Director's Cut

A novel by I K Watson
ebook ISBN: 978-1-84982-094-3

12 Strathallan Crescent
Douglas
Isle of Man
IM2 4NR
British Isles

Telephone: +44 (0)1624 618672
email:[email protected]

First published in 2009 …
Copyright © I K Watson 2009 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
I K Watson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade
or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form
or binding without the publisher’s prior consent. This is a work of fiction.
All characters and events are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living
or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-84982-094-3
web site: www.ik-watson.com

Fiction
Manor
Wolves aren’t White
Cops and other Robbers
Non-fiction
Quality is Excellence

An explosion rattled the windows. It was followed immediately by the sound of glass smashing and a car
leaving tread on tarmac.

Rick Cole said, “What the…?” then he heard a voice from the past. He pressed the phone closer to his ear.
“I need a favour. I seem to remember you owe me one.”

Cole answered, “Now
’
s not a good time. Did you hear
it?”

“Hear what?”

“Sounded like a bomb, in the High Road.”

Cole's door was open. In the main office every phone was ringing. In the corridor coppers were on the
move, perked up like sniffer-dogs on heat. Even for old-timers alarm bells and distant sirens were shots of
adrenalin.

“How the fuck would I hear it? They could nuke your part of town and I wouldn't hear it from here. Too
many council estates between us. Anyway, good times are things of the past. So give me a time?”
Cole paused, then, “Midnight.”

“Right. Same place. You remember the place?”

Cole nodded into the phone and hung up. He remembered the place.

Sooner or later it was always going to pull him back. There was nothing more certain, except booze on a
copper's breath. He moved into the main office to join the confusion.

The first guest to arrive for the party left the train at King's Cross and picked up a minicab at the back of
the station. The black cabs at the front were for people who didn't know the difference. He hadn't been to
London for over a year but some things never changed. Getting ripped off was one of them.

“Falcon Street. It's off Sheerham High Road.”

“Got it, Boss, but there might be a delay. There’s been a bomb. It was on the news.”

The passenger grunted indifference and climbed in.

The driver was black, packing designer gear and gold trinkets. His patch was Shaftsbury, his punters the
tourists. But most of them were tucked up in restaurant or theatre seats by now; between eight and ten
were the dead hours. That's when he hit the stations.

King's Cross was favourite because it carried the northerners, from Newcastle and beyond. And
northerners were easy pickings. They carried a heavy reputation for being tight so they felt obliged to
make amends. The Scots were different. They enjoyed the stigma so much it made them even tighter.
“What do you want, Boss? Give me the word. You want to enjoy the night, right?”

London, like the rest of the country, was floating in dope.

The passenger spoke. “And I was going to find a hot dog stand. Silly me.”

The cabbie recognized an accent. Not London, but not far off.

Reading, maybe. There were a lot of dodgy bastards there. His surprise registered in the mirror.
The passenger saw it and smiled. It was a tricky, dangerous smile, the sort of smile you saw just before
something nasty and sharp and reflecting your image in silver, flashed toward you. A little less certain the
cabbie said, “It's the gear, Boss, and the price is right. If you want your shit mashed then you go down to
Brixton or up to Stevenage.”

They motored north and hit the Great Cambridge. In the old days highwaymen had loved this road. They
still did but now they called themselves something different and in front their lights were flashing.
Traffic police were throwing their weight about. They were always making their random checks on
cabbies, easy targets to enhance their arrest statistics. The weapon of mass destruction, Islam, had given
them fresh impetus and although the traffic police were not necessarily armed it didn’t stop them enjoying
the increased sense of potency.

“Charlie…”

The cabbie licked thick lips. They came all the way from St Lucia.

“Hey, I'm your man. We call the top gear Kate. Best price. I can drop it off.”

“Yeah, course you can.”

Another frightening look poured out of the mirror. The driver hesitated. “Your call, Boss. Here's my card,
my number. Just ask for Wes, or Father Christmas for short.”

The passenger read the card out loud. “Benny's Mini Cabs.”

“Twenty-four hour service at your disposal. Deliveries free of charge. Anything else you want, company,
just give us the nod. You name it, you got it. Any denomination, any age. Our aim's to please.”
“I get my own company.”

“Figured you would, Boss. That much is crystal.”

“I'll bell you.”

“Right on.”

They turned into the High Road. The Carrington theatre loomed before them. Yellow light creamed the
Victorian building, made the red brick glow like an electric fire. A line of punters waited at the box office
while a bunch of East-European beggars and the odd blown-out Jesus freak annoyed them and the traffic
roared past. The passenger turned in his seat. A massive cut-out of a scantily clad Anthea Palmer had
caught his eye. She wore black underwear, fishnet stockings and lethal high heels. It was an image almost
guaranteed to cause a traffic pile-up.

The driver noticed his interest. “You want tickets, Boss? I can get you tickets. Best seats in the house. If
you want to meet with Anthea, I'll have to work on that one.” He chuckled.

The passenger flashed his straight teeth, sharing the joke.

