Killing Cupid (23 page)

Kathy Noonan, 31, had, according to the official report, been out drinking in a pub near her home in Camden. That night she had attempted to climb onto the roof and had fallen to her death. The police said there was no suspicion of foul play.

But Ms Meadows decided to do some investigating of her own, unable to believe that her old friend had died in ‘a stupid accident.’

‘
I went to the pub, the George V, where Kathy had been drinking that night and spoke to the regulars there. They remembered Kathy well. And one guy told me that he saw Kathy there that evening – with a man.’

Ms Meadows wants to know why the police have never tried to find this man and talk to him. She is calling for the police to reopen the investigation.

‘
I want them to find and interview this man. If he’s reading this, I want him to come forward and explain himself. Only then will I rest. Only then will I be convinced that my friend was not murdered.’

If anyone has any information about Ms Noonan’s death,
The Camden Journal
has opened a confidential hotline. The number is...

I threw the paper to the floor, trying to catch my breath, trying to calm down. Every hair on my body was standing on end. I thought I was going to be sick, but somehow I held it back.

I knew my hometown was cursed. My own mother is my bad luck talisman. Just when it looked like everything was going to be fine, this happens.

Fuck. Fucking fucking fuck.

Chapter 23

Siobhan

Wednesday morning.

As I was halfway through chapter 8 of my ‘novel’, obliviously typing away, the telephone rang, heralding the end of my writing career. It was Patricia. I have put ‘novel’ in inverted commas, since she does not appear to think it even deserves the description.

And besides, now it really isn’t a novel anymore. When our interminably awkward call was finally over, I dragged the computer file into the trash folder on my desktop and emptied it, putting the lid back on the cyber-dustbin before I had time to change my mind. Then I took the memory stick containing the back-up, placed it carefully on the kitchen floor, and pounded it with a hammer until it splintered and shattered, destroying all my carefully thought-out words. Broke one of my kitchen tiles too. But who cares.

All that work. All that effort, gone, for nothing. My career is now officially in the toilet. Of course Patricia didn’t put it that bluntly. In fact she was complimentary enough about certain parts of it – but basically she didn’t think it was good enough yet to bring up at an acquisitions meeting. Which means she thinks I’ve lost it, I’m finished. There’s no other explanation, when my last publishing deal was garnered on a mere six chapters of
TLA
. I’m buggered if I’m going to slave over 130,000 words of a new one and then get it rejected – no thank you very much, life’s too short.

Once again, my judgement is totally screwed up. How can I be that deluded? I really thought the book had been going well, that I’d broken the back of it, and that it would be plain sailing from here on in. But no: Patricia didn’t like the main character (I didn’t tell her it was me – that would just have been too depressing), she said she was too unstable and paranoid to be appealing to readers. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about – or maybe she’s just out to get me? She complained that something should really have happened after seven chapters, but that there was no action. What does she expect? Bloody ‘Diehard – The Novel’?

And to make matters worse, I’ve since had an email from her, trying to be placatory, telling me to ‘keep going’ with it, and that she’s sorry if she came over a little bluntly but that she really values my work, and is sure that the new novel will be ‘splendid’ when it’s finished.

Bit bloody late for that now.

Oh God, what have I done?

I’ve lost it. I’ve lost my precious book, the one I was so proud of, the one I really thought would establish me as a serious novelist. What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?

Later. Had a bath. Had a long, long cry. My eyes are stinging and my eyelids are so puffy that they look like two little millefeuilles. I cried even more than I did at Kathy’s funeral, and to be honest this hurts far more. I feel bereaved, bereft. It’s done now though. No going back.

And to top it all off, I’ve got the bloody writing class tonight. I can’t hack it. I don’t think I’ll go.

The phone rang again. As I plodded across the sitting room to answer it, tipping a fed-up Biggles off my lap (thank God for Biggles, I’d be so lonely without him). I was really hoping that it would be a friend, a shoulder to cry on rather than a cat. I didn’t have the energy to phone anyone myself, but it would have been nice to know that someone was thinking of me for once. Paula, or Jess or even Phil.

