I frowned, still not getting it. ‘But she killed herself,’ I said. ‘That wasn’t your fault. You really loved her, everyone said so.’
‘Ah,’ Vince shook his head sadly. ‘Not everyone, Eddie. For one, her parents doubted my good intentions. They couldn’t prove anything, of course, but they seemed to believe I had led her into bad ways, despite the very real pain I was feeling for her loss.’
I stared at him. His mouth started twitching, twitching up into a grin. Then he started laughing, a horrible, shrill cacophony, a sound that matched the mad light dancing in his eyes.
‘Jesus Christ,’ I wheeled round to where Gavin was now standing behind me. ‘Gavin, let’s go.’
But Gavin just stood there, shaking his head.
‘Don’t ask him for help!’ hooted Vince. ‘He was the one who helped me clear up all the mess in the first place!’
‘Gavin?’ I said urgently, grabbing hold of his lapels. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. He’s completely mad, can’t you see? I know he was your friend once, but Jesus, Gavin, look with your own eyes!’
He wouldn’t look. He just kept staring at the floor.
‘Do you want to take confession now, Gavin?’ said Vince. ‘Let the poor boy in on our little joke and rest your weary conscience?’
Gavin slowly raised his head. Tears were running down his cheeks. ‘Eddie,’ he said softly. ‘I should never have shown you that video. I’m sorry, mate.’
‘What are you saying?’ I was aghast. Realisation was dawning like a penny, slowly spinning on its axis, getting ready to drop.
‘I tried to stop things going this far, really I did. I dunno, I guess I never really believed you’d actually think you could write a book. I had you pegged as a lazy lush who just liked talking shit a lot; I thought you’d soon lose interest when it all became too much like hard work. But no, you surprised me; you were really into it. Things were moving, weren’t they, Eddie? So I thought again, tried to nip it in the bud another way. I sent Robin after you, to see if he would put you off’, he said. ‘I didn’t count on you having that mate of yours.’
‘What?’ The penny was spinning faster now, louder, like the rushing sound in my ears.
‘You sent Robin after me? You?’
He nodded. ‘I wasn’t on a press trip that time, mate. Who else do you think could have told him?’
‘I don’t know, I…’
‘And who else could have given him your number?’
I felt the hot tears spring behind my own eyeballs now. ‘And you – you saw Christophe whacking Robin?’
‘I saw your mate giving him a good kicking down by the canal.’ Gavin’s voice was flat now. ‘That was a bad move. Robin would have only come back for more after that and then he’d have blown the gaff, told you it was me who sent him. You can’t trust the mad. I should have known that from the start. But I fucked up, so I had to put it straight.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Eddie, why are you always so slow?’ he said it almost fondly. ‘Acutally, it was pretty easy once your mate had finished with him. Piece of rubble over the head, pfft! Put him out of his misery. But it wasn’t the end of you. You kept going, didn’t you, kept making connections faster than I could. Then Jesus Christ,’ his voice raised an octave, ‘Bloody Stevens found that stupid old French bastard and the two of you were well away. It was hard for me, Eddie.’ He looked at me with ravaged, searching eyes.
When they come for you, I remembered from my favourite film, they come for you with a smile. The people who have cared about you your whole life.
‘Do you know what it’s like to keep a secret for twenty years? To hide it from everyone? To go through it all again when we saw Lynton and Steve, not to mention Tony, the poor, deluded, bloody bastard. Can you imagine what it did to me, keeping up the appearance that I was going along with it all? Keeping up the smiles and the jokes, making out like I thought the same as they all did. Secrets are like a stone in your pocket, Eddie. The longer you keep them, the more they weigh and they go on getting heavier and heavier until you can’t bear to carry them around any more.’ He put his head in his hands.
‘Do you understand now?’ said Vince, by my side now. ‘Good old Gavin. My most faithful fan. I rewarded him well, of course. That flat in Elgin Crescent must be worth a packet by now. And of course, his tenancy agreement means that if there’s ever any cleaning up to be done again, he takes care of it.’
‘But,’ I said, ‘but why are you telling me all this now?’
Vince gave a regretful smile. ‘Because this is how the story ends. Your reward was to hear it. No one else ever has.’
‘But—’ I saw my whole life flash before me and in it, I saw Gavin typing emails to Joseph Pascal ‘—but you can’t do anything to me. People will come after me. He told Pascal we were coming here to find you. He knows where you are. If I go missing, he’ll be straight on your case.’
