The Wannabes

by F. R. Jameson

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The three of them took the bus trip to Jake Monroe’s Bayswater flat.

  Toby sat by himself, staring wistfully out of the window, thinking of coffee, cigarettes and the recent nightmare events.

  He occasionally glanced at Clay and Belinda, the other side of the aisle, arms clutched around each other.

  Since Toby’s trip to the shower and wardrobe, their relationship had become very tactile, he felt. And the way they touched wasn’t just young love or horny private parts, there was something overly needy about it. She was like a mother accompanying her sixteen year old son off to the nearest troop depot for deployment to the Somme – if that analogy wasn’t too great an insult to those brave women who’d preceded Belinda.

  Toby didn’t like her and would never have sought her out if he wasn’t already thrust into the same company. Although, he did view her as the best of the bitches in her flat. Abigail was a rude self-obsessed slut, a walking narcissus who may as well answer “Me” to every question she was asked. He was deeply irritated by Judy’s unremitting perkiness. She was a silly little girl who only played those tiresome flirting games because she wasn’t bright enough to keep up with the conversation.

  Belinda was a bossy and rude cow. She was self-obsessed like all the actresses he’d met, a little dim and too prone to performance – but he was at least able to talk to her. True, the subjects they conversed upon were normally ones she guided them to, but she was often quite astute and entertaining. He did wonder why she wasn’t a better actress, but concluded there was a real Belinda and a performance Belinda – and performance Belinda showed fakery in every gesture and word. It disturbed him that Clay seemed to have no appreciation of there being two different Belindas, and so listened to everything she said as if she meant it all.

  It had always been a mystery to their gang where exactly Jake Monroe had got his money (his usual American brashness didn’t stretch to financial matters, well not his financial matters). Whilst most of them found fiscal reality a struggle, he’d always lived on the better floors. The standard theory went that he was the offspring of a rich father – a stock broker perhaps, someone in computers – nothing too exciting or grand or worth boasting about.

  Toby, however, was of the belief that Jake’s money existed entirely because he was American. Toby was a little Englander and so viewed everybody else with a degree of well thought-out small-mindedness, and made their characters fit in with any stereotype he might create. This wasn’t racism, it was just that – even though he’d been in the cosmopolitan capital for twenty years – he still viewed with suspicion anyone who wasn’t from his small Yorkshire village. This was ironic as he’d always disliked that village and those who lived in it. But his opinions were nearly always formed by the fact that the people he met were not from his village, and so had advantages/disadvantages he’d never had. Jake Monroe was a fine example of this, in that Toby decided the reason he had all that money and success with the ladies, was not through charm or good luck – but entirely because he was American.

  There was something about Americans, Toby felt, that attracted cash and girls to them. It was the land of the free, country of opportunity – it had long roads, tall buildings, golden beaches where fantastic looking women existed just so they could be fantastic looking women. All of that was better than being a lawyer’s son in some small Yorkshire pit-village, all of it implied more luck and success – and so it was really no surprise that a Jake Monroe turned out to be luckier and more successful than a Toby Coops. It was the way of the world and Toby could accept that and rail against it at the same time.

  He stared out of the window and speculated as to how Jake was actually going to take this news? In what dramatic way would Flower react? He wondered if either would have anything to tell them. Never in his life had he expected any of his friends to know anything about murder. He was all for activity, all for trying to stop another death – he just wondered whether he’d embarked on some stupid fool’s errand. But then, there was an anxious and fervent glow in Clay’s eyes he’d never seen before. He considered whether that meant Clay knew something, if there were clues somewhere that he wasn’t being told about.

  He glanced back across the aisle at them, as casually as he could.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The images were fading for Clay. Just as he could no longer remember details of the Raymond Jones dream, the Nick Turnkey equivalent was also dissolving to nothing. He could now only see the look on Nick’s face at the end, his eyes cold, red and petrified.

