Friends to Die For (7 page)

Marlena turned towards him.

‘Yes, Bob,’ she said. ‘But I somehow still don’t feel entirely at ease about it.’

‘Marlena’s right, you know,’ said Michelle. ‘When you stop to think, well, you’ve got to wonder what might be behind a prank like that . . .’

Six pairs of eyes fixed on her.

‘What are you trying to say?’ asked Karen.

‘Oh, take no notice of me,’ said Michelle. ‘It’s being in the job, I expect. Can’t help looking for hidden meaning and criminal intent all over the
place.’

‘Criminal intent?’ echoed Greg. ‘For God’s sake, Michelle. George has got all his stuff back. This was a joke. Leaving a flash bastard like George nothing to wear except
a Mr Tickle suit was, just like Billy says, an act of total comic genius. I mean, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Michelle. ‘’Course it was. Like I said, take no notice of me.’

The following morning Bob made himself tea, and as usual, except in the very worst of weather, wandered out onto his terrace to admire the urban garden he had created. It might
be tiny, but it was, he felt, a significant contribution to what he regarded as an oasis in the concrete jungle of central London.

Bob lived in Bishops Court, a Westminster Council development tucked away between Charing Cross Road and St Martin’s Lane, just where Covent Garden borders Soho. It was a kind of low-level
park complex, unusual for a city centre, comprising three storeys of apartments accessed from shrub-lined communal walkways, and designed so that almost all had at least a small patch of their own
private outside space. The lucky tenants inhabited possibly the most valuable public housing in the country. It was a good place to live. Particularly for an urban gardener like Bob.

Even at this time of year, there was colour on Bob’s terrace. Yellow winter jasmine and a couple of varieties of viburnum grew in the big planters around the perimeter fence and against
the wall of his one-bedroomed home, multicoloured winter flowering pansies and assorted heathers filled terracotta pots. Tubs of daffodils were just coming into bud.

His perennial and biennial summer bedding plants, mostly pelargoniums and begonias, wintered in a glass frame in one sheltered corner. This year, in spite of persistent rain and the bitterly
cold early spring, there had been little snow and ice and temperatures had only rarely dropped below zero. Somewhat surprisingly, as the climate had felt so miserable, the weather had remained
temperate enough for even them to provide some ragged cheer.

Bob, carrying his favourite white china mug bearing in green the slogan ‘stop and smell the roses’, glanced up at the sky as he stepped onto the crazy paving he had laid himself many
years previously. There was a break in the rain which had drenched the city over the last couple of weeks, and he was beginning to hope a fine spring might be on the way. Certainly this was a
lovely morning. The sun shone with a still wintery brightness, and the sky was blue and clear, except for one fluffy white cloud just drifting past the Post Office Tower.

Bob prepared to savour that moment of satisfaction as he appreciated the little garden entirely of his own creation.

Unfortunately some of it was no longer there. The winter jasmine, and the other shrubs which climbed and were entangled with the fencing, the dormant vine, the tangled woody stems of the passion
flower, the clematis and the honeysuckle remained, of course. But the majority of Bob’s garden grew in containers of varying sizes and shapes. Several had been removed. The small plastic pots
of wintering pelargoniums that had been inside the glass frame were missing, as was the little fig tree which grew in a treasured blue ceramic pot that had been made by Bob’s son Daniel at
pottery class.

Bob closed his eyes quickly then opened them again. Unfortunately his pelargoniums and the fig tree were still missing.

It was Tiny who found the note. Bob had been due to give Tiny and Billy’s terrace a clear-up that morning. Tiny had phoned Bob when he failed to arrive, and, upon hearing
of his friend’s loss and realizing that Bob was more upset than he cared to let on, called round.

The note, encased in transparent plastic, had been stuck into the planter containing the winter jasmine, fastened to a spike the way florists attach cards to bouquets of flowers. The planter had
fallen over, making it easy to miss.

‘Many thanks, love Alan Titchmarsh,’ read Tiny aloud.

He passed the note to Bob.

‘Well, that explains it then, doesn’t it,’ Tiny said.

Bob stared at the note. His expression was one of total bewilderment.

‘What’s Alan Titchmarsh got to do with anything, for God’s sake?’ he asked.

