Murder Most Fab

by Julian Clary

  ‘Haven’t I?’ Actually, I’d forgotten about Bernard in the last few weeks. My mind had been so occupied with Georgie’s plans and then, afterwards, with what I’d done, that I’d forgotten Bernard still thought we were dating. ‘Oh, sorry. I’ve been a bit tied up lately.’

  ‘Have you?’ Bernard said, breathing heavily. ‘Not by anyone special, I hope.’

  ‘No, no. Just with life.’ I remembered that Georgie had asked me to carry on being nice to Bernard, for a little while at least, and that he’d left me some extra money to service his old friend. Well, it was the least I could do even if Bernard wasn’t my cup of tea. I owed it to Georgie.

  ‘It’s because nothing’s come of that audition I promised you, isn’t it?’ Bernard turned even pinker. ‘I am trying, I swear. It’s all bogged down in production meetings and boring old admin. We haven’t got to the stage of screen-testing presenters yet, but when we do you’ll be top of the list.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I said, rather impatiently. This was Bernard’s only hold over me so he had to keep harping on about this fictitious job. ‘Listen, I’ll ring you, all right? And we’ll go for dinner. Your treat.’

  ‘Really? Fabulous!’ Instantly Bernard looked more cheerful. ‘Can I get you some Cliff Richard Thirst Quencher? It’s a cocktail Georgie invented — Pernod, Grand Marnier and Lucozade. It’s rather tart but slips down a treat. Georgie would have wanted to go out with a sparkle, wouldn’t he? Poor old girl. I do miss him …’

  Everybody got spectacularly drunk, especially Sammy and Bernard, who ended up clinging to each other and reminiscing about their dear departed friend until Catherine could take no more. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said. ‘If I’d known how pathetic these people are I’d have killed Georgie myself, free of charge.’

  The next day Sammy returned to the Isle of Wight. He called me from time to time, inadvertently giving me the welcome news that the police investigation was going nowhere and no arrest seemed likely. ‘The murderer’s out there somewhere, JD, but no one knows where. It’s such a mystery, but Georgie would have enjoyed that, I’m sure. It’s like the plot of a rather bad novel, don’t you think?’

  I did my best to keep the calls brief and my comments bland. Talking to Sammy made me feel dreadful, quite weighed down with the guilt I managed to escape the rest of the time by pushing Georgie out of my mind, getting sloshed or snorting some of our never-ending supply of cocaine. At night after I’d had a call from Sammy I’d wake up in a cold sweat, escaping a nightmare in which I was murdering Georgie, but however tight I pulled the strap, however many times I stabbed or suffocated him, he lived on, pleading with me to finish the job, to fulfil my side of the bargain.

  ‘I’m trying!’ I would say.

  ‘Kill me! Kill me now!’ gurgled Georgie, but nothing seemed to do the trick, just when I thought he was finally dead, the corpse would rear up again, entrails flying about the room like bloody ribbons, severed hands pulling me back and Georgie’s strangulated voice calling my name, begging me to put him out of his misery.

  ‘It’s dreadful! So real. I wake up in a terrible state,’ I said to Catherine, after describing my night horrors to her.

  ‘It’s only a dream, Cowboy,’ said Catherine, busy painting her nails and doing her best to stifle a yawn. ‘Take no notice. What else can I say? You can hardly go for counselling, can you?’

  ‘I need to clear my head. Mind if I take the car for a spin?’

  ‘Ah, the car.’ She stood up and walked to the window, flapping her hands to assist the drying process. ‘I didn’t like to upset you. I had a bit of a disagreement with a lamp-post yesterday.’

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Now don’t worry. I’ve ordered another. I’ll open a bottle of Cristal, shall I? Cheer us both up.’

  Cars, champagne, Cartier watches, home improvements and drugs saw off our twenty-thousand-pound windfall within a matter of months. What I had assumed would be a life-changing amount of money had skipped through our fingers like sand.

  I managed to retain two hundred pounds, which I posted to my mother for her birthday. She was thrilled, and called me up. ‘Darling, what a lot of money! I’m going to treat myself to a “Rambling Rector” and some horse manure. Thank you, angel-cake, thank you so much! You’re my favourite son by far!’ She laughed excessively at her own joke, the mad, unpredictable sound fluttering down the line like a wildly coloured butterfly.