‘I’m sorry, Eddie,’ said Gavin. ‘Those emails you saw me typing, well, I never sent any of them. Just like I was never on the phone to Tony Stevens. You’ll notice how, by amazing coincidence, we bumped into Vince before we could hook up with Joseph’s friend? Well, it wasn’t amazing coincidence at all. Nobody knows you came here, do they?’ he said, wearily. ‘You told me yourself you didn’t bother to tell your parents, in case they were worried about where the money was coming from, right? Louise has left you, there’s nobody waiting for you in Camden. So as far as anyone knows, that’s still where you are. In fact, we both are. And in a couple of days, I’ll start ringing you up and won’t be able to find you. Your flat will have been broken into, your computer will have been stolen, there won’t be anything left to say you’ve ever been here. And sadly, nothing left of your book either.’
‘He’s really good at this,’ Vince said, nodding. ‘He’s a tragic genius, you know. He even got Sylvana to write her own suicide note.’
‘How?’ I said. I should have felt scared by then, really scared. But instead I felt surreal, like I was watching some mad piece of theatre, not really partaking in it at all.
‘Didn’t he tell you that he trained as a chemist in Australia? Photographs aren’t the only things he likes developing, you know. He’s very clever. I bet you’ve never seen him looking sick, have you?’
I shook my head, thinking back to all the hangovers I’d had that had never affected him. I just thought he’d had a better metabolism than me.
‘As for Sylvana,’ Vince continued, ‘he just fed her the right chemical combination, slipped it into her drink, made her feel like she was dreaming. Probably how you’re feeling right now.’
He was right. That whooshing light-headedness, it was coming back stronger now.
‘You never did like to get your round in, did you, Eddie?’ said Gavin sadly.
‘I think I need to sit down,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ nodded Vince. ‘It’s better that way. Now Eddie, please, don’t feel bad. Nothing’s going to hurt you any more. You’re going to be safe and warm and protected. Here, I’ll play you some of that Fado. You’ll see what I mean about it.’
He must have slipped the needle into my arm shortly after that, because I did feel a nice, safe, warm feeling flooding up through my veins. The room took on a magical kind of glow, like swirls of colour were dancing around me. Under the chandelier I could see Vince and Gavin and it looked as if they were dancing too, in each other’s arms, to that old-fashioned Fado that I could hear vaguely in the corner of my mind.
The colours, I noticed, seemed to be coming from that portrait on the wall, the one of Sylvana. Only they weren’t just violet any more, they were all the different colours of the rainbow. It looked like she was moving with them, stepping out of the frame. Her hair was like red seaweed floating in the water and her eyes were as green as emeralds. She opened out her arms to me and I felt myself float towards her, into the colours, into the light.
Epilogue
TIME OUT, July 3, 2003
It has been a year now since Time Out contributor Eddie Bracknell went missing from his flat in Camden Town under mysterious circumstances. Eddie, who was a month short of his 30th birthday when he was declared a missing person, had been a valued contributor to this as well as many other London-based titles, writing with authority on music, film and popular culture. He continues to be sorely missed by all those who knew him.
At the time of his disappearance, Eddie had been going through a split with his long-term partner and was believed to have been suffering from depression, although he had never indicated to his friends or family that he had any suicidal inclinations. Whether he had left his flat with a passport or any credit cards could not be properly ascertained, as the place was found to have been ransacked when his anxious parents called round two weeks after he had last been in touch with them. His computer was taken and important personal documents could also have been stolen. No money was ever withdrawn from his account. His file remains officially open.
If you believe you have seen Eddie, or know of his whereabouts, please ring the Missing Person’s Helpline on…
Donna put the magazine down on her coffee table and shook her head sadly. Poor Eddie, she thought. I bet I know what happened to him. I could have told him not to go following that Vince Smith around.
She sighed, fought the urge for a cigarette and picked up the magazine again. Studied the picture of Eddie’s face, his big brown eyes looking mournfully out of the frame as if he knew all along that something bad was going to happen to him.
Kevin had told her all about this Blood Truth book months before he’d turned up on her doorstep. Kevin was the only one out of the old firm she still saw. They had met again, years later, at one of the clinics she’d been sent to, where some ropy old guitarist friend of his was getting counselling for methadone addiction. They’d bonded over the dog-eared copies of Tatler, laughed at how all waiting rooms stocked the poshest titles, just to rub it in how low you’d sunk. Stayed in touch ever since.
So it had pissed her off to begin with, all that old bollocks about an article for Cut Ups Eddie and Ray had fed her, as if she couldn’t be trusted with the truth. Still, she supposed, she couldn’t blame Ray for that; she had led him a pretty merry dance in the past. And as for Eddie, she couldn’t bring herself to be nasty to him either, not when he looked so much like Dave and especially not when he’d treated her so nicely.
Her last postcard from Vince had come almost exactly a year ago; that was when she realised she wouldn’t be seeing the journalist again. Pity, that. But hold steady, Eddie, help is at hand. You won’t be forgotten around here.
She flicked onwards through the magazine until she came to the music section. The picture on the opening page put a smile back on her face.
