Authors: Simon Brooke
But she ignores me and
carries on up. There is another creak from the first floor. We get half way and
she turns round for a moment but it's obviously just to check that I'm still here
behind her. Finally we are on the landing. The street lights throw a gentle yellowy
light into the front bedroom. It is also empty apart from the obligatory cardboard
boxes. The torch is shaking in Nora's hand, I notice.
Although there is no actual
noise, somehow we both sense it at the same time: there is someone in the room next
to us. The door is closed; there is total blackness at this end of the hallway.
Again Nora turns to look at me, her face a mixture of fear and curiosity in the
harsh torch light.
This is the moment. I'm
a big bloke; I've got the element of surprise. Don't think about, just do it. I
turn the handle and throw the door open as fast and as hard as I can.
Initially it moves smoothly
and easily but a split second later it comes into contact with someone or something.
From behind me I hear Nora scream and she drops the torch, a flash of light revealing
a shadowy figure in the room. Already reeling from the impact of the door, it has
no chance of seeing off a badly aimed but forceful blow from my right fist. It feels
like I've hit someone's head or cheek bone.
"Awwwfff!" There
is crack as a head hits the crumbling plaster of the wall. I stagger back for a
moment but realise that it isn't my head so I take a deep breath and look round
for Nora. She is nowhere to be seen in the inky blackness of the hallway.
"Nora?" I'm
still whispering.
"Yes?" she gasps.
My heart and my lungs
are both hammering away so hard that I can hardly get the words out.
"I think I hit someone."
"Sounded like it."
We both stand in silence.
I'm almost bracing myself for my assailant to come back at me but there is nothing
except the sound of the traffic outside and distant thump of a reggae beat from
across the road somewhere. The pain from my hand begins to kick in - a dull, throbbing
ache. I hope I haven't broken something.
"Where's the torch?"
I whisper.
"I don't know, I
think it's broken."
"Oh fuck, it better
not be," I say stepping back very slowly and bumping into her. We both crouch
down and begin to feel around on the damp, rough floorboards for it.
"Got it," she
says. A second later the light begins to flash around crazily as she shakes it back
into life.
"Give it here,"
I hiss. I take it and shine it into the bedroom.
There is a figure on the
floor, lying motionless. I think I'm going to be sick for a moment then I'm conscious
of Nora looking round from behind me.
"Who is it? Is he
all right?" I can hear her words and I want to go and find out but somehow
my body won't move. After what seems like hours but can only be a few moments, she
pushes past me and walks gingerly into the room, looking behind the door. I've at
least managed to shine the torch in there. She looks around for a moment and then
crouches down by the body.
"Oh, my God! It’s
Piers," she says in a strange, husky voice. I see her touch his face and then
reach down towards his wrist. She holds it for a moment and looks back at me.
"Well?" I hear
myself whisper.
"He's dead."
"What made you think I was dead?" asks Piers, brightly.
"You had no pulse,"
snaps Nora as if he's not playing fair by still being alive.
"Well, obviously
he had a bloody pulse," I tell her.
"Oh, very clever,
Dr George Clooney. Next time you knock someone out cold you can check they're still
alive."
"I will, don't worry."
"Actually,"
says Piers. "You might be right. I play a lot of squash and I'm pretty fit
so I've probably got a very slow pulse, that's all."
"Oh, shut up,"
Nora and I chorus. We look at each other in surprise and then look away crossly.
Why the hell didn't I call the police right away? I decide I'll do it as soon as
we leave, whatever Nora says. How did I get talked into this, anyway? I'm still
feeling a bit sick and faint after the shock of thinking I'd killed someone.
"Gosh, my head hurts
though," says Piers, rubbing the side of his forehead which is already beginning
to swell.
"Good," I say.
My hand is killing me. I can hardly straighten out my index finger. Bang goes any
more hand modelling work.
"Charlie," says
Nora. "I think you should apologise to Piers."
"What? Me apologise?
After what he's put me through."
"Oh, yeah, sorry
about that, mate," says Piers.
So far we've ascertained
that after deciding to go AWOL Piers stayed in a cheap hotel in Earl's Court for
a few days before realising that with his picture over so many newspapers he wasn't
safe. "I wore a false beard but it kept falling off," he told us, sadly.
"How annoying,"
I say.
"It was pretty embarrassing,
especially when you're having a curry. Obviously I couldn't even take it back to
the shop after that, either."
The fact that all the
stress, humiliation and misery I've suffered over the last few weeks has been caused
by this idiot makes me feel a whole lot worse. I can't even boast that I've been
exploited and tricked by a proper villain.
According to Piers he
bumped into Anastasia in a late night supermarket in Earl's Court Road and being
a very shrewd sort she recognised him through his fiendish disguise. They started
talking drugs, of course, and so she came up with the idea of staying at one of
the squats used by his drug contacts. A bloke called Twange or something found him
this place.
"It was pretty grim
at first but I've made it quite cosy, haven't I?" he says, pointing to the
tent he's erected in one corner of the room. Inside is a sleeping bag and there
is a tiny gas stove set up in the middle of the room. I might have known he'd been
a Boy Scout. "Loo facilities are bit basic. It's round to the right if you
want to go."
Nora and I, sipping whiskey
out of brightly coloured plastic camping cups, decline. With the whiskey warming
me, I feel ready to ask Piers some more questions. I just can't think where to begin
but, of course, Nora starts first.
