CAFÉ ASSASSIN Read online

  Every group needs a Steps. It helps the group cohere. It strengthens the bonds within the group. If Steps had left, we would have had to go to second from the bottom to replace him. Did you feel that was you? Were you worried about your place in the pecking order? That’s why the higher up you are the safer your position, except for the top. The person at the top is the most vulnerable.

  At about eleven o’clock we disappeared into the toilets again. This time I fished for the wrap of MDMA. I took out two smallish rocks. No wider than a grain of rice. We each swallowed one. About half an hour later we started to come up. Big smiles and a warm glow. You know it’s the drug because your throat’s gone dry and you no longer fancy lager, you fancy lemonade. I looked into your eyes and your pupils had dilated. Not that anyone else would notice. They weren’t dinner plates, but to the close observer the signs were there.

  We made our way to the club. It was called, I suppose ironically, South. There was no queue to get in. We walked past the door staff no problem and made our way down the stairs. As we descended, it felt like we were going back in time. The place was full. The dance floor was heaving. We bought bottles of water from the bar and joined the revellers in the middle of the floor. The unmistakable sound of a Farfisa organ. Dragging me Down, Inspiral Carpets. Kennedy, The Wedding Present. Loaded, Primal Scream. I looked over at you and you were grinning from ear to ear.

  I was pleased to see that you still danced like a dizzy vicar. No sign now of the dead and the cold. You were alive – transported back to your youthful self. And I liked that you, Andrew. I wished you back into my life. I hoped we could be together as we had once been. For a moment, there was the possibility that we could be best friends again.

  There was a smoking area out back and we made our way there. I smoked a rollie.

  So what do you think? I asked you.

  It’s fucking ace, Nick. Why have we waited so long?

  I had a good excuse, I said. We both laughed.

  So what’s your clerk like? She looked pretty hot in court.

  Sarah? She’s a good mate. We get on really well.

  Nice body. Pretty face. How old?

  Thirty five.

  She seems to like you.

  Like I say, we get on.

  Well?

  Well what?

  Would you?

  You laughed at this but also blushed. I get it, I said, and nodded.

  You won’t tell Liv will you?

  Course not, I said.

  It was only a bit of fun. We got tipsy one night after a big murder case. She helped me carry some files back to my hotel room. And, well …

  Your secret’s safe.

  I finished my roll-up and we went back in. You were smiling and I was smiling. You were smiling because you had connected to a version of yourself that knew how to unwind and have fun. I was smiling because, although I had planned the evening meticulously, I had not anticipated it going as smoothly as it was.

  On the train on the way back, you fell asleep. Your face was squashed against the glass of the window. It looked lumpy and misshapen. I took out my phone and played the video. It was no Oscar winner but it was adequate: the face was clearly identifiable, you hunched over the cistern lid, hoovering up a line. At this stage, I had no idea what would stick. Part of me even thought, leave it Nick, leave the past where it belongs.

  18

  She’s kissing me. And I’m kissing her. Hands all over. Ripping at clothes. I pull off her knickers and I’m licking her clit and she’s writhing. I have to grip her hard to keep her in one place as I feel her spasm as she comes. And then we fuck over one of the tables in the club under a picture of Gerard de Nerval. And it’s exactly how it should be and it’s absolutely right. Afterwards, she gets dressed. We have just fucked, Liv and me, me and Liv. The fuck of a life time. Then I wake up.

  Gerard de Nerval went insane before hanging himself. He left a note to his aunt: ‘do not wait up for me this evening, for the night will be black and white.’ It was Friday and tonight it was the cabaret night. The theme was black and white. Nerval had a pet lobster which he walked in the gardens of Paris on the end of a blue silk ribbon. He didn’t care for dogs. I got up and went for a seven mile run with Ray.

