by Nick Louth
‘Don’t worry. Stay there. I’ll be there in half an hour,’ Virgil said.
‘Would you? That’s very sweet,’ Portia said.
‘What are you going to tell the police?’
‘About Mira? Nothing. Jonesy and Thad would kill me.’
‘The bloke who attacked you, how do you think he knew you were working with her?’
‘It’s not rocket science, Virgil. My bloody picture and CV is on the Stardust website, and she’s listed as my client.’
‘Alright. I’m meeting Mira at the airport on Monday,’ Virgil said. ‘We’ve got to move fast to get her out of the public eye.’
* * *
It had taken half an hour to calm Portia down. Virgil had seen her into a taxi, made her promise that she would ring him once she got home, and asked her to make sure she wasn’t alone that evening.
It was nearly six when he arrived at the Stardust Brands office. Most of the lights were off. There were still plenty of shoppers on Regent Street, but fifty yards back there were just a few pedestrians weaving their way among the crush of parked cars. The security man, a Jamaican in his sixties, was still working away on the stonework, but the red paint was hard to shift. His name was Nelson, and he remembered Virgil. ‘We’re the only two men of colour in the building,’ he chuckled. He hadn’t seen anyone else hanging around. The police had come around for a quick check of the CCTV, but didn’t stay.
Nelson showed Virgil the footage of the graffiti sprayers. There were three of them, and they matched the description Portia had given of her attackers. The foyer camera had caught one of them spraying the glass door, and despite the hoodie, there was a decent image of his face. Good. That meant catching them was something he could now leave to the police.
Virgil had as a fourteen-year-old been pulled off his bike in Lewisham High Street and casually punched by a couple of Millwall supporters, while a dozen others egged them on. Virgil had gradually learned that most football supporters were okay, if boisterous, and with the ever-growing profusion of black talent on the pitch it was only a dwindling minority who retained that reflex racism. But for years it was enough to put him off going to a match. Today’s events were a reminder he could have done without.
* * *
Thirty-seven miles to the west, a sleek silver Mercedes slipped into the public car park at Frimley Park Hospital in Surrey. A large and athletic-looking young man in a dark suit and raincoat emerged, wearing sunglasses despite the overcast weather. He made his way directly towards reception, vaulting effortlessly over the three-foot railing that separated the car park from the pavement. Two men smoking outside the door, one wearing a dressing gown and with his foot in a cast-boot, stopped conversation and stared openly, their heads tracking him as he walked rapidly past. He made his way to reception and had a brief conversation. Directed to the colorectal surgery unit, he took the lift to the second floor. A middle-aged female receptionist at the nurses station asked him his business.
‘I’ve come to see Len Smith,’ he said, in a strong Mancunian accent. ‘It’s all been arranged. You’ve got my name.’
The receptionist nodded and looked down at a list. ‘Leonard Lucifer Smith. Yes, we were notified. You are a family member, Mr Wall, is that right?’
‘Yes.’ He looked around him, slightly nervously. He had never before disclosed his family connection to the man who was the most famous mental patient in the country.
‘As you were probably told, Mr Smith is still under sedation in intensive care. I’m afraid, because of the security issues, I’m also going to need some form of identification.’
The man took out a passport and passed it across. The receptionist looked at the document and then her eyes flashed up to his face, surprised. The man briefly lifted his sunglasses, and smiled, used to the recognition that always came. ‘Yes, it is me.’
‘Oh.’ The woman put her hand to her chest, as if short of breath. ‘Well, my son would love to be here. He’s a great fan of yours.’
‘Okay. But you won’t tell him who I’ve been to see, love, will you?’ the man said leaning over the desk, his bulky shoulders spreading, his bull neck extended over her. ‘It’s personal, right?’
‘Naturally Mr Wall,’ the woman said, recovering her poise. ‘Patient confidentiality is paramount.’ She stood up. ‘Follow me.’
Five minutes later, after further security checks and a pat-down, Lawrence Wall was allowed to sit by the side of his father’s bed, while two large male nurses from West London Mental Health Trust stood by. The big man was asleep, hooked up to a couple of monitors, and snoring loudly.
