CAFÉ ASSASSIN Page 20

  ‘The last time I saw her on the outside, she was still a girl. Now she’s a woman. I took her to a park. I pushed her in the swing. I bought her a milkshake from a van. We picked some blossom together. We stood against the railings by the side of the canal and reached up to the bough where it hung down.’

  His daughter’s name is Zoe. Keyop remembers watching her throwing the blossom into the water. He remembers how it travelled through the air, so soft and so slowly. They bought some bread and fed the ducks. His eyes are welling up. He asks you if you have ever wanted a daughter. You tell him that you haven’t. But you have and you do. You want your own family: a wife and daughter and son. You want to take them to the park to feed the ducks, on a sunny day when the trees are full of lilac blossom. You do not talk about Andrew. What Andrew has stolen from you.

  You finish your game of chess. It is time for Keyop to see her. ‘Do I look alright?’ he asks. He looks like a boy in a school uniform. ‘You look great,’ you say and straighten his tie. You wish him luck. You watch him stand up and walk into another room. You think about the family you might have had, had things turned out differently. You close your eyes and picture the park with the sun beaming through the trees. You feel its warmth on your face. In the background is a pond. By your side, your children. Your wife is holding your hand. You squeeze her hand tightly. She smiles at you. It is Liv smiling at you. It is Andrew’s children by your side. You have nothing and Andrew has everything. You do not even have a sense of who you are. Andrew has even robbed you of this.

  When I got back to the club, I checked my emails. There was one from Liv.

  sorry I’ve not been in touch or responded to any of your messages. I don’t think it’s a good idea to meet up. I don’t think it’s a good idea that I work at the club. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I hope this doesn’t upset you too much, Liv.

  So that was it. Not even a kiss. Nothing. I closed the laptop and sat in the dark. I’d lost my queen. All the work I had put into having your wife had been thrown back in my face. I couldn’t stand that. I couldn’t stand to think of her in your arms. I couldn’t stand to think of her with your cock inside her. Oh well, I would just have to play some of my smaller pieces.

  21

  Knight time. I drank some coffee and sat back in my bed. I thought about how I could turn the game to my full advantage. I didn’t need Liv. I could get her later. For now I could play Officer Leadbeater. I rolled a cigarette and lit it. I liked to smoke in bed. The meeting had gone well and I was convinced it would lead to full control of the central files on the board. As I drank and smoked and schemed, there was a knock on the door. Ray shot up and started barking. Richard was out, so I would have to answer it. I climbed out of bed and wrapped a towel around my waist. It was a postwoman.

  Nick Smith?

  Yes?

  I need a signature.

  I took the plastic stylus off her and used it to sign the box on the screen. I took the parcel inside. I hadn’t ordered anything. I carried the parcel upstairs and took out my knife. Inside the brown packaging was another parcel, this one wrapped in Christmas paper – red with green holly motifs – and tied with black ribbon. I cut through the ribbon and tore the paper off. I opened the box. Inside was a large white cake of soap. I picked it up and turned it over. Scratched into its surface was ‘yoRe tuRn’.

  He had found out where I lived. Whoever he was. My first reaction was to grab for my bag of speed. I was about to neck a knife-ful, but I stopped myself. Instead, I took the bag and flushed it down the toilet. The drug was making my thoughts muddled. I needed to think straight. I went back to bed. Ray lay next to me. But I was no longer safe. Not at the club. Not at Richard’s. Was he watching me now? I lay for some time turning it all over in my head. The man outside the club on that first night, waving in the shadows. The smashed glass and the graffiti. The message on the mirrors. The crossbow bolt fired from the black car window. The red paint on my suit pocket and the ten pound note.

  He must have followed me the night of the exhibition opening, from the club to the gallery and from there to the bar. Perhaps he had followed me home that night. And now this. A Christmas present. It wasn’t Christmas. I held the soap bar in my hand. I squeezed it. It was solid. I tapped the corner of it against the wall and it made a thud. It was real. Someone was after me, that was for certain, and it wasn’t just drug-induced paranoia. I felt like a sitting duck.

