How to Kill Your Friends

by Phil Kurthausen

  Olivia tutted. ‘Who else are we talking about? Of course, it’s about Amy. She didn’t come home after our impromptu night at that bar you took us to last week.’

  ‘What, she’s gone missing?’

  Olivia sighed. ‘No, she’s gone off on a jaunt of her own. She does this from time to time. Takes up with a man, a cause or just wants to be alone. It’s classic diva behaviour. But the important thing is that she’s costing us money. We have sponsors to please and we can’t go more than a few days without posts featuring Amy. That will lead to follower fall-off and that, as you probably don’t realise, hits our bottom line. We need her back today. She isn’t here on fucking holiday.’

  Meredith had noticed that Olivia didn’t talk this way around Amy when she had met them the week before, although this was more reminiscent of how she had talked to Amy ten years ago in Thailand. It wouldn’t be surprising if Olivia was a little resentful of their exchange of roles but did this particular cut run a little deeper, wondered Meredith.

  ‘And how can I help?’

  Olivia looked at her with disbelief. ‘Well, it’s all your fault, yours and Richard’s. You took us to that bar. They are your people. You know the language and it will be quicker for you to find her than us. So, that’s what we need you to do: find her.’

  Meredith sensed an opportunity and although she wanted to tell Olivia to ‘get fucked’ because of her tone and get out of the taxi, she instead nodded and told her that she would love to help. That was what normal people did, they say they will help even if they don’t mean it.

  ‘Won’t she just come back at some point?’

  ‘She has form. Last year in Berlin she went missing for over a week. She was shacked up with some Syrian artist. She does this, you see, she is always searching for a new identity; refugees and migration last year, and now I fear you have given her an introduction to another: Catalan independence. Sun, wine, sex and revolutionary politics. Hell, what’s not to like?’

  To Meredith, this seemed the most indulgent thing she had heard in a while and she appreciated why tight little anger lines were forming around Olivia’s eyes.

  ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Do you know this man, Ferran, who she went home with?’

  ‘I’ve never seen him before in my life.’ This was the truth.

  ‘I spoke to the barman two days ago. He was very unhelpful. He said he had never seen him before,’ said Olivia.

  Meredith doubted that Jordi was telling the truth but she nodded and said, ‘It’s probably the truth: these bars get a lot of passing customers.’

  ‘We want you to find Amy. Today if possible. She’s not answering her phone, ignoring messages from me and Adam, and this is exactly what happened before. I want you to nip it in the bud. We will cover whatever expenses you incur, as long as they are reasonable and you provide receipts. There’s a small finder’s fee as well, let’s say €250. It should cover your travel and coffee expenses and leave you something to compensate you for loss of work, although, if I recall, you mentioned you were self-employed.’

  The car was approaching the Moll de la Fusta and Soho House. Meredith looked out of the window and watched pink-faced tourists struggling along in the heat, pulling suitcases behind them. She didn’t want to spend any more afternoons rounding them up and sending them to Alfonso’s den, if that is, he would ever take her back.

  She could negotiate. It was clear that they were desperate and would give her more, but that would make it look like she needed the money and she couldn’t let Olivia know that she had nothing.

  ‘I was planning on taking a few days holiday in any event. It’s what we do here in August, the city being so hot and full of–’ she looked directly at Olivia ‘– guiris, and I’d be delighted to help you guys find Amy.’

  The taxi pulled in outside the hotel.

  ‘There’s something else as well. Amy has been appearing in some other posts,’ said Olivia.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Olivia held her up her iPhone so Meredith could see the screen. It was an image of Amy, but less glamorous, without make-up but looking relaxed. She was standing in front of a flag and smiling broadly. Ferran had his arm around her waist. In Catalan, the word ‘llibertat’ had been imposed on the photograph.

  ‘So, the barman doesn’t know Ferran but it took me around five minutes to find this on Instagram. His name is Ferran Alba and he is ignoring our direct messages. He’s big in this independence movement but apart from that, I have drawn a blank. No one will talk to me and I won’t lie, my lack of Spanish and Catalan is proving to be a problem.’

