The Mystery of Mercy Close (50 page)

‘Really?’

‘What do you actually need the knife for?’ the counterman asked.

‘Ah … cutting things.’

‘I see.’ A little deflated, he indicated the most basic model. ‘This’ll certainly cut things for you.’

‘I’ll take it.’

‘Do you want the spare blades?’

‘Yes.’ Hopefully one would be enough to do the job, but no point in ruining the whole thing, just because of sloppy planning.

‘That’ll be a fiver,’ he said.

I was shocked that it was so cheap.

The man carefully cocooned the knife in bubble wrap. ‘We don’t want you taking the hand off yourself!’

‘No, indeed!’ I handed over my fiver and went back to my car.

I sat there for a long time, thinking. One thing I knew for sure was that I couldn’t do it in Mum and Dad’s house. The associations for them would be terrible. They’d never be able to go into the bathroom again. I’d have to do it in a hotel and actually I already had one in mind. It was a grey, brutal slab
of a building in Ballsbridge, the most inhospitable-looking place you could imagine. It was so grim, it was hard to believe it was a hotel; it looked more like a prison. Bronagh and I had always described it as ‘the kind of place you’d go to, to kill yourself’.

But what about the person who cleaned the hotel rooms? It would be a girl; it nearly always was. Doubtless she was on the minimum wage and she was probably from a foreign country, far away from her friends and family. I decided she was from Poland. Maybe called Magda.

Being a chambermaid was a shitty job at the best of times – being treated like an in-room facility by all those businessmen who ‘accidentally’ let their towel slip, revealing their parsnip-like nethers – and I wanted to protect Magda from a lifetime of trauma triggered by the sight of my dead body in a bath. It wasn’t right for the relief of my demise to be a chance for the universe to simply pass on my horror to another person, as if we were living some sort of hellish relay race.

I tried to think of ways around it. Obviously I’d lock the bathroom door on the inside but she might still manage to get in. The best thing would be to write signs and Sellotape them to the outside of the bathroom door, telling her to come no further. ‘STOP,’ I’d write, in big black letters. Then I wondered what the Polish for ‘stop’ was. I’d try to Google it. I’d write:

STOP!

PLEASE DON’T COME IN.

I HAVE KILLED MYSELF.

YOU WILL BE TRAUMATIZED.

Perhaps I’d try to do the signs in both English and Polish. And I’d leave money for the cost of the extra cleaning of the bathroom.

I looked out of my car window and, almost like a sign from above, there was a stationery shop two doors down from the hardware store.

In I went and I bought Sellotape, a thick black marker pen and a lump of A4 paper – the smallest quantity the shop had was a thousand sheets. Back in the car I put the knife into the carrier bag with the rest of the stuff and sat it on my lap. It had a comforting weight and it put me in mind of the bag an expectant mother has packed before she goes into hospital to have her baby.

All I needed now was the anaesthetic cream from my parents’ house and then I’d have a complete kit.

In a strange, self-punishing exercise I went to the MusicDrome, where the usual mayhem was in progress. Dozens of people were moving about with purpose, and on the stage John Joseph, Roger, Frankie and Jay were being put through their paces by the choreographer, who was shouting out dance moves in a staccato fashion: ‘… two, three and
twirl
. And
back
. And
step
. And
step
. And
twirl
. And
stop
. And shimmy. Try to smile, John Joseph, come on, try to smile.’

It was looking pretty good. They were tight and light, fast and fun, and working really hard.

Fiddling while Rome burned.

When I stepped into their eye line, all four instantly stopped dancing and looked up like a herd of startled deer, pitifully, pathetically hopeful. I shook my head. ‘No news.’

I half expected another snarly lunge from John Joseph but he simply nodded. He seemed to have gone into a state of acceptance, which often happened to people staring disaster in the face. Maybe he was getting some consolation from his Catholic faith. Then I almost laughed at my naivety. Clearly it was Roger St Leger’s very strong Xanaxs that were keeping him from frothing at the mouth and clawing my face off.

Jay broke away from the group. Someone threw him a towel and he wiped the sweat from his face. He came over to me. His white shirt was sticking to his narrow torso. ‘Helen, give us your opinion. You saw them in the swan costumes on Saturday. Should we keep them or get rid of them?’

‘Lose them,’ I said. ‘Keep it simple.’

‘Helen says lose the swan costumes,’ he called out to the boys.

