Rockoholic (26 page)

I pray that the kitchen TV is on loud enough so that Halley and Mum haven’t heard it. But they have. Halley has.

“I’ll get it,” she says, still in baby-girl-hasn’t-seen-Mummy-for-a-week mode.

“No, I will,” I say. “It’ll be Mac. He said he was coming over later.” Halley stops in her tracks and sulkily gets back up on her stool. Mum has a mouthful of cabbage.

I see the shadow through the glass in the door the second I step into the hall. She’s on our welcome mat. I can see the yellow of her coat. I close the kitchen door behind me and make my way slowly down the hall to face the object of Jackson’s terror. I open the front door.

“Hello,” she smiles, showing a mouthful of pure white teeth like a piano lid opening. “Could I speak to Jody please? I’ve got the right house, haven’t I?”

She seems nice enough and very pretty. She’s got all the hallmarks of every guy’s dream woman — perfect curves in her casual yellow-jacket-and-blue-jean combo. Her face is pieced together as perfectly as a new peach. Full red lips, petite nose, long eyelashes, blue eyes, and the whitest blonde hair. Behind her is a bright pink Volkswagen Beetle, like a giant bubble-gum balloon.

“Uh, who are you?” I say as politely as possible, smiling as best I can.

“Oh, I’m Sally Dinkley,” she giggles, her voice squeaky and children’s TV host–ish. I don’t know why she’s giggling. “Did you get my card? I put it through the mail slot this morning.” She laughs again, flashing her glittering teeth. Am I supposed to laugh? I look around behind me on the floor. A little white card is poking out underneath the doormat. I bend to pick it up.

SALOME JANE DINKLEY

WEST COUNTRY CHRONICLE

REPORTER

Her contact details are on the back. Mobile phone. E-mail. Skype address. She continues. “I am talking to Jody, aren’t I? You e-mailed some pictures of Jackson Gatlin to the
National Sunday Press
from your Hotmail account? Well, the paper I work for, the
Chronicle
, has picked them up. I called by this morning but no one was in.”

The security light decides to come on above my head. Bit late, seeing as the squeaky-voiced intruder and I are already mid-conversation. “Yeah, yeah, I was at work. Sorry.”

She laughs, again. It’s not even funny. I guess it’s a nervous thing. “Silly me, silly Sally.
Doink!
” She shoves the heel of her hand against her forehead in a “stupid me” gesture. “Well, I thought it might be a good time to call around and have a word with you. Is now OK?”

Her face stays smiling like a waxwork dummy, even when she’s stopped talking. It’s terrifying. It unnerves me so much I’m stuttering. “Uh, we-we’re in the middle of dinner. It’s not really convenient.”

“Oh. Right. Well, I’m staying in Nuffing, so perhaps I could stop by tomorrow morning?”

“I’ve got to work. Why do you want to talk to me about it?” This is a whole different story now, it isn’t an e-mail to a faceless, nameless journalist miles away in London. This is a real-assed journalist on my doorstep and I’m hiding a celebrity about fifty feet away.

“Well, basically,” she says, eyes alive like she’s telling a story about a magical elf in an enchanted wood, “we were very excited at the
Chronicle
when we saw those pictures and I wanted to have a chat with you about them. I grew up near here, actually.”

“Oh, really?” I say weakly, though I don’t intend it to sound quite so sarcastic.

“Yeah,” she says merrily, like we’re old friends or something, “in Randle-on-the-Wold. Anyway, I saw your pictures in our pressroom when I was hanging around our news editor’s desk. Everyone was going crazy of course, but, well, I was a bit confused.”

“Oh, why’s that?” I say, praying she can’t hear my heart tub-thumping its way up my throat.

“Well,” she giggles, “it’s very odd, I know, but the pictures don’t seem quite right to me. And I wondered if you could shed any more light on that.” Her face freezes, and it becomes clear that she’s not going to say anything else until I have.

I frown. “In what way? I mean, I saw him myself. He was just sitting there, at this table, eating, reading a paper. . . .”

“In Italy?”

“Yeah.” I remember Halley’s bags are still lined up in the hallway behind me, so I open the door a bit wider for Dinkley to see. “I’ve just come back.”

“Oh. Right. Well, it’s so bizarre, I mean, I can’t even believe I’m saying it, but . . . are you sure you took the pictures in Italy?” She laughs and it’s echoey, like a cave laugh. I’m not laughing.

“Yeah. I think I would remember where it was taken.”

“Of course, of course. How was the weather?”

