by RJ Bailey
‘Miss Wylde. How are you? Been a while.’
‘I’m OK. Surprised to hear from you. I thought you were a hermit in Wales.’
‘I am. Although I own most of Pembrokeshire now.’ She gave a husky laugh, aware of how ridiculous that sounded. ‘Look, Sam – is it OK to call you Sam?’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I know I was a spoiled little twat the last time we worked together. Too much too soon, as they say. But . . . will you just hear me out?’
‘Go on.’
‘I need your help. I have to go to this wedding and, well, I need some security.’
‘After all this time?’ I asked.
‘Hey, some people remember me. I turn down those Remember the Noughties tours on a weekly basis,’ she laughed. ‘And I’m still big in Basildon.’
I guess some pop fans do stay focused on the idols of their youth. ‘So you have stalkers? Is that it?’
‘Well, I did. I do sometimes. Thing is, the last few months I have been getting threats. Twitter, Instagram, texts. All untraceable. Accounts opened and shut down.’
‘Threats such as . . .’
‘Rape, mostly.’
‘Nice.’
‘Yeah, but it’s where they want to rape me that bothers me.’
‘Up the arse?’ I guessed.
‘Worse. Bishop’s Stortford.’
‘Your home town?’
‘Right. They say if I ever show my face there again there’ll be trouble. I think it’s someone I knew back in the day, I mean before all the music shit. And a bunch of my friends from home have been invited to this wedding. It might be one of them, know what I mean? So, I need someone to watch my back. And my backside, just in case you’re right.’ She was making light of it, but I could tell she was worried. Who wouldn’t be? The papers were full of internet threats, dismissed as the work of a crank, which turned out to be all too real. However, my sympathy didn’t extend to actually going to Bishop’s Stortford.
‘Look, I’m sorry, I’m not in that game at the moment.’ I gave her a brief run-down about needing to find Jess.
‘That’s well fucked up,’ she said, by way of empathising.
‘Yeah. Look, I might be able to suggest some people. Good people,’ I offered.
‘Nah. I wanted someone I knew was the business.’ She thought for a minute. ‘I could blackmail you. I still have a photo of you sucking Kassie’s tits in the limo. Well, that’s what it looks like, anyway. What then?’
‘Then I’d be the one coming round to stick something big up your arse.’
A chuckle. ‘Yeah. I reckon you would an’ all.’
Foolishly, I’d neglected to retrieve those snapshots taken in the back of the limo, not realising at the time just how toxic snatched photographs can be. ‘And I think that’s illegal. Blackmailing with old photos.’
‘Kiddin’. If you won’t do it, I s’pose I can always ask my old record company to lend me someone. They love me again.’
‘How come?’
‘That last record? The one that they all said was too stark, too Eighties synth pop? Look at the streaming charts. About half of those songs have a sample of me in there somewhere. I make a fortune without stepping foot in a studio. Kanye, Post Malone, Rich Brian . . . they all love me.’
I knew exactly one of those names. ‘Congratulations.’
‘You still sound like a schoolteacher, Sam. So, you can’t help out an old pupil, huh?’
‘Not really. I’m sorry, Noor. Like I said, I’ve got problems of my own. But if you do need recommendations, let me know. You might want to think about having two bodies, if you can afford it.’ She tutted to let me know she could. ‘Who’s getting married?’
‘Kassie.’
‘Kassie?’ I instantly regretted the amount of shock I let creep into my voice at the thought of the big girl’s nuptials.
‘Had to happen sooner or later. Except she’s not Kassie, not like you knew her. She’s not even called that any more. She’s Kate. She’s about half the size she was when you met her and she doesn’t sound like the girl who used to let boys finger her for a fag behind the science block.’
That’s going to be a great wedding speech, I thought.
‘Hubbie-to-be is dead posh. Minted.’
‘So why is she still getting married in Bishop’s Stortford?’ I asked.
‘She isn’t. Like I said, some people from Bish and Harlow are invited. But he’s loaded, he ain’t doing the nuptials in this country.’
‘So where is it?’ I asked.
