The Circus (2 page)

Knowing better than to rise to the bait, Angela Harrington sipped nervously at her gin and tonic, making a face – too much tonic. They had only moved into the neighbourhood three weeks ago and already her dream home was turning into a nightmare.

‘Instead we’re stuck here with all these bloody chav parvenus.’

Thank you for pointing that out, Angela thought. She wanted to scream at her aggressive, know-it-all husband. Instead, she took another gulp of her overly diluted Blackwoods 60, hoping that the gin would start kicking in sooner rather than later. Maybe for the next one she would just dispense with the tonic altogether. Somewhat embarrassed, she glanced at the three-quarters-empty bottle. It had been purchased from Waitrose
only two days ago; not for nothing was gin known as ‘mother’s ruin’.

Pulling open the door of the wine cooler located in the middle of the triple fridge-freezer, Marc grabbed another bottle of Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru 2006. After violently removing the cork with his Legnoart Grand Cru Sommelier black acrylic corkscrew, he refilled his glass, spilling some of the £345-a-bottle wine over his lime-green Lacoste polo shirt as he did so. ‘Bollocks!’

Despite everything, Angela felt a grin spreading across her lips. She quickly turned away before her husband noticed.

Taking another gulp, he gestured furiously in the direction of number 40, next door. ‘That bloody boy of theirs will have been left on his own again.’

‘He
is
sixteen,’ Angela pointed out, her words barely audible over the rock music crashing across what the estate agent had called a ‘Mediterranean-style secluded garden’.

‘The parents have basically given up,’ Harrington snorted.

Unlike you, Angela mused, as she clasped the remains of her G&T to her weary bosom.

‘He’s an idiot.’ Madeleine Harrington, sixteen herself, appeared in the doorway in an AC-DC
Back in Black
T-shirt and grey jeans. Her father noted with some distaste that her platinum-blonde pixie hair had been given a red tinge since the last time he had seen her. ‘Is there any wine for me?’

The music died away, before quickly building back up to another crescendo. ‘Go and tell him to shut that crap off first,’ her father snapped.

‘It’s 30 Seconds to Mars,’ Madeleine said, slouching past her father and reaching into the dishwasher for a wine glass.

Her parents looked at each other blankly.

‘That’s the name of the band,’ she explained, helping herself to some wine. ‘30 Seconds to Mars.’ She sighed – this really was like talking to a pair of retards. ‘American soft rock.’

‘That little sod is thirty seconds from a good kicking,’ her
father grunted. By now he had the best part of a bottle and a half of Chevalier-Montrachet inside him and he could feel the alcoholic buzz feeding his fury.

‘Whatever.’ Madeleine took a mouthful, her expression suggesting she thought that the wine was okay but nothing special. ‘Anyway, I’m not going over there. The randy little sod will try and jump me . . . again. He thinks that somehow I’m his girlfriend just because I let him come along to that party the other week. If he’s not careful, Ben will give him a hammering.’

Mention of his only daughter’s real boyfriend, a useless, lazy little twerp whose father was nothing more than a glorified car salesman – he sold Minis, for God’s sake! – did nothing to improve Marc Harrington’s mood. Another couple of gulps and his glass was nearly empty again.

‘Anyway,’ Madeleine grinned from behind her wine glass, ‘right now he’s probably in there playing with himself.’

Harrington almost choked on his wine. ‘Too much information, Maddy,’ he grunted.

‘He’s addicted to porn.’ Madeleine flashed her parents the standard naughty-little-girl grin that had stood her in such good stead over the last decade or so.

That act is getting a bit tired, young lady, her father thought sourly. You’re going to have to find something else.

‘He made me watch some one time.’

Her father held up a hand. ‘Enough!’

‘Marc . . .’ Angela shot her husband a look.

‘Okay, okay.’ Harrington took a final slug of the wine and placed his empty glass on the Calligaris Park dining table. ‘I’ll do it.’ Like I have to do everything around here, he reflected. Pining for the quiet leafy streets of Highgate, he stormed towards the door.

Hovering on the kerbstone, Hannah Gillespie waited for a gap in the traffic. Standing at her shoulder, her friend Melanie Henderson was wittering on about some cute boy called Ricky that she’d met at the Westfield shopping centre the weekend before. Hannah was not really interested in boys; at least not since she’d got herself a man, a proper bloke.

