Bang: Memoirs of a Relationship Assassin (12 page)

I scanned the photographs as if they were behind one-way glass. How could Becky’s sweet, elderly Mum and Dad possibly do something as underhand as hiring someone to seduce their own daughter? I’ll tell you how – because they’d do anything to stop her marrying a darkie. They were the previous generation. England for the English. I remembered how quickly her Mum and Dad took to me, how her father shook my hand firmly and said how he hoped he’d see me again. They’d much rather see Becky shack up with a good-looking white boy than a brown-skinned weird-named strange-smelling dog-eating foreigner like Sajjan. Obviously Becky would never listen to any protests of theirs, so they had to kill the marriage before it happened. Seven grand to put the mockers on any coffee-coloured grandchildren. Small price to pay.

As for brother Robert – maybe he was the over-protective type and saw Sajjan as competition in some way, taking his little sister away from him. Guys like that were capable of anything. Even hiring me.

You bastards, I thought.

I found myself scowling at the photographs. I couldn’t believe it. Becky’s own family. She had no idea what they were really like. I thought about my own Mum and Dad. You assume your own flesh and blood are on your side, but really… you don’t know what they think about you. You have no idea. Becky had absolutely no idea. She was being stitched up by her own family.

I almost felt… well, I almost felt sor –

“Guess what!” Becky blew into the room with a big smile, mobile in hand. “That was Sajjan. He has to stay in Birmingham until tomorrow.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Soooo…” She slid onto the bed behind me and started kneading my shoulders. “That means you can stay another night, if you like.”

“Um… yeah, sure.”

“Wow, you’re tense as hell, John. When was the last time you got a massage?”

With complete honesty, I said “I’ve never had one.”

“What! I don’t believe it! None of your girlfriends ever gave you a massage?”

But there’s not much room for a massage in the front seat of a Mercedes.

I could have sat there and let her work her fingers into my back all day – man, it felt great! – but my mind had started racing again. “Maybe a nice cup of tea with two sugars would relax me?”

Becky laughed. “All right, all right.” I got a quick kiss on the back of my neck, then she hopped up and returned to the kitchen, leaving me sitting on her bed. Tingling slightly.

So Sajjan had decided to stay the whole weekend in Birmingham, while Becky brought a courier home for a dirty weekend behind his back. How convenient, I thought, as the pieces of the puzzle suddenly snapped into place.

Click.

“Shit…”

I glared at his picture. Of
course
it’s you, I thought. It’s
always
you. It’s always the husband or the fiancé or the boyfriend. It’s always the bloke who wants to get rid of the girl. What’s your reason then, Sajjan? Bored of Becky after two years? Shagging some Brummie girl? Don’t want to be seen as the one who broke it off? Well, there’s always a solution. You set it up so that it’s all Becky’s fault. You make it look like she’s a cheating slag.

You hire me.

I stared at the photograph of my client, not quite sure what to think.

Then I glanced down at Becky’s phone, lying where she’d dropped it on the bedsheets. Snatched it up. Unlocked the keypad. Contacts. Search. Scroll up to Sajjan. Details. Options. Send business card. Type in my own number. OK.

From within the pile of clothes on the floor, my Nokia beeped twice. Gotcha.

I reached for my jeans. Becky would be back in a minute, bearing mugs of tea and probably some biscuits as well. I’d tell her that I had a few things to do for a mate, so I couldn’t stay long. There’d be a hurt look on her face. I’d add that I was still planning on returning later, so we could enjoy ourselves some more, and that would put the sunshine back into the room. I’d swig her tea and snog her hard and squeeze her bum and tell her I’d see her later. I’d lie to her face so I could get out the door and track down the man who was paying me to mess up her life.

And who had somehow managed to mess mine up too.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is that Mister Lakhani?”

“Speaking.”

“Mister Lakhani, my name’s Scott Rowley. I’ve just spent the afternoon giving it to your fiancée in four different positions. I was wondering if you’re the guy paying me to do it?”

I desperately wanted to say that. What actually came out was: “Mister Lakhani, my name’s Kenny Ferguson.” Touch of Scottish accent. Rolling my Rs. (Some people enjoy that.) “I’m a client liaison with Londonwide Associates. I just wanted to – ”

“Who?”