"So, Piers, can I
just check, have you actually done anything that's against the law?"
"Erm, not really,"
he says, thoughtfully, feeling the side of his head again. "It's not our fault
that 2cool didn't actually make any money, well not enough money, anyway. We told
all the investors exactly what it was and how it worked, they saw the prospectus,
it was all legal and above board."
"But they're not
stupid. There are some very shrewd, experienced business people who've put money
into it," I point out.
"They knew what they
were laying themselves open to. The point is that it was young and hip and fun and
glamorous, of course, and so everybody wanted a piece of it. Popstars, movie stars,
designers - they all thought it was going to be like the best sex they'd ever had
- which it was, of course. And as for those older ones, it was their children or
mistresses or whatever who persuaded them." He looks thoughtful again. "It
all made sense - we were just a bit vague about revenue streams that's all."
"You mean how it
would actually make any money?"
"Yeah, I mean it
did make some money, you know through selling those luxury products and things,
but just not enough. The punters were always using the site, reading the articles,
doing the competitions, looking at the porn but the buggers just weren't buying
anything or giving us any of their cash. We did sell some advertising space on it
but even then it wasn't enough."
"But didn't the accountants
say something about all this money we were spending, you know, with the launch party
and everything?" I ask.
"Oh, all the time,
you know what they're like. Penny pinchers!"
"So you've done nothing
wrong?" repeats Nora.
"Oh, no," says
Piers. "More whiskey?" We both accept another splash.
"So, if you did nothing
wrong, why are the Fraud Squad all over us?" I ask him, taking another sip.
"I don't know. One
of the investors must have said something to them I suppose. Or perhaps the accountants
became suspicious because they'd never seen anyone spend money so quickly and go
into the red so fast. Also, let's face it, for the police, it was a high profile
case - can you imagine if they had managed to make a make an arrest?" He whistles
and pours himself some more whiskey. "It would have given them huge a PR coup."
That arrest could have been me, I realise.
"So they won't find
anything dodgy in the accounts or anything?" I ask.
"Well," says
Piers, frowning thoughtfully. "The accounts are a bit of a mess, as you know."
"I sort of did notice."
"But there is nothing
actually illegal."
"So when Josh Langdon
says he's thinking of taking us, I mean, 2cool," I say choosing my words carefully,
"to court to get his money back, because it was obtained under false pretences
or something, he's talking rubbish?"
Piers smiles enigmatically.
"Oh, I don't think Josh'll be taking us to court somehow. I don't think any
of our main investors will be rushing to cause trouble. Don't worry about that mate.
Anyway, caveat emptor, I say."
"What?"
"Let the buyer beware,"
says Nora, "it's Latin."
"So why did you disappear
and leave me to handle it all?"
"Oh, yeah, sorry
about that, mate. Look it was all getting a bit too hot to handle and then Guy disappeared
-"
"Where is he?"
asks Nora before I can get the question out.
"I don't know,"
says Piers, looking just for once, as if he has realised how serious the situation
is. "That's the thing. He just vanished that night. I haven't heard from him
since."
"We thought you'd
both gone together," I say.
"Oh, no."
"That morning, you
came into the office looking like shit and said you'd had a bit of a night of it.
That was when -"
"I had had a bit
of night of it, a hell of a night of it in fact; I'd been looking for him everywhere:
at his flat, ringing his phone, asking around his friends. All night and nothing,
I didn't hear a word from him."
"Why didn't you tell
us?" I ask.
Piers shrugs his shoulders.
"I didn't want to
worry you."
"So you have no idea
where he is now?" asks Nora before I can question Piers' logic.
"No. Mind you, bit
of a funny character, our Guy. Never could quite suss him out," he says, conspiratorially.
This just gets worse and worse.
"So, are you going
to come back then, to the office, I mean?" I ask.
"We-e-e-ll, bit difficult.
I think I'll think about it if you don't mind."
"For God's sake Piers,
you can't just leave me to handle it on my own. The police are on my back every
day. Not to mention the press." Nora seems to ignore the dig.
"Old Bill being a
bit of nuisance are they?"
"More than that,
they've taken away the computers, half the paperwork - all those bills," I
say, suddenly remembering the drawers and boxes full of paper that had given me
such a heart attack. "I've never seen so many bit of paper."
"Oh, yeah. Did you
manage to sort that lot out? I always was a bit crap at filing. Kept meaning to
ask Scarlett to do it."
"They've been to
my flat, and yours and Guy's," I tell him.
"Oh, dear. What will
the neighbours say?" He laughs. "Anyway, like I told you, we haven't actually
done anything wrong, it's just that we spent rather a lot of money rather quickly,
that's all. 2cool could still come back with a vengeance, like a phoenix rising
from the -."
"Don't be stupid,"
I tell him.
"Oh, OK." He
takes another sip of whiskey.
"I could just ring
the police now, of course," I say slowly.
"Oh, no," says
Nora. "That's not fair."
"Fair? What's fair?
I've been hounded, humiliated, beaten up -"
"Beaten up?"
says Nora, looking at me, concerned.
"Well, some bloke
tried to."
"Ooh, nasty,"
says Piers. "But you gave as good you got, yeah?" He mimes a kind of left
hook.