It was, of all people, Alex. He spoke in a hurry, gabbling quietly and nervously: “Hello Siobhan, it’s Alex Parkinson here. I’m really sorry for the delay but I just wanted to let you know that I’ve left a cheque at college for the money I owe you, I know you’ll be teaching the class tonight. I didn’t want to post it in case it got lost, and I know that you don’t want me near your house again, so anyway I left the cheque at reception. Sorry, again, for everything. Bye.’

And he was gone, before I could even get a word in. I slammed the phone down in a rage. He’d been in love with me, and what – he couldn’t even bear to talk to me now? Why are people so fickle and untrustworthy? (Still, at least he didn’t ask me for the clothes back. I’ve got quite attached to them now. And they wouldn’t fit his fat girlfriend anyway.)

Oh bugger, that means I’ll have to go to class tonight after all. I’d forgotten what a nice voice he’s got. It’s gentle – weirdly enough, for a freak like him. Wonder what he and Emily get up to in bed? I wonder if he ever thinks about me when he’s screwing her – surely he must still find me attractive. I mean, you can’t just switch off your feelings for someone, can you?

I still can’t fathom what he sees in Emily. She’s so –
brockety-looking
, as Mum would say. It fascinates me, and infuriates me. I want to know what she has that I don’t. I can’t bear it – I’m going to have to go and find out, now that I know where she works.

Midnight

Well, that’s the last time I’m ever going to teach a writing class. What a day – both strands of my career now in tatters.

It was the usual sorry excuse for a group, only four of them left now. I got them to do an exercise - writing a story using each letter of the alphabet in turn – and while they were busy with that, I slit open the envelope which the receptionist had given me. The same receptionist who handed me the review that Alex had wrapped in that lovely ribbon; it seems so long ago. I hoped that Alex would at least have written me a nice card or something, perhaps another of his Klimt specials – but no. It was empty apart from a folded cheque for £324.98, the right amount. But as I scrutinised it, I saw something which made me so angry that I could’ve punched the wall – he hadn’t signed it, the stupid, stupid prick. Now I’m going to have to send it back to him, and it’ll probably take for ever for him to return it… I wonder if he did it on purpose? Perhaps smug little Emily thought it would be a good idea, a hilarious way to wind me up. I bet that’s it.

When I looked up, the four of them were staring at me and I realised that I may have been growling to myself, just a little bit. ‘Right,’ I snapped. ‘Time’s up, who’s going to read their story first?’

Brian’s hand crept up like a slug climbing a wall. I nodded and he began to stammer his way into the mess of words he’d written, something like : ‘A Bayonetted Cavalryman Died Emptying Fireworks,’ or some such crap, until I couldn’t bear it any longer.

‘Brian,’ I said, more harshly than I should have. ‘Stop. That makes no sense. I asked you to write a story, not to fit a random collection of words together. It’s writing, not typesetting, for pity’s sake. And there’s not even any such word as ‘bayonetted’. You’re not even using real words!’

‘Actually,’ said Barbara nervously as Brian scratched and shuffled like a schoolboy. ‘I’m sure ‘bayonetted’ is a word. I’m sure I’ve seen it.’ She turned to the other two. ‘Haven’t you seen it written down? I have.’

That was when, I’m afraid, I really lost it.

I stood up and roared at them. Screamed. Can’t remember the exact words because it’s all a bit of a haze, but suddenly it all got too much for me: Patricia’s rejection, Alex’s rejection, Alex playing tricks on me with the cheque. Everything. Even Kathy’s absence tore at my heart. We could’ve been friends, and she’s gone. I have nobody.

Their faces! It was almost funny. I slammed my fist down on the desk, wanting to stop but not being able to. I recall shouting something about ‘not wasting any more of my time with you losers’ (oh, the shame) and ‘the only one of you with any talent was Kathy’ (not true: Alex and Jane are both tolerably proficient writers, but I was too far gone to mention it). And finally, predictably, with Alex’s useless cheque burning a hole in my bag, I snatched up my jacket and stormed out shouting ‘I QUIT.’

Like I said – the end of my career in all ways.

