Read Delete-Man: A Psychological Thriller Online

Authors: Johnny Vineaux

Tags: #crime, #mystery, #london, #psychological thriller, #hardboiled

Delete-Man: A Psychological Thriller (12 page)

“I’m not assuring you of
anything.”

“I’m sorry?”

“If I wake up on Sunday and I
feel like coming, then I’m gonna come. And how fucking arrogant of
you to tell me I wasn’t close to Josie. You’re an idiot.”

“Oh dear. Somehow I predicted
you would make this unnecessarily difficult.”

He closed his eyes and rubbed
his brow theatrically, sighing and shaking his head as if I were an
unruly child and he the headmaster.

“Let me speak frankly with you,
Joseph. Man to man.”

“Sure. I’m all ears, Seb.”

“Ha! Indeed. Seriously though, I
want to confide something, that I think will help you
understand.”

“Please, help me
understand.”

“You see, Joseph, I know my
status impresses you, deep down. But I was not always as respected
as I am now. I run an incredibly lucrative business that has been
an emblem of our family for generations. I take an active part in
local politics, and along with other youthful, driven members of
our institution we’re hoping to make a positive difference to this
country. I’m also married to a woman of equally pure and respected
lineage. I am proud to say now, that I’m an extremely integral and
important member of our family, which has an incredible amount of
heritage and influence. Ours is a family which prides itself on
producing and associating with the very cream of the crop in every
aspect of society.”

“I’m very happy for you. Do you
want me to clap?”

“Please Joseph. I’m trying to
explain something.”

“Go on.”

“Well, even though I can say
with pride that I’ve earned my position. I, too, experienced some
lapses in judgment. You see—and it’s actually rather funny now,
looking back—when I was about twenty, I was a fairly naïve and
rebellious young man. For a brief period—and I’m sure you’ll find
some amusement in this—I developed a certain… fascination with
black girls.”

He opened his hands and looked
at me, waiting for my reaction.

“So?”

“Well, I developed a fascination
with one black girl in particular, and this lasted for far too
long, almost a year. But you see, Joseph, it was an irrational and
temporal thing. When you live, as I did, and indeed still do,
amongst people of the highest calibre and values, the alternative
is sometimes alluring; simply because it is the alternative.”

I took a sip of juice. I felt a
little tired. Listening to him talk was like a late-night news
hour.

“Do you understand how this is
pertinent to the present situation? How it reflects the situation
now?”

“Sure.”

“Josephine was just like me.
We’re cut from the same cloth. I’m sure you learnt a lot from her,
and that she had a fun time with you. Ultimately, however, she was
a member of our family, and her future as an enterprising,
important person was inevitable. I sincerely hope you understand
that your relationship was simply a product of her coming to terms
with that. Four years is a long time, longer than my own
misjudgements, but then again, Josephine was always a lot more
esoteric than I. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t deny that at the time
she was intrigued by you, but it would be remiss of me to let you
misconstrue that.”

He took a brief sip of juice and
sat back unanimously; pleased with his own eloquence and high from
the sound of his own voice. I suppressed the urge to pick up the
weight by my side and pummel him with it, to smash my glass on the
table and stab him with it. I thought about opening the balcony
door, then dragging him over the side.

“One thing though, Seb.
Josephine was never going back to your family. She hated all of you
as much as I do. Unlike the black girl you dated, I didn’t dump
Josie, and I wasn’t going to either.”

The smugness in his face seeped
away as he processed what I had said.

“What made you assume that she
dumped me?”

“It’s pretty obvious. You fell
for a black girl, your family disowned you, and when she ended it
you pretended you didn’t like black girls anymore to get back in
with the family. That’s probably why you’re so fanatical about ‘the
family’ now.”

“Ha! You’re cunning, Joe. But
completely wrong.”

“No, I’m pretty sure. I wouldn’t
be surprised if you still think about black girls when you try to
have sex with your wife. Josie told me what a pain your family are,
and I saw it for myself, remember?”

“I suppose you’re just not smart
enough to understand anything I’ve just said.”

