by Ayre, Mark
“Not tonight,” he said. “Bit of a bad experience yesterday.”
“Oh? What happened?”
“I was kidnapped,” he said, matter of factly. “Three guys grabbed me as I was leaving the bar. Threw a bag over my head, tied my hands and chucked me in the boot of a car.”
“Oh man, that’s awful.”
“Yeah, it was pretty rough. Luckily these guys were morons. They didn’t tie my legs so when they pulled me out the boot, I was able to run. Unluckily, I still had the bag on my head, so I didn’t see the car coming.”
“Oh no, you were hit?”
“I was.”
“But you’re okay?”
“Still standing,” James said, holding out his arms to show off the full might of his standing prowess. “I was lucky the car wasn’t going faster though, or that I wasn’t hit dead on.”
“That is lucky.”
“But unlucky you lot left me.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry about that. We thought you’d gone.”
“Oh, right, you thought the place was empty?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“But you didn’t lock up?”
“I—“
James pointed to his eye.
“Looks like you were in an accident of your own. What happened there?”
Lars’ hand shot up like he was planning to smack his head right off his neck. Covered the ring of black around his eye as though playing pirate.
“I, um—“
“What? Walked into a door? Fell down the stairs. Come on, let’s have something out of the domestic abuse victim’s handbook. Or were you play fighting maybe, or mugged?”
Lars lowered his hand, showing off the shiner once again. He found a more aggressive, combative stance. James didn’t know if this was good or bad, but he wasn’t backing down.
“What are you implying?” Lars said.
“Who says I’m implying anything?”
“I dunno, man, sounds like you are. Talking about walking into doors and play fighting and shit. You ain’t given me a chance to tell you what happened.”
“Go on then.”
“Funny enough, you were right. We were play fighting. Greta clocked me one.”
“She does look like she has a mean right hook.”
“She does.”
“I reckon she could give you a black eye with ease.”
“Yeah.”
“But she didn’t.”
Lars didn’t respond. His face clouded over. He was trying to look angered but hit confused. Maybe upset he’d been rumbled.
“I don’t know what you’re saying.”
“You do. It was you who tied my hands last night. You got that black eye when I elbowed you in the face. I should have seen it earlier. Should have suspected. Cool prank. I almost died.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay,” James shrugged. There was no time for messing here. He took out his phone and unlocked it.
“Hey, what you doing?”
He was typing random numbers, but smiled as though something was going on.
“I told Jane about my kidnap. She’s relatively sure it has something to do with Harris’ murder. Cause I’ve been looking into it, getting close. Stands to reason the killers would want me out the way.”
“But, wait, what?” Lars was fumbling over his words. He shook his head. “We didn’t have nothing to do with your kidnapping, man. Was just unfortunate it happened outside the bar.”
James looked up, nodded as though all was right with the world—“I believe you”— started typing again.
“Hey, man, hey. What you doing? You said you believe me.”
“Well, I almost do. You seem like an honest guy, Lars, and I want to believe you, but that’s not the point. Jane told me if I had any suspicions about who might have kidnapped me, I was to tell her right away. That way she could come ask some questions, find out for herself. She’s much better than me at getting to the bottom of things. Give it a couple of hours and she’ll—“
Lars was moving.
“Okay, stop that.”
James spun away as Lars came for the phone. He ducked slightly, hunched his shoulders and brought the handset closer to his chest to keep it from Lars, then brought his elbow up fast, hitting Lars in the eye he had missed the previous evening.
“Argh.”
Lars went back clutching his face. James returned to typing. Lars made to come for him again, but James raised a hand, faking confidence.
“What exactly are you going to do, Lars? Because if it’s not kill me the best you can hope for is delay. You can take my phone and smash it, and you’ll look all the more guilty when I talk to Jane. Why not let me do this, and start practising your genuine voice. Okay?”
Lars stared at the phone, then James. He wanted to come for it again, but James was making too much sense. Genuine fear crept into his eyes as James started reading his emails for something to occupy his time.
A few more seconds passed like this then—
“Okay, stop.”
James offered a quizzical look. Lars waited a few seconds then let out a groan.
“Fine, it was us that kidnapped you, but come on, don’t tell Jane. It had nothing to do with Harris.”
“That might be so, but you know it’s better safe than sorry. I—
“Please.“ He came forward, James looked up, he stopped. “I’ll do whatever you want. Please don’t text Jane that shit.”
James stared at his phone, as though trying to make the tough decision, then, slowly, to give the call more weight, he nodded his head.
“Okay, but I’ve got some question, and you’ve got to be honest with me.”
“I will. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“Fine.” James looked around. “Will we be disturbed in here?”
“Maybe, hey, this way.”
James expected Lars to lead him downstairs, but they went next door. Tahir’s former office. Lars looked at James, pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked it, and let them in.
“Take the sofa,” Lars said, then walked around the desk to drag the large office chair into the centre, facing James.
“You got me good,” Lars said, rubbing the newly hit eye. “Both times, I mean. Real slammers.”