  I got up and got dressed. I put on my coat and went out with Ray. I walked the streets, aware of everyone I passed, convinced someone was following me, but each time I turned there was no one there. Eventually, I went into a pub and bought a drink for myself and a packet of pork scratchings for Ray. I sat down and sipped my lemonade. I didn’t want anything alcoholic. I had to stay sober. I was craving phet. If I could just have a small dose, I’d feel better. Just half a knife. I wasn’t sure to what extent my anxiety was down to the parcel or the phet withdrawal. I had to clear out my system.

  There were only a few people in the bar, but I felt uncomfortable in their presence, like they were a jury and they were judging me. They hated me. Don’t look at me. Don’t talk to me. Don’t say a word. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone. I stared at a picture on the wall. An old advert with a cartoon toucan. Lovely day for a Guinness. Pawel rang but I ignored the call.

  I went back to Richard’s. I closed my room door behind me and put a chair under the handle. I shoved it as hard as I could so that it jammed in. I crawled into my bed fully clothed. Pawel rang again. I texted him: ‘sick as a dog. You’ll have to manage without me.’ I received a response shortly after: ‘OK boss’. At first I couldn’t sleep, my muscles ached and I felt completely drained. Outside I could hear gulls screaming. Eventually, I drifted off.

  I dreamed that the man with the hat was fucking Keyop. As he fucked him his hood came off. He had no nose, just a big black hole in the middle of his face. I woke up sweating. I drifted off again, another nightmare.

  When I woke up the next morning, I was lying in bed with Ray. I lay for some time staring up at the ceiling. I tried to cast the nightmare images out of my mind. I thought about the package wrapped up like a Christmas present, and I thought about you, Andrew.

  I remembered that tape recorder you got for Christmas. We were six years old and we’d only just become close friends a few months after meeting over a Fascinating Facts book. It was a gift from your mum and dad. It was a big square parcel with wrapping paper on and a bow. We wondered what it could be. When we opened it, there was a tape already in the machine, a C-60 (or was it a C-30?). We huddled round the machine. You were excited because you already knew what was on the tape. It was Father Christmas, and he was talking to you, calling you by your name and wishing you a ‘Happy Christmas, Andrew, ho ho ho’. There was an elf too, a female voice, telling you that you’d been such a good boy, that they didn’t normally address the children in person but that you’d been so good this year, they felt it was only right to do so. You were so excited to share this with me. And I was excited too. I was excited for you, Andrew.

  We found out later that Father Christmas was your dad and the elf was your mum. But at the time, listening to the tape, completely unaware of this, I remember thinking that you were one of the chosen ones, one of the elect. Not thinking with those words obviously, but with a six-year-old boy’s equivalent language.

  Then, one day, both of us huddled round the machine, you pressed ‘play’. There was nothing. No sound: no ‘ho ho ho’ of Father Christmas, no giggling elf, no one telling you how special you were, and for a moment I thought that we might have imagined it. We listened intently, there was just the ‘ffsshh’ of the speaker amplifying a blank tape. You went to your mum, crying. She said that it only lasted the Christmas period and then it vanished. That was Santa’s magic recording. And that made it even more special. It was years later that your parents confessed that in fact they’d wiped the tap
e by accident. I think that was probably the most traumatic thing that ever happened to you.

  I lay there for hours re-living childhood memories. Eventually I noticed a feeling I hadn’t had for a while. I was ravenous. I climbed out of bed and went to a cafe. I ordered a full English, with extra bacon, extra sausages and extra black pudding. I stuffed my face. I saved a piece of bacon for Ray.

  My phone rang. It was Pawel.

  What’s the problem?

  It happened last night.

  Go on.

  The man with hat.

  He was in the club?

  No, he was outside. He had a crossbow.

  A crossbow?

  Standing over the road.

  What did you do?

  I ring you.

  Oh, I see, sorry about that.

