Bang: Memoirs of a Relationship Assassin (22 page)

“Hmm,” I said, listening closely now. Gay icon, eh? New fact. Add it to the profile.

As soon as the EastEnders music kicked in, I was reaching for the remote. “Right, time for Top Gear.”

“Oh God no, don’t make me watch that! Bloke telly.”

“You could always go make us a cup of tea instead.”

“Cheeky fucker.” She kissed me briefly then jumped up from the sofa to do precisely that.

I settled back to watch Top Gear for the very first time. Hadn’t seen it before. But John never missed it.

The next morning, shortly after coming home from a very passionate and energetic night with my girlfriend, I became the gayest gay you’ve ever heard.

“Golden Screen Theatrical Agency, Juliet Reyes speaking.”

“Juliet hi, hope you can help, darling,” I said into the phone.

“I’ll try!” she chipped in, all bubbly. Good. I could use bubbly.

“Fantastic, okay well my name’s Jonathan Inman, and I’m the commissioning editor with Attitude magazine. I’m calling about one of your clients, Megan MacLeod? You do represent her, don’t you?”

“Oh yes, Megan’s one of ours.”

“God, she’s fab isn’t she? Have you ever met her?”

“Um, not personally no, I’ve seen her come in a few times. But yeah, she is kind of cool.”

“She’s more than cool, babe, she’s hot right now! She came top on our readers’ survey of people they most wanted interviewed in the magazine. You might not know this but Megan’s absolutely
massive
in the gay community, she’s already edged out Kylie quite honestly, she’s on her way to becoming a full-blown icon like Madge and Dolly Parton and all those real diva superstars!”

“Is she really?”

“
God
yeah! I tell you if she ever releases a single it’ll go straight to number one just ‘cos of all the boys buying it!”

Juliet laughed. “Wow!”

“So obviously what Attitude is looking to do is feature her as soon as possible. I’m hoping to be able to squeeeeeeze little me into her schedule somewhere and set up a nice photo shoot. You know the sort of thing, lots of designer clothes, Megan surrounded by muscley boys with their tops off, mmm sounds yummy doesn’t it? So if you can help me out, Juliet, I’ll make sure you get invited to the shoot! It’ll be hunk-tastic, darling, you’ll love it! Oooh, we might find you a Romeo!”

While Juliet giggled and made all sorts of approving noises, I leaned back in my chair and smiled. My new mask was working a treat.

Jonathan Inman, commissioning editor on Attitude, the leading gay lifestyle magazine. Professional, energetic, witty. Camper than the camp tents on that campsite in ‘Carry On Camping’. I know not all gay men are like that, but I needed him to be that way. I was pretty sure that when I called the Golden Screen Theatrical Agency, I’d be speaking to a woman. And women tend to react well to openly-gay men, especially ones that make them laugh. Which is an enormous help if you’re trying to extract highly-sensitive information about a public figure.

Wing and a prayer on this one. I’d never had to pretend to be a gay man before. My research stretched to the latest copy of Attitude, lying open in my lap. The newsagent looked at me like I’d wiped my bum with it in his shop. Happy to take my money, of course, although he’d held out his cupped hand for it like he didn’t want to risk touching me. Homophobic bastard. I decided I’d go in and buy it every month just to irritate him, and blow little kisses his way. See how you like them onions.

“So can we make this happen then Juliet, are there any gaps in Megan’s schedule over the next few weeks?”

“Hang on a minute, love, let me check. I did this yesterday for someone else as it happens, one sec.” And so good old Juliet started rattling off Megan MacLeod’s schedule. I scribbled down the details as fast as I could. It didn’t look good, though. Megan was in the East-Enders studio a lot, with a few personal appearances here and there. But I identified some windows of opportunity, days when she had nothing scheduled. One of which was this Friday. Damn. Too soon. I still didn’t have a plan of attack.

“Juliet, you’re an absolute star, I just need to run these dates by my boss and I’ll be straight back on the phone to organise something. Oh and hope you don’t mind me asking, just being nosey now really, but who was it asked you about Megan’s schedule yesterday? Wasn’t one of the other gay mags, was it? Do I have to start getting all butch?”

Juliet chuckled. “No, you’re all right, don’t worry, it was some woman from the BBC. About getting Megan to pre-film something for Children In Need in November, you know she does all that charity stuff.”

