Warhol's Prophecy (27 page)

‘Are
you
coming?’ Levine wanted to know.

‘No, it’s just the way she’s sitting,’ Dennison offered.

More laughter. Hailey smiled politely.

Christ, it was an effort.

‘I’ll be there, yes,’ she said.

‘I’ve seen the guest list,’ said Taylor. ‘Why the local politicians?’

‘It’s a charity gig, isn’t it? It’s good publicity for them. It makes them look hip and they’re doing something for a good cause. The local papers will be running the pictures for weeks.’

Taylor smiled.

‘So we’ve got to have our photos taken with a load of old cunts, just for charity?’ Dennison sneered.

‘It won’t take long,’ Hailey reassured the drummer. ‘And Jim wants some photos of the band taken inside his factory, too. But that can be done the following day.’

Taylor nodded and sipped at his gin and tonic.

‘I hope he realizes how lucky he is getting us to do this gig,’ the manager said. ‘I can’t remember the last time I let the boys do something for nothing. It’s against my principles.’ He smiled crookedly.

‘Well, it’ll be good publicity for the band, too,’ Hailey reminded him.

‘The last thing this lot need is more publicity,’ Taylor told her.

‘Making headlines for helping people is better than making headlines for trashing hotel rooms and punching photographers,’ mused Hailey.

‘I don’t
like
fucking photographers,’ Levine interjected.

Trudi laughed, but found she was the only one. Her cheeks coloured and she looked down, fumbling for a cigarette in her handbag.

‘Well, as long as you promise not to hit any of them before, during or after
this
gig,’ said Hailey, looking directly at Levine.

‘I’ll do my best,’ he said scornfully. ‘The last one was trying to get pictures of Jenny’s tits. He wasn’t showing her any respect. That’s why I smacked him.’

‘He was a creep.’

Hailey looked across towards the bedroom as she heard this new voice.

Jennifer Kenton emerged wearing a black trouser suit. She ran a hand through her shoulder-length blonde hair and crossed to the sofa. She leant forward and touched Levine’s face.

Hailey recognized her immediately. She’d been in half a dozen failed feature films during her career. She still made films now, but most of her work was for television. She too was wearing Ray-Bans.

‘I don’t like creeps hanging around me,’ she continued. ‘You’d better make sure the photographers that cover this gig and the party afterwards behave themselves.’

Hailey nodded. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ She smiled.

‘
You’d
better worry about it, otherwise I’ll have your job,’ Jennifer Kenton told her haughtily.

‘That’s it, babe, you tell her,’ Levine chuckled.

Hailey glared at the former actress for a second.

Bitch.

Jennifer Kenton sat down on the arm of the sofa and Levine snaked his arm around her waist.

‘Get me a tequila sunrise, Trudi,’ the former actress said. ‘You’ll probably have to call room service for it.’

Trudi rushed to comply.

‘We’ve nearly finished, babe,’ said Levine, looking up at his wife.

‘Thank God for that,’ Jennifer Kenton muttered wearily. ‘I’m fed up with this hotel. It’s like a prison. The only trouble is if I go out I’ll probably get so many people asking me for bloody autographs.’

In your dreams.

Hailey glanced at her watch. ‘Well, I’m just about finished,’ she said. ‘I’ll let you all get on.’

‘Thank fuck for that,’ said Dennison, getting to his feet and hurrying across the room. ‘I reckon Sophie’s waiting for me in there.’ He pointed to the bedroom and flicked out his tongue.

Hailey also rose.

She shook hands with Ray Taylor.

‘See you at the gig,’ she said, smiling.

Jennifer Kenton looked her up and down disdainfully.

‘Don’t forget what I said about those photographers,’ she said.

‘It’s all right, Jenny,’ Trudi interjected. ‘
I’ll
make sure it’s cool.’

She ushered Hailey towards the door.

‘I told you they were cool, didn’t I?’ said the PR girl as she and Hailey emerged into the corridor. ‘I love working with them. And I said Craig was so funny, didn’t I?’

‘I could tell he reads a lot of Oscar Wilde,’ Hailey told her.

Trudi looked blank.

Hailey headed towards the lift.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ she called without looking back. ‘It’s been mega.’

All she heard was the sound of the door closing.

T
HERE WERE ALREADY
a number of cars parked outside the school as Caroline Hacket arrived.

She selected a position about twenty yards from the main exit and swung her red Saab into it.

The rain, she was delighted to see, had eased to little more than drizzle. The storm had passed and the sky, though still bruised with cloud, seemed to have released the worst of the deluge.

Caroline sat for a moment behind the wheel, checking her reflection once or twice in the rear-view mirror.

There was a car parked a few yards away from her, its windows badly steamed. The passenger side-window was open a few inches, and she could see a harassed-looking young woman in her mid-twenties trying to pacify a child of two or three who was strapped in the car-seat. The child was crying, struggling to get out, and the woman had gone from cajoling and reasoning to shouting and threatening.

Caroline looked away. That was one thing she
didn’t
miss about kids.

And yet, people said it was different if they were your own.

She would never know.

Caroline continued to gaze through the windscreen, trying not to dwell too much on that subject. Aware that unwanted thoughts and memories arose with this kind of self-analysis.

The abortions.