  It was maybe Belinda’s touch which calmed him, helped him. She held his hand and stroked her little finger across his palm. She didn’t say anything, but her holding him eased his haunted feeling. The images were vanishing and a lot of him was glad as he didn’t like those pictures trapped in his head. Yet a man died last night and he still wanted to understand it. He wanted to hang on to the details until he spoke to Jake and Flower, so he’d know if they said anything important. Unfortunately, with each stroke of Belinda’s little finger, the details became more vague, and – when he closed his eyes and saw nothing but darkness – he couldn’t help but be happy with that.

  The bus stop was five minutes from Jake’s flat. Toby led the way – walking in a slightly stooped manner, his hands behind his back, a serious expression etched into his brow. Occasionally he looked back to Clay and Belinda, who followed in equally sombre mood. They resembled a small mourning party which, for some inexplicable reason, had come out without its coffin.

  Jake’s apartment was the top two storeys of a grand Victorian building, on a wide boulevard that these days comprised almost completely hotels. He was therefore far from the only American in the neighbourhood.

  Toby climbed the steps to the heavy front door and pressed his finger hard to the intercom button.

  Clay and Belinda waited behind. He kept a tight grip on her hand, but still tried desperately to hold on to the important details.

  It took two rings before Jake’s crackly voice came across the speaker. “Yeah?”

  “It’s Toby.”

  “Hey! Come on up.”

  There was that electronic buzz, Toby pushed the oak door and they entered the elegant hallway.

  There were four flights of stairs up to Jake’s apartment, and the carpet was soft and expensive, while the banister had been expertly varnished and gleamed.

  At the top of the stairs the door was already open and Flower waited to greet them, casual on a summer’s day in just an old Yankees T-shirt. She smiled when she saw Toby, smiled wider when Clay appeared and even managed to hold that smile when Belinda came into view.

  “Hi,” she said. “You’ve surprised us, we weren’t expecting company.”

  “Apologies,” said Toby. “Sorry to barge in like this, but I’m afraid it’s not really what you’d call a pleasant social visit.”

  “No?” she shot a wondering glance at Belinda. “Well, come in and tell us all about it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Lovely to see you again, Clay,” said Flower.

  Even as he held Belinda’s hand, he could appreciate how beautiful and tanned Flower was, how great her smile was, how lovely her bare legs were.

  The two women shared an obviously strained smile. Flower making it clear she didn’t want Belinda in her home, while Belinda tried to make it clear she didn’t want to be there.

  Flower shut the door and the guests’ eyes were filled with split-level, open-plan affluence. It was opulent but tasteful, moneyed but minimalist. It stood proud before them, boasting a shiny red kitchen, a long black dining table and everything else in clean white. The carpet was pristine as were the walls, the sofas, the occasional tables. The only sign of clutter was a small desk in the corner with papers and books piled across its surface. It looked like a writer’s desk, although under those piles of paper that PC clearly hadn’t been used for a while.

  Jake sat comfy on a sofa, a nifty laptop open on the
coffee table in front of him.

  The apartment was a fairly new acquisition. Toby had been there before, but Clay and Belinda stared at the space, the decor, the superb views across the vistas of Hyde Park, and clearly shared the emotions of admiration and jealousy unevenly between them.

  “Hi,” said Jake. “Good to see you. What brings you around this way?”

  “Bad news, I’m afraid.” Toby sat down.

  “Aw God! In what way?” asked Jake. “Clay, Belinda – have a seat.”

  Flower rested back in her position at his side. She didn’t stretch her legs out, instead she curled her knees under her so she was elevated and able to stare down at the other sofa – stare down at Belinda.

  It was Clay who made the announcement: “Nick Turnkey is dead.”

  “What?” Jake spluttered. “You’re fucking kidding me?”

  “He was murdered last night.”

  “That’s un-fucking-believable!” Jake got to his feet, animated, looking as if he was going to pace the floor, give real momentum to his thoughts – but instead he sat back down.

  “What happened?” asked Flower.