“Hmm… that sounds interesting actually, we’re looking to do something for Children In Need as well, I wonder if we could tie it in? Any chance I could get her details babe, give her a call?”

“Sure, okay. It was um… here we go, Julie Andrews, BBC Advance Scheduling Office. Oh, she didn’t leave any contact details though.”

Neither did I, when I flamboyantly thanked Juliet and hung up.

I made some enquiries with the BBC. They didn’t have an Advance Scheduling Office. And they certainly didn’t have ‘Julie Andrews’ working for them, any more than Attitude magazine had Jonathan Inman.

Emma.

She was on my case.

That rattled me so much that I didn’t do anything useful for the rest of that day, and when Thursday came around, it turned out to be all about John Holmes. Becky and I had planned to spend another night in, which meant another night of me constantly pretending to be someone else. John was becoming more real by the day. And it was doing his head in.

I mean it was doing
my
head in.

The problem was that John was only supposed to have a half-life of around two weeks, just long enough to land the Hargreaves case. It hadn’t taken me long to come up with his character: a courier, a devil-may-care guy, a boy next door. Fast, sexy, in and out, job done, bang. But now he was being stretched. Expanded into someone more three-dimensional. If I’d known I was going to be wearing the mask this long, I’d have done it differently. I wouldn’t have given him the name of a famous porn star for a start! How long before Becky or someone else realised my name was a complete joke?

In some ways, being John was easy. And being around Becky was easy as well… far too easy. But in other ways it was bloody hard graft. I was thinking on my feet as never before. It was the longest ad-lib session ever, like performing a live play with no script and no director. Just make everything up as you go. That was a lot of stress. So I spent much of Thursday thinking about John and his life, when I should have been working on Megan. I sketched in his background: college days, past jobs, family. Gave him a sister and some normal, boring parents down on the coast.

But Becky always asked me stuff I hadn’t anticipated. Usually tiny things, the sort of off-the-cuff comment that just falls out of regular chat. Where did you go to school? What’s your favourite movie? What did you think about that story in the papers last week? Not exactly the Spanish Inquisition, but still.

Eventually, in order to sound genuine, I started answering with the truth. I went to Hackney Central Comprehensive and it was a shithole. I think Godfather Part II is an all-time classic, but secretly I love the Bond films, cheesier the better. That thing in the paper has to be made-up, those tabloids will do anything to sell more copies.

Becky didn’t realise it, but slowly she was getting to know the real me. And you know what? I didn’t care. I told her whatever she wanted to know. Sometimes the truth, sometimes a lie… as long as it kept her on that sofa next to me, did it matter?

So that was Thursday, and on Friday, I hung around outside a famous person’s home all day.

Thanks to Juliet, I knew that Megan wasn’t filming EastEnders that day. She had nothing planned, a rare gap in the busy schedule. If she was doing something, anything at all, her agency would know about it, if only to arrange security and transport for her. But she was free. So I walked up and down outside her house.

A quiet street in the richest part of Kensington. Road and pavements cleaner than you’ve ever seen. Rows of white-washed buildings, with pillars and stone steps leading up to massive oak doors. CCTV cameras everywhere. Occasionally, gleaming cars or limousines would slide up to the kerb, and private security staff in dark suits would ferry people back and forth between vehicle and house. Celeb street.

Obviously, it wasn’t common knowledge who lived there, or else the entire road would have been packed with teenage girls screaming Declan’s name and flinging trainer bras up at his window. But I’d asked Barry and it turned out Global Investigations had given us the address of Megan’s residence. I’d seen inside already, thanks to OK Magazine’s twelve-page feature. ‘Meg and Dec’s Luxury Love-Nest!’

Now, however, all I could see was the outside, as I strolled past the huge building for the eleventh time. I always expected the door to burst open and a troop of security to grab me and call the police. My cover story as a lost tourist was prepared – I was even carting an old rucksack on my back, filled with clothes. But I couldn’t help feeling I was out on a limb.

What exactly was I doing? Hoping to catch a glimpse of Megan MacLeod in the flesh? What good would that do? Did I think I could just bump into her as she popped down the corner shop for a loaf of bread? That a complete stranger could just start chatting her up, turn on the charm, snag her interest? Oh and then she’d happily invite me back into her £2million Kensington mansion for a cup of tea, wouldn’t she?