  ‘That’s all right, Mummy. I’m glad you’re pleased.’

  ‘They do pay well in London, don’t they? I’m sure that if you were working with Help the Aged here you’d never be able to live so well.’

  ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t,’ I said.

  ‘Bye, bye, darling!’

  ‘Bye, Mummy.’

  I put the phone down, frowning, and tasted the bitterness in my mouth that seemed to have become normal lately. I supposed I’d just have to get used to the way the whole world seemed different now that I’d killed a man. I needed to lie down in a darkened room.

  With the money from Georgie gone, it was back to plying my usual trade. I was aware for the first time of a glimmer of dissatisfaction and a sensation of entrapment in a wearing occupation from which no escape seemed possible. Georgie’s money had been like a Christmas bonus: much appreciated as it was (especially when the fridge-freezer and sofas arrived), it didn’t last. Once gone, it underlined the treadmill of my existence.

  I took down the details of each new booking with a weary heart. I even failed to turn up for a couple that had sounded particularly unsavoury over the phone. Catherine was furious when she found out. ‘That is not on!’ she shouted at me. ‘We need cash.’

  ‘I couldn’t face them, Catherine,’ I protested, trying to defend myself. ‘I’m depressed.’

  ‘Oh, well!’ she said indignantly. ‘I’ll call the fucking emergency services, shall I? You’ll be depressed when you have to move back to Brownhill Road and eat nothing but baked potatoes!’

  I could tell she was building up to a lecture. I reached for the kitchen cupboard and our secret stash. ‘I need a line,’ I said.

  Catherine dropped her voice to a tone that was almost menacing. ‘I’m telling you something, Johnny’ — she almost never called me that — ‘there’s no way I’m going back to how we used to live. I haven’t spent the last few years on my back for nothing. We’re going on, and that’s all there is to it. So you’ve got to keep your end up — literally. Do you understand?’

  I nodded. I wasn’t really looking for a way out — in fact, I wasn’t looking for anything right at that moment but a big, fat line of Charlie . It was the only thing that took away the fear and fug that were consuming me. I felt as if I was standing on a window-ledge high up on a city sky-scraper, teetering, hanging on for dear life, resisting the temptation to fall asleep and then to oblivion.

  It was probably this feeling, with a certain recklessness that had possessed me since Georgie’s death, that led me to shed many of my regular customers, despite Catherine’s admonitions. Sammy was gone, of course. And then I got rid of another, more significant client.

  It was only a few days after Georgie’s funeral when I turned up for my regular session with the silent Mr Brown at Claridges.

  By now our routine was set in stone. I arrived at room 510 at nine p.m. precisely on the first Monday of every month. He opened the door, naked and unsmiling, then handed me two hundred pounds. I undressed and got on all fours. He would spank me with his hand, belt or shoe, explaining in a low but colourful growl what a bad boy I was. He set the alarm for nine fifty to give him time to ‘finish up’. This meant a royal fisting with one hand while he masturbated himself to a furious climax with the other. I was then told, ‘Get out at once!’

  I would dress as quickly as I could and leave, uttering the obligatory ‘Remember me,’ once I was safely in the lift.

  In all this time, I had never so much as hinted that I knew he was not Mr Brown. I wouldn’t have given him so much as a
whisper of a clue that I was aware of his true identity. I was willing to suffer for this ‘special’ customer because being with him, I told myself, brought me closer to Tim, whom I missed more than ever.

  I don’t know why I suddenly decided to provoke Mr Brown. Perhaps I was trying to take out on him my anger with his son. Whatever it was, I couldn’t help myself.

  As usual, nothing was said when I arrived. I took the money, undressed and got into my doggy position. Mr Brown had only administered three or four preliminary slaps across each buttock when, as if from nowhere, I did a bad Barbara Windsor impersonation: ‘Ooh, Mr Brown, whatever are you thinking of? Supposing someone should see us?’

  His raised hand froze in mid-air and his eyes, fiery and familiar, glared at me. I turned and pulled his head towards me, then kissed him hard. He tried to pull away but I held him firm, swishing my tongue over his lips, which opened momentarily. I moaned encouragingly but without sincerity.

