Authors: H. J. Hampson
"Come on Beaumont, there's no point lying any more. A knife buried in the garden, and we've not even got onto the burnt out Land Rover yet..." I don't know if anyone in the room says this or if it's just a voice in my head.
"May I request that we adjourn this interview…?" Nicholas starts saying. But suddenly there's a loud banging, and Dante, still staring at me just shouts "Yes". I realise it's the door, someone knocking, and so I turn to look and see a guy's face, asking Dante if he could have a word with him. Dante looks seriously pissed off, but gets up and goes to the door. Robinson speaks into the tape machine again, saying the interview is suspended and just sits there, staring at me. I stare back because it's either looking at him or looking at the knife in the bag on the table. They must have found the body, that's what the guy is telling Dante.
But so what? I'm ready to give up now, they've beaten me, and I feel kind of relieved. I just want it over with.
The door opens again and Dante walks back in.
"I'm afraid we're going to have to adjourn this interview," he says, staring at me.
"Get him taken back to the cells Robinson," he snaps and then walks back out of the room.
Robinson looks confused but motions for me to get up, and when I get to the door the PC grabs me and starts walking me back towards the cell. I can barely walk. Why have they stopped the interview? Something must have changed – surely they've found the body.
"Beaumont, this isn't looking good," Nicholas hisses, behind me.
"Yeah I know. I…" But I don't want to say anything in front of this copper. They take me to the same cell, but Nicholas comes inside with me.
"Jesus facking Christ Beaumont," he says, saying each word really carefully. He looks really pissed off, his face is flushed.
"What the hell was that? Why was there a knife buried in your garden? If you'd been honest with me I could have helped but now…"
But the door is unlocking again. It's Robinson.
"Erm," he says, "it appears something's come up in your favour, Mr. Alexander," he says, quietly. "You're free to go. Sergeant Collins will sort your things out at the desk."
"What?" I say, I'm totally shocked. This has to be some cruel joke to get me to confess. I can sense Nicholas feels the same.
"You're free to go," he repeats. The door to the cell is still wide open for me to walk straight out of.
Is this is dream? Am I going mad? Maybe I'm just imagining this when in reality I've broken down and the truth is spilling out of me.
"Well I hope you appreciate how much of my client's valuable time you've wasted with this charade..." I can hear Nicholas saying. The carving knife in its bag is still sitting on that table, so blatant, yet they're telling me to go. It must be a dream, but I'm so going with it.
I collect my things at the desk while Nicholas carries on telling the uniform behind it how this is so out of order, blah blah blah, and I'm wishing he would just shut up in case they change their mind. Then fuck, this must be a dream because the guy on the desk actually holds a pen and paper up and – get this – asks for an autograph. I scrawl something on the paper, I can't even write my own name. And the knife, dirtied with soil, is still lying on the table in a plastic bag.
Nicholas' phone starts ringing and he checks the display and mouths 'Serge' at me. I watch his face as he listens to whatever Serge is saying, watching his eyes widen.
"Yes, we are," he's saying, "What? How can…? Yes, okay then." He passes the phone to me without saying anything, just giving me this look.
"Beaumont, okay there, it's Serge."
Serge's voice sounds strange, higher than usual as if someone's got him by the balls and is giving them a right squeezing.
"It's Krystal, yeah, she's er, well she's come back." Serge laughs nervously.
My mind is a black channel, just a snow-screen and static.
"She's at
The Sun
's offices now, with her agent – apparently she's sacked Michael – and, erm, yeah, they want you to do a live reunion on
The Toby Silver Show
tonight, like in two hours. Big fee. So call round my office and we'll discuss okay?"
He hangs up before I can ask a single one of the millions of questions that are flickering through the static.
Me and Nicholas step outside the police station and are met by a wall of cameras, flashes everywhere, microphones being thrust forward.
"Oi, Beaumont!"
"Hey fucker!"
"You're guilty, right?"
"Murderer..."
But it all just flies over my head. Krystal, back? How the fuck could this be? I must be looking like a complete twat right now, standing here in front of all these cameras, but just staring ahead, beyond them at the wall of the police station car park.
I'm aware of Nicholas standing next to me, slightly in front, raising his hand and the rabble quietening down. "My client … police ineptitude ...clear his name … reunited … Krystal."
This can't be a dream. I can feel raindrops on my face. I can smell the coffee and nicotine and grease that's coming off the pack of paparazzi. I can feel Nicholas' briefcase knocking against my leg. But she's dead, killed with that knife that's in that plastic bag, this must all be a mistake.
We fight through the rabble of press, who've started shouting and jostling again, and into a waiting car. The bastards press themselves against the windows, camera lenses against the glass. I'm a zombie, the walking dead. Nothing makes any sense and I'm too fucked to figure it out. I want to go home and curl up in my bed, under the goose-down duvet, but I know I've got to see Serge.
As the car pulls out of the police station car park, leaving the paps in its wake I turn to Nicholas but before I can speak he shrugs his shoulders.
"No facking idea either," he says. "Perhaps you should tell me at some point what you know about that knife business et cetera."
I don't answer him, and can't remember what I was going to ask him. That knife business, I don't know nothing about it, mate. I lean back and close my eyes. The driver's got the radio on really low, but I can just make out the music – it's ‘You Wear it Well’ by Rod Stewart, one of my mum's favourite songs. It wants to trigger some memory or other in my head, something deep within my childhood, but my mind won't give anything up except the smell of stale cigarettes and cheap aftershave. That means it must be my dad in there somewhere. Shame, would have been nice to remember.
But the song finishes and the news comes on. A male reporter: "It's seven o'clock and this evening's headlines… Krystal McQueen makes a shock return as her boyfriend, Beaumont Alexander, is arrested and then released on suspicion of her murder."