  “Much the same thing that happened to Raymond.”

  “Jesus!” said Jake.

  “Most distressing news,” said Toby. “To have one friend murdered looks like bad luck, to have two seems like a jinx.”

  “That’s awful!” said Flower. “I cannot believe it! We only saw him last night – he was breathing, he was angry, he was alive – and I know things were uncomfortable, but I hardly imagined it’d be the last time we’d ever see him.”

  “I can’t believe this!” Jake’s words were racing. “It’s just one of those ‘What the fuck?’ moments! How can this have happened? I don’t believe it! How could this happen?”

  “He didn’t have a family, did he?” asked Flower.

  “No,” said Toby. “He was an only child and didn’t like his parents, or vice versa.”

  “So we’re the only ones who are going to mourn him?” she observed. “That is awful.”

  “I can’t believe this!” said Jake again. “Two people I know killed in two days. What are the odds of that happening? What a fucking coincidence!”

  “That’s the thing,” said Clay. “We don’t think it’s entirely a coincidence.”

  Jake jumped to his feet again and again didn’t go anywhere. “What?”

  Flower’s face showed the same question. She arched herself back against the sofa, as if scared of being attacked right at that moment.

  “We think,” said Clay, “that the same person killed them both. That it‘s not just an unfortunate coincidence.”

  “Man-Fucking-God!” It was Jake’s oath of choice at moments of true crisis. His mouth was open, his hands loose at his side, his eyelids blinking so fast it was as if he was trying to order lunch in Morse code. He looked like he might faint, throw up and explode simultaneously. “What the fuck makes you think that?”

  “Two men who know each other die on consecutive nights in the same way – it looks likely doesn’t it?”

  “Hey!” yelled Jake. “Don’t get carried away in serial killer melodrama! This is real life. There can be outlandish coincidences, events that stretch credibility. Strange shit can happen without it being deliberately weird or post-modern. Maybe this is one of those times, maybe this is one of those occasions, maybe we shouldn’t get panicked just yet about serial killers bumping off our friends.”

  “Oh I don’t know,” said Toby. “If we’re going to panic about something, this seems a better subject than most.”

  Flower reached over and grabbed Jake’s hand. He still stood tense, amazed by them all. He gripped her fingers, but it took three gentle yanks to make him sit down.

  “What makes you sure about this?” asked Flower.

  Clay looked at her, ready if necessary to talk about his dreams, but Belinda pre-empted him.

  “We’re not,” she said. “But Clay wants to be careful.”

  Jake stared at them. “I can remember the first time I met Nick fucking Turnkey. We were at this party in Islington. It was me and Raymond. There was a guy in a suit – intense looking guy with a CD of songs he’d recorded, telling everyone he was a singer/songwriter. Of course he wasn’t really that at all, he was one of those guys who sells crappy cigarette lighters on street corners. Have you ever noticed the really pretentious types will do that?” He shook his head in a fit of mild disgust. “Flower and I met this girl who said she was a poet. We said ‘Really?’ and she said she’d worked in a bank for years, but actually she was a poet. No darling, you’re a banker. Sell some poems and come back – until then it’s credit cards and dividends, not iambic pentameter and stanzas.” He pushed his hands back through his hair as if still feeling the irritation. “And that’s what Nick was like – all that big talk about his music and the band he was going to put together and the tours he was going to go on and the awards he was going to win. It was shit and nonsense. All of it. He was shit and nonsense! God’s bastards, he irritated me. That talentless, humourless, no-mark prick. I didn’t like him, but now he’s dead, I do feel sad.” He wiped his hand across dry eyes. “I don’t know what the fuck’s the matter with me.”

