Model Guy (23 page)

 
Zac stops laughing, sits
up and leans across his desk.

 
"No, bud," he
says. "You're the only one who ever thought it wouldn't."

I go out and walk up and down the street for a while to regain
my composure. What does Zac know? Cynical, sneering net nerd. Nobby no mates. But
I am the most visible aspect of this site aren't I? Spokesman, frontman. The embodiment
of 2cool. Muse? Fall guy? Director more to the fucking point. I did sign some cheques
- six, in fact. I counted them as soon as I got back to the office on Monday after
talking to my Dad. Over £40,000 worth. Oh, for fuck's sake. If 2cool's crashed in
flames then so have I. And very, very publicly and I could go to prison for it.

 
Images of a celebrity
trial begin to flood into my mind. Stories of our spending. Me arriving in a van
at the Old Bailey. Is that right? Would that happen? Or would it be a smaller court?
Who cares? My old mates at the agency reading about me and gossiping at castings
as my case goes on. Penny smiling grimly in that little office of hers. My poor
mum. It would kill her.

 
I ring Lauren's number
but get her voicemail. I leave a short message asking her to call me when she can.
We've hardly spoken over the last few days. After the party on Sunday she went into
town to do some shopping and I came back to the flat and watched telly. I really
need to talk although I know what she'll say.

 
I wander into a newsagent.
On the front of a woman's magazine are a guy and a girl from my old agency. Smiling,
hugging, gazing adoringly at each other, so in love. Well, in love for £100 an hour
on a Thursday morning in a studio in Clerkenwell, hair and makeup provided but no
wardrobe at that price so bring your own selection of smart casual tops. Not a lot
of money but a nice cover shot for your book.

 
I ring Karyn at the agency.

 
"Hey, how are you?"
Not saying my name out loud, I notice. "Alright. How's it going? Busy."

 
"Yeah, it is quite."
I didn't want to hear that. "You?"

 
"Well, did you see
the piece in the Post on Saturday?"

 
"Yes, Penny pointed
it out."

 
"Oh, shit."

 
"Difficult times?"

 
"You could say."

 
"So where are these
guys? Derr! Sorry, obviously you don't know but it does seem very odd, doesn't it?
They've really just disappeared into thin air, then?"

 
"Yep. It's too weird."

 
"You sound down."

 
"Just a bit. It's
all a bit worrying, you know. I'm sure it'll be fine." I feel I have to add
the last comment so that she doesn't think I'm a complete crook. Or naive pillock.
"Anyway, how are you? Busy?"

 
"Yeah, pretty. Little
jobs." The kind I used to moan about and turn my nose up at. Suddenly they
sound safe and familiar. Boring but manageable.

 
"Better than nothing,"
I say, hoping it doesn't sound like I'm angling for something.

 
"You never used to
say that," says Karyn, teasingly.

 
"Yeah, I know."
There is a pause. I nearly ask about going back. It does sound tempting - so much
easier after the stress of 2cool.

 
"A couple of people
have been asking about you."

 
"Really? That's nice."

 
"Penny's a bit funny
about it, though. Keeps suggesting other models."

 
"No, of course. Well,
she'll be even funnier about it now."

 
"Probably. She's
out to lunch with a client today so she'll be totally smashed when she gets back."

 
"Good old Penny."

 
"Give me a ring if
you want to have a drink sometime, Charlie."

 
"Will do. Take care
babe."

 
"OK, bye."

I go back to the office after half an hour or so. Fortunately
Zac has gone to lunch. Scarlett is on the phone.

 
"No, you'll get your
cheque, I promise. It's just that we're up to our eyes at the moment and our, er,
accounts department has got a bit behind. No, they're not here at the moment but
I'll pass your message on. Well, I can't comment on press stories. Well, you believe
whatever you like but as soon as they come back I'll get them to sign the cheque
and we'll bike it straight over. OK, will do. Bye." She puts the phone down.
"Honestly, some people. Money, money, money. Don't they know there's more to
life?"

 
"Have we had a lot
of calls like that?"

 
"Quite a few, well
quite a lot actually. But what can we do? I don't know where the cheque books are."

 
"Even if we find
them I certainly don't want to go signing any more until I've spoken to Guy and
Piers and seen the bank statements. Let's look in their desks - see if we can find
these statements, and the cheque books are in there."

 
"Oh, OK I suppose
so but I just feel a bit funny about rummaging around while they're not here."

 
I laugh bitterly.

 
"Yeah, but where
the hell are they? Anyway, I'm also a director. I just want to see the figures."
Saying that I realise that I don't.

 
"Come on, Scarlett,
someone's got to do it. This is getting silly." Not to mention frightening.

 
"OK." She goes
over to the end of the room where Guy's and Piers' desks are. I've checked the surface
of the desks a hundred times over the last few days for clues as to their whereabouts
but I've never looked inside the neo-industrial filing, stainless steel cabinets
that surround them.

 
"I'll need to get
into their computers too," I tell her as she gets the keys.

 
"They're password
protected and I don't know -"

 
"Where's Zac?

 
"At lunch. Playing
pinball across the road."

 
"Ring him and get
him over here, can you? Ta."

 
I open the first draw
of one of the filing cabinets and almost gasp in shock. Hundreds of bits of paper
are stuffed into it. Most of the suspension files are hanging off their rails, documents
squashed down between them. I pick out a piece of paper at random. It's a bill for
red roses. £350's worth from a smart new florist in Notting Hill. I flatten it out
and put it carefully onto Piers' desk. Slowly I pull out another piece of paper,
dislodging a few others and sending them cascading onto the floor. This one is a
receipt for a couple of suits and trousers from the press office of an Italian design
house. 'Sample loan. Please return in good condition to London Press Office by 20th
June'. Three weeks ago. I look around hopelessly as if the suits might be hanging
up somewhere.