“I’m smart enough to see it for
the big stream of crap that it is. The only reason you’re so tight
knit with your family and have such an elite lifestyle is that you
realised you couldn’t function anywhere else for more than ten
minutes. You’d get eaten alive in the real world, so would the rest
of your family. You tried it and failed already. You know it,
Josephine knows it, and I know it. The big difference is Josie was
capable of breaking away.”

“Ha! Come now, Joe. That’s
fairly ridiculous, don’t you think? That Josephine would choose a
dysfunctional, baggage-ridden life with you, than all the freedom
and opportunity she would gain from us? Yes, I’m sure she found it
beguiling and challenging, and she no doubt impressed you and was
successful in her endeavours—it’s in her genes. But it was no more
than a holiday. Time spent in a quaint situation with a quaint
person in order to enrich oneself.”

“Is it cheating if you think
about someone else in bed? I’ll ask your wife at the funeral
perhaps.”

Sebastien rubbed his brow again.
Less theatrically and more flustered this time.

“I suppose it is cheating though
if you still love someone else. Watch out you don’t scream the
wrong name.”

He glared at me from under his
hand. I was flustered myself, but far better at hiding it.

“Shall I tell you what the grand
irony of this is, Joseph?”

“Go on, Shaft.”

“I’m the one who is the most
lenient to you, in my family. You’re in a very very dangerous
position, Joseph. There are powerful and influential people who
believe that Josephine’s death wasn’t suicide.”

“I happen to be one of those
powerful and influential people.”

“With your brutal,
dysfunctional, common, belligerent and working class character, you
are so obviously the criminal type. The kind of person who can’t
help but destroy things of beauty. An irrational, unreasonable
thug. You, dear boy, are the problem with this country.”

“Are you flirting with me?”

“And the only reason I maintain
that you are incapable of her murder, is that you’re also far too
stupid and incapable of making it look like suicide. You would be
the kind of murderer who leaves fingerprints and blood everywhere.
Who would murder someone over a stupid argument and not think it
through. I doubt there is any structure at all in that Neanderthal
mind of yours.”

I smiled at him. He was red in
the face and pointing.

“Will there be snacks at the
funeral? Sausages on sticks? Or is that too low-brow?”

“I can see, though, that you did
kill her. In a sense, the worst kind of murder. She might have done
it herself, but living with such an ugly, mutated monster like you
would drive even the most amiable of people to that. We know more
about you than you think. Watch your back, Joseph. Watch your
back.”

“Are you finished?”

“Evidently not.”

“Don’t start throwing
accusations around. I’m making a list, and your family right now is
top of it. You’re the one who has something to prove, not me.”

“Ha! That’s preposterous!”

“Is it? I saw for myself how
much your family couldn’t handle the idea she was seeing a ‘mutated
monster’ who has a baby daughter—apparently. Maybe the society
gossip got a bit too much for you.”

“Indeed, indeed. But you’re the
one our hatred is directed towards. Not Josephine.”

“But she was the one arrested
for protesting. Anti-fur, anti-hunting, pro workers’ rights, and
wasn’t she in a lesbian relationship before me? Can’t imagine that
went down well with your uptight, inbred circle.”

“Very smart, Joe. I refer you
back to my own story of childish divergence.”

“No, it’s a bit more than that
though. Your family isn’t exactly the most spotless, is it?”

“Be careful, Joseph.”

“How many allegations have been
made against you? Corruption, bribery, sleaze, exploitation,
nepotism, links to all kinds of bad people. Josie told me quite a
lot, too. You should remember that. Maybe you were all getting a
little worried that she knew a little too much. She could have torn
your family to shreds.”

“Ridiculous.”

“She was going to. Maybe she’d
already started.”

“Enough.”

“Must be very scary for you when
someone can’t be bought.”

Sebastien stuttered a bit and
gave up with a sigh. Whether I had touched a sore spot, or he had
simply had run out of steam, I couldn’t tell. I had surprised
myself with the logic of my accusation, it was something I hadn’t
considered previously, but seemed utterly plausible.