The driver glanced again in his rear-view. His passenger was in his early thirties and blond hair in a
unisex spiky style scrubbed him clean, smoothed out his face, but it was his smile that did the trick. A
wolfish smile with a cheeky glint, lighting up the soulless pale-grey eyes.

It sent a shiver of night down the driver's spine.

The passenger left the cab and waited until it had disappeared
before carrying his bag to a blue cast-iron gate that swung silently open to
a four-storey terraced house that had been built in the grey fifties. In the
nineties it had been converted by Pakistani property developers into four self-contained
flats. Six flights of stairs took him to the third floor.

There was no lift. It belonged to a friend of a friend who used it only sparingly and let it out for an
outrageous fee. It was close enough to the centre to be convenient yet far enough away to remain discreet.
For those who used it discretion was the thing.

He’d seen the invitation on a website. You a creature of the night?

Wanna twin?

Wanna come?

We’re skippering over at Sheerham Dec 10/23.

And you’re all invited.

Wanna play?

Andrew Grant’s new musical, Bikini Line, featuring former weather girl, Anthea Palmer, is to get an
extended run at the revamped Carrington Theatre before moving to the West End…

He smiled at the memory. So there it was. A theatrical production. But the audience sounded right up his
street. And what about Anthea?

Since leaving the weather show she was making a name for herself. Barely a day went by without her
photograph appearing in one of the tabloids. And on the front cover of
Loaded
her black plastic
micro-dress had only half concealed her nipples and in the interview inside she’d confided to the reporter
and the thousands of readers, that during the shoot she’d worn no underwear. His kind of girl.
He unpacked leisurely, as though enjoying the routine of placing his gear neatly into the various drawers
and cupboards. It was all about anticipation, working the fantasy, letting that fluttering sensation spread
until it became – almost – unbearable. He took a photograph from his case, the final item. It was in a
silver frame, in colour, a photograph of a woman in her early twenties. Her clothes and hairstyle were out
of the seventies. He placed it carefully on the bedside table.

In the shower he used a pumice-stone then shaved his legs and underarms. He used Givenchy's Amarige
behind his ears, inside his elbows, behind his knees and on his wrists. The perfume of indulgence. Back in
the bedroom he stood before a full-length mirror.

He'd worked hard to keep the youthful unblemished shape. He moved to the dresser and another mirror.
The unfamiliar shag on the stool felt better than good. With an experienced hand he applied his make-up
and slowly his face changed. Beneath the blond hair it became soft and oddly beautiful. Blond became
blonde.

Before dressing he cut twin lines of dust on the dresser's polished top and used a custom-built straw. He
was charlied in seconds, getting off on his own dangerous eyes as the euphoria took hold. The city was
waiting and he was the celeb, up there with Anthea Palmer, on stage, a catwalk queen. A high-heeled
bitch.

He watched himself move to the bed, swinging his hips like
a tom with fifties in her eye. He'd pass go, no problem. Better than Anthea
Palmer. He pulled on the knickers. The lace stretched, eighty-six percent nylon,
the colour of his lipstick. It felt like a slight caress against his dick, a
touch of butterfly wings. He put on the matching lace bra, ninety-eight percent
nylon, padded, A cup, 34, and changed the plain gold studs in his ears for a
couple of danglers with glittering blue stones.

He checked the full-length again. His legs were slim and as smooth as a woman’s after waxing. He turned
for his dress, a short shift in shantung fabric, dry-clean only, burgundy, any year’s colour. His penis
bulged slightly, but no more than a skinny girl's muff.

He slipped into black satin sandals, size 7, and in the three-inch heels he looked better still. His painted
toenails, the colour of his dress and lipstick, poked through.

The first guest had arrived and was ready for the party. He slid into a black Paul Smith jacket that was
almost as old as him but looked like new for he kept it for special occasions, and picked up his Elle
handbag, reached the door and paused. In his feel-good mode he'd forgotten his accessories. He went back
to the drawer of the dresser and selected a blade that was as sharp as a Gillette razor. But it wasn't a
safety.

Mr Lawrence had about him the peace of the passing of unhurried years, a contentment in the knowledge
that today would be like yesterday and yesterday had been survived.

He had always been a quiet man. He didn’t need long stretches of solitude to direct his attention inward.
That ability came quite naturally. He didn’t need the absence of other people either, for he was adept at
mental absenteeism. He was in need of absolutely nothing

save for the odd customer in his shop.

Mr Lawrence owned the Gallery, a shop in the High Road. The explosion that rattled the police station
windows was distant but unmistakable and was followed by the sounds of sirens and raised voices
coming in from the road outside. He thought of terrorists, the Arabs and the Irish, but barely paused in his
work, just poured a little more white spirit and rubbed a picture-frame a little harder. He did like
anarchists, no matter where they came from, particularly the majority who showed their mental health
problems up front. In a way, he wished he were a part of the revolution. But revolutions were for young
men without sense and women without bras and he had spent his younger days in another place where
ordinary folk, anarchists included, would not dare to follow.