Lawrence Wall stood up and reached out a hand towards his father, prompting one of the nurses, who looked like a nightclub bouncer, to hold up an arm between them. ‘Sorry. Rules, I’m afraid.’
Wall’s face darkened. ‘What’s the fucking problem, pal?’
‘It’s probably alright, Tony, seeing as he’s unconscious,’ the other nurse said to his colleague, who shrugged and backed away.
Wall leant over and ran his hand gently over the huge tattooed head, inked in a greenish-black. ‘I can’t stay long, Dad,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve just got back from Croatia. But get better soon, okay? I’ll phone you when I can. I’ve had some bad news of my own.’ He placed a get-well card by the bedside, and stood up to walk out. As he walked back down the corridor he briefly removed his sunglasses, and wiped a sleeve across his face. It was wet.
* * *
Monday morning arrived with rain and an early start. Virgil Bliss had never been a commuter, and on the days his presence was required at Stardust Brands first thing, he didn’t like it one bit. He’d splashed out on a new suit, raincoat and briefcase, but really couldn’t face the umbrella. There he was, on a packed platform at the Elephant, waiting for the next Bakerloo Line tube up to Oxford Street, fifteen minutes of an alternative existence. The jostling for position as the carriage doors opened, and the indignity of the rush for favoured territory. The prizes were elbow space, leg room for those seated, and most of all quality of standing room, all of which was allocated according to factors any baboon would recognise: speed, size and intimidation, laced with the occasional dash of civility and altruism. Finally, as the doors closed, the muting of personality. Denied personal space, travellers became sides of strap-hanging meat, eyes only for the smartphone, the book or the newspaper.
In these rattling, smelly transits, Virgil averted his eyes from the dandruff and the comb-overs and closed his nose to the excessive perfume and the unwashed damp coats. Instead he conjured the open spaces of Afghanistan. The shimmering desiccated mountains, the scoured sandy plains and the keen winter winds that knifed the face, a reminder you were alive. He had never expected to miss that feeling, bound up as it was with the fear that he might die there.
Emerging into mayhem on Britain’s premier shopping street, he scoured the headlines at a newsstand. Coverage of Lawrence Wall hadn’t abated much, though the focus was now on Wall’s uncertain future in the England team, and accorded him the majority of the blame for losing the match. One downmarket tabloid led with an exclusive that Mira was actually not of Russian descent, but Croatian, and had played her part to get her country through.
When Virgil arrived at MacMillan House he saw three young girls hanging around by the entrance. The youngest, a willowy bespectacled twelve-year-old, had a Village of the Dead backpack and her face made up like a Qaeggan. The other two looked thirteen or fourteen. One had a white coat with a fringed hood, and high-heeled boots. The other was unseasonably dressed in a miniskirt and high heels with a designer-looking handbag and too much make-up.
The one in the white coat called out to him. ‘Excuse me, is Mira in there? The security man didn’t know.’
‘No. She doesn’t spend much time here,’ Virgil said. ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?
‘Free period,’ they all chorused, a truant line obviously well-prepared.
‘I suppose you want autographs or something?’
‘I’m going to become a top model,’ said miniskirt girl, shaking her long dark hair. ‘I wrote to her. Are you an agent?’
‘No, I’m not. This isn’t the best way to see or contact her.’
‘I’d like an autograph,’ said the youngest, her head a mass of corkscrew curls framing a pretty face. ‘Do you have some pictures?’
Virgil smiled. ‘I’m sure I can get you a publicity picture or two. Wait here.’
‘Can we come in with you?’
‘No, wait in the foyer. I’ll tell the guard that it’s okay.’
Virgil returned in five minutes with a sheaf of signed photographs.
The girl with the fringed white coat flicked through them. ‘Nah, we’ve both got that one,’ she said, starting to hand one back.
‘Steff, don’t be a dimwit!’ said miniskirt. ‘We can get a tenner for it on eBay.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘So have you got a business card, mister?’ asked miniskirt, lifting her shoulders back to display her burgeoning figure.
‘No,’ said Virgil. ‘Not on me.’