  He got away, stumbling in his efforts to escape. He wiped his lips on the back of his hand and spat three times. ‘You disgusting boy,’ he said. ‘Get out! And don’t ever come back.’

  I got up and began to dress. ‘Thank you, kind sir. You don’t know what it means to hear such words from a toff like yourself. A true gent, that’s what you are, sir.’ I sat on the edge of the bed to tie my shoelaces. ‘I’ll fink of you whenever I splatter me spunk on a gentleman’s noble brow, so I will, sir, I—’

  He shut me up with a vicious slap round the face. The force knocked me to the floor on my hands and knees. His bare foot then pressed on the small of my back. I lay there, stunned, and felt the electric sensation of a stinging face against a nylon carpet. I heard it before I felt it, hot and wet, like blood. Mr Brown — or Lord Thornchurch, father of my one true love — was urinating on me.

  Then he was gone.

  If my inclination to endure being pawed, poked and punished by all and sundry was fast evaporating, then Bernard was next in line for the chop. He was as maddeningly needy as ever calling me all the time and trying to arrange dates when we could meet. Georgie’s last wish had been that I should give him a good run for his money, so I went along with it for as long as I could, but it was getting a bit serious for my liking. I wasn’t required simply to go to his flat any more, he liked to show me off in fancy restaurants. Rather embarrassingly, he had taken to clutching my hand at every available opportunity. I think this was partly to comfort himself: he, like Sammy, had taken Georgie’s death very hard, and I had been given the irksome part of chief listener and amateur counsellor.

  ‘The silky, silly queen,’ he kept repeating, while sighing and shaking his head. ‘It’s such a cliché, and he’d have hated that! We all like a bit of slap-and-tickle but the source and pedigree of the slapper-tickler are obviously of paramount importance. You, for example, are a nice boy but so adorably butch with it. Georgie always had to have the real thing. Someone dragged up as a builder or a policeman didn’t do it for him. Oh, no. He’d have to cruise the Underground staring at people’s feet until he saw a convincing spattering of plaster dust or a nugget of Tarmac. Then he’d stalk him, the bona-fide builder on his journey, until success or failure won the day. I know he was punched on the District and Circle several times. I thought he’d grown out of all that at his age, but evidently I was wrong.’

  ‘He got bashed on the towpath as well,’ I added.

  ‘Did he? Oh dear. He would have loved that. I do miss him.’ His voice would crack, and his pale blue eyes would fill with tears and he’d drag a handkerchief across his nose in way I particularly disliked.

  Bernard was irritating at the best of times, but Bernard the bereaved was worse. The constant references to ‘poor Georgie’ were more tactless than he, of course, could understand. It was hardly appropriate to keep changing the subject. My nerves were bad and my patience was wearing thin, but I couldn’t seem to get out of those meetings. Bernard was driving me crazy. For my own sanity something had to be done. I tried to explain how I was feeling to Catherine.

  ‘He’s just a harmless old boot, Cowboy,’ she said. ‘You cannot afford to lose a rich, elderly boyfriend. He doesn’t pay in the conventional sense, but he bought you a love bangle with diamonds for your birthday and that bloody well counts. If you think your life’s tough, I’m off to star in a Bukake evening with the Lowestoft rugby team. Very good for the complexion, I’m told, but my hair will look like crème brûlée in a couple of hours. Now, go and earn an honest crust. Get some money out of Basil Fawlty before we have to resort to shop-lifting from Woolworths.’

  I had learnt early on in our relationship that I ignored Catherine at my peril. She didn’t give advice, she issued orders. But I was feeling so deeply unhappy that I was determined, for once, to do what I wanted. I had to finish with Bernard, and if Catherine was going to be cross about it, that was her look-out. She didn’t really do happy or unhappy: she just was.

  That night Bernard had invited me for dinner at a chic and discreet hotel called the Fox in Parker Street, Holborn. ‘I’ve taken a room,’ he said, with a leer. ‘Well, it’s been ages since we were … together.’

  We were dining on the veranda and I had decided it was my solemn duty to dump Bernard once and for all. I was about to begin what I knew would be a difficult conversation when he reached across and squeezed my hand. ‘Look at the moon, darling. Quite stunning.’

  It was full but partially covered by a solitary, lingering cloud stretched across its face, like a cat asleep on a window-sill. He sighed, happily for a change. Now was the time. ‘Bernard,’ I began, ‘I need to talk to you.’

