Murder Most Fab (22 page)

‘Did he
have any enemies?’

‘Lots.
But mainly silky queens he’d lacerated with his vicious tongue over the years.
No one who hated him enough to lay him out like a dead pope. I wish you could
have seen it, JD, it would have broken your heart. Poor, poor old Georgie …’ Sammy
started to weep.

‘How
vile. He didn’t deserve that.’

I felt
rotten again. Poor Sammy. Right through all the planning and the execution of Georgie’s
fantasy, I had never considered him. Their lives had been bound together for so
long and his ‘sister’s’ death had come as a terrible shock. How was he to pass
the long, lonely days? Who would he gossip and drink with now?

Come
on, I told myself. He was going to be bereaved anyway, what with Georgie’s
cancer. Separation was inevitable. As it always is.

Georgie’s murder made the
evening news and most of the next day’s papers. It was reported in various
tones. A broadsheet called it ‘Suspicious Sex Death Of Retired Theatre Man’. A
tabloid screamed, ‘Killer Queen! Gay OAP Murdered At Home In Bizarre Sex Games
Twist’. One even said that Georgie had died in a frenzied attack, which I was
quite upset about: there had been nothing frenzied in my actions — I’d been
most careful.

But it
was rather terrifying when I saw on the news that the police had launched a
murder investigation. I hoped we’d been careful enough, but after all my
precautions and the evidence Catherine had incinerated, things ought to be
fine. I’d been at the club that night, anyway. And they found it hard enough to
catch genuine murderers, with proper motives, so why would they possibly
suspect me? I just had to sit tight and keep quiet.

There
were a few further reports, but mainly to the effect that Georgie had probably
taken a stranger home for sex that had gone too far. That nothing appeared to
have been stolen seemed to rule out robbery, and the calm nature of the crime
scene meant that the killer had not acted impetuously after it happened. The
general feeling was that it was one of those mysteries that would remain for
ever unsolved, though the police said they were still investigating and
hopeful of catching the person responsible. They always said that, though.

‘You’re
home and dry,’ Catherine said, when we’d watched the news that night. ‘No one
can really be bothered, can they? See? Just as I said. And to think you nearly
turned down all that money! Honestly, if it were always so easy, we could open
our own business putting the terminally ill out of their misery in a blaze of
glory. Forget shoddy little hotel rooms in Switzerland and a paper cup of
poison, think champagne, caviar, sex and an exit to be proud of.’

I tried
to smile but it occurred to me that Catherine sometimes lacked a little in the
good-taste department. ‘Once is enough,’ I said.

‘Maybe
you’re right,’ Catherine agreed. ‘Shame, though.’

Because of the nature of
his death, Georgie’s funeral arrangements were somewhat delayed. Catherine and
I had screwed our way through the sand dunes of Gran Canaria and were already
lamenting our fading tans when Sammy called me. He couldn’t bear to live in
Barnes any more, he said, and was soon going to stay with friends on the Isle
of Wight. ‘Will you come to Georgie’s funeral, JD? Only he left very specific
instructions and you’re on the invitation list.’

‘Well,
I don’t know — I still can’t believe he’s gone.’

‘Please.
He’d be devastated if you weren’t there. The police have finally released the
body and after six weeks in a fridge drawer he deserves a good send-off. It’s
going to be quite a show.’

‘Of
course I’ll come, Sammy. I wouldn’t miss it.’

I
didn’t particularly want to go — in fact, I dreaded it — but Catherine said it
would be suspicious if I didn’t show up.

‘I’ll come
with you. I’ve got a dinky little veil,’ she said. ‘It’ll be fab with those jet
earrings I saw in Old Bond Street the other day.’

Barnes
Crematorium was done out with pink bunting when we arrived. The only flowers
permitted were red-hot pokers flown in at great expense from somewhere exotic.
‘It’s Raining Men’ was played at full volume as the coffin — shiny black gloss
with yellow polka dots and marabou trim — was carried down the aisle by six Tom
of Finland builders in overalls and hard hats.

‘This
isn’t a send-off, it’s a send-up,’ muttered Catherine. ‘Do you fancy a Valium?
It might help you cry.’

‘I’m
managing without thanks,’ I whispered back, wiping my eyes. ‘I think it’s
rather lovely, actually. It’s just what he would have wanted …’

‘And
what Georgie wanted, Georgie got.’

The
funeral was followed by drinks and camp food from Georgie’s favourite era, the
nineteen fifties, at a local pub. We dutifully tucked into Coronation Chicken,
ham and pineapple on cocktail sticks, stuffed tomatoes and satsuma jelly.

Sammy
said a brief hello and lingered only long enough to tell me that he was heading
back to the Isle of Wight straight after the wake, where he would be staying in
Sandown with a retired judge and his house-boy from Singapore until he had
recovered sufficiently from the shock and could make plans for the future.
He’d call me soon. Then he was off, circulating slowly and sadly like a grey
carp in a murky pond. Sammy was chief mourner and organizer, however painful
it was for him, so he had to comfort everyone and say a few appropriate words.

‘Hello,
JD,’ said a small voice behind me.

Bernard
was wearing an uncharacteristically sombre suit with a ghastly maroon tie and a
pungent floral aftershave.

‘Long
time no see,’ he said, looking a little flushed. ‘You haven’t returned my
calls.’