  ‘That’s the Estelada. It’s the flag of Catalan independence. It’s kind of controversial, especially if you’re not in favour of independence,’ said Meredith.

  ‘I know that now, thanks to Google. And do you know what a shitstorm this has provoked from our sponsors already today? Amy’s branding contracts are clear: no political or ethical entanglement outside the acceptable topics.’

  ‘What is acceptable?’

  ‘Oh, you know, climate change, as long as it doesn’t relate to specific claims against the companies we work for; racism and sexism; but nothing to do with ‘difficult’ issues like this fucking referendum thing. This all looks a bit Brexity to me. We could lose contracts if she continues to post this sort of nonsense. And that’s where you come in.’

  ‘You want me to find her and stop her from posting to social media.’

  Olivia rolled her eyes – all the other evening’s bonhomie was gone. ‘We want you to bring her back to the hotel and fulfil her professional duties. We think you owe us, but we will pay you. Will you do it for us?’

  Meredith was going to do it. She would help them out and she would make them like her. She would become part of The Squad.

  Adam was shouting at the photographer. ‘Make it clean. I want it clean and crisp! Like the crack of a whore’s whip on your arse, yeah?’

  The Spanish photographer, in ubiquitous Barcelona artist uniform of a black T-shirt, black jeans and black boots, didn’t reveal much emotion in his face, hidden as it was behind a thick black beard, but he carried on clicking in much the same fashion as before Adam shouted at him.

  ‘Yeah, that’s it, you’re feeling me, I can tell!’ Adam seemed pleased.

  The scene in question was Dylan and Richard sharing a large cocktail with two straws. Both of them were topless, showing off gym-honed physiques. Both were wearing hats: Dylan a straw fedora with ‘I Love Barcelona’ in a ribbon around the brim and Richard a trucker’s baseball cap.

  Olivia leaned in closer to Meredith. ‘Adam’s genius was to build a narrative around the Instagram posts. He’s a storyteller, essentially. The pictures on Instagram, while often beautiful, don’t usually have a forward-propelling story. So Adam invents one. At the moment this set, of these two losers, will be hashtagged along the lines of ‘What the boys get up to when Amy’s away’. The overarching story is that Richard is secretly in love with Amy, although of course, in reality, he’s much more likely to be in love with Dylan.’

  ‘Give it some ticket!’ roared Adam as the boys pretended to arm wrestle.

  ‘And do people believe this?’

  Olivia laughed, ‘Oh my goodness, yes! We did some posts last week when we realised Amy wouldn’t be returning with the boys riding around Barcelona in a rickshaw looking for her. It has over 100,000 views already. Adam is a genius really: he turned her disappearance into one of the best posts we’ve ever had that didn’t actually feature Amy.’

  Meredith noted the ‘we’ and wondered about Olivia’s relationship with Adam both on a personal and legal level. She would do well to find out. She had assumed Olivia’s bitterness was due to being in the shade of Amy – but what better way to reassert control than to seduce the Svengali.

  ‘So, Adam set all this up?’

  Olivia waved at a waiter in a pressed white uniform. ‘Oh, shit yeah. He spotted Amy. She had been annoying the hell out of al
l of us, well it was just me and Richard back then, by taking photographs of everything we did. She had a reasonable following on social media but nothing spectacular. Then we helped Amy do the video exposing her professor. What a stroke of luck that was. Adam was on the lookout for a vehicle to drive his concept of storytelling, saw her, beautiful, oppressed but defiant, and he contacted her. Next thing it was glamorous locations and product endorsements and here we are.’ She threw her arms out wide.

  ‘A gin and tonic, Hendricks gin. Nancy?’

  It took Meredith a second to realise that Olivia was talking to her. Becoming Nancy again required concentration. ‘Un cortado, por favor.’ She smiled at the waiter who visibly fell a little in love right on the spot.

  Olivia yawned and nodded towards Adam. ‘I guess he’s our Svengali, but he is a genius, he really is. He used to manage that girl band, Liquid Love, back in the noughties, made a fortune and then lost it all in the 2008 crash. But he thinks big and influencers are the new rock and roll.’ Olivia laughed. ‘He says that a lot. He’s so old.’