‘But can you get her to reply to me? I just got directed to a list of FAQs about modelling, but it doesn’t answer my questions,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry, she gets thousands of messages a year, she can’t reply to them all.’
‘Okay,’ said white coat. ‘Just tell her that Steff, Kat and Ellie from Erith still think she’s cool, despite everything what they are saying about her.’
Virgil grinned. ‘And what are they saying about her?’
They all looked heavenward, as if Virgil was an idiot. ‘That she’s a slag an’ that,’ miniskirt said.
‘Okay, I promise I’ll tell her.’
* * *
Virgil’s smile only lasted until he emerged from the lift into Stardust Brands’ reception. Adula the receptionist was hunched over her PC, her normally rangy posture tight with tension. She barely looked up as Virgil walked past. Thad Cobalt was making some kind of presentation in the Brand Narrative Hub, but the usual conversational hubbub around the office was gone. Jarvis McTeer slid past him in the corridor without even replying to his greeting, and the tiny Chinese-looking woman he knew only as ‘Think outside the box’ from the framed slogan on the pillar by her workstation, managed only a tiny guarded smile instead of her usual infectious grin. If he’d been at regimental HQ in Helmand he’d have guessed news had just arrived of a fatal IED attack. But here, what could it be?
Virgil was heading past Kelly’s office, and noticed the lower panel had been kicked out. The carpet outside was stained with coffee. He walked back to the tiny woman and asked: ‘What happened here?’
‘Jonesy had a meltdown. It was poor Kelly who got it this time, though I’ve no idea why. He called her a silicone-filled moron.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘Still in the loo I expect.’
Virgil thanked her and made his way towards the female toilet, which was identified by a pop-art sign showing a gloved feminine fist bursting through a glass ceiling. From within he heard gentle sobbing. He tapped on the door and gingerly pushed it open. Kelly was standing at a washbasin ringed with cosmetics and balled up tissues. She turned to Virgil, her face distorted in distress.
‘Kelly, what happened?
She shook her head slowly, the recognition of an ally allowing her moue of defiance to dissolve. ‘Jonesy has been a complete pig to me,’ she sobbed.
Virgil pulled her into a brief bear hug, holding her wet face into his shoulder. ‘He’s a pig to everyone. You just happened to be in the way today.’ He propped her back on her feet, nervous in case someone came into the bathroom. ‘So what was it about?’
‘A French magazine was critical of Mira and I missed it. We don’t subscribe, and I didn’t see it online in English, but it was a big thing in French social media. Jonesy got some call from The Times about it, and was caught off-balance because it had been out a month and hadn’t heard abouit it. The journalist made him feel an idiot.’
‘You can’t read everything,’ Virgil said.
‘Maybe, but I should have seen this one. It quotes Christophe Ledieu saying about Mira: “she’s quite pretty, but obviously not really top-tier material”.’
‘Is that it?’ Virgil asked.
‘Well, there were a few other things. But it’s about who said it. He’s almost ninety, but he’s a towering figure in couture. There’s this saying that when Christophe the God says something, it stays said. That’s what Jonesy told me. And of course, as it was in France, inevitably everyone at Suressence is bound to have read it.’
‘You couldn’t have done anything about it.’
‘That’s what I said. But Jonesy has to blame someone. And today it was me.’
‘And the door to your hutch?’
‘Yes.’ A tentative smile flashed across her face, impressed that he remembered what she called it. ‘It was so bloody puerile of him to kick it down.’
‘Okay. Let me take you out for for a double hot chocolate from Peronelli’s, which I hear is the best around…’
‘That’s so nice, but I’ve got a huge stack of fan mail that Portia’s just dumped on me.’
‘I’ll split it with you. What we haven’t done by five, I’ll take home. If you’re not paid you shouldn’t be doing overtime. I’m also going to have a discreet word with Jonesy.’
‘No, Virgil. That will make things worse.’
Finally Virgil led her back to her office, went out to fetch her a top notch hot chocolate fetched her a double helping of coffee, and told her the good news from the girls on the street. Soon Kelly was laughing again.