‘So we go with the swan costumes,’ John Joseph said, giving me a triumphant smile. Clearly the Xanax hadn’t improved his mood, the nasty article.

Quietly Jay said to me, ‘We’re getting rid of them, they’re a disaster.’ He rummaged around in his trouser pocket and produced a wad of money, which he handed to me. A lock of black hair, gleaming with sweat, fell over his forehead. ‘So,’ he asked, ‘nothing from the phone records people?’

‘Not yet. Sometime later today. Has Wolcott come up with anything?’

Looking sick, Jay shook his head.

‘So what happens if the phone records don’t help?’ I asked. ‘How late will you go with this thing? When will you stop rehearsals?’

‘Do you really think you won’t find him?’

I let myself say it. ‘I really think I won’t find him. I’ll keep looking, but …’

‘And you really think he won’t turn up? That he’ll leave us in the lurch?’

‘Maybe he doesn’t have any choice?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I don’t really know.’ And I didn’t want to think about it. ‘So what will you do?’

He went silent. After a while he said, ‘We’ll give it until ten o’clock tomorrow morning. If he’s not here by then I’ll issue a press release cancelling the gig. Everyone will be refunded. The promoters will be fucking furious. Writs will be issued. It’ll get really messy legally. Financially.’

‘For who?’

He jerked his head over his shoulder. ‘For those three. And, ironically enough, Wayne. And me.’

‘They couldn’t just do the gig as a three-piece?’

‘No. Obviously we’ve talked about it, but –’

‘There would be riots from the fans.’

‘Not just that, but all four of the Laddz signed the contract.
They’re legally obliged to do the show as a foursome. It’s all or nothing.’

‘Pity,’ I said. ‘Because otherwise you could fill in. You’re a really good dancer.’

‘Oh … am I?’

‘You know you are. You’re a good dancer, I always said that. Despite all the other things you are.’

A flicker of something terrible crossed his face. ‘Helen? Can I talk to you alone?’

No
, I thought. ‘Okay,’ I said.

He went backstage and I trailed after him down the long breeze-block corridor. He opened a door and I followed him into a very small dressing room. He shut the door firmly behind us.

‘We need to talk,’ he said.

‘Oh … okay.’

‘I know I’ve said it before, I know I told you a million times, but I want to tell you again how sorry I am,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for the trouble I caused you. I’m sorry about Bronagh.’

I swallowed hard. ‘Bronagh was my best friend,’ I said. ‘You shouldn’t have.’

‘It’s something I will regret to my dying day,’ he said. ‘But I’m begging you to understand that
they
suggested it; they came to me and pushed for it.’

‘You cheated them …’

‘I didn’t cheat them.’

Okay, he didn’t cheat them.

But he’d ruined them.

And he’d ruined us.

‘I said no to them,’ he said. ‘But they really wanted it. Especially Blake.’

Maybe that was true, I acknowledged. Blake was a bit money-mad; he got euro signs in his eyes at the drop of a hat. Fancied himself as a bit of an entrepreneur. Indeed that
was one of the reasons he and Jay had got on so well. One of the many ways we’d bonded as such a tight foursome.

‘We were having such fun,’ I said. ‘The four of us.’

And we had. We’d got on great, Bronagh and Blake and Jay and me. We’d spent so much time together, racing around town, having a blast. Until, without anyone consulting me, Bronagh and Blake invested in one of Jay’s business schemes. It was something that had seemed recession-proof; in fact it was a business that was actually
generated
by the recession (it was called Debt Bundling) – although the intricacies were something I never really grasped.

It was backed by a bank at a time when banks weren’t backing anything. But the entirely unexpected happened: the rock-solid Danish parent bank went to the wall and, in a house-of-cards collapse, so did Jay’s fledging company, and Bronagh and Blake lost all of their money. They’d borrowed to invest (it was called Leverage), so as well as having lost their savings they owed thousands and thousands and thousands. So many thousands that I’d begged them not to tell me the final figure. It was a nightmare for them and they blamed me because I had introduced them to Jay.

They never forgave me. And I was utterly
mortified
that Jay had financially destroyed my friends, so
I
never forgave
him
.

The four of us fell apart. Bronagh and Blake wouldn’t talk to me and I wouldn’t talk to Jay. That had been a year ago.