Tony Stevens of Exile shakes hands with his new signings,
The Illuminated
read the caption. Underneath it went into the usual froth about how the band had attracted a massive following through their website and the free CDs they burned themselves and gave out at gigs, how they were the way forward with their edgy, modernistic take on post-punk and all that waffle. Better still was the guff about Stevens, pioneer of the original class of ’77 and how he was so excited to be part of something so brave, so youthful and so full of energy all over again. It made her laugh, it really did.
But not as much as the picture.
There they were, all standing on Shepherd’s Bush Green, in front of his office; she could just about see the exact spot from up here. Four skinny young men in black jeans, white shirts and black hair. One in particular stood out from the rest; he was taller and much better-looking, if she did say so herself. He didn’t need to dye his hair like the others did, his was all natural. Had the eyes to match, the Spanish eyes.
Tone was looking at him with an expression she recognised well.
She wondered when he would realise there was something very familiar about his new signings and the spirit of ’77, something very close to home.
They had taken her baby away from her when he was born. That had been the worse time of her life. She had struggled over to Paris to try and tell Vince about him, hoping desperately that if he would only recognise the child as his own they might give him back to her. But of course, he hadn’t. He’d just laughed in her face.
Donna had resigned herself to having lost her baby for good along with everything else. She didn’t even allow herself the fantasy that some day, he’d come looking for her.
But he had. As soon as he was eighteen. He told her he always knew there was something missing in his life, that it had come as no surprise when his foster parents had told him.
Marcus, they had called him. It suited him. He was beautiful, more beautiful than she could have ever dared hope for. All of Vince’s height and slender limbs, but none of his arrogance. With her hair and eyes and olive skin. Something else from Vince they had soon found out about, after they had reacquainted themselves and she had gradually told him about his real parents and what they had once done. His musical talent.
No wonder they were the hottest new band in Britain. And the most intelligent too. Donna hoped she had helped Marcus to avoid the pitfalls of being beholden to any cunt in the music business and this Internet lark had certainly helped. Direct produce from the studio to your desktop, no fat, suited wankers in between. It had meant that, as soon as they had gate-crashed the charts – such as they were these days, you only needed to shift about fifty CDs to get in there now – the record companies had come slavering after them.
But Marcus had chosen wisely. He hadn’t gone for the biggest cheque. He had gone for the record company that had the most history. History that he could relate to. History that he could use to build on, to assure himself a glowing future.
And there he was now, holding the hand of destiny, captured in a flash for all eternity by Tone’s faithful photographer, Gavin Granger.
All of them none the wiser.
For now, at least. All that was to come, and would come, in its own delicious time. She would enjoy each minute of what was to come next, let it unfurl as slowly as it liked.
After all, Donna had waited a long time for this, almost a lifetime. But now she could see it at last.
A gift from the past. A future.
Also by Cathi Unsworth and published by Serpent’s Tail
The Not Knowing
‘Those of us who mourn the loss of Derek Raymond and believe we will never see his like again have huge reason to celebrate…He is reincarnated in Cathi Unsworth…all the noir, the Black Novels we delighted in are restored to us in the guise of C. Unsworth…she has not only taken on his mantle but reinforced it with a freshness and vitality that makes you gasp in sheer amazement…I haven’t been as excited by a new writer since I first read Ellroy or stumbled across the very first James Sallis…She is that good and better, that dark’ Ken Bruen
‘Brilliantly executed with haunting religious imagery, interesting minor characters, great rock ‘n’ roll references and a spectacular ending. The Not Knowing is a cool and clever debut. Sleep on it at your peril’ Diva
‘Unsworth worked for music magazine Melody Maker as well as Bizarre, and her knowledge and love of music, fashion and London pours out of the pages…a lovingly observed, well-rounded and well-crafted debut novel’ Barcelona Review
‘Hugely entertaining debut from a future star of gritty urban crime literature’ Mirror
‘Unsworth’s debut ushers the reader into an early ‘90s twilight world of Ladbroke Grove bedsits, dingy magazine offices and seedy Camden pubs – a louche, lovingly evoked milieu…Unsworth has concocted a powerful story’ Time Out
‘Cathi Unsworth is the new cool…Unsworth ups the tempo by way of a dark, pacey plot and perceptively witty metaphors, making this near perfect debut very hip indeed’ Buzz
‘The Not Knowing is Unsworth’s debut novel but it reads like the work of a seasoned veteran…mystery lovers everywhere, take note of Cathi Unsworth’s
name. I have a feeling she’s going to be around for quite a long time’ www.bookslut.com
London Noir: Capital Crime Fiction edited by Cathi Unsworth
A-Z of everything that’s evil but inescapably seductive about the city. Just don’t go south after midnight’ Dazed & Confused
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