‘Haven’t
I?’ Actually, I’d forgotten about Bernard in the last few weeks. My mind had
been so occupied with Georgie’s plans and then, afterwards, with what I’d done,
that I’d forgotten Bernard still thought we were dating. ‘Oh, sorry. I’ve been
a bit tied up lately.’

‘Have
you?’ Bernard said, breathing heavily. ‘Not by anyone special, I hope.’

‘No,
no. Just with life.’ I remembered that Georgie had asked me to carry on being
nice to Bernard, for a little while at least, and that he’d left me some extra
money to service his old friend. Well, it was the least I could do even if
Bernard wasn’t my cup of tea. I owed it to Georgie.

‘It’s
because nothing’s come of that audition I promised you, isn’t it?’ Bernard
turned even pinker. ‘I am trying, I swear. It’s all bogged down in production
meetings and boring old admin. We haven’t got to the stage of screen-testing
presenters yet, but when we do you’ll be top of the list.’

‘Yes,
yes,’ I said, rather impatiently. This was Bernard’s only hold over me so he
had to keep harping on about this fictitious job. ‘Listen, I’ll ring you, all
right? And we’ll go for dinner. Your treat.’

‘Really?
Fabulous!’ Instantly Bernard looked more cheerful. ‘Can I get you some Cliff
Richard Thirst Quencher? It’s a cocktail Georgie invented — Pernod, Grand
Marnier and Lucozade. It’s rather tart but slips down a treat. Georgie would
have wanted to go out with a sparkle, wouldn’t he? Poor old girl. I do miss him
…’

Everybody
got spectacularly drunk, especially Sammy and Bernard, who ended up clinging to
each other and reminiscing about their dear departed friend until Catherine
could take no more. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said. ‘If I’d known how
pathetic these people are I’d have killed Georgie myself, free of charge.’

The next day Sammy
returned to the Isle of Wight. He called me from time to time, inadvertently
giving me the welcome news that the police investigation was going nowhere and
no arrest seemed likely. ‘The murderer’s out there somewhere, JD, but no one
knows where. It’s such a mystery, but Georgie would have enjoyed that, I’m
sure. It’s like the plot of a rather bad novel, don’t you think?’

I did
my best to keep the calls brief and my comments bland. Talking to Sammy made me
feel dreadful, quite weighed down with the guilt I managed to escape the rest
of the time by pushing Georgie out of my mind, getting sloshed or snorting some
of our never-ending supply of cocaine. At night after I’d had a call from Sammy
I’d wake up in a cold sweat, escaping a nightmare in which I was murdering Georgie,
but however tight I pulled the strap, however many times I stabbed or
suffocated him, he lived on, pleading with me to finish the job, to fulfil my
side of the bargain.

‘I’m
trying!’ I would say.

‘Kill
me! Kill me now!’ gurgled Georgie, but nothing seemed to do the trick, just
when I thought he was finally dead, the corpse would rear up again, entrails
flying about the room like bloody ribbons, severed hands pulling me back and Georgie’s
strangulated voice calling my name, begging me to put him out of his misery.

‘It’s
dreadful! So real. I wake up in a terrible state,’ I said to Catherine, after
describing my night horrors to her.

‘It’s
only a dream, Cowboy,’ said Catherine, busy painting her nails and doing her
best to stifle a yawn. ‘Take no notice. What else can I say? You can hardly go
for counselling, can you?’

‘I need to clear my head.
Mind if I take the car for a spin?’

‘Ah,
the car.’ She stood up and walked to the window, flapping her hands to assist
the drying process. ‘I didn’t like to upset you. I had a bit of a disagreement
with a lamp-post yesterday.’

‘What?’
I said.

‘Now
don’t worry. I’ve ordered another. I’ll open a bottle of Cristal, shall I?
Cheer us both up.’

Cars,
champagne, Cartier watches, home improvements and drugs saw off our
twenty-thousand-pound windfall within a matter of months. What I had assumed
would be a life-changing amount of money had skipped through our fingers like
sand.

I
managed to retain two hundred pounds, which I posted to my mother for her
birthday. She was thrilled, and called me up. ‘Darling, what a lot of money!
I’m going to treat myself to a “Rambling Rector” and some horse manure. Thank
you, angel-cake, thank you so much! You’re my favourite son by far!’ She
laughed excessively at her own joke, the mad, unpredictable sound fluttering
down the line like a wildly coloured butterfly.

‘That’s
all right, Mummy. I’m glad you’re pleased.’

‘They
do pay well in London, don’t they? I’m sure that if you were working with Help
the Aged here you’d never be able to live so well.’

‘I’m
sure I wouldn’t,’ I said.

‘Bye,
bye, darling!’

‘Bye,
Mummy.’

I put
the phone down, frowning, and tasted the bitterness in my mouth that seemed to
have become normal lately. I supposed I’d just have to get used to the way the
whole world seemed different now that I’d killed a man. I needed to lie down in
a darkened room.

With
the money from Georgie gone, it was back to plying my usual trade. I was aware
for the first time of a glimmer of dissatisfaction and a sensation of
entrapment in a wearing occupation from which no escape seemed possible. Georgie’s
money had been like a Christmas bonus: much appreciated as it was (especially
when the fridge-freezer and sofas arrived), it didn’t last. Once gone, it
underlined the treadmill of my existence.