“Kenny Ferguson, sir, from Londonwide Associates. I understand that we’ve been – ”

“Who are Londonwide Associates?”

“You’ve recently been in contact with us, Mister Lakhani. You hired us to do a job for you?”

“No, I didn’t.” Sajjan’s voice was mellow, with a richness to it that made him sound older than he was. “I’ve never heard of Londonwide Associates, whoever they are. I think you must have the wrong number.”

“Um, I don’t think so. You did bring a case to us very recently…”

“A case? What sort of case?”

I hesitated. If I said that Londonwide Associates were a detective agency, that was going to ring a massive alarm bell. Sajjan would demand to know what was going on. Or worse – he would get the real number for Londonwide Associates and give them a call.

“Ah… it seems that we do have the wrong contact details after all, sir. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“How did you get my number?“ he asked.

“We won’t trouble you again.”

“No, just tell me how you – ”

“Goodbye.” WHAM! I rammed the handset down. The sex cards pinned up inside the telephone box came fluttering down around me. Raining tits and lips.

Then I kicked the door open and stormed out, beginning the long walk home. I’d had to trudge through the streets for a mile before finding a public phone box, which irritated me no end. It’s like trying to find an endangered species. No need for them, everyone’s got a mobile. For God’s sake, how are you supposed to make an untraceable phone call these days?

Bugger. Sajjan wasn’t my client after all. I’d been so sure!

Except…

No, he’d never heard of Londonwide Associates. That would have been the giveaway. I was going to ask if he’d received our update on the Hargreaves case. Then start probing him on who might have hired a second agent to watch the first. I didn’t need to actually tell him anything, his acceptance would have been proof enough.

But he didn’t accept it. So it wasn’t him. Somebody else was hiring me to set Becky up. Maybe it was her dear old mum and dad after all. Racist old farts. Imagine screwing up your own daughter’s love life just because you can’t bear the thought of non-white grandchildren. Jeez.

Except…

Or maybe weirdo brother Robert, the twisted little sister-botherer.

Except…

It nagged me all the way back to my flat. Something about my conversation with Sajjan didn’t quite feel right. He hadn’t said anything wrong, as such. It was more the way he said it. Towards the end there, his calm doctor’s voice had begun to waver.

“How did you get my number? No, just tell me how you – ”

Twitchy.

If you’re a professional people-watcher like me, you develop a sense for things like this. My call had put Sajjan on the back foot ever so slightly, caused his suspicions to be raised. I could hear it in his voice.

So maybe Sajjan wasn’t my client. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t up to something. All the way oop north in Brum, way outside of Becky’s radar for the entire weekend. Assuming he was in Birmingham. There had been some ambient noise in the background when I spoke to him – sounded like an enclosed space rather than outdoors, filled with the hum of conversation. He could be anywhere. He could be doing anything. With anyone. Becky didn’t have a clue what the bloke she was due to marry was up to that weekend.

I
had
to find out what it was. But how?

Frustrated, I stormed into my flat and headed straight for my pinball machine, like I usually did when I had something on my mind.

There was the usual start-up routine as I switched it on. A movie trailer voice growling
“SE-CRET A-GENT!”
followed by a volley of pistol shots and a dramatic musical fanfare. I pulled back the plunger and spat the first silver ball into the game. Gunfire sounds were mixed in with traditional chimes and bells as the ball rebounded from bumper to bumper. It was a gorgeously tacky bit of mid-Seventies design, covered with images of men in suits aiming pistols, silhouette-women cavorting in gunsmoke, cars and boats and helicopters, with a villain in a white suit looking suspiciously like Scaramanga from my favourite movie, The Man With The Golden Gun. And filling the backglass, where the scores and signs flashed, was an enormous target sight underneath the words ‘Secret Agent’.

Can’t think what made me want to own this one.

I stabbed at the flipper buttons, thumping the side with my palm when the ball got past me. Wrenched the plunger back, sent another ball into play. My eyes followed the rebounding ball but my mind’s eye saw only Sajjan. Why was he nervous? What was he up to? Damn, missed that rollover target, come on come on… Where was he today, how could I track him down when I didn’t even – no no no, second ball down already! Fired the third, too hard, missed the bonus ramp,
shit!