Christ. What was I
thinking?

I looked up at the black door of Meg and Dec’s Luxury Love-Nest. Firmly shut. No sign of life within. For all I knew, she’d gone to visit her family for the day. And since the MacLeod family were from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, there was even less chance of getting to meet Megan than usual.

“You stupid cock,” I muttered, stomping past. What had happened to me? I used to be organised, prepared, ready for anything. But hanging around the target’s house on her day off, just in case she stepped outside?
What was I thinking?

But I had to do something. I had to get closer.

I turned and strode angrily down the street for the last time, heading for the tube station. When I saw a sports car slowing outside Megan’s home, my heart skipped.

Shit – it was her! It had to be! What was I going to do?!

But then the car drove past her door, purring slowly up towards me. I didn’t know the make of it, but it was like a red shark. Tinted black windows. Gleaming chrome-rimmed headlights. I’d seen something similar on Top Gear the other night. The presenter had practically shot his load over it. You know the kind of car I mean – nought to a million in less time than it takes to say ‘mind that granny’.

It slowed. One of the chrome headlight cowls dipped, then raised.

The shark was winking at me!

Its engine gunned violently and the car streaked past, down the road, gone. I just stood there, breathing in fumes.

Emma! It had to be! Who else would be hanging around here, today of all days? She knew Megan’s schedule just like I did. Cheeky bitch was following me. No – mirroring me. And laughing, no doubt, inside her shark.

What was she planning to do? Run Megan over so she could get to Declan?

No. Crazy. Emma was a bitch, but she wouldn’t… surely… no, that was insane. I really was losing it. She’d got right under my skin, and it threw me. She just seemed so confident! You’d think she was the one who’d been doing this for years, instead of me.

Shit. She was going to nail this, wasn’t she?

I walked home, tasting Emma’s exhaust.

That evening, a phone call from Becky: “John, my Dad wants to do some more work on my flat, he’s been meaning to replace my back door for ages and get my boiler sorted out as well and he wants me out of the way, so d’you mind if we hang out at your place for the weekend?”

Oh my God.

“Sure.”

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Here’s why.

WORST:

1) In all my years of living alone, no-one had ever spent more than a night in my flat. And that was usually because they were so drunk they’d just crashed on the sofa or fallen asleep with their head in the toilet bowl (Darren’s party piece). Occasionally I’d brought a girl home, when I was between missions, but even then I always hurled them out at sunrise. To have someone there the whole weekend scared the hell out of me.

2) You’ve never seen anyone clean up their home faster than I did that evening. Not that the flat was in a mess, but I had to get rid of anything that had the words ‘relationship assassin’ printed on it. Clothes I’d worn while being someone else, props used by my old masks I’d kept as souvenirs, and worst of all, the huge amount of research I’d gathered on Megan MacLeod. My place had turned into a shrine to her, with her face decorating my walls and floor and computer screen. So I had to stash all of that out of sight. Didn’t want Becky to think I was some kind of freak or anything.

3) I had never, once, let a target see the real me. I’d certainly never brought them back home. So how come Becky was sleeping in my bed now? But then she’s not a target, I told myself, not any more. Well if she’s not a target, I argued back, how come you still know her? Weren’t you supposed to walk away once the job’s done? Leave me alone, I replied. I may even have said all this out loud as I ran around my flat like a blue-arsed fly, disposing of evidence.

4) How was I supposed to continue working on the Megan case with someone there? The whole weekend, wasted! Every now and then I’d grit my teeth, imagining Emma hard at work, planning, arranging, scheming. She wouldn’t waste a single moment. While in the amateur corner, I’d be letting the hours slip past in the company of a pretty girl, lounging around and talking and having sex and watching telly and giggling like kids and having more sex and… oh, who gave a damn about Emma.

BEST:

1) I got to spend the entire weekend with Becky.

So it was worth it.

She came round and we did our usual thing of sex, dinner, sofa, telly. It was nearly midnight by the time the movie finished. I’d barely had time to stop the DVD player when Becky slid round and murmured in my ear that she fancied a bit of rough courier action and I should go put my bike leathers on.