‘Not a lot, I shouldn’t think,’ said Tiny. ‘Though he does get everywhere nowadays.’

‘What?’ Bob looked even more bewildered.

‘Sorry,’ said Tiny. ‘Look, don’t you see?’

Bob shook his head.

‘It’s the same joker who nicked George’s clothes at the gym and pulled the Mr Tickle stunt. It must be.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Sure I do,’ affirmed Tiny. ‘You both got spoof notes, didn’t you? Yours from Alan Titchmarsh and George’s from Mr Tickle. On form, your stuff will be returned to
you, I reckon. Just don’t do anything if you hear a noise in the night.’

Bob pulled a face.

‘Come to think of it, it’s pretty extraordinary that you didn’t hear anything last night,’ Tiny went on.

He looked around the terrace.

‘I mean, whoever did this would have had to climb up here from the walkway at the front. The wall’s not very high, I know, but it’s not an easy thing to do, is it? There are
the climbers to negotiate, for a start. Then they’d have had to pick up your plants, lower them down the other side of the wall and make off with them. Impossible to think that could be done
without a bit of noise. Didn’t you hear anything at all?’

‘I’m deaf in one ear,’ said Bob. ‘And I always seem to sleep on my good side, so I hardly ever hear a thing in the night.’

‘Right. Who knows that? Amongst us lot, particularly.’

‘About my sleeping habits?’ said Bob. ‘None of you. Those days seem to be over for me.’

‘But what about the deaf ear?’ Tiny asked.

‘I thought you all knew,’ said Bob. ‘Don’t I always try to sit with my back to the wall at Johnny’s? And you must have heard me ask people to talk into my good
ear?’

‘Oh yeah. Now you mention it, I suppose we do all know, though I didn’t think of it until you said.’

Tiny clapped a big arm around Bob.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it’s another prank, that’s all. Sleep tight tonight, mate, and I bet you’ll find your plants are back tomorrow
morning.’

‘I shall try to believe that, Tiny. It’s just the fig tree’s in a pot Danny made at school. Reminds me of the good times we had together.’

Bob looked away. Tiny thought he could see a tear in his eye.

‘Trust me, I’m a bouncer,’ said Tiny.

Bob had two afternoon gardening appointments which he fulfilled. He didn’t mention what had happened to anyone. But Tiny, it seemed, had spread the word among the friends, and had
obviously pointed out the sentimental value of Danny’s handmade pot. Ari and George both phoned during the day and left messages of concern. Bob avoided their calls and did not reply to their
messages. He really didn’t want to talk about it. He couldn’t avoid Greg, who turned up unannounced on his doorstep just as he was arriving home that evening. Greg and Karen were his
neighbours, their flat only a few doors away from his in Bishops Court.

‘Just came to see if there was anything I could do, mate,’ said Greg. ‘If you need to re-stock I know a bloke who’s got a load of spring bulbs going cheap – that
any good for you?’

Bob found it irritating that Greg was his usual cheery self.

‘You plant spring bulbs in the autumn, Greg,’ he said.

‘Right.’ Greg looked confused.

Bob wasn’t surprised. Greg was no gardener. As far as Bob was aware, his neighbour’s terrace was devoted to the cultivation of children’s bicycles, a plastic paddling pool and
assorted debris.

‘Well, if there’s anything I can help with, you just shout, do you hear?’ Greg commanded.

Bob promised that he would and dispatched Greg on his way as quickly as he could, without, he hoped, seeming too rude and ungrateful. But he feared he had probably been both.

Then, realizing he hadn’t eaten all day, he made himself a bacon sandwich, even though he didn’t have much appetite, and watched some mindless television. He was an old soldier, for
God’s sake. He knew he shouldn’t be in a state about a plant pot, regardless of who had made it. But he was.

While he was preparing for bed, Tiny called to ask how he was doing.

‘I’m OK,’ Bob lied.

‘Everything will be fine, I told you. Trust me, I’m a bouncer,’ said Tiny again.