  Flower reached out her arm and he leant into her. She stroked her hand through his hair and stared across the room with those wide blue eyes, eyes which existed only to look soulful. “I didn’t know him well, either,” she said. “Did any of us really? He was one of life’s quiet men, only able to articulate through a guitar – but then not articulate enough to say anything meaningful. I thought he was lonely, that he needed someone – because after all who will comfort the quiet man? That’s why it was such a shock last night when he said those things. Not only because he had such anger boiling within him, but because his version of the past was so different from my version – from what actually happened. He must have been there, but not there. He must have been with us but simultaneously in a make-believe world. I was so angry with him last night, but sympathetic as well – as it must have been terrible to be him.” She stared thoughtful towards the window. Even though she was quiet, to speak then would have still been like interrupting her. “I think his problem was that he wasn’t an artist – or indeed talented – and so his dreams were destined to fail. All he could do was be envious of those who were genuinely talented and creative. I’m stunned he’s dead. How can someone who was so alive yesterday – even if they were alive in their own fantasist world – just vanish like that?”

  There was a moment’s pause, where they all sat silent and remembered, then Jake jumped again. He lurched out of his lover’s arms and stared at them with red-eyed fury. “Does anyone want a cup of coffee? Does anyone want a fucking cup of coffee? No? How about something stronger then? How about whisky? Come on, we’ll have some old Scotch whisky. Look, a beautiful English afternoon – what could be more appropriate than whisky? Am I right? Come on!”

  He dashed to the kitchen and came back with a large bottle of Johnny Walker and five tumblers. His hands were shaking. He poured and spilled some over the white table. Flower gently leant across and wiped away the liquid with a tissue.

  She was always pristine, always spotless, Clay thought. That wasn’t to say she was sexless – she had long straight blonde hair, full lips, round breasts and incredible legs. She was undeniably sexy. It was just that her sexiness had a purer quality than Belinda’s. Belinda – thanks to her pout and an air of flirtation she wore almost on her skin – had a sexiness that was immediate, that was there for all to see and to salivate over. With Flower, it was clear that any man would have to worship at her altar for a while before he even got so much as a kiss.

  Jake handed out the tumblers. He stood in front of them as if ready to toast: “You fuckers think I did it, don’t you?”

  “No!” said Clay.

  Toby laughed. “Of course we don’t.”

  “Yeah you do. You think I was so upset by what he said to Flower, that I went round and d
id the fucker in. That’s what you think, isn’t it? That’s why you’re here – you’re trying to make me confess, aren’t you? Aren’t you? Just say it!”

  Flower reached up and stroked his arm. “They don’t think you did it, darling.”

  “Maybe they think we’re in cahoots. Maybe they think we did it together.”

  Clay shook his head. “We don’t think you did it.”

  “Yes,” said Belinda. “You’re successful, you’re not going to kill someone like Nick.”

  “And really,” said Toby, “if we suspected you were a serial killer, we’d hardly be likely to show up here and place ourselves in your clutches.”

  “So what are you doing here?” Jake asked.

  Clay sipped his drink, but didn’t really want it. It was Jake who needed the whisky. “We thought you might know what’s going on,” said Clay.

  “How the fuck would I know that?”

  “You were one of the closest to Raymond at the end,” said Toby. “You knew Nick. We thought you might be able to form a link. Is there some person who hated them both?”

  “Those two fell out,” said Jake. He bolted back his drink and poured out another. “I don’t know how close to friendly they were anyway, but they talked for awhile and then Raymond decided he was best avoided. I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s just because Nick was such a fucking space cadet.”

  “Was there anyone who’d have placed them both on their hate list?” asked Clay.

  “No,” said Jake. “Not that I know of.”

  “What about Raymond? Did anyone dislike him?”

  “Not enough to kill!” said Jake. “He was my friend, our friend. When you have friends you don’t believe there are people who’d hate them enough to kill them.”

  “Oh I don’t know,” said Toby, “I have one or two. There are a couple of bods of my acquaintance who I wouldn’t be surprised if they were killed by some knife wielding lunatic. There are others who I wouldn’t be surprised if they were knife wielding lunatics. The kind of people who if they start killing serially, the neighbours aren’t going to be reported in the press as shocked, but instead as not surprised at all.”