I kneed the machine in the coin slots and suddenly a loud siren cut through my flat. The pinball machine went dark, except for a single word lit up in the top left and right corners: TILT. My stomach dropped, even as the ball clunked and rolled down between the dead flippers by itself. If you’ve ever played pinball, you’ll know how horrible it feels when you TILT: complete loss of control. Game over. Your fault.

As Secret Agent went dead, it played a recording of a doddery old voice. Cheekily, not to mention copyright-breakingly, it was a line lifted straight from a Bond movie:

“Do try to bring it back in one piece, double-oh seven.”

Flicker of lights, voice, gunshots, fanfare, player one, new ball. I pulled back the plunger and just held it there, suddenly realising who might be able to solve my problem. Abandoned the game, snatched up my mobile, dialled a number that very few people have access to.

It answered on one ring. “Tech.”

“Hello,” I said. “This is Scott Rowley. I work with Barry O’Nion?”

“What can I do for you?” said Q.

I’m going to have to shatter your illusions at this point (not to mention my own) and point out that Q’s voice didn’t sound the way you might imagine. Q wasn’t a starchy old English bloke, and he wasn’t likely to say
“Now pay attention, Scott!”
or
“Do try and bring it back in one piece, Scott.”
Q was actually a young-ish Oriental guy, maybe late twenties, very calm and controlled. And obviously with a real name of his own rather than a letter, but who cared what that was?

I might have mentioned Q earlier. He was one of the chief technical support people with Global Investigations UK Ltd. When they set us up with a case, they would sometimes provide help in nailing it. It was through Global Investigations’ techies that Barry got me whatever I needed to pull off a mission. False IDs. Credit card accounts. Transportation. Business credentials. Rolex watches with laser beams in them. Not that last one. It was all part of the deal between Barry and Larry, and if I’m honest, I absolutely bloody loved it. Just couldn’t get enough of the fact that I had one of the country’s biggest private investigators supporting me when I went undercover. Fantastic! I know, I’m just a big kid really.

But the minute I asked Q to do me a favour (shh don’t tell anyone just between us) was the minute he reported to his superiors: Barry O’Nion’s little shag-puppy is performing an unauthorised investigation. Q always played by the book.

So instead I said “I just wanted to ask if the technical people at Londonwide Associates have been in touch with you recently?”

“No.”

“Right.” I paused. “Okay, well that’s good news, I suppose. I just thought they might have called for your help.”

Dangle dangle. Look at the lovely worm. Dangle dangle dangle…

“Why would Londonwide Associates call me?” Bite.

“Well, Barry and I have been working with them on one of their cases, and they’re having a hell of a time with it. It’s got them stumped. Barry was furious that they might not be able to solve it themselves, he thought they might, you know, try and call you guys in on the sly to help them crack it. But obviously they haven’t.”

“I see,” said Q.

I tutted. “Still doesn’t help us out, but at least they’re trying. I suppose it is a tricky one…”

Dangle dangle dangle.

“So what’s the problem, exactly?” Bite. Chomp.

I span Q a nice little yarn about a missing person’s case that didn’t exist. Not too much detail, and anyway he didn’t really care about the reasons. He just needed to hear the problem. “So we need to track down this guy urgently, but we haven’t got much information on him. Just his mobile phone number. Londonwide Associates are telling us that it’ll take them two to three days just to get an idea of his whereabouts.”

“Two to three days?” Mild surprise. “I can do it in two to three hours.”

“Really? Are you serious? They told me to call them on Monday…”

“What’s the number?” asked Q, and I gave him Sajjan Lakhani’s mobile phone number.

Reel reel reel.

Don’t get the wrong idea about Q. He wasn’t stupid. Nor did he have anything to prove. No, the thing to remember about Q was that, like most techie nerdy no-life geekboys who spend their sad little lives in front of computers (God love ‘em), he couldn’t stop being helpful. They’re wired that way, all of them. Got a problem? Sure, I’m super-busy but let me give it a shot. Even then, it had to be something that only Q could help out on. A problem that was challenging but not so challenging that he didn’t already have an idea how to crack it. It was a bit like casually letting Tiger Woods know that nobody ever beat you at crazy golf.