he lifted up the desk and shoved it at her. Thrown off balance, she fell to the ground.
‘Follow him, you bastard, follow him.’
Vincent had made a dash for it down an unlit corridor. I found the time-switch and slammed it on just in time to see him disappear round a corner. Karla pushed past me, nearly knocking me over, and without stopping to ask myself why, I followed her.
The pursuit can’t have lasted more than a couple of minutes. Every few seconds the lights would go off and the corridors would be thrown into darkness, and I’d have to grope frantically for the nearest switch: I knew that Vincent could find his way just as easily in the dark. He took us up and down all those countless little staircases until we were dizzy and hopelessly disorientated. Finally, it seemed as though we had lost him altogether. We stood there, panting in the darkness, straining to hear his footsteps above the muffled noise of bands practising in the adjacent rehearsal rooms.
‘Shit,’ said Karla. ‘SHIT!’
Then I found a light switch and turned it on: and there was Vincent, at the far end of the corridor, struggling to unlock the door of Studio B. Before we could get there he had slipped inside and closed the door behind him.
The lights went out again. I put a restraining hand on Karla’s arm and took a few breaths.
‘We’ve got him,’ I said. ‘He can’t lock the studio door from inside.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s in there?’
‘I don’t know.’
She shook free of my hand and stepped back.
‘Then we’ll soon find out.’
But now I did an amazing thing. I said, ‘Hold on’, and blocked her way. Some maniacal form of bravado seemed to have possessed me, and I heard myself saying, ‘I’ll go in first.’ When this suggestion met with incredulous silence, I added: ‘It might be dangerous.’
In one swift, decisive movement, I pulled open the door of Studio B, and charged.
If I had stopped to look down, just for a second, I would have seen that there was a narrow iron ladder fixed to the wall. It led to a little landing-stage from which, sometimes, the shouts of sailors would rise up into the night air as they loaded and unloaded their boats. But I didn’t stop. I caught a sudden glimpse of clouds skimming over the face of a lambent moon, and plunged headlong into the ink-black ice-cold waters of the Thames.
Fade
and everybody’s got to live their life
and God knows I’ve got to live mine
God knows I’ve got to live mine
MORRISSEY,
William, It Was Really Nothing
If you leave the main road as it curves around The Fox House pub, and head downhill, through the woods, you soon come to a wide, fast-moving stream. It can be crossed at various points. There are stepping stones, for the agile, and there are two wooden footbridges; pausing here, you can watch the bubbling water through gaps between the planks. As you walk further down, the terrain becomes wilder. Huge rocks and felled trees lie at the borders of the stream, and just before the path begins to shelve steeply into dense woodland you can turn, and above you is a magnificent ridge; your eye lingers on this bare, sweeping landscape, fixing on the point where the earth gives way to sky and the palest of blues lights up the horizon. There are other walkers about, but it is quiet: you might almost say silent.
‘I love it here,’ said Stacey.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I agreed.
‘Beats London, doesn’t it?’ said Derek.
I squatted down by the edge of the stream, running my fingers through the water. Dew was still thick on the ground and the breeze was heady with the scent of spring.
‘Anything beats London.’
Coming home had been the easiest thing in the world, after all. The first day I felt able to go out again – about a week or two after my return – I had climbed one of Sheffield’s highest hills, watched the whole city as its lights began to spread with the onset of dusk, and it had seemed incredible that I could have lived without the place for so long. It seemed warm and gentle and clean. And I had come to cherish the nearness of the countryside, to spend days retracing all my old walks, finding a new companionship in the dales whose friendship I had once been foolish enough to snub. More often than not, I would take these walks alone; but today I had asked Stacey and Derek to come with me. It was Sunday morning, the first really good Sunday of spring.
I heard her whisper: ‘You don’t have to keep reminding him.’
‘You don’t seem to realize,’ I said, ‘that I’m getting over it.’
‘He’s a tough kid, our William,’ said Derek. He started to climb a tree but got stuck half-way up.
‘Are you going to go down and see Tina soon?’ Stacey asked, taking advantage of his absence.
‘I don’t even have her new address.’
All I knew was that she had moved into a flat somewhere near Wimbledon, sharing with two other women. When Judith had given me this and no other information, I took it to be her way of hinting that I should keep my distance for a while.
‘Don’t feel guilty, William.’
I turned, and she was smiling at me. We stood like that for a while, on opposite sides of the path. Then there was a violent rustle of leaves and Derek jumped down from the tree, landing between us with a strangled cry. Stacey screamed and started laughing.
‘You scared me.’
‘Do you still have nightmares, William?’ Derek asked, as we walked on. He ignored her reproving glances.
‘Now and then.’
‘What would you do,’ he said, ‘if I told you that your worst nightmare was about to come true?’
‘Derek! Shut up!’
I considered: ‘Like what?’
‘They never found them, did they? Either of them.’
‘No.’
‘So Vincent could be… hiding behind that rock. And Karla could be waiting for us at the bottom of the hill.’
‘In theory. What of it?’
He clutched my shoulder with a claw-like hand, and said in a hoarse theatrical whisper: ‘Let me tell you; something worse, something infinitely worse is about to happen.’
I looked blank.
‘Didn’t you read about it in the paper?’
‘What?’
‘There’s a new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical opening in London this month.’
I groaned happily and pushed him away.
‘London’s miles off. I can cope with that.’
Derek took Stacey in his arms. He lifted her into the air and, twirling around, they enjoyed a long and energetic kiss while I studied the lichen formations on a nearby boulder. I suppose in my heart I still hadn’t quite come to terms with it.
‘Derek, will you stop giving William a hard time,’ she s
aid, as he dropped her none too carefully on to the ground.
‘Well, I haven’t forgiven him for losing my bloody record yet.’
‘I told you, I don’t mind,’ I said. For a moment the phrase reminded me of Madeline, but I hastily brushed the memory aside. ‘Anyway, I’m beginning to look on the whole thing as a… learning experience.’
‘You’ve grown up, I can tell you that,’ said Derek. ‘Not your body, unfortunately, but the rest of you has.’
I couldn’t find anything to throw at him so I said: ‘Do you really think so?’
‘Definitely I reckon another fifteen years and you’ll be reaching puberty.’
Even then, all I did was smile. It’s a funny thing, actually, but these days I can’t seem to get enough of being teased.