  Adam grabbed a bottle of olive oil from one of the tables and poured a big slug into his hands. He then applied it onto Dylan’s exposed biceps. Dylan looked surprised.

  ‘Suck it up, big boy, you’ve got guns and we are going to fire them. Okay you’ – he pointed at the photographer – ‘make him look Mercedes or Porsche. Yeah?’

  The photographer knelt down and started clicking even more furiously in response. Adam wandered over to them.

  He was tanned and he had the sheen of wealth and confidence together with a streetwise swagger that immediately put her on her guard. This was someone who had to work and overcome a poor background, she could tell. He was like her and she should be careful around him.

  Full smile.

  Adam put his arm around Olivia.

  ‘Sorry, we didn’t talk much last week.’ He hadn’t said a word to her in La Alcoba Azul. ‘I had business conversations to work through and that, but it’s really pukka to have you on board, Christ she’s a one, our Amy, eh? You can’t turn your back for a moment. Olivia has told you this happens quite a bit?’

  He didn’t seem to pause for breath as he talked and Meredith wondered whether he was high.

  ‘She mentioned Berlin.’

  Adam slapped his hip and laughed. He leaned in close to them both. ‘I know your generation don’t like me saying this, but as my old man used to say, you can’t trust a spic. A couple of glasses of sangria in they start telling you that you look an “English rose” and then it’s a short step from there to swarthy charms back at his casa. I’ve had to tell billy-o over there’ – he flicked his eyes to indicate Dylan – ‘that I’m sure it’s some cultural exchange thing and not “Spanish practices”, you know.’

  He licked his lips and smiled with his eyes. ‘Gin and tonic, yeah,’ he shouted to the barman, who was serving another customer.

  Olivia tutted. ‘Adam, you’re so reductive and that is so racist. I apologise, Nancy.’

  Meredith smiled and put out her hand. The truth was she was more bored by the authoritarian policing of her generation’s language than most although she was acutely aware of the game that must be played to avoid social, and, increasingly possible, criminal sanction.

  ‘It’s fine, I can see Adam is only joking. How is Dylan holding up? He seemed quite upset the other night.’

  Adam shrugged and waved at the barman again. ‘He is like a well-trained dog. He can’t focus on two things at once so the key is making sure he has a bone to chew on. Hence this photoshoot. Look at him, I swear if I held out a biscuit, he would sit on his hind legs and beg for it.’

  Olivia put a hand on Adam’s shoulder. ‘Adam is frightfully mean about our Dylan. He takes a wonderful picture and we need some male eye candy on the feed. It keeps those on the more sexual end of the teenage spectrum happy, and what could be more wholesome than our chunk of Australian spunk over there.’

  Meredith recalled opening the bathroom door at La Alcoba Azul to be confronted by Dylan looking up with a face full of white powder.

  The barman placed a gin and tonic down in front of Adam.

  ‘I love the measures here. Did you see how much gin he put in there? But you know why, yeah? It’s because the service is so fucking slow – you’ll need it to last until they get round to bringing you another.’ He said this deliberately loudly but if the barman heard he gave no sign.

  ‘This business with the Catalan dude… well, it’s no secret that Amy likes to sow her wild oats – well maybe a secret to Dylan, but if he paid more attention to her and less to working out then maybe he would have noticed Amy spends a lot of nights ‘researching old towns’, if you catch my drift. But this time it’s different. Has Olivia shown you the Instagram post?’

  Meredith had changed her mind: she didn’t like Adam. He reminded her of a snake, his eyes fizzing around their sockets looking for prey. ‘Yes, I saw. That’s very controversial here, at this moment in Catalonia’s history. I find the whole thing fascinating, and as I told Olivia, I’m doing some research on it, hopefully for a book.’ Meredith was lying. She couldn’t care less. Group politics, the search for some identity that transcended your own seemed to her like a fool’s errand. Catalonian or Spanish, the people in charge, the elites, would still find a way to screw you. But she knew what Adam wanted to hear.

  ‘That’s great, just what we need. I hadn’t appreciated the shitstorm that was coming our way on this. Santander is threatening to pull sponsorship. It’s one fucked-up paella, let me tell you.’