He was faking bravado, and James didn’t give him any satisfaction by responding. He kept calm and quiet, his hands crossed on his lap, waiting for Lars to open up.
“Look, I appreciate you doing this,” Lars said, babbling a little. “Not telling Jane, I mean. I know we didn’t get off to the best start yesterday, and you’re pissed about what we did. But you know there wasn’t anything to it. Just an innocent trick, right?”
“An innocent trick that almost got me killed.”
“Okay, yeah, point taken. It got out of hand. But it was only meant as a bit of fun. We meant no harm.”
“Besides blinding me, trying me up, and dumping me in the boot of your car you mean? Oh, and driving me to the middle of nowhere?”
“I know it sounds bad,” he said, twisting his hands as though trying to solve an invisible Rubik’s Cube. “But you got to understand we didn’t think it would go like that. We were going to get you out the boot, take you to this nearby tree, pull off the hood and voila, you’d see us and know it was all a joke. We could have had a big laugh about it. It was like a team building exercise. Or something. You know?”
James wasn’t sure it would have ended that way but saw no need to pursue the end of their moronic game when there was a more interesting question.
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why did you do it? That’s not normal. You can’t be kidnapping every newbie. You’d be better at it for a start.”
“No, it’s not normal, course, but nor were you.”
“Excuse me?”
“You weren’t no normal starter, were you? You think we didn’t know?”
“So you did it because Jane sent m
e to find out about Harris?”
“Not just,” he smiled for the first time since they had entered the office. Leaning back, he folded his arms, looking a little too comfortable. James could have shaken him, but let him proceed unchallenged for the time being.
“When I was a teen,” Lars said. “I cheated on my girlfriend. Dumb move. She was so hot, and this girl I cheated with weren’t no comparison, but that’s not the point. Point is I came home one day and found my room ripped to pieces. Telly smashed, bed torn up, clothes ruined. Was horrible.”
He still looked bitter about what must have happened twenty years ago. James waited.
“So I go downstairs and say to Ma, ‘what the hell happened to my room?’, and she tells me my girlfriend came round and asked if she could wait for me up there. Ma lets her up, and she starts destroying everything, just like that. I asked Ma why she didn’t stop her and ma gives me this look and says ‘hon, she told me what you did’. I’m stunned, then she imparts this wisdom on me. See if I can remember correctly.”
“Hell hath no fury,” James intoned, “like a woman scorned.”
“Yeah,” he said, clicking his fingers. “That’s it. ‘Cept she said have not hath. What’s hath? Don’t matter. My ma was always coming up with clever sayings like that.”
James began to break the bad news that Lars’ mother had not, strictly speaking, come up with the saying, but decided to let the guy have his falsely placed pride. Instead, he drilled to the point of Lars’ little story.
“Nina asked you to kidnap me.”
“She came in crying. Said you’d ditched her and she wanted to teach you a lesson. Just a stupid game. Bundle you in the back of a car, drive you out to that massive oak outside the city. Scare you, nothing more. I weren’t completely sure, but she was so upset. I hate to see that.”
“You’re a top guy.”
“Take the piss, fine,” he said, with only a little bitterness. “I ain’t saying I’m no good guy, but I tell you what I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t dump a girl the day after her uncle and closest friend died. I cheated when I was sixteen. How old are you now, making dumb decisions like that?”
James hung his head, feeling the shame of the decision. But it was what it was, and he found himself unable not to mount some kind of defence.
“It would have been worse to wait.”
“Worse for who?” he said, then waved a hand. “I don’t need your explanations. Don’t matter. You should be thankful Nina asked us to get you back. Could have been far worse.”
James cocked an eyebrow, trying to unpack that.
“How so?”
Lars hesitated, perhaps realising he had given too much away, but it was too late now, and James already had him trapped. Having committed to honesty, he wasn’t going to back out.
“You know about Nina and Harris?” he asked.
“I know they were close before Jane went to prison,” James said. “But he ditched her pretty fast when he came home after his second year.”
“Yeah. Poor girl. Look, I really liked Harris, I did, but he hurt her bad when he ditched her. She was so excited he was coming home, but from the day he arrived, he didn’t want nothing to do with her. She told herself he’d come round. He didn’t want to be friends with anyone at the time so she could deal with that. Only it didn’t go down that way.”
James felt himself leaning forward, though it didn’t feel as though he was in control of the move, as if Lars’ narrative was dragging him in.
“Michael and Harris becoming best pals is what hurt her, and it got even worse when she tried to make friends with them both. From what I saw, Michael liked her, was happy to include, but Harris wasn’t having it, so what does she do? She lashes out, spiteful like. Punishes Harris and it were far worse than what you got. Didn’t affect only him, either. That was the worst of it.”
“What—“ James stopped, thinking on that. Imagined Harris and Michael sitting in the office next door, talking through important matters. Michael bearing his soul. They think they’re alone but—
“She heard his confession,” James muttered, more to himself than Lars but he was heard, and Lars took up the tale.