Smiling at the thought, she clocked a couple of creeps sitting in the front of a silver Range Rover, shamelessly eyeing her up. Hannah knew exactly what they were thinking and felt the urge to gag. If her boyfriend were here, he’d give them both a good slap. They were old enough to be her dad – even older, probably. They were parked on a double yellow line, too; hopefully they would get a ticket.

Melanie gripped her arm. ‘I’m sure he fancies me . . .’

‘Uh-huh.’ Hannah took a tentative step into the roadway, hoping that one of the passing cars would slow down to let them across. Time was pressing. She needed to get back to do her homework. Then she had plans.

Inspector John Carlyle sat in the passenger seat of an unmarked police car and watched the two girls struggling to cross the road in the face of an unrelenting stream of traffic. Catching the eye of the prettier of the pair, he saw a look of annoyance cross her face before she rudely gestured towards his car with the middle finger of her right hand. Ignoring her, he stared at his reflection
in the rear-view mirror. I look tired, he thought, rubbing his hand across the five o’clock shadow on his jaw. But it’s more than that. Time is moving on, and it’s certainly not waiting for me. The face that stared back at him contained the familiar quizzical plebeian features of yesteryear, but there was no denying the growing bags under the eyes and the suggestion of greater fleshiness under the chin. Middle age might be an increasingly amorphous concept, but there was no denying that he had reached it. His temples were now almost exclusively grey and there was even the first hint of a receding hairline. ‘You’re getting old, you old bastard,’ he nearly said aloud. Then thought: Talking to yourself, too? Going fucking senile, sunshine.

Maybe not quite yet.

A break in the traffic allowed the two girls to reach the middle of the road.

‘What do you call an exploding monkey?’

‘Eh?’ In the driver’s seat, Sergeant Joe Szyszkowski turned to face his boss.

‘It’s a joke Alice told me,’ Carlyle explained. ‘She’s been wandering round the house with a big fat joke book, picking out the ones that make her giggle.’

‘Kids . . .’ Joe shrugged. He was a family man himself – he had two, a boy and a girl, to Carlyle’s one daughter.

‘This one is her current favourite – at least it was as of last night.’

Joe nodded indulgently. With the best will in the world, other people’s kids were just not that interesting.

Ignoring his sergeant’s lack of enthusiasm, the inspector tried again. ‘So, what
do
you call an exploding monkey?’

The girls finally made it to the pavement on the far side of the road and disappeared down another street. Releasing his seatbelt, Joe opened the car door. ‘Dunno.’

‘A baboom,’ Carlyle cackled. ‘Geddit? Ba-
boom
!’

Joe groaned as he eased himself out of his seat. ‘Tell Alice from me, that’s terrible,’ he said.

‘What d’ya mean?’ the inspector protested. ‘It’s brilliant. A
baboom
! Outstanding. Best joke ever.’

‘C’mon,’ Joe said wearily. ‘I should have been home more than an hour ago. Let’s get this over with.’

The Troubles.
The
Troubles . . . was there ever a more boring subject in the world than Northern bloody Ireland? What the hell were these people fighting about? Like they were the only ones who ever had problems. With a sigh, Hannah Gillespie let her history textbook fall to the floor as she stretched out on the bed. As she did so, Emeli Sandé’s ‘Next to Me’ started playing on the LG mobile on the bedside table. Grabbing her phone, Hannah opened the newly arrived message and grinned.

R u coming?

Any feeling of tiredness immediately evaporated as she typed her reply.

15 mins
.

After carefully deleting the original text, Hannah jumped up from the bed. Pulling on her red Puffa jacket and Reebok trainers, she slipped out into the hall. Even with the door closed, she could hear the television in the living room. Her mum would be watching
EastEnders
with Emma, her older sister. Dad wasn’t home from work yet. Heart pumping, Hannah realized it would be easy enough to leave the house without anyone noticing, but she was cuter than that. Pushing the living-room door open, she leaned against the frame. ‘I’m just going out for a little while, Mum.’

Slumped on the sofa, Alison Gillespie did not look up from the couple of characters arguing on the screen.

‘Going round to see Rosie for an hour,’ Hannah explained.

Alison scratched her arm, eyes still glued to the television. ‘Does Rosie’s mum say that it’s okay?’