“Oh, OK.”

“Didn’t go outside much?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, you’re not very tanned.” She smiles and chuckles.

“I don’t tan easily,” I say. “It’s my freckles.”

“Right, right. Well, in that case I must ask have the pictures been Photoshopped in any way?” She says it as a throwaway comment, thinking she shouldn’t really be asking but is obviously desperate to. “Was this all a joke is what I want to know.” Her smile drops like wet rags.

“No. I don’t even know
how
to Photoshop stuff. Look, me and my friend were walking through this market one day in Venice and Jackson was just sitting there, reading this paper. My friend got his phone out, took some pictures, and then he went off. Jackson, I mean.”

“Just walked off? Just like that?”

“Yeah.”

“Who is this friend that went with you?”

“Mac . . . I don’t want to drag him into it, OK?”

“Oh sure, sure. Look I’m not trying to pry, I’m just trying to get to the truth. You must want to know the truth about what’s happened to Jackson Gatlin, don’t you? Everybody else in the world does. This is a very big deal, Jody.”

“It’s not that big a deal, is it?”

She gawps at me. “Uh, yeah it is. Jackson Gatlin’s disappearance is big news. He’s a big star, ever since he slept with that what’s-her-name from that film with whatsit DiCaprio.”

“That was a lie.”

“How do you know?”

“I d-don’t,” I stammer. “I just don’t believe everything I read in the papers.” I gulp. What have I said? I’mitching to step back inside. The breeze along our path is whipping up now that the sun’s gone down and I’m hungry. I think about the half-eaten roast going cold on my plate.

“Everyone’s very worried about his well-being, too. His fans, his friends, his bandmates, his manager. I mean, he just vanished. No explanation. Gone.
Poof.
No note. Nothing.”

Or rather
Nuffing
, I think to myself. “Yeah,” I say. “It’s been on the news.”

“How did he seem to you when you saw him? You said he was eating something?”

“Uh yeah, a pizza.”

“Flavor?”

“Pepperoni, I think.”

“Are you sure it was pepperoni? Jackson is a vegetarian, you know. Maybe the sausage was vegetarian sausage, do you think?”

I do some speedio thinking. “There were little pieces of pepperoni on his plate. He’d taken them off the pizza. It must have been a pepperoni pizza.” Dinkley nods. Phew. But . . .

“Why would he order a pepperoni pizza if he then took the pepperoni off?”

My teeth clamp down. “I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t speak Italian very well.”

“So why would he be reading an Italian paper?”

“Look, I was just there. We just happened to be walking through. We saw him, we took some pictures, and we left. That’s it.”

“OK.” She pulls her jacket in around her as the breeze whips up a little more. “Any chance I could just come in for a sec —”

“No,” I say, more harshly than I mean to. “Sorry, I’ve really got to go.”

“Fine, fine,” she says, taking out a small black pebble thing that looks like Mac’s iPod and rubbing the screen like she’s dusting off flies. She taps it. Lines appear on the screen. She’s writing notes. “I’m not saying you know any more than me,” she smiles, “it would just be good to get your slant on it, being such a big fan and everything. Don’t you think?”

“Why do you want my slant on it?”

She does that
doink
thing again. “So sorry, Jody, did I not say? I’m doing a follow-up article about where
I
think Jackson is. See, I don’t think he’s gone to Italy at all. I think he’s somewhere round these parts. Somewhere in the West Country. I mean, just for argument’s sake, let’s say you got your pictures muddled up when you got back from Italy. You went to the Italian Market on Saturday in Nuffing town center and saw Jackson Gatlin there. You uploaded your photos on the computer and, for some reason, you thought you’d seen him in Italy, but in fact you’d seen him in the Italian Market
here
instead. Quite likely, isn’t it?”

She’s like a retriever who’s got the whiff of a dog biscuit in my pocket. She knows something. I have to front this out. I have to throw her off the scent. I have to pretend to throw it far away so the bitch’ll run after it. I wish Mac was here. He’d know exactly what to say to shut her down. Nothing fazes him.

“I think I know the difference between Venice and Nuffing High Street,” I say. “Why would you even think that?”

“Well, two reasons really,” she says. “For one thing, at the front of your picture there’s a flyer on the ground for the Italian Market in Nuffing.”

“Uh . . .” She must have held that photo under a pigging microscope.