“Joseph, I came here to discuss
a simple matter with you in a mature and honest manner. It would
have been nice to resolve this as adults, but I obviously
over-estimated you. I would advise you to be very cautious with
your words. I can see them for the angry and uninformed accusations
of someone who doesn’t understand what they are talking about.
Others might not be so lenient.”

“Whatever you say, Seb. If your
family did have anything to do with Josie’s death, though; I will
fucking tear you all to pieces.”

He looked at me, and I caught a
glimmer of fear in his eyes.

“Ha! You’re a funny little man.
Well, this has taken far longer than I had hoped, and I do have
other engagements to attend to. It’s a shame we’ve reached this
point, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Allow me to be frank; you
have obvious needs, and I have obvious resources. How about in
exchange for a simple promise—and I would need a signed
agreement—that you will refrain from crashing the funeral, I give
you a healthy sum? Think about it, I’m sure it would make this
Christmas a happy one for your little sister.”

“You want to pay me off?”

“Considering all I’m asking for
is that you do not attend a funeral, that would not be pleasant for
you anyway, I think it’s a good proposition.”

“How much?”

“Well, how does two thousand
pounds sound?”

“How about one hundred
thousand.”

“Ha! Very funny. Ok, well four
thousand is as high as I will go. Take it or leave it.”

“One hundred thousand, and I
stay away from the funeral. Also, I don’t write a letter to the
papers with everything I know about your family.”

His eyes glimmered again.

“I doubt you know very much at
all.”

“I know where there’s a lot of
smoke. A lot of loose ends conveniently misplaced. Is it your uncle
who thinks he has a shot at prime minister? I wouldn’t vote for
him, what with all I know.”

He sat back, rubbing his brow
again. The redness was fading from his face, replaced by a pale,
sickly tone.

“You do realise that what you
think you know is all absolute insinuation and non-founded?”

“I’m sure it isn’t, but even so,
I know that it would cause a lot of trouble for your family. How
many times have you had to settle out of court now?”

“Trouble, yes. But that’s all it
is for us.”

“I love trouble though, that’s
the thing.”

“I’m sure you do. You will sign
an agreement? An affidavit? Confirming that you will not say
anything, and that you will not attend?”

“Sure. Let me see you write the
check.”

He tetchily pulled out his check
book and a shiny, metallic pen.

“Your name?”

“Joseph… Williamson… That’s it.
One… zero… zero… another zero… another zero… another zero… one more
zero… Now write it there. Good. And now sign it. Good.”

“Ok?”

“Ok. Now take that check, stick
it up your arse, and get the fuck out of my house.”

Once he had left, I went to the
balcony and looked out over the front of the building. The
apartment was way up on the eighth floor, so when Sebastien came
out of the entrance hurriedly I couldn’t see much more than his
coiffured hair. Still, I could make out a nod and a raised hand in
the direction of a blue saloon on the other side of the street,
just before he himself entered a black roadster parked a little
ahead. As soon as I saw that I darted inside. I heard the rev of
the powerful engine as he drove away.

I waited for twenty minutes,
then went back out onto the balcony and pretended to hang up some
washing. The blue saloon was still there. I hung up a large
bedsheet that covered almost the entire balcony. I went back inside
and searched through Vicky’s things for her binoculars, then
returned to the balcony, this time crawling behind the sheet. The
balcony was surrounded by railing, and I contorted myself into an
angle where I could just peek out over the edge and under the
blanket without revealing too much of myself. From the ground I
would have been impossible to make out—unless they had binoculars
too.

Vicky’s toy binoculars were
dirty and it was difficult to focus properly with them. Eventually
I managed to get the driver’s seat in view. I saw a thick-set man
who looked to be in his thirties. He had his arms crossed across
his chest, and was talking into a Bluetooth headset. His face
looked mean, pockmarked, and worn-out. He had a military-style buzz
cut and wore a dark, functional jacket. The car was littered with
wrappers and plastic cups. He glanced up a few times, and I decided
not to risk staying out there any longer.

In a drawer I found the phone
and the notebook I had taken from the guy in the green jacket. I
tried turning on the phone again, but the battery was dead. It was
nearly one o’clock. I stuffed them into my pocket and left.

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