  I ring police.

  And?

  They ask me what he is doing.

  Go on.

  I tell them that he is doing nothing, just standing there.

  And what did the police say?

  They want to know what trouble.

  You’re taking the piss.

  This is what they say.

  Useless fuckers … and what did he do?

  He is standing there.

  And that’s it?

  He was up to some game, Nick. Socha and Tim, they were working. They were scared. Police come, too late. What are we doing if he comes in again?

  Listen, Pawel. I’ll be back soon. If he turns up again, you ring the police but this time you say he’s shooting people with his crossbow. Have you got that?

  But what if not shooting?

  What do you mean, what if not shooting? Say anything, but get the police to get their arses down there. Right?

  Ok.

  I want you to phone me if anything happens.

  I will.

  As I finished off my breakfast, I couldn’t get the man with the hat out of my head. He was coming for me. He was creeping closer. I should have been afraid, but instead I was overcome with a feeling of intense loneliness. I’d had some shitty luck, then I’d had a few lucky breaks. Was this it? The end of the line? We walked back to Richard’s. I was tired again. I went to bed again. I spent the rest of the day in and out of a fitful sleep. Each time I woke up I felt even more fatigued than the time before, as though sleep itself were the cause of my exhaustion. I got up to make some tea, but went back to bed. I knew if I could get some more speed, the feeling would go away. I lay on my own in the dark.

  The Segregation Unit governor is Richard Vince. He’s been here since the riots. It was his idea to put you with Keyop. Does he know what Keyop did for you? You wonder if it is an act of compassion, or just coincidence. You were both on the list. Perhaps this is the reason. Being caught with drugs means loss of privileges. No playstation, no TV. There are drugs and there is the gym. But for you and Keyop there are also books.

  It’s easy to feign madness. It’s hard to prove sanity. For a long time you think Keyop is pulling the wool over their eyes. Experience teaches you otherwise. You are talking with Keyop. You are laughing with Keyop. Keyop is telling you about one Christmas Day. His uncle Nikolos had said, ‘That’s it, Christmas is cancelled’. Everyone had cracked up. What was so funny? You wanted to know. Uncle Nikolos had merely punctured the curled paper tongue of a party horn. That was what was so funny. Bathos. Normally a word you would keep to yourself. But in front of Keyop, you say it out loud. ‘Bathos’. He doesn’t even look at you. Something you share. He repeats your word, ‘bathos’. And there it is, that connection between you. An echo in the darkness. And you are lonely. And you crave affection. His body is very close to your body. You know this man intimately. You think about it. You don’t do anything. You feel weak, you feel small. Your loneliness has unmanned you. And you reach out.

  The next day, I felt much better. I took Ray to the park and watched him run after a squirrel. I rang Pawel.

  How’s it going?

  It is not going.

  What do you mean?

  I have closed club, Nick.

  Pawel, you can’t do that. We’ve built up a business. You can’t just abandon it.

  I wanted to reach through the phone and grab him by the throat.

  Socha. The man with hat. He was following her.

  Attacked?

  Not exactly attacking, no.

  What then?

  He is following her as she is coming out of club, then he is grabbing her.

  Did he hit her?

  No, not hitting.

  Well, what then?

  He just say, ‘aye up’.

  Why didn’t you ring me?

  I did. Eight times. Five texts.

  I put the phone down. I felt numb. I was throbbing all over. I closed my eyes. Falling backwards through a black tunnel. Faster. Nothing to hold onto. Bracing myself for the crash.

  I opened them again. I was sitting in the park. Men in suits, women in heels. A girl selling Coca-Cola. A beam of sunlight filtered through the leaves, lighting up a wasp eating an aphid. There was a boy clutching a yellow spear, lunging it into an imaginary dragon. I watched him thrust and jab. I felt that lizard chill again. A flash of white, cold, the stench of piss, bleach, burning foil. The sweet-sick stench of opium smoke.