‘Didn’t I tell you? It’s in fuckin’ Bali.’
FIFTEEN
‘So, your pet pop star pays for us to go to Bali?’ This was the third time Freddie had asked this, as if it were too much to believe: a stroke of luck at last.
We were drinking tea at the café in Parliament Hill Fields. We had run up the hill ten times, to the viewing point across London – the cityscape mostly shrouded in an early autumnal mist – and then had done a circuit of the Heath. I had stretched at the end of all that, but, although my shoulder was better, I could still feel a tightness in my hamstrings. I decided I’d get a massage – a real massage, not the airy-fairy wellness shit that Nina was peddling – and keep stretching over the next few days. I didn’t want to turn up in Bali limping from a pulled muscle or damaged tendon.
‘Look, three or four days’ work, max,’ I said to her. ‘While one of us is looking after the former Princess of Pop, the other can be out asking around known locations.’ Of which we had but a handful: a clear picture of my daughter at a hotel pool and a couple in hard-to-make-out bars.
‘No time for sightseeing, then,’ said Freddie. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Bali.’
‘My great-grandfather visited Bali in the Thirties. My mother had letters and postcards he had sent to her mother.’ She also had ones from the Japanese prison where he eventually died. But I didn’t mention that. ‘From what I can gather, these days it’s full of lairy young Australian lads. I’ll toss you one of those.’
‘Oh, you can leave the tossing to me.’
I ignored that. She was only chumming bait to get a response.
I watched a parade of strollers and attached parents pass by, rustling through the fall of russet, bronze and copper leaves that had coated the pathway. The crowd was mostly heading for the organic, sourdough, knit-your-own-quiche farmers’ market that was held every Saturday morning. The parents had a variety of artisan dogs in tow: cockapoos, labradoodles, jackhuahuas, that sort of thing. It was like a canine version of The Island of Doctor Moreau out there. Not that I had ever read any H. G. Wells, but Paul had been a hardcore classic sci-fi fan. He was always trying to get me to read some doorstop called Dune. I saw the film. That was enough. I can never hear the word ‘Sting’ without shuddering.
‘Plus,’ I said, getting back on topic, ‘we have our passage paid – Premium Economy, not Business, but better than a poke in the eye. And decent wages to fund the whole trip. We’ll be in Bali, for God’s sake, last known sighting of Jess.’ Mentioning her name caused a spasm of pain in my chest, like for a second my heart forgot its real job was to keep me alive. It passed, though. Because, although I had no idea where she was now, I had to focus on the fact that I was finally going after her. As I had promised her in my head almost every hour, I was coming to see her. Hold her. Kiss her. With the added bonus of having the chance to punch Matt into the next century.
‘Noor’s been to Bali, she says, and isn’t bothered about hanging around. Last time she got bitten by a monkey, which didn’t endear her to the place. So it won’t detain us long. And it’s a wedding. Everyone will be in a good mood.’
Freddie wasn’t buying that one. ‘You must go to different weddings from me. Where I come from, there is usually a fight. My sister got arrested at her own daughter’s nuptials. I hate weddings. I particularly hated my own. And there wasn’t even a fight at that. Mind you, there were only six of us there in total, so it would have taken some doing.’
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br /> ‘I’m pretty sure that you’re really going to hate this one,’ I said. ‘But there’s hotel security for the bride and groom. Our only concern is to look after Noor and make sure whoever is threatening her doesn’t spoil the Big Day. Or anything else.’
‘You have any clue who it might be making the threats?’
‘She’s sending everything over. All the texts and what have you.’
‘She’s shown them to the police?’
‘Yes. They’ve filed it under “harmless crank”. You know how much manpower they have to deal with such things. They wait until there is clear physical danger.’
‘By which time it’s often too late.’
‘Yeah. Often. But most of the time, Noor is tucked away in Wales with her gentlemanly farmer husband, two kids and a couple of bull mastiffs. She feels safe there. But out among her old friends . . .’
‘Not so much,’ Freddie completed. ‘Shall we get a pint at the Bull and Last?’ she asked.
‘Nah. Body’s a temple.’