A female reporter's voice comes on: "Krystal disappeared five days ago and her boyfriend, the soccer ace Beaumont Alexander was arrested on suspicion of murder in the early hours of this morning. Police were seen searching his Essex mansion and a black Land Rover allegedly belonging to the star was found burnt out on waste ground in Hackney, East London. But we've just discovered that Ms McQueen, who is rumoured to have suffered some kind of breakdown, has turned up at the offices of a national newspaper with her agent. Exactly where she has been is unclear but it's reported that she is in good health and good spirits. The couple are due to be reunited live on
The Toby Silver Show
tonight.
"Beaumont has just left Paddington Green police station looking exhausted and dishevelled. His lawyer, Nicholas Feers-Simpson, told reporters Beaumont was looking forward to being reunited with his girlfriend…" Nicholas' voice came on straining against a noisy background.
"Stay tuned for more news on this increasingly bizarre story…"
There's no way she can be back. No way. I killed her myself, I sat and watched the blood run out of her and watched the body sink into the Thames. Or did I? Maybe it was all just a dream.
"So I dunno what's bleeding going on," Serge says as he follows me into his office and I collapse into the deep, soft sofa on which I've sat hundreds of times before but have never been as grateful for as I am now. He sits, as usual, on the swivel chair behind his desk.
"I get this call at about 9am from this guy, Dean McCormack, claiming he's Krystal McQueen's agent… I was like 'what's this geezer playin' at?'
"Anyway, he says Krystal has returned from her wilderness, of whatever he called it, and is on her way to
The Sun
's office…well he's in a car, I can tell that much, and she's gonna do this big interview and he wants to know whether you've been released yet, and this and that … and then Beaumont, Jesus, he puts
her
on the phone.
He looks at me and shakes his head.
"So this bird comes on, saying 'Hey Serge, I can't believe Monty's been arrested... blah blah blah…'"
He tries to mimic Krystal's slightly less Cockney accent.
"And it sounds pretty much like her, but obviously, well it ain't her. I don't know who the fuck she is ... or who these people are. But they want you to go to the Channel 6 studios at 8:30pm for the live re-union on
The Toby Silver Show
. You gotta do it, Beaumont, there's fuck all else for it."
I'm trying to take all this in but the words just swirl around my head and none of it makes much sense at all.
"But how can...? Why is, like, some chick pretending to be Krystal?"
"Fuck knows," he says, and throws his arms up and then brings his hands together under his chin as if he's praying. Neither of us says anything for about a minute and I can feel myself drifting off to sleep again. My brain is shutting down, it can't deal with this impossible information.
"Look, whatever the fuck is going on, it's got you off the hook. The police are buying it, the press are buying it. Maybe it's divine intervention," Serge says eventually.
"What, you mean like something to do with God?"
"Yeah, well not literally. Ah, fuck it Beaumont, I don't know what the hell it is."
He offers me a large whisky but all I can stomach is a strong, black coffee and a couple of Xanax tablets.
"Serge," I say after taking a couple of sips of the coffee, "she was definitely dead wasn't she?"
He sighs. "Of course she fucking was, deader than my bleeding grandma, and anyway, if she wasn't, if by some miracle she's crawled back out of the Thames, you really think, after what you'd done to her, she'd wanna go straight on
The Toby Silver Show
for a romantic reunion?"
I shake my head. Of course, Serge is right.
"Yeah, she'd definitely have wanted to go on
Jonathan Ross,
rather than that arsehole Toby Silver's show."
Serge gives me this funny look. "Deader than my bleeding dear old grandma…" he mutters again.
The phone starts ringing, the sudden noise making me almost spill my coffee and Serge shoots this 'who the fuck' look at me before he answers. I close my eyes and listen to Serge's half of the conversation. He keeps saying 'I don't know mate', 'I know as much as you', like it's a friendly journo or someone.
"That was Michael," he says after hanging up. Michael! I'd blanked out the scene in the bar last night (was it really last night?) and how he said he was in love with her. Seems kind of funny now.
"He's upset, miffed at why she's sacked him. Wonders what the hell's going on… Don't we all?"
I shrug. Who gives a shit about Michael when my ex-girlfriend has just come back from the dead? Then I think: is she actually my ex-girlfriend, or are we still going out?
Serge is right: there's nothing for it, I have to go to the TV station and meet this woman claiming to be Krystal. I mean, what can happen that would be worse than being arrested again, being questioned and facing a life in prison?
"Oh and by the way, you won today. Three nil. Nico scored a hat-trick."
I nod and I don't feel jealous or happy, just nostalgic for the simplicity of kicking a ball around a field.
The studio girl opens the door to the Green Room and motions us inside. I've knocked back so many tablets that it feels like I'm floating. Everything is slightly blurred around the edges. Soft focus. But I'm glad of the cushion.
It's dark in the Green Room, it's lit only by a few dim lights in the corners.
She's sitting on a couch in the centre. Blonde hair let down and wavy, a halter-neck pink top, black skirt. It's her, but then…
There's a guy sitting next to her, shaved head, ear-ring, looks like a thug. A whistling noise fills my head as I step forward. It
is
her. But, no, how can it be? But it looks just like her. She stands up, the guy doesn't, and she steps towards me, holding out her hands. The manicured nails, oh God, the Chinese symbol tattoo on her wrist.
And I'm just standing there, motionless. She's holding out her arms and smiling. Wearing that pink shade of lipstick she always does. No blood, anywhere. This is the weirdest fucking thing ever, guaranteed.
"Fucking hell," Serge says under his breath, he's just behind me.
"Hi Beaumont," she says, white teeth glowing in the darkness. That soft, slightly husky voice.