  Paddy O’Brien’s prison cell. He was hunched over the foil, sucking up the fumes. I was asking him what he’d said, knowing full well, but needing to hear it out of his mouth. He was looking up, puzzled. ‘I just asked you if you’d ever played poker with Keyop, that’s all. He was a good player.’ He was smiling at me, an opiate smile. ‘I meant to Keyop. What did you say to Keyop?’ Paddy O’Brien was smiling again. ‘I told him I fucked you. It was just a joke.’ I was brandishing a yellow spear and Paddy wasn’t smiling any more. Paddy was on the floor, a spear sticking out of his chest. A spreading red stain.

  I walked over to Pawel’s flat but I couldn’t convince him to come back to work. Pawel must have got to Socha too, because when I spoke to her she refused to come back, saying ‘not safe’. I tried to reassure them, said that we could issue new cards for the door, so that there was no way he could get in again, but he had got to them and I couldn’t convince them. I opened the club myself. I wasn’t going to let this man, whose name I still didn’t know, ruin what I had built up from nothing. From less than nothing. I was the club. The club was me.

  I cleaned up, washed the tables, hoovered the floor. I filled the soap in both toilets. I served behind the bar. I was front of house. I sorted out the PA. I introduced the acts. By the end of the evening, I was aching with exhaustion. It was a good hour or so after everyone had gone before I managed to get the place straight and I was ready for home. I craved speed but I was not going to give in to my cravings. I put the takings in the safe and turned the dial. I was about to lock the office and leave the club when Ray started to bark.

  It’s ok, Ray. There’s no one there, I said.

  But he wouldn’t stop barking. In fact his barking became more frantic. I told him to ‘shush’ but it made no difference. I went to the outside door, where Ray was standing. I listened at the door. I thought I heard someone shuffling outside. Then the flap of the letterbox opened and a voice whispered, ‘Nick … Nick … I know you’re there.’ Ray was going berserk, jumping up and down and barking. ‘Nick … let me in … I’ve got something for you.’

  I shouted for Ray to follow me and I locked us both in the office. I reached for the metal bar and I stood in the middle of the room, gripping the bar and listening. Ray stopped barking. Silence. I put the bar down and took a glass from a drawer in my desk. I uncorked a half-empty bottle on the top. I poured two inches and necked it.

  ‘Bang! Bang! Bang!’ on the door. I nearly dropped the glass I was holding. My heart punching its way out. Silence again. Then ‘Bang! Bang! Bang!’ Ray was going ins
ane. I tried to calm him down but it was no use. The sound was not being made by a fist on wood. It was too loud. He must have a bar or a staff of some sort. Maybe a baseball bat or a hammer. The door was thick but given enough force, it would give.

  I rang the police. It was gone three o’clock in the morning. They said they’d send someone out immediately. I stood in the middle of the room, necking whiskey and smoking, waiting for them to turn up. All about me was silence. There was a window in my office, quite high up. It was a frosted window and it didn’t look out on anything as it was under the pavement. Its function was to allow some light into the room. It was illuminated by the street lights above, which shone down through a metal grate, projecting black bars across the pane. I noticed the pane darken, and I realised someone was standing on the grate. Very cautiously and very slowly, I went over to the window. I stood looking up, but I couldn’t see anything. Then I heard a sound. A human voice making an animal sound. ‘Keek, brrrmf’, ‘keek, brrrmf’, ‘Keek, brrrmf’.

  This set Ray off again and paralysed me with fear. My head was banging. I felt ice cold talons trap me in their grip. I tried not to scream out. Eventually, the noise stopped. Ten minutes later, two policemen arrived. I told them everything. They showed me the outside door. The wood was bashed in and splintered. The first policeman said that whoever it was had almost broken through. They took the incident very seriously, writing everything down. The second one spoke into his radio. They said that they were going to have some presence at the club for a while, until it was resolved.

  The next day, I told Pawel and Socha about the police presence and they agreed to come back to work. There was a policeman there every night for the next two weeks. I had an idea about how I could turn this to my own advantage.