The Vanity Game Page 3

  FOUR

  Krystal is sitting cross-legged on the sofa, glass of champers in hand, phone to her ear.

  "Yeah, yeah, that'd be great honey," she's saying, which leads me to gather that she's on the phone to her cunt of an agent, Michael. I can never figure out if the slimy jerk wants to fuck her or me, or maybe both of us in some vile threesome fantasy he has.

  She pauses, puts the phone to her chest and looks over at me as I stand at our mini cocktail bar downing a glass of water.

  "4pm next Tuesday – is that okay? For a Chic! magazine shoot?"

  I pull a face which she dismisses and tells Michael that, yes, it is fine. Just what I need. I hate celebrity magazine features as much as Krystal loves them.

  Letting some bastard journalists into my house, my home, for an afternoon is more unpleasant than getting the fucking clap.

  They'll come and coo over the 'lushness' of the Tiki-themed pool area, ask dumb questions about Krystal's stupid hippy objects, and generally ass-lick. Then the next week the little shit-stirrers will be writing stories about how me and Krystal are on the verge of splitting up or, even worse, getting married. They're a bunch of reptiles that lot; slimy, deceiving snakes, not like the dirty, yelping paparazzi.

  I know it's irrational but I just have to think about the last time they came round here to do a feature, and a surge of rage passes through me that even the anxiety tablets I'm on can't hold back. But is it just them? Or maybe what makes it so bad is that I let them come round. I let them come to this tacky, over-the-top gaff I'm forced to live in, the "Love Palace", this temple of Krystal's bad taste and stupid ideas about mystical forces and other bullshit. How did things get to this? Did I let myself go with the flow too much? Have I let too many people make decisions for me? And when I get to thinking like this I end up blaming them, the army of people who've forced their will on me that includes my own mother and, of course, my dad (in his own way), the talent scouts, Serge, the club people, the fashion people, the faceless millions, and Michael. It's Michael's fault for encouraging Krystal. But fuck it, I know deep down part of me wants it as well, and the rest of me hates that part of me. Jesus. I find I'm clenching the empty glass in my hand so hard it could break so I put it down, but I imagine the crunch of it breaking and the tiny shards slicing through my skin.

  I shut my eyes and try to summon thoughts that make me calm – the Koi Carp pond, turning a water sprinkler on, decking, DIY … the simple life … one day, one day I'll turn my back on all this.

  "Isn't that fabulous?" Krystal shouts, disrupting my thoughts, "Chic! want to do a shoot for our second anniversary together."

  "Yeah, totally," I reply, but the sarcasm goes unnoticed. Our second anniversary? Christ, it's not like we're married. How the fuck did the people at Chic! know when we got together? Were the Chic! people there when we met over a line of coke at some dull party and swapped numbers? I can't even remember whose party it was.

  I go upstairs, crash out on the bed and try to sleep for a while, but sleep won't come so instead I shut myself in my games room to play my favourite custom-designed Japanese video game where I get to stalk around a futuristic London with an Uzi looking for paparazzi.

  Despite blowing out the brains of fifteen hacks – a record for this week – I still feel wound up inside. And the Nurofen I've been necking all afternoon have done nothing to shift the headache.

  We eat dinner at about seven o'clock. I'm having a special chicken curry that was prepared by the club's chef to maintain my muscles. Krystal is having a vegetable milkshake thing which is part of the diet that her stylist/ yoga trainer/ dealer has her on at the moment. We're standing in the kitchen, emptying our food out of plastic containers.

  "You know this magazine shoot?" I say.

  "The Chic! one? It'll be great. Apparently Prince Harry is going to be in the same issue."

  "Yeah? But do we really want everyone to read about our second anniversary?"

  I'm watching her scoop the brown milkshake into a glass, stopping mid-scoop as I say this.

  "What?" She raises her thin eyebrows in surprise, "Well, yeah, why not?"

  "Because I'm kind of done with Chic! shoots. And Peek! shoots, and all those other magazine shoots."

  In the silence between us the microwave whirs as it heats up my glorified ready meal.

  Finally, she laughs.

  "But darling, I thought you liked doing magazine shoots?"

  "Not really. To be honest, Krystal, they make me feel uncomfortable."

  The pain in my head is so bad it makes my eyes water.

  "Oh," is all she can say.

  The microwave pings, but I don't get my meal out. I lean against the worktop and wait for her to say something else.

  "You're too sensitive. Everyone does them, they're great for our profile."

  Sensitive. Yeah right.

  "Well I don't like them and I don't want to do any more."

  She walks over to where I'm standing and puts her hand on my arm.

  "But baby, you know it's great exposure for me, after everything I've been through."

  "Everything you've been through? You know most people aren't that sympathetic to minor celebrities with coke habits … and stop calling me 'baby' won't you?"