“And two, the Italian guy standing behind him in the photo? He runs the pizzeria in Nuffing High Street. I grew up in Randle and I went to school for a time in Nuffing. Me and my friends always used to go down to Salvo’s at lunchtime, you know, how girls do, go in just to sip Cokes at the bar and ogle the waiters? Well, that man in the photo is Salvo. He’s well known in these parts.” She giggles so shrilly it’s sending electric shocks up and down my back. “So, do you think you could help me figure this one out?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can,” I say, reaching behind me for the door.

“Jody, wait, please. I just want to know which parts of the photo are true and which are falsified, that’s all.” She’s talking to me so soothingly, it’s like she’s telling me I’ve got a tumor or something. “We just need to know the truth. His fans deserve to know where he is, don’t they?”

“If you want to know the truth, no, I don’t think they do,” I snap. “Why can’t you leave him alone?”

“Because he is a major celebrity and that makes him public property. And because the public is worried about him and it’s my job to find out if he’s OK. He has a history of depression. Drugs.” She says it quietly, as though saying it will offend our neighbors.

“So?”

“I have insider information that when he supposedly went into rehab a couple of years ago, he actually tried to commit suicide. Threw himself off a bridge. He was fine but . . . well, there was brief talk that he’d tried it again but with the arrival of your photo it’s given everyone hope that he’s OK, happy even. That he’s just taking a break from it all. Do you know what I mean?”

I nod, praying that neither Mum nor Halley comes out of the kitchen to see what’s keeping me. I hear the
clink-clink
of plates being scraped.

“I mean, wouldn’t it be great to finally find him?” she says. “To be the one to tell all his fans he’s all right,
happy
even.” She’s looking at me like I’m an abused puppy on one of those anti–animal cruelty commercials. “Just have one final think, Jody. I’ll give you another chance, OK? Where is he?”

Where is he? Not where
was
he, or what do you think happen
ed
. Where
is
he, she asked me. She knows!

“It’s OK,” she says, “no one’s going to be angry. If you’re protecting his privacy, that’s very honorable. But why are you protecting him? What does he want with you? Do you owe him something? Are you related to him in some way? Did he threaten you just after the photos were taken? Did he get violent? Where’s the phone the pictures were taken with? Did he break it?”

“No . . .”

“Look, I’d probably do the same if Michael Bublé decided he wanted to leave showbiz and join some circus or something. If I found out where he was and he asked me to keep his location private, I would.”

“Michael Bublé?”

“My mum listens to him in the car.” She laughs. “Probably a bit old for you. But listen, if you’ve seen Jackson Gatlin in Nuffing, though God knows why he’s in Nuffing, then you can talk to me. I will tell everyone exactly how it is. And who knows, maybe I can get hold of some tickets for their American tour? Maybe plane tickets? Bit of swag? Yeah?”

She’s onto something, she knows she is. She’s pulling every trick she can think of. Strumming on my heartstrings. Interrogation. Bribery. She’s like a kid reaching for a bite of a cookie. She’s going to keep coming back until she’s got a bite and, when she’s got a bite, she’ll want the whole cookie. She’ll want to speak to Jackson, she’ll want to break the story. She’ll want to bring him back to the world so he can go back to where he was before I took him away from it. But he won’t want that. He’d rather die. I can’t think what to say. I have to speak to Mac.

And at that moment, I love my mum more than anything else in the world.

“Jode, d’you want custard or cream on your crumble?” she calls. For once, her voice sounds like a thousand beautiful notes rising into the air, not one dirty black cannonball falling on my feet.

“OK, look, I’ve really got to go, that’s my mum.”

“I’ll come by tomorrow, then. Perhaps we can grab a coffee in town? Or maybe a pizza?” She winks.

“Yeah, all right,” I force out. I don’t know what else to say.

“OK, I’ll meet you at the Whistling Kettle in the High Street. About one o’clock.”

“Yeah. OK.”

“Great, oh, that’s so great, Jody. You won’t regret it. And it’s on me, OK? Least I can do,” she says, with another patronizing wink.

No, it’s on me, I think. It’s all on me now.

• • •

“Who was that?” says Mum when I reenter the kitchen. “You’ve been gone ages. I put the rest of your dinner under the grill.”

“Jehovah’s Witnesses,” I blurt. “One of them was cross-eyed. I felt bad.” It usually
was
Jehovahs whenever I answered the door, so this was a nice neat excuse to throw out on this occasion. I never had the heart to tell them to leave or to slam the door in their faces. Except when one of them tried telling me Grandad was wanted for an angel and I had a right go at them. “I don’t believe in angels,” I told them, “I just believe in Jackson.” And then I shut the door in their faces.