* * *
Stardust Brands had given Virgil free reign on Tuesday morning for an emergency self-defence talk for staff. He didn’t expect a repeat of the attack on Portia, but if there was one he’d feel terrible, even though it wasn’t part of his job description to protect the entire firm. He’d cleared the furniture from one of the largest meeting rooms, thrown some exercise mats on the floor, and in the first of three sessions now had the attention of half a dozen female employees in gym gear.
Virgil had never been a personal trainer, but he’d had been trained in self-defence. While most of the women he saw before him were young and clearly fit in every sense of the word, there were two, including Portia, who were somewhat overweight and physically hesitant.
‘You can encapsulate public self-defence in two sentences,’ he said. ‘One, radiate confidence and capability, it will put a potential attacker off. Second, understand that any woman, however small, can with determination see off a large attacker, even if he’s as big as me.’ No one said anything, but they exchanged sceptical glances with each other.
‘Okay,’ he said, turning down the lights and clicking on a screen. ‘I’m going to show you what happened to me at Chacewater’s close combat training session. I’m six-two, and a former regimental welterweight semi-finalist. My opponent here is five-three and less than a hundred pounds.’
The video showed Virgil and a tiny woman, each wearing knuckle gloves and helmets, warily circling one another. The woman came in for a quick couple of jabs, and just managed to duck a couple of hefty punches Virgil sent her way. Suddenly she turned her back, whipped her left leg high and around, catching Virgil on the right ear with her heel. She then kicked at his left knee, causing him to stumble and then drove her foot hard into his solar plexus. Virgil tumbled to the floor, and although he was up in a few seconds, someone stepped in to separate them.
There was laughter in the room. ‘Okay, this woman is a mixed-martial arts expert, and her timing is perfect. But she is also fifty-two years old. It was her self-confidence that was key, as much as her technique.’
Virgil asked for a volunteer. Kelly, in T-shirt and shorts stepped forward. ‘Right,’ she said, playing to the girls, waving her fists. ‘Prepare for a thrashing!’
He gently took her arms, placed her feet closer to him, and said. ‘If y
ou are assaulted in a public place, your first tactic is surprisingly simple, and comes naturally: scream like hell, and keep screaming. The next may not be natural, but it shows you are going to fight back. Make him believe you can win, and, yes, you really can. Men have vulnerable points just like you do: eyes for gouging, ears for biting or twisting, a throat for punching, fingers for bending, and toes for those high heels to stamp on. But they also have one huge vulnerability that women do not… Testicles.’
There was some laughing, and Virgil noticed Kelly, her faced screwed up into a parody of brutality, miming squeezing something with both hands. ‘Whoa, wait a minute tiger,’ he laughed. ‘Now, the testicles are like a kill button on any man. It’s hard to get right, but if you do, you are going to immobilise him, no question.’
Over the next half an hour Virgil gently took them through a series of moves: how to break an attacker’s grip, how to unbalance him; how to put a thumb in an eye, a heel of the hand hard into the nose. Virgil used a football to mimic a man’s head, and got them to feel what it was like to strike with a fist, or the heel of the hand, how to free the punching shoulder, and roll in with weight as if driving right through the target. On the third attempt Portia managed to knock the ball from his hands, to a huge cheer. The lesson finished with the women bubbling with enthusiasm.
‘Aw. When do we get to squeeze your nuts?’ Kelly said, to general giggling.
‘A ballbreaker like you? Never, I hope.’
The later lessons were less-well attended. Thad and Jonesy didn’t show up at all. But that was fine. He had offered. Tomorrow morning he had to meet the woman who he really was there to protect. And he was already nervous. It was the same gut-churning feeling he’d had the day before his first ever patrol in Helmand.
Chapter Eleven
It was seven in the morning on a dismal freezing Thursday when the British Airways overnight flight from Antigua nosed up to the stand at London’s Gatwick Airport. Virgil Bliss watched from the gate as baggage trucks arrived, and ground crew in high-vis jackets started the unloading process. He was there with editorial assistant Kelly Hopkins, and the airport’s VIP greeter, who would whisk Mira away to a private lounge while the formalities were conducted.