  She takes her arm away and scowls at me. For a second, I have the urge to laugh.

  "How can you say that? You know my life's not been perfect."

  "Oh and mine has I suppose?"

  "No, and that's why we're both so messed up now ain't it?"

  Tears are forming in her eyes. I hate it when she cries.

  "Well you don't need to broadcast it in fucking Chic! magazine."

  "And you don't need to deal with it by getting high and … and … I saw you following that waitress last night." She starts hitting me, laying weak punches on my chest. I grab her arms.

  "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "I know more than you think."

  "Yeah, like what?"

  She's wriggled free and is trying to hit me again.

  "Like the stuff you do behind my back…you think you can do anything you want. You think the world owes you one, just 'cos your Dad walked out on you when you was two, well it happens to a lot of people, Beaumont – deal with it."

  She hits me in the face, her sharp nails scratching me, then she takes another swipe and I think she's going for the eyes. Instinctively I grab the nearest thing to me to on the worktop to fend her off, and then there's a flash of red between us, a scream somewhere in there, and she's falling into me. I grip the thing I'm holding tighter and realise it's the knife I used to cut open the plastic lid on my meal, the Wusthof carving knife. Shit.

  She falls back and the knife is glistening red, real shiny. Time stops, I'm staring at the knife for an eternity, and time starts again, but slower, like everything's underwater.

  Deal with it.

  Krystal staggers back a bit then falls down against the unit, with one hand across her stomach, the other propping her up on the kitchen floor. Her head is bowed and her blonde hair falls over her face. As I stare at the hand on her stomach, the gaps between her fingers fill with deep red, which then seeps over, and at the same time a scarlet colour is flowering around her hand through the fabric of her white dress like a big ink stain. I'm thinking of an Alka Seltzer erupting in water, atomic bombs, millions of people screaming, pain, agony, hell. What have I done?

  She raises her head. In her blue eyes I see wild fear and confusion.

  "Beaumont," she whispers, her voice tiny and tight in her throat.

  I'm seeing every girl that's ever knelt in front of me flash past my eyes.

  I watch the colour seeping out of her bronzed skin. The blood is now forming a small puddle around her and she's starting to shuffle forward through it, towards me.

  "Beaumont," she says, "help me."

  I take a step back.

  Right now questions, choices and scenarios are forming and breaking up in my brain, none stay
ing long enough for me to formulate a plan, every train of thought interrupted by the deafening voice: oh, fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck…

  I think I might be sick. Krystal is scrunching her face up as if she's going to cry, but no tears or sound comes out, thankfully. I imagine what the tabloids will say. This is Bad Shit, no lie.

  I could help her, I could call an ambulance and she might make it. But if she recovers what will she do to me? She'll have me over a barrel good and proper. And what if she dies anyway? Then I'll have alerted the hospital, and no doubt the Old Bill, to the thing … what will happen to me then?

  Should I stab her again and kill her? Christ, it's too bad to think about: a dead body, and not just any old corpse: Krystal McQueen, former glamour model turned pop singer and long-term girlfriend of soccer star Beaumont Alexander.

  Deal with it, Beaumont, deal with it.

  I want her to die.

  No more magazine photo-shoots. The tabloids will lose interest in me. I could go back to being a playboy. A nice apartment in central London, women, parties, more women, and then, when I'm tired of that I could walk away from it all … get the modest, detached house, the wife, the kids, the neat garden, the Koi Carp in the pond, the golf club membership…

  I'm not going to call the ambulance.

  But the thought of driving the knife in again makes me feel faint.

  "Beaumont," she says, more urgently now. "We … don't have … to do … the interview … baby?"

  "It's not about the interview… I'm sorry." Now it's me that's crying.

  "Oh Beaumont … you fucker."

  This stirs something in me. I look down at her and am disgusted – not at the blood that's like a bright red lake on the white kitchen tiles, and smeared up the walls of the unit where she'd placed a dirtied palm, but at the whole predicament, our vanity and selfishness. She's right, we're both messed up. I bring the knife down again.

  At the sight of this she starts to shake and say 'no' over and over again, and I can't do it. No, I can't go through with it, I can't kill her.

  So I put the knife down onto the worktop and rush to the phone in the hallway. But when I've got the receiver held to my ear, I find myself not dialling '999' but Serge's number. Serge will know what to do. I'm lying to myself that he's the best person to call for help; really, I'm calling him because I know he's been in situations like this before – he knows what to do with corpses and stuff. And after all, as my agent, he gets paid enough to sort shit like this out.

  I gulp hard as the line connects and I hold my breath as it rings, each ring slow but urgent.

  "Beaumont, my man." Serge sounds calm, I exhale.

  "Oh Serge, I've fucked up big style mate." The words just come tumbling out.

  "Eh? What's happened then, you ain't got some tart up the duff again have you?"