  And he did indeed begin to tell her. As he droned on about clicks, CPCs, followers, loss of revenue and ‘opportunities’, a word that he used a lot, Meredith looked beyond him and Olivia. Her sunglasses hid the fact that she was looking down the historic Colom to the Columbus monument at the bottom of La Rambla.

  Adam, Olivia, Amy and the rest had not mentioned or seemed interested in the architecture, or anything about the history of the city around them, accepting it purely as a backdrop to their lives as if the purpose was for them and only them. A life of foreign holidays, wealth and the ubiquity of beauty and pleasure had made them blind to the beauty of their world. They don’t deserve it, thought Meredith. If she had their money and opportunity, she would enjoy it properly and use it to see the world properly, with eyes not focussed inward.

  ‘We should be on ‘top five destinations in Barcelona’ now. We do it everywhere we visit. Amy in the top five sights, perfectly made up, some cool filters, with some discreet product placement, but instead, I’ve got no Amy and fucking local politics fucking everything up and that, my dear, can’t be allowed to carry on.’ His voice was thick with cigarette tar, sun, and booze.

  Meredith thought she could easily come up with five ways to kill Adam, starting with pushing him off this roof terrace. Maybe he would finally notice the view as he plummeted to his death. ‘I can see your dilemma, Adam, and I’m here to help.’

  Adam looked at her. It was the first time she thought he was actually listening to her. She knew it was because she was useful to him. He was one of those men who had a filter, hearing women only when they were offering them something they wanted. It wasn’t an uncommon trait.

  He put his drink down and moved in to kiss Meredith on her cheek.

  Meredith smelt tobacco and expensive cologne. His kiss was slightly wet but she smiled throughout.

  He pulled away. ‘You have a lovely smile, did you know that?’

  She shook her head and thought about what she would have for dinner later. There was a pack of instant noodles in the communal kitchen that she could have unless El Spider or one of the other residents had swiped it to fend off the munchies.

  ‘Thank you.’ She caught Olivia’s eye. ‘No one has ever mentioned that before.’

  Adam held up a finger. ‘Top five smiles?’

  ‘Easy,’ said Olivia, ‘Barrack Obama, Nelson Mandela, David Bowie, Ava Gardner and Frida Kahlo.’

  Adam
looked triumphant. ‘Wrong! That Frida Kahlo, Christ, she’s everywhere these days. You can’t wipe your face on a tea towel without seeing her mug. The only smile she’s got is the big hairy one above her eyes. The Mona Lisa, Olivia, best smile in the world. Proven.’

  He raised both arms in victory.

  Olivia shook her head in disgust.

  Meredith imagined the top five ways she could kill them both, right here, right now.

  1. Smash her cocktail glass and plunge it into their necks, severing their carotid arteries one after the other.

  2. Push them both in the pool and then throw in the TV behind the bar and electrocute them.

  3. Use the ice pick on the counter and take them both out Trotsky-style; it would be justice for the Frida Kahlo comment.

  4. Grab a bottle of Orujo and douse them in it and then throw a match.

  5. And the winner, point out the glories of the Moll de la Fusta and, as they lean over to take in the view, send them to their pavement fate with two quick hard shoves.

  Meredith flirted with the idea that this was twisted thinking, which is what her father had often accused her of, but instead settled on just having a low tolerance for arseholes. But she would overcome her low tolerance – people were just difficult and she would find a way to deal with this, had to find a way, if she was to improve, and become a better version of herself.

  ‘Yeah, isn’t it, Nancy?’

  It was Adam. She had been lost in her murderous reverie.

  ‘Sorry, Adam, I didn’t catch that.’

  ‘I was saying, it would be a good idea if you got started right away, you know, finding Amy and getting her arse back here toot suite?’

  Meredith nodded in agreement but she was thinking and contrasting her life with the glimpse she had been given into their lives. Behind Adam, she could see Richard and Dylan were now wrestling. These were two men in their late twenties, play-fighting. And Amy and Olivia, they didn’t seem to do anything that resembled actual work. They lived a life of luxury and privilege that she could only dream of.