  We used to give each other dares. You would be the first to back out. I’d always go further. To me it wasn’t just a dare, it was a test of character. There was a geography teacher called Mr Seddon, a depressive. These days, the doctor would have him on a course of Fluoxetine the minute she saw him. The first ten minutes of every class was him complaining about his kids, about his wife, about his job, about his life. He had a nasal whine. He had a speech impediment which made him pronounce, ‘the ru-urban fringe’ as ‘the wuu-urban fwinge’ which amused our small minds, but should have elicited our sympathy. We both hated him but it was your idea.

  We used to have to stand outside the class until he’d turn up with his box of books balanced on his hump of belly, key in one hand, glasses falling off the end of his nose. It was your turn to dare me and you dared me to get Mr Seddon with the fire extinguisher. You had pointed to where it was positioned on the wall. It was exciting to take it off its bracket. It was exciting to smack the top until the foam shot out. He was striding towards me. ‘Give it here Smith, stop messing about.’ I gave it him. Right in his eye. He put his hands up to defend himself. He fell back over his box. You were laughing. The entire class was falling about laughing. For a moment, I felt popular.

  Mr Seddon ran for the headmaster, like a small boy running for his dad. When the headmaster arrived, he got it too. I was on a roll. I waited after school for my dad to arrive, outside the headmaster’s office. ‘He’s half an hour late Smith, we can’t wait here all day.’ Here’s the thing, he let me go without punishment. He felt sorry for me. He knew my dad wasn’t going to make it, that he was in a pub somewhere, half cut, the phone call completely forgotten about. I didn’t count.

  And I remember another time, in infant school. I was in the dining room. There were eight of us on our table. You were sitting next to me, and you dared me to take my spoon and flick mushy peas onto one of the dinner ladies. I selected the right one, Mrs Crossley – whose back was as wide as a barn door. Couldn’t miss her from a mile away. I aimed the spoonful of mushy peas and splat, right across the back of her navy blue tabard. She turned around and eagle-eyed me. She paced across and grabbed me by the ear. I can still remember the sharp stab of pain – like being knifed. She marched me to the headmistress’s office. She told the headmistress what happened. The headmistress was called Miss Pilkington. Miss Pilkington had looked angry. She had turned to Mrs Crossley and thanked her for bringing me to her. Mrs Crossley had marched back to the dining room, secure in the knowledge that I would be chastised, probably even caned.

  Then Miss Pilkington had turned to me and smiled. For being so naughty, she said, I’m going to make you sit there all afternoon watching those fish. She pointed to a chair in the corner of her office, then she smiled again. That’s where I sat, Andrew, staring into the tropical tank, at the small thin darting fish, brightly coloured. The slower swimmers, the strange grey-brown sucking fish at the bottom of the tank. And it became clear, that she had felt sorry for me too. That’s what I was, an object of pity.

  So I stood outside the headmaster’s office, listening to him drone on about how it wasn’t acceptable and it wouldn’t do, and that it was the wrong attitude. All the while, I knew what he was thinking, that I’d go unpunished, because he felt sorry for me in the same way Miss Pilkington had felt sorry for me. Because the damned need no punishment. For being damned is its own punishment. And I thought about your face, as I’d been led out of the dining room. You had given me a sympathetic look, but then I saw you turn to Mark Longworth and you gave him a snide smile. You’d set me up.

  I stopped for a breather, my heart beating hard in my chest, sweat dripping down my
back. Ray was in the undergrowth, hunting out the young, the old, the weak and the sick. I thought back again to that afternoon, to Miss Pilkington, to the darting fish and the undulating fish and the fish at the bottom of the tank, eating the shit left by the other fish. Your face now was out of my mind. I was calmed by the water and the soft motion of the fish. By the flash of colour and the gentle bubbles from the filter. And I realised, that afternoon, watching the fish, was one of the happiest times of my life.