The string of lovers

(
no, lovers wasn’t the word, was it? Love had never been involved. It had been sex, pure and simple
)

she’d had during her teens and early twenties.

The operation.

She still remembered that day when a doctor had told her she’d be unable to ever have children. How the news had not hit her like the thunderbolt she’d expected. Instead the realization of it had festered and grown within her, slowly. Like some kind of cancer.

It was this inability to have children that had caused her second marriage to break up. That
and
her husband’s affair, of course. For a short time she had blamed herself. If she had been able to give him the child he wanted so badly, then perhaps he wouldn’t have gone to another woman.

But any feelings of guilt she had harboured left swiftly.

She was left with the pain instead.

Caroline looked across towards the car closest to her and saw that the small child in the front seat had stopped crying. His mother was kissing him on the cheek and the child was laughing.

The realization that
she
would never know that joy struck her as hard as it had ever done.

She brushed a single tear from the corner of her eye, inspecting her reflection once again in the rear-view mirror. She didn’t want Becky to see that she’d been crying.

It was while she was retouching her mascara that she noticed another car parked about thirty yards behind her.

Or, more to the point, its driver.

It only took her a second to realize it was Adam Walker.

She had never seen the Scorpio he drove before. She had only ever seen
him
on that one occasion, but she knew instantly who it was.

He was leaning against the side of the Ford, gazing towards the school, hands dug deep into the pockets of his leather jacket.

He looked distracted, his eyes scanning the cars already stationed outside the school, and also those constantly pulling up and parking.

Caroline turned in her seat to get a better look at him.

After a moment or two he slid back behind the wheel, but didn’t drive off.

He merely sat.

Waiting.

Caroline glanced at her reflection once again, then swung herself out of the Saab.

T
HE TAPPING ON
the window startled him.

Adam Walker looked round as he heard the sound, at first unsure where it was coming from.

Then he saw Caroline Hacket standing beside his Scorpio, smiling in at him.

Walker wound down the window.

‘You were miles away,’ she said to him. ‘You didn’t even see me coming.’

‘How did you know I was here?’ he wanted to know.

‘I’m parked just along there.’ She indicated her own vehicle. ‘Are you waiting for somebody?’

He nodded slowly.

‘Get in,’ he said, reaching across and unlocking the passenger door. ‘I think it’s going to rain again.’

Caroline accepted his invitation.

‘How are you, Adam?’ she said as she scrambled in beside him.

‘I’m fine. I didn’t expect to see
you
here.’

‘You were waiting for Hailey, weren’t you?’

He looked surprised.

‘It’s OK.’ She grinned. ‘I’m very discreet.’

‘What’s Hailey said to you, then?’

‘Nothing. She doesn’t
have
to. We’ve been friends for long enough.’

He nodded slowly.

‘You’re out of luck today though,’ Caroline informed him. ‘She asked
me
to pick Becky up. Hailey’s still at work.’

‘What would you say if I told you it was
you
I was looking for?’

‘I’d say you were a liar.’

He reached into the glove compartment of his car and pulled out a battered paperback.

Caroline laughed as he showed her the cover.

‘Where did you get that?’ she wanted to know, inspecting the book.

She flipped it open and glanced at the author photo inside the back cover, shaking her head. Still smiling.

It showed her sitting on what looked like a bar stool, with legs crossed. She looked very efficient, in a black two-piece and court shoes. There was no smile though. That was her enigmatic face, she mused.

‘I got it from the local library. They ordered them both for me. I’ve already finished
Murderous Minds.
’

‘And?’

‘Very interesting.’

‘Just interesting? Not devastating, or ground-breaking, or incredibly powerful? Just interesting?’

‘I didn’t mean it to sound like an insult. It was very good. I enjoyed it. Why didn’t you say you were a writer the first time we met?’

‘It’s not the sort of thing you just drop into a conversation, is it? And besides, I’m hardly Catherine Cookson, am I?’

‘
I’m
impressed,’ he said, smiling.

She handed the book back to him.

‘Why the fascination with murderers?’ he enquired.

‘I’ve always been interested, ever since I was a kid. All the gory details – but not
just
that. It’s
why
people kill that fascinates me. What drives someone to take another life?’ She shrugged.

‘Hailey told me you were working on a new book at the moment. What’s it about?’

‘It’s like a dictionary of murderers.’

‘I’d like to read it when it’s published.’

‘I’ll let you have a copy. At least then I’ll know
someone’s
read it.’

‘How long have you been writing?’

‘Over ten years. I was a journalist on a local paper before that. That’s how I met my first husband. He owned the paper.’

‘I admire anyone who can write – or can do anything creative.’

‘
You
know what it’s like. You paint, don’t you?’

Walker nodded.

‘What else did she tell you?’

He looked perplexed.

‘About me?’ Caroline continued.

‘Just that writing was your hobby,’ Walker said. ‘She wasn’t talking behind your back, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘I
wasn’t
worried about that. I’m just curious about
you
and Hailey.’

‘There’s nothing going on between us.’

‘Adam, I saw the way you looked at each other. And I know Hailey. Her marriage has been on the rocks for the last six months. Rob’s been acting like a complete bastard. If you and her have got a thing going, then good luck to you. Both of you. I certainly wouldn’t blame Hailey, and
I’m
not going to drop you in it.’