“Came in, all angry. I saw her barrel upstairs, and followed her. Found her listening at the door, tears in her eyes. She bursts in, and Michael is handing Harris something. She sees it, and she screams ‘traitor’. Harris is up and trying to get her but she’s gone, and I’m slipping into the staff room sharpish, so no one sees me. I hear Michael coming out, and Harris is telling him everything’s going to be okay. You already know that ain’t true though. You know what happens next.”
“Davis,” James muttered. “How soon?”
“Very next day—“ he snaps his fingers— “no more Michael. You can imagine what Harris thought about that.”
Heart pounding, head throbbing. Without thinking he was standing and Lars was staring up at him. Fear touched his eyes.
“Hey, I use that to illustrate a point. That don’t mean she’s no killer. She’s not. You’re not going to tell her what I told you, are you?”
“No,” James said. “I know Nina didn’t do it. I was with her right before it happened. She didn’t have time.”
Making for the door, stopping as he reached it. Another niggling question, one this nosey bartender might well have the answer to.
“Megan and Harris,” he said, planning to form a question but nothing came.
“Yeah,” Lars said, nodding. “I didn’t know why you would have dumped Nina when she came in, then I saw you with Megan, and all became clear. Weird move, ditching a dead man’s auntie to date the dead man’s girl.”
James closed his eyes, denying it
“Megan and Harris weren’t together.”
“Yeah? Whatever you say. mate.”
The smug look on Lars face made James want to hurt him, but he shook his head, kept hold of the door as though afraid an airlock might open and suck him into space.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “You don’t know what Harris was doing.”
A strange look passed over Lars. Nothing sinister. Something close to confusion.
“He was pressuring girls into sex. Filming them and using the videos to taunt them. He would have done the same to Megan if he hadn’t died.” Or might already have done, James thought.
For a while, Lars didn’t say anything. But James could see the confusion morph into something far worse. Pity.
“Megan tell you that?” He shook his head. “I thought better of her.”
“Megan didn’t tell me.”
“No? Well, how about this? I knew Harris since he was a kid. I know what he did to Nina weren’t great, but he was a good guy. A top guy. He didn’t date so much when he came back, but, when he did, he treated the girls right. Far better than I ever would. Far better than you, I’d wager, given what you did to Nina. Did he have a few flings? Yeah, who hasn’t? But film it without them knowing? Pressure them into sex? Do me a favour.”
There was such derision in his tone James had to fight to stay seated.
“Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you thought you did.”
“Knew him better than you,” Lars returned. “And I don’t know who’s feeding you this shit, but our Harris was a good guy. Ask Megan, if you think she can be honest. When she came here, he helped her out. Did he fancy her? Hell yeah, but you get that. Did he ask her out a few too many times? Probably, but she kept saying no and eventually he got the message, stopped asking.
“Then, the day he died, he’s here working, and Megan comes in. She asks for a quiet word, but they don’t go far, and I can hear everything. She says she wants to go out with him. Wants to be taken on that date he keeps talking about and he isn’t sure, thinks she’s messing but she insists, so he says cool, he’s pretty busy, how about some time midweek?
“Know what she says?”
James only stared, heart pounding, praying Lars would not say what he was sure he w
as going to say next.
“She says ‘nah, Harris, it has to be tonight.’”
Lars leaned back smiling.
“So, lover boy, what do you think of that?”
20
Idiot. Fool. Moron.
How many lies had he told? How many warped webs spun? Yet he still couldn’t see it being done to him. Harris had slept with Megan, filmed her, left her seeking revenge, and revenge she had taken. Convincing him to date her again, dragging him to the bar and killing him. A risky move, but she had taken precautions. Had Nina’s phone stolen so she could lure Tahir to the bar as she committed her atrocious act. The intention had been for him to take the fall. When that hadn’t happened, she’d killed him too.
The other stuff? Trappings. Unimportant. Mel wanted her own sex tape and would kill James for it. Davis had been robbed. Nina had caused Michael’s death and orchestrated James’ kidnapping. Harris had felt guilty over his past actions and had apologised to Andros and Ollie. Had probably wanted to make amends for filming the girls too. Hence his reticence to date Megan again. None of it mattered. What mattered was he had risked everything to protect Megan, and she had played him for a fool.
Without another word, James left the recently deceased Tahir’s office, pausing in the hall as his misery threatened to consume him, then pressing on, barging people from his way as he clattered down the mezzanine stairs and only glancing at the back of Owen before departing into the night.
Stop. Decision time. Megan had betrayed him. Broken his heart with her lies. He wanted to run screaming into the night. To abandon this investigation now it was at its conclusion, but he couldn’t. There were still plenty of dangers to consider. Mel being the main one. Davis a close second. To remove them both from his back, he had to get the former the sex tape she so desired and convince the latter he was no killer.
Stepping back into the bar he approached Owen, who looked up, eyes widening in shock to see James come through the front door when he’d not seen him leave.
“I thought you went—“ he pointed up.
“Yeah, that was me,” he hesitated, then dived right in. “I need to get anyone who wants to kill me off my back. You still up for excitement?”