‘Of course.’

‘Have you done your homework?’

‘Ye-es.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Sure. History. It was about the Northern Ireland Peace Process and the suspension of Stormont in 1972.’

Her mother made a kind of grunting noise that could conceivably be misconstrued as indicating that she had even the first clue about internment and the introduction of Direct Rule.

Emma shot her sister a look that said
You lying cow
, but said nothing.

Smirking, Hannah turned for the front door. ‘See you later. Bye.’

‘Make sure you’re home by no later than nine-thirty,’ her mum called after her. ‘It’s a school night, remember.’

30 Seconds to Mars had moved on to ‘The Fantasy’ by the time Horatio Mosman flopped onto the cream Ligne Roset Togo sofa and switched on the Loewe Xelos LCD/LED HD 1080p Digital TV, flicking through the muted channels until he came to British Talent, his favourite porn channel
du jour
. For once, he had the place to himself. His parents, God bless them, had gone into Town to see something worthy at the National Theatre. Dad’s firm was sponsoring a production of
South Pacific
at the National Theatre – on the South Bank – yawn! There was no way they were dragging him along to
that
. Meanwhile, his annoying siblings, sister Lizzie and brother Ignatius, were also out and about somewhere, being boring, no doubt.

All in all, this was a major result.

Sucking greedily on a bottle of ice-cold Carlsberg, Horatio loosened the belt on his Evisu jeans and settled in for a happy half hour with Debbie Armour, star of
Debbie Does Derby
and of similar shows set in various other sad little towns and cities around Britain that he knew he would never have the misfortune of having to visit. Wiping beer from his chin, he moved around on the sofa until he got himself comfortable. ‘
South Pacific
?’ He snorted and belched. ‘Hah!’

On the 40-inch screen, Debbie was enthusiastically but silently fellating an Asian man behind the counter of a fish-and-chip shop.

Mmm
.

The thought of food made Horatio suddenly feel hungry. With his free hand, he reached for his mobile and pulled up the number of a local takeaway. Time to speed things up, he thought, as he listened to the phone ring.

‘Forbush Pizza,’ said a cheery female voice at the other end of the line. ‘How can I help you?’

Having placed his order, Horatio attended to the urgent matter at hand. Then, reaching for the box of tissues on the coffee table, he became aware of movement behind him.
Shit!
Someone must have come home early. Leaning forward, he made a grab for his trousers, just as a noose was slipped round his neck, metal encased in plastic like a bicycle chain, pulling him backwards on to the sofa.

‘Hey!’ He tried to scream but it came out more like a grunt. For a moment, the boy flopped around like a dying fish, his hands not knowing whether to reach for his neck or for the jeans around his ankles.

This couldn’t be happening.

The music was suddenly switched off and a gruff male voice barked, ‘Sit still!’

‘Ow!’ No longer concerned about his nakedness, Horatio pawed at the makeshift necklace. ‘You’re hurting me,’ he cried. ‘Let go!’

The response from his assailant was to yank the noose tighter. ‘Sit still and shut up.’

Embarrassedly aware of his own damp stickiness, Horatio finally did as he was told. Letting his hands fall to his sides, he glumly looked towards the screen as young Debbie expertly dodged the money shot which flew across the shop, ending up in a pail of freshly prepared batter. Urgh, Horatio could not help thinking. How gross is that? As Debbie turned to the camera and winked, he felt a twitch in his groin and glanced down. Despite his recent endeavours and the rather unexpected turn of events, the youngster was surprised to see that his erection remained
essentially undiminished. Instinctively jerking forward, he felt the necklace cut into his throat. From somewhere deep in his brain he vaguely recalled reading something on the internet about people deliberately cutting off their air supply in order to heighten sexual pleasure; so maybe that was what he was experiencing.

Leaning back on the sofa, Horatio remained still for several moments. There was a slight loosening of the noose, whereupon he tried to move his head. For his trouble, he was given a swift smack.

‘Don’t look round.’ The man spoke quietly but firmly. ‘Do what you are told and you will be okay.’ A gloved hand appeared from somewhere behind his head and pinned a small, clear plastic bag to the boy’s Jack Wills striped Henley shirt. Horatio dropped his chin to his chest to peer at it. Inside was the image of a painting which looked like it had been torn from a catalogue or a textbook.