  Remember that time we went camping in Bangor, me, you and Bob? We got barred from the Youth Hostel for smoking weed. First time we’d had any, aged fifteen (I’ve never managed to get so high on it since). When we got back from Bangor we went our separate ways, me to my gaff, Bob to his mum’s and you to yours. Only when I got home I couldn’t get in. I was locked out. I went to the pubs in walking distance looking for my dad. I asked Manny’s dad. I asked Summers’s brother. I asked anyone if they’d seen him. He was on a bender. He could be anywhere. There was a pub where you could ring a bell at the back and they’d let you in – any time of day or night. Had I tried there? I walked around for hours with my rucksack on my back.

  Eventually, unable to walk much further with the rucksack digging into my shoulders, I went to your house. Your mum invited me in. You were having your tea, or as you called it, dinner. I was invited to join you. We had spaghetti. The first time I’d had it out of anything other than a tin. A revelation. It tasted completely different. We had meatballs your mother had made, actually made them from fresh ingredients, real minced beef and real diced onion. There was a tub of dried grated cheese with a perforated top so that you could shake it, that I later found out was called Parmesan.

  Afterwards, we had pudding with fresh cream. Not condensed milk or Carnation. I went back to my house, which was now in darkness. Still no dad. I waited until midnight. I went back to your house. You were in bed, your mum was in her nightie. She let me in. Your dad was watching an episode of Kojak. I sat down on the sofa while he finished watching the episode. It was about this man who had been released from prison. A woman, who had driven with him to New York, was found murdered in his abandoned car.

  Only Kojak knew the truth, that the prisoner was not the murderer, and in the last few minutes of the show, he proved it to the others. It felt so good sitting there with your dad watching Kojak. Your mum brought me a mug of Horlicks with two sugars and your dad a coffee, and we sat there in silence staring at the television screen watching Theo Kojak suck on his lollipop while he figured out what had really happened. He was in the sunken plaza of a huge building that dwarfed every other skyscraper surrounding it. I didn’t know it then, but it was the Rockefeller. I looked at your dad, his face set in the same concentration as Telly Savalas, and I pretended that your dad was my dad.

  After the show was over, your dad switched off the TV. Your mum brought me a blanket and they let me sleep on the sofa. I lay there in the warm glow of the dying embers of the fire and drifted off into a dreamless sleep. And that’s where I slept for a week. When I eventually found my dad, he blamed me, said I’d told him I was going away for two weeks, not one.

  You are watching Keyop play poker with Paddy and two other men. You are trying to follow the game. You do not play yourself, and have only a beginner’s knowledge of the rules. They are playing for roll-ups. Paddy is dealing. Keyop is sitting to the left, and so he puts out the small blind. The player to the left of him puts out the big blind. You don’t know why they do this, but you think it is to do with the chips.

  Paddy deals the cards. As you watch the game, you kid yourself you’re not in prison, you kid yourself you are in your club. The club that you and Keyop own. The club you have dreamed up to keep sane. A place you can go to be free. You replace the white walls with flock wallpaper. You replace the plastic furniture with oak chairs and tables. You replace the fluorescent strip lights with chandeliers. You replace the barred windows with velvet curtains. In the background a band is playing. You are drinking beer with Keyop and laughing.

  You watch the game as it enters the showdown. Keyop shows his hand. Paddy’s hand wins. Keyop is accusing Paddy of cheating. They argue without raising their voices. Both men are used to discord. Paddy is whispering something in Keyop’s ear. You see something on Keyop’s face you have never seen before: shock.

  It was Friday night. The man with the hat had promised to return. I was sitting on my own again, clutching a bottle. I was scanning the room. So far, nothing. I made my way back to the bar. I wanted to know if Pawel had seen anything suspicious.

  You should open up a club in Manchester.

  Why Manchester? I asked.

  I have sister there. Manchester, very good place.

  I asked him if he’d seen the man.

  The man with hat?

  He hadn’t seen him.

  You’re a good worker, Pawel. And Socha too. Is she your girlfriend?

  Just friend.

  Do you like running this bar?

  Yes, I do.

  Good. Keep on the lookout. He’s barred from now on. Whatever you do, don’t let him in. If for some reason he gets in, you come and get me.