‘But I did nothing dishonest, as you keep implying,’ Jay said. ‘I’m not a con man. It was a sound business idea. It was backed by a reputable bank that no one anticipated collapsing.’

I closed my eyes. Then I sighed and I finally let go of that bitter little nugget, the conviction that Jay Parker was a crook. He’d simply been unlucky.

And Bronagh and Blake weren’t eejits; they’d gone into things with Jay Parker with their eyes open.

Another thing I might as well admit, seeing as I was
grasping nettles, was that perhaps Bronagh and I hadn’t been the great friends I’d thought we were. We had been once; before she got married we’d been rock solid. But when, six months later, I’d become depressed the first time round, she hadn’t exactly been a shoulder to cry on. She’d come to visit me in hospital only once. I’d excused her by telling myself that she hadn’t been married very long, that she was still in the honeymoon stage.

But maybe that was when the real damage had been done to our friendship: I’d scared her so much when I was unwell and I never fully returned to the person I’d been.

‘Please forgive me,’ Jay said.

A strange peace came over me; it was a relief to let go. ‘I forgive you,’ I said. ‘I really do.’

Hope sparked in his eyes. ‘Maybe we could …’

‘No,’ I said gently. ‘Put that from your mind. There’s no going back.’

‘Your new boyfriend? It’s serious?’

‘Ummm,’ I said. No point getting into details. The peace I’d felt abruptly vanished, but soon none of it would matter.

There was a text from Artie asking me to call but I didn’t. Talking to him would mean addressing the fact that while I’d been spending nights on Wayne Diffney’s living-room floor, Artie’s ex-wife had been sleeping in his house. Maybe in his bed. Most likely in his bed, judging by how shocked she’d been when she bumped into me.

I’d made a decision: I was going to see this business with Wayne through. I had the comfort of my little kit, my parachute. But until Jay Parker issued the press release tomorrow morning, cancelling the gigs, I was going to keep looking for Wayne. And then I was gone.

Diligently I pressed on with my search, following the few ragged leads I had left. I rang Connie, Wayne’s sister, and it went straight to voicemail. Call me paranoid, but I suspected she was avoiding me. Then I rang Digby, the possible taxi driver, and his phone also went to voicemail.

Would nobody talk to me?

I decided to try Harry Gilliam; I was going to throw myself on his mercy. And unexpectedly, he answered.

‘What is it?’ Brusque as anything.

‘I need to talk to you,’ I said.

‘I’m busy.’ Sure enough, the ambient sounds were of squawks and clucks. ‘I’m training up my new bird for a match.’

‘Could we have the conversation over the phone?’ I knew he wouldn’t go for that. ‘Or I can come to the training ground.’

He went silent for a few seconds. ‘I’m not having you looking at my hens. I’ll see you in my office in half an hour.’

He hung up before I had the chance to tell him that I didn’t want to see his hens anyway. I didn’t like hens. They had funny eyes. Very beady.

As usual Harry was down at the back of Corky’s, a glass of milk on the table in front of him.

I eased myself into the booth.

‘Will you take a drink, Helen?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said, surprising myself with my defiance. ‘I’ll have an Orgasm on a Bike.’ No such thing, of course.

He made some gesture to the barman then turned to have a proper look at me. ‘What happened to your forehead?’

‘Love bite,’ I said.

My skull was splitting, but I no longer really noticed … and … hold on a minute … There was something about the expression on Harry’s face. Was he … 
smirking
?

I tilted my head inquisitively. ‘What?’

‘Just …’ He was smirking! He was actually smirking!

‘Was it you?’

‘Not me … 
personally
,’ he said, letting the smug grin broaden on his face. It was the first time I’d ever seen him smile.

‘Not you
personally
?’ I pressed. ‘But …’

‘… one of my associates.’

‘At your request?’

‘On my instructions,’ he corrected, a little bit bristly. Harry Gilliam didn’t request, he instructed.

‘But … 
why
?’

‘You were getting cold feet but I wanted you to keep looking for Wayne, and I know that the best way to get Helen Walsh to do something is to tell her not to.’

‘You could have seriously hurt me!’

‘Not at all!’ Casually he dismissed my concerns. ‘My associate is an artist. Exquisitely skilled at finely gauging a situation. And –’ he paused to enjoy a cold chuckle – ‘considering it was
the barrel of a gun he clocked you with, you could have come out of the situation a lot worse.’