 
There are bills, invoices
and statements of accounts from clothing companies, taxi firms, stationers, restaurants,
PR companies, event’s organisers, video production people and hotels, as well as
plenty of well known designer names. Many of them are red bills and final demands.
There is even one for a model agency I know. £3,500 day shoot fee and usage agreement.

 
Some bills are for hundreds,
some for thousands and some for tens of thousands. Others are for forty or fifty
quid. Many are related to the launch party. Others I recognise from things that
have just appeared in the office or been mentioned by the others.

 
I begin to try and sort
them in date order but I'm soon running out of desk space. There are big ones, small
ones. Some are on coloured paper and some are hand written. There are ones with
familiar logos and addresses and ones where even the type of goods isn't apparent.
Who the hell is Watson Blencowe? And what are 'professional services'?

 
"Hey, dudes,"
says Zac as he strolls in.

 
"Have you seen these?"
I ask. He looks across at the papers in my hand.

 
"Oh, hello twenty
first century calling. Why do people still do it on these bits of paper? Haven't
these people even heard of ecommerce...?" But his voice trails off as he nears
the desks and sees the other drawers full of papers. "Holy sssshit." Zac
serious. Now I'm really scared.

 
"Why didn't we notice
this?" I ask the others, sheaves of papers in both hands.

 
They stare in silence
for a moment and then Scarlett says: "Because they were always in the office
before us and still working after we'd all left?" At that moment the phone
rings again. She answers it and as soon as she starts: "Yes, your invoice has
been logged and you'll get a cheque very soon," the three of us exchange glances.

 
Eventually she puts the
phone down.

 
"Zac, we need to
get into their computers."

 
"No, problemo,"
says Zac but without his usual chilled bravado. He sits down at Guy's desk and switches
on the machine. Then he kicks his foot against something, looks under the desk and
says: "Oh, shit." He pulls out another box, overflowing with invoices.

 
"Oh, my God how could
anyone spend money so fast?" I ask the world in general.

 
"They have been working
18 hours a day for the last few months," points out Scarlett. "Shop till
you pop, you know." I pull out some more bits of paper. "And...we've all
been doing our fair share," she adds. I think of my new suits, cars everywhere,
the champagne we've got into the habit of opening at 5 o'clock.

 
"Okay," says
Zac from the other desk. "We're in."

 
In what, I don't know.
There are files of letters, games, lists, press releases and finally some spreadsheets.
But even these don't say much. Lists of amounts with dates and names, most of which
mean nothing to me. I look down them just in case. The money has certainly been
pouring in - until recently, anyway.

 
"Don't they have
bank statements?" I ask Scarlett.

 
"I don't know, I
suppose so. Actually I have opened letters with bank statements in."

 
"So have I come to
think of it," I tell her. I remember Guy grabbing them off me a couple of weeks
ago. No wonder he didn't want me to see them. Was it all going wrong even back then?

 
We ignore the phones and
spend another few hours rooting around the desks for some evidence of any sort of
correspondence from the bank but we really only find more invoices. Some envelopes,
I realise to my horror, are full of things that have been ordered by me. I stuff
them back in a drawer.

 
My mobile rings and it's
Lauren.

 
"Hi, babe,"
I sigh.

 
"Hi. Got your message.
What's the matter? You sound really down."

 
"Just this money
thing. I'm trying to sort out the invoices and bank statements here. Look, I'll
be late tonight - I'm going to try and get this stuff in some kind of order if I
can.

 
"Okay, I'm seeing,
erm, seeing Peter tonight, anyway."

 
"Yeah," I say
without having to add, 'thought you might be.'

 
"He wants me to watch
some of the tapes I've made recently to see where I can improve my performance."
I'm tempted to make a cutting remark about Peter and her performance but I decide
against it. I'm just so pissed off.

 
A few minutes later my
phone rings again.

 
"Hi Charlie, can
you talk?" says Nora.

 
"Sure", I tell
her, trying to sound cheerful, learning from my last mistake.

 
"Good, listen. I've
gotta be quick because I'm on a deadline but a couple of people, sane people, that
is, have called in about Piers and Guy."

 
"Really?" Some
good news at last.

 
"Yeah. Okay. Piers'
parents live in South Africa and he doesn't see them much which is I suppose why
they haven't reported anything yet. I've broken the news to them and I told them
I'd pass on anything I could. You haven't heard anything?"

 
"No, nothing."

 
"Okay. Guy's parents
are both dead unfortunately and his only blood relative is an older brother who's
an entomologist in the Galapagos Islands. We're trying to contact him at the moment."
Somehow the kind of thing you'd expect of Guy. "But, and this is a bit of good
news, there's a party tomorrow night -"

 
"What? Nora, I'm
not really in the mood, thanks anyway -"

 
"No, banana brain!
It's being thrown by....by, here it is, Sir James Huntsman whose son and daughter
are friends of Piers. I've got us invited. My friend Anna knows them and she's got
an invitation. I say we go along and do some snooping, okay?"

 
"And I say this isn't
Scooby Doo, you know."

 
"I know, Fred, but
we might as well go along and talk to some people, see what we can find out.

 
"What the hell are
we going to find out?"

 
"Haven't you got
any sense of curiosity?"

 
"Haven't you got
any sense?"

 
"Look it can't do
any harm, can it?"

 
"I suppose not. If
we turn up anything, though, we go straight to the police."

 
"Oh, sure,"
she says unconvincingly.