  When I got back to my seat, I grabbed my beer and my jacket. I wanted to sort the money, ready for the acts. I went through to my office and opened the safe. I put my jacket on and went to the mirror to straighten out my shirt. That’s when I noticed it, a splat of red paint on my breast pocket. I touched it. It was still wet. I wiped the paint off my fingers with a towel. Inside my breast pocket was a folded up piece of paper. I could see the end poking out. I took it out and unfolded it. It was a ten pound note and written on it in red marker: ‘U will pay’.

  I put it back in my pocket and took the jacket off. I checked all the pockets: nothing. I hung the jacket up. I sat down with my beer. What was going on? Was he still out there? I stood up and went back into the main room. I scrutinised the audience one by one but I couldn’t see anything. I wended my way through the crowd, hoping to spot something. But there was nothing. He’d been here tonight though. My jacket had been over my chair for about three hours. Plenty of opportunity. I told Pawel what had happened but he said he hadn’t noticed anything. I opened another bottle and sat back down, determined not to miss anything this time. If he was here, I was going to see him.

  It was the end of the night. Richard was helping the acts pack away their equipment. The bar was still busy but Pawel and the two other staff were coping with the traffic. I took Ray upstairs for some fresh air. The street was quiet. Everyone was inside a bar or a club. Ray had a sniff around. He found some chips and a half-finished burger. I stood and watched him eat greedily as I rolled a cigarette. So the man had been and left his mark again. But what did it mean? He didn’t appear to want money, so why ‘U will pay’? I tried to reason it out. He hadn’t been violent. As creepy as it all was, it was relatively harmless.

  I was halfway into my cigarette, when I noticed a black car approach. It moved slowly and the lights had been switched off. The windows were shaded. Something wasn’t right. I called Ray over. He came to my heel. The car was level now. It slowed down to a near stop. The back window wound down. There was an eerie stillness. Then there was a ‘phtt’ sound and a clatter of something. The car pulled away. I looked round. We’d been shot at with a crossbow bolt. Miraculously the bolt had missed both me and Ray, flying through the one inch gap between us. I hailed a cab. Jumped in the back with Ray by my side. A black cab tailing a black Astra into the white and black night.

  We followed the car for some time, but then we lost it at a set of lights.

  What do you want to do? asked the taxi driver.

  He drove me back to the club. I was surprised by how shaken up I was. I got Pawel to pour me a very large whiskey. I told him what had happened.

  Not good, he said.

  An understatement.

  Why is he shooting you?

 
I had no idea. If it was a protection racket, it was a funny way of going about it.

  You don’t let him in. Under any circumstances. You got that?

  Long after the club had closed, I was still sitting in the bar, with a bottle of whiskey. I was still thinking about the crossbow bolt, how close it had come. Was it aimed at me or Ray? Surely a protection racket would not want to kill the person they were trying to get money off, just scare them? But the man with the military-style hat did not seem interested in money. All he seemed interested in was putting the heebie-jeebies up me. It was working. But now this. This wasn’t just intimidation, this was an attempt on my life. I didn’t want to think about death, not mine or anyone else’s.

  I was on my own with just the past to keep me company. I thought back to that party we crashed. We were with Pete Wardle, remember? He could always sniff a party out. We’d been in the Red Lion all night. It was about half eleven. The landlord was calling time. It was a Friday or a Saturday.

  There’s a party down Bellfield Close, Pete said.

  It was a student party. We bought some bottles over the bar and followed Pete. He got us in no problem. We both got chatting to some girls. We left Pete to his own devices. He would frequently end up naked on the floor with lots of students around him. We would hear the girls screaming followed by his manic laugh. His party trick.

  I was getting on really well with mine. I looked over to you. You seemed to be getting on well with yours. Yours was better looking than mine. A stunner in fact: jet black hair, smoke-grey eyes, heavily kohled. She was wearing fishnet tights that were torn in strategic places, smoking a roll-up. A red plastic mac, a low cut top. It was a punky goth look that set her apart, made her look different, and I wanted her. But it was too late.