Freddie made a clucking noise. Disbelief, I think it was. ‘Like Angkor Wat is a temple – old, ruined and beyond repair.’
‘You’re thinking of your fanny,’ I said automatically. That old army habit of crude banter sometimes comes back without being formally summoned.
She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I love you, Buster.’
The rules of crude banter demanded no unseemly show of emotion, at least not while sober. ‘I think you’re meant to call me a fuckin’ cow,’ I said.
‘Oh, all right,’ she said, a smirk playing about her lips. She stood. ‘I love you, you fuckin’ cow.’
I got the call two days later.
We were due to fly to Hong Kong that evening and then on to Bali. It was the Royal Free who called. Freddie told them I was her next of kin, which made things easier, in that they would tell me what had happened.
It was a moped robbery.
Most people were baffled by the rise in moped crime in London. I reckoned it could be explained in one word: Gomorrah.
That Italian TV series was, like Narcos, a huge hit among kids during the Year of the Mopeds. Both contained lots of drugs and lashings of violence. It was only Gomorrah, though, that was set in a recognisably European world of tower blocks and tenements. And it showed how highly mobile groups of kids, on two wheels, could kill, maim, rob and intimidate with impunity.
OK, so maybe life wasn’t imitating art, it was just a coincidence that young, brazen and reckless Londoners had adopted similar tactics – without, thankfully, the machine guns – to the Mafia in Naples. And the trick they pulled on Freddie was a refinement all their own.
It had happened on the Heath when she was running. The two mopeds had entered via the gate near the tennis courts, then ducked right, scattering joggers and dog walkers as they went. One of the passengers was holding a long piece of dull metal, which turned out to be a scaffold pole, pointing skywards as if the rider and passenger were about to enter a jousting contest.
Freddie had entered further down the road, by the cafés on Swain’s Lane, and was running towards the ponds. She had headphones in. Her taste in music is surprisingly unabrasive, given her personality and background. Where you might expect thrash metal, you got soft rock. She was listening to Belle and Sebastian when she became aware of a noise over the top of ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’.
She turned and saw them bearing down on her. The two pillion riders were now holding the pole between them to form a solid bar, bridging the two mopeds at about knee height.
Had she more warning, I know Freddie could have jumped out of the way, or even leapt over it, but as she clocked them, the drivers twisted the throttles and accelerated.
She was hit on her left shin, which fractured, spun over the bar and landed on the path, breaking her wrist. As she tried to get up, the two passengers dismounted and set on her with wooden rounders bats, cracking a rib. She lashed out with her feet, doing some damage, but not enough. Nobody is certain when her Achilles tendon snapped, but snap it did.
They snatched the pouch she had at her hip, which contained cash, cards and her phone, and roared off, leaving Freddie battered, bruised and mightily pissed off at herself.
I pieced all this together at her bedside in the private room that I – as her next of kin – had her moved to. Her face had turned a mottled yellow, her top lip was swollen to Kylie Jenner proportions, her ribs were bandaged and her wrist was in plaster. They also had to re-attach her Achilles, asap.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, with some difficulty. ‘I . . . fuck, I could have taken them.’
‘Four of them? Come on. You’re lucky to be alive. It’s only a matter of time before they kill someone with that shit. Don’t waste your time being angry.’ This was rich coming from me. Inside, I was seething, and I was ready to unleash my full Charles ‘Death Wish’ Bronson mode and set about taking out every scummy moped rider I could find.
‘You’ll need to get someone else. For Bali.’
I squeezed her good hand. ‘There is nobody else like you.’ I wasn’t kidding. There wasn’t another person close to me with her skills, her balls, whom I could trust to put herself on the line for me. Or to forgive me when I fucked up.
‘Really, Sam,’ she lisped. ‘You need back-up.’
‘No, I’ll manage. I’ll recruit locally if I have to. You just get better.’
She tried to raise her voice, but winced. ‘Sam, listen to me. As your friend. I’ve been lying here thinking. You can’t go by yourself. What we did in France was crazy. I see that now. And you’re . . .’
‘Crazy?’