Chapter 24

Alex

Thursday

Waking up this morning, still drowsy, I heard Emily say, ‘I’m going to take these in with me.’ I think I must have grunted ‘okay’ or ‘hmm’; I don’t remember. I was still trying to cling to sleep, attempting to bury myself in my dreams, away from all the anxiety about Kathy and her crusading chum. Over the last few days that’s all I’ve wanted to do: lose myself. In sleep. In sex. In Emily.

I heard the front door shut and, a little later, woke up.

Since reading the story about Kathy’s friend, I’ve been living in a state called High Anxiety, a place bordered by Trembling Paranoia and Abject Terror. God, I don’t want to go to prison. Just thinking about it gives me the shits: Gruel for breakfast. The long hours of screaming boredom punctuated only by gang bangs in the shower room, some twenty-stone monster with halitosis having taken a liking to my pretty ass. A monster who’d call me Alexis and make me his bitch.

Or maybe I’ve seen too many American prison movies. And maybe I have nothing to worry about. After days of flinching every time I heard a police siren, nothing has happened. Nobody knows I was with Kathy that night. Okay, people saw us in the pub, but who’s going to link me to Kathy? It’s not as if my photo is on police files somewhere; no-one’s going to leaf through a book of photos and suddenly gasp, having seen my mug shot, ‘That’s him, officer. And come to think of it, he did look like the kind of guy who’d push a woman to her death.’

And here’s a note to the police – if they ever arrest me and force me to tell them the password: I’m innocent! Okay? I didn’t push her – she slipped.

Maybe I should relax. Let Kathy’s mate run around trying to convince the cops that she was pushed. They’ve already decided that it was an accident. They won’t want to reopen the investigation without hard evidence. I’m safe.

Safe as houses with dodgy fire escapes.

But anyway, having convinced myself that my ass was not at risk for the time being, unless Emily had any kinky plans for it, I peeled myself off the sheets and went to the kitchen to hunt down breakfast. The house was freezing, condensation on the insides of the windows, the tap water icy. I splashed some on my face, which jolted me into life and made me remember Emily’s parting words.

What had she meant when she said she was going to ‘take these in with me’? What was she talking about? I went back into the bedroom and looked around. She had been standing by the desk when she said it. I scanned the desk surface: my short stories were gone.

I swore under my breath. She read the stories again last night, proclaimed them works of genius and jumped my bones. ‘You’re going to be famous,’ she said as she straddled me, really seeming to get off on the idea, flushed pink from her throat to her chest. Of course, I liked the idea too, but I really don’t think the stories are good enough to show anyone, not yet. They aren’t polished. And I don’t think I could stand being rejected at the moment, just when I’ve started to get used to being accepted.

I decided I would have to go to see Emily at lunchtime and get them back – hopefully, nobody would have looked at them yet. Emily told me that most submissions sit on their slush piles for weeks if not months. It would be easy for her to retrieve my work from among the other slush.

Then the phone rang.

I thought it might be Emily, calling me from her desk to say hi. She often does that in the morning, even when we’ve just parted. So I almost skipped towards the phone.

It wasn’t my beloved.

‘Alex?’ Two slow heartbeats’ worth of silence, then, ‘It’s Siobhan.’

My tongue was paralysed. Her voice was low, less melodic than I remembered. I always thought she had a lovely tone to her voice, even when she was telling me to get lost, but now, with just a few syllables, I could tell that something had changed.

‘I suppose you think you’re clever, don’t you?’ When she said ‘clever’, the word wobbled, her voice trembling with the emotion she was trying to suppress.

I managed to speak: ‘What?’

‘I suppose you think you’re clever. Or funny.’

‘What are you talking about. Did you get the cheque?’

‘I got it alright. And then I ripped it in two.’

‘You – why?’

‘Don’t try to come across all innocent. I want you to write another cheque, and send it to me – you know my address, don’t you? You’ve probably memorised my postcode.’

NW6 6BG, I almost said, biting my tongue before I could.

‘I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. My voice was trembling a little too.

‘I’m talking about the fact that you “forgot” to sign it.’.’

‘Oh shit. I...’