Bob took a glass of whisky and hot water to bed with him and tried not to think about anything while he sipped it. But his mind was in a whirl. He couldn’t sleep and, in spite of being
quite sure his plants were not going to be returned, couldn’t help keeping his good ear pricked for any sort of sound from his terrace. Once he thought he heard something and peered out of
the window. There didn’t seem to be anyone or anything out there. He mentally kicked himself for being so ridiculous. Towards dawn he dozed off for a while. He was woken by his phone ringing
just before eight. The caller was Tiny.

‘Any news? Have you got your stuff back?’ he asked.

Obediently Bob shuffled out onto his terrace, taking the phone with him. It remained the same as the previous day.

‘Nothing’s changed, Tiny,’ he said. ‘No good fairy has visited me in the night.’

‘Give it time,’ said Tiny. ‘Your plants will be returned, I’m sure of it.’

‘You are, aren’t you?’ replied Bob. ‘So sure you’re making me begin to wonder why.’ There was a sharp edge to his voice.

‘Hey, come on, mate, don’t start suspecting me.’

‘Of course not,’ said Bob.

He ended the call, a tad abruptly, and set about preparing to go to work. His first appointment that day was at 9 a.m. If it hadn’t been for Tiny’s call he may well have missed it.
There were other people’s urban gardens to tend, and Bob was not a man who liked to let people down.

Mid-afternoon, Michelle called him on his mobile, having been alerted by Tiny, and suggested, just as she had previously to George, that Bob should formally report what had happened to the
police. Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she, thought Bob.

‘I’ll help, if you like,’ she told him. ‘Not my beat – I’ve got far more important things to do nowadays, standing around on street corners waving my arms at
blank-eyed bloody motorists – but I could put in a word to the right people.’

‘It’s only a few potted plants,’ said Bob.

‘You know you don’t mean that.’

‘Anyway, not yet,’ said Bob. ‘Tiny’s convinced this is another prank, like the Mr Tickle one played on George, and that my stuff will come back. I want to give it a bit
longer. Another night, OK?’

The truth was that Bob had already thought about calling the police but he couldn’t imagine that they would be much help, or indeed that they would be at all interested, whether or not
Michelle put in a word. The loss of his plants and that treasured pot in the heart of a city where proper crime, assaults, drug dealing, muggings and even murder were daily occurrences, was never
likely to cause anyone much concern except him. And if the plants were returned then the incident would be regarded as another prank rather than a mindless act of vandalism.

Tiny had made a good show of being concerned, but who knew what lay behind that.

Tiny called again that evening.

‘Just try to crash, man, turn that good ear to the pillow, blot out the world, and hope for the best,’ he said. ‘I reckon you’re going to get lucky.’

Bob realized Tiny meant well. Or did he?

I knew I was clever. Ever since I was little. Only people never did seem to notice how clever I was. Which is why I’ve always been able to manipulate the world to
suit me.

The missing plants and the Mr Tickle incident were just pranks – what else could they have been? But they were the kind of pranks that made everyone involved feel a bit uneasy. And
that was my intention.

I wanted them all to be on edge, confused, growing increasingly suspicious of each other. That was my camouflage, the curtain of uncertainty behind which I could do what had to be done
unseen and unrecognized. Their reactions were very important to me, and to my plan.

I wanted them laughing one minute and crying the next. They were my cover, my smokescreen. I didn’t particularly want them to suffer, all except one of them, but if it was necessary
– and I feared it would be necessary – then so be it.

I believed in rough justice. I wanted rough justice. And I was quite clear, absolutely clear in my mind, of my own integrity. Everything I had done so far and would do in the future was
driven by the wrongdoing of others. And it had all been set in motion by one particular wrong by one particular other.

If there was going to be evil, if there was going to be cruelty and anguish, danger and destruction, then it wouldn’t be down to me. I am the victim in all this, that’s the truth
of it. I have suffered far worse agony in my life than I could ever imagine inflicting on another human being. But I was going to try.

I had already begun, sitting on that bench by the river on the night it all started, to formulate a plan. Over the following weeks I fine-tuned it until I was sure it would deliver the
desired result.

These ‘pranks’, these more or less harmless pranks, were only the beginning.

And so, on my knees I prayed to Almighty God to share with me the omnipotence of his wrath, the strength to cause torment beyond endurance, and the might to wreak the havoc I sought to
inflict.

I am as one with God. As before so shall it be again.

Mine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.