‘Not thinking straight.’
‘She’s not your daughter.’
There was pain in her eyes as she processed that.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘That was mean. Mouth working before brain. You don’t deserve it after all I’ve put you through.’
‘I want you to stay till I’m better.’
‘And you know I can’t.’
She sighed. Freddie knew it was fruitless. I was going no matter what protests she made. And she wasn’t in any physical condition to stop me.
Maybe I was crazy. But crazy can be good.
Rationalism is over-rated. It can act as a brake, feeding into a kind of paralysis. Do nothing or do something potentially stupid? I was going for the latter.
Freddie tried to smile. ‘I guess those Aussies will have to get by without my killer bod.’
It was my turn to kiss Freddie, squeeze her hand and tell her I loved her. ‘And I’ll let the Oz boys know what they’re missing.’
She squeezed my hand back. I could see tears of frustration in her eyes. ‘Buster, I really am sorry. You be careful, eh? I’ll come as soon as I can. Promise.’
I suspected her flying days wouldn’t be resumed for a while. Doctors don’t like patients with damaged eye sockets subjected to pressure changes. ‘I know you will. Don’t worry. Like I said, put yourself back together. I’ll be fine.’
But I wasn’t so sure. The wedding didn’t worry me. That was contained, straightforward if – if – Noor did what I told her. But afterwards, I was going in search of a man who dabbled in the drug trade, a man who knew bad people, who had my – our – daughter. A man who didn’t want to be found. And let’s face it: Freddie was right. I was a woman down.
*
That night I lay on my bed, bathed and scrubbed, scrolling through photographs on my phone. I stopped at one of Jess when she was about eight or nine, standing in front of a stable door. It was the year when she had decided dance wasn’t for her. Out had gone the leotards, the tutus, the tap shoes. In had come the adorable jodhpurs she was wearing in the picture, longsleeved striped tops, fleeces, a riding crop and a hat that made her head look huge. She has a gap-toothed smile on her face – her new adult teeth were slowly filling the spaces left by the front baby teeth.
In the image filling the screen, the pony she rode that day – Patch, a stout
Dartmoor pony – was poking his head over the stable door, looking as if he was deciding whether to investigate Jess’s pocket for Polos. Jess had taken a good number of lessons and had done some pony days at stables in and around North London – Crews Hill, Trent Park – as well as a couple of trips to the country for less expensive and less urban hacks with me and our new friend Nina, who was a better rider than either of us.
I had encouraged her as, when I was a little older than Jess – early teens, perhaps – I was half-decent on a horse. However, my older unused muscles reminded me with each ride that it was a long time ago.
This hack was in Devon, in the South Hams through tiny lanes, down a steep hill and onto Mothecombe Beach, where I had ridden with Matt. This was because it wasn’t far from where Matt and I had spent part of our honeymoon, in a pretty village called Newton Ferrers. The marriage might have soured – and by this point Paul was firmly on the scene – but it hadn’t dimmed the beauty of the place in my eyes. I was looking forward to recreating a canter I’d done back then across the unspoiled long sandy beach, the air full of sand and seawater.
The ride to the beach was smooth and uneventful, bar the odd car taking a blind bend in front of us at speed. There were eight of us in all, mostly regular riders, chatting across the heads and swishing tails of the horses as we walked along. Directly ahead of me, Jess was too concerned with her seat and keeping her back straight to chat. All I got was a quick reassuring smile.
I was happy with the silence, sitting high above the hedgerows, sniffing the mix of horseshit and leather tack, rocking my hips against the saddle on a handsome Cleveland Bay called Star, due, I guessed, to the white splodge on his head. He was a nice horse. I drifted off and tried to imagine how he would cope in London if I took him home.
I snapped out of a daft fantasy as we moved as a group into an easy trot up a straight incline, and instead watched Jess, my heart swelling with pride at how she kept Patch firmly under control and managed a perfect rise. We slowed into a walk around a corner as the beach came into view. It looked serene in the late afternoon winter sun, the rivulets of water left by the retreating sea glistening invitingly, a vast expanse of sea and sky.