  He turned to face me, alerted by my portentous tone, the serene expression slowly fading from his face.

  I had given little thought to how best to proceed. It wasn’t going to be easy, I knew that much. Bernard was blissfully happy and adored me . My words had to be final and leave no room for negotiation. Maybe that way I could get it over and done with as quickly and painlessly as possible. ‘It’s over, Bernard. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t say that, JD.’ His lower lip trembled, as I’d feared it might. ‘You’re the only thing that’s right about my life. Without you, I’d be devastated. Don’t do this to me. Not after losing Georgie and …’ There was a pause. I looked at him and his eyes turned cold. ‘Don’t do this to yourself,’ he said, softly but finally.

  I held Bernard’s gaze dispassionately as tears rolled down his cheeks. I could do nothing but plough on, my only concession being to choose my words with a little more compassion. ‘I’ll always care for you, Bernard,’ I said. ‘I’ve really enjoyed our time together — but it’s over. I need some space.’ I placed my napkin on the table and went to stand up.

  ‘No, no, no!’ Bernard shouted, pushing me back into my seat. Then he covered his face with his hands and proceeded to rock backwards and forwards like a distressed child. Other diners turned to kook, then leant towards each other, whispering animatedly. Bernard whimpered and sobbed louder still.

  The waiter came over and asked if there was a problem. ‘He’s had some bad news …’ I muttered, hoisting Bernard up by his armpits. ‘Come on, let’s get you up to your room.

  I put an arm round his shoulders and led him, sobbing, out of the restaurant and towards the lift. Halfway across the tiled foyer, he let out a scale of sobs that culminated in a wolf-like howl of distress. A couple checking in jumped in alarm and the receptionist rolled her eyes, no doubt assuming he was drunk.

  ‘There, there. He’ll be fine in a moment!’ I reassured her, rolling my eyes too. We understood each other — she nodded.

  Upstairs, in the suite Bernard had booked for our fun and games, he pulled himself together somewhat. ‘Oh dear.’ He wiped his eyes with a tissue from the bedside. ‘I really am a worry, am I not?’ He tossed it into the bin with a flourish. ‘Now. We’ll have no more of this silky talk about it being over.’

  ‘But, Bernard—’ I tried, determined he wasn’t going to put me off my mission.
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  He carried on regardless. ‘We’ve both had a very nasty shock and we’re not behaving rationally. We must make allowances for our bereavement and not do or say anything rash. I realize I haven’t been particularly good company lately. I’ve been in mourning and that can’t have been very jolly for you. But we belong together, you and I.’

  He was gathering pace and confidence with this speech and my shoulders were slumping in surrender.

  ‘Besides,’ he said, clearly deciding the time was right to play his trump card, ‘I have plans for you. You, Johnny Debonair, are going to be a huge … television star!’

  I put on my jacket and made for the door.

  ‘Hear me out, my sweet. I’ve been working on this for some time.’ He leapt up from the bed and blocked my exit, arms outstretched.

  I stopped. ‘Bernard, I’ve been hearing about this since the day we met. You’ve been telling me endlessly about how I’m going to be a television presenter and nothing’s come of it. Forgive me if I simply don’t believe you.’

  ‘No, JD, listen. Please! I’m telling the truth. I’m the executive producer on a very top-secret project. The final casting decision is mine. We’re looking for a bright, attractive young presenter with a certain je ne sais quoi. You are that person. I shall guide you, mould you, coach you. It’s a huge opportunity and I’m utterly convinced of your suitability.’

  I stared at him suspiciously. He sounded genuine, even though I’d long since decided that offering his young studs a job was Bernard’s stab at foreplay. ‘Bernard, you’ve said this before. How do I know that you’re serious?’ I asked, exasperated. This was obviously his last desperate ploy to keep me where he wanted me — in his bedroom for the night.

  ‘I’ve never been more serious. I can spot star quality, you know. I discovered Lilly Goulden. She was working in my local Oddbins when I walked in for a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream and came out with the cream of British light entertainment for the next two years. I knew at once that the public would take her to their hearts. But you — you have far more potential, JD. You have charm, wit, personality and, above all, sex appeal by the bucketload.’