  "Oh God, no, no. I—" but I can't bring myself to tell him what I've done. "You better come round quick, it's bad shit. Can you come over to mine?"

  "Jesus Beaumont." He sounds kind of amused. "I'm in fucking Berkshire, probably a few over the limit."

  "Oh God, please, can you just try?" I find that I'm crying again.

  "Crapping hell. It'll take at least an hour. This better be worth it."

  "It is," I tell him, "I'll see you in a bit." And then I place the receiver down before he has a chance to reply. Please may the bastard come.

  Back in the kitchen, and Krystal is now lying slumped near the door looking unconscious, or worse (or better?). She's tried to drag herself about two metres across the floor, leaving a thick trail in her wake. Blood everywhere. Cherry red, just like my Invicta sports car. I go to stand near her. I hope it's over, but I don't want to touch her.

  Fucking hell: the body – she – twitches. So she ain't dead yet. I stare at her in a trance, totally without feeling, without opinion. I'm so tired I want to die too, and I sink to my knees.

  I don't know how long I waited, but I think I zoned out and had wild visions of the Chic! team turning up a week early and photographing the mess. It would have sold millions.

  FIVE

  The chiming of electronically re-created bells startles me. Where am I? I'm freezing cold, I'm sitting on the kitchen floor, the worktop and cupboards above me. I turn my head to the left and see her. Oh God, it all comes back. It's fucking real. The bells again…someone's at the gate. The Old Bill? The paparazzi? My heart's beating so fast. But no, it can't be them, they don't know, not yet, no one does, or do they? How long have I been asleep? Serge, I called Serge, yes, maybe it's him. I stand up slowly, my whole body aches, and I stagger towards the small TV screen which is linked up to the CCTV cameras on the gates. It is Serge and I'm so relieved. The fucker is standing there looking pissed off.

  I press the button next to the TV screen to open the gates and watch Serge walk out of the camera's view. Then after a few seconds I hear a car engine grow out of the silence as it approaches the house, and I run to open the door as he pulls up outside it.

  "Bleeding hell, Monty, what's all this about…then?" he says, as he brushes past me, but then trails off as he turns to face me. He finishes up staring, wide-eyed and mouth hanging open.

  "Jesus Beaumont, what the hell…?"

  I'm covered in blood, I suddenly notice it myself.

  I can only point down the hallway, towards the kitchen. Serge turns slowly to follow the direction of my finger and begins to walk. He smells of whisky and fags like he always does. It is a tiny speck of comfort in this ocean of fear and uncertainty.

  I'm forced to confront it properly as we walk into the kitchen. She is grey and totally still. Definitely dead. There's blood everywhere, the knife is still on the worktop, its blade pointing at me. Accusing me.

  "Jesus…" Serge says again as he takes in the scene, looking from the body to me and back again, same wide eyes, but can't I detect a glisten of admiration in there? Like I've actually done something to make the old gangster proud?

  "Out of hand domestic was it?" he asks eventually, and he removes his leather jacket and lays it carefully on a chair. I nod slowly.

  "It was…an accident…I just picked up the knife…I never meant to…" I can't speak properly, I can't think of what to say.

  Eventually I manage to tell him a few more details. Serge nods at me as if he's a doctor who's listening to a patient describing how ill he feels.

  "Right," he finally says, "here's what we'll do. We need to get the body wrapped up, then clean this place up. And I mean clean it an' all. I know a deserted dock down near the Thames barrier. Let's just say it's been used before for such business as this. We'll take it in your Land Rover. We'll have to do all this tonight, while it's still dark – and it gets light early at this time of year. Then tomorrow you report Krystal's gone missing, say she's been depressed recently, maybe started using again, yeah?"

  He talks quietly, almost whispering.

  "Shit, but you know the press are gonna have a field day with this…one way or the other?"

  "Yeah," I'm steadying myself against the kitchen table and gulping hard to stop myself being sick. I want to wake up now and find everything is really okay.

  "Oh yeah, then we're gonna have to do something with the Land Rover. I'll sort that out, maybe it could turn up burnt out on an estate in Hackney where the Old Bill's too chicken to go looking. You've got so many cars, they won't notice one missing will they?" Serge chuckles, but I can't return the smile. At least, I tell myself, Serge has a plan.

  "And that fucking knife... We'll bleach it and then bury the thing in the garden. It'll leave a space in the knife block, but I guess you can buy a new one."

  He starts looking through the kitchen cupboards until he opens one and goes "Ah". It's the cupboard where Olga keeps her cleaning supplies. I'm still standing there, staring at the body, until I find a bottle of bleach being thrust into my hands.

  I follow Serge's orders, finding some comfort in being told what to do by someone else. We work through the night cleaning up. I'm th
e walking dead – so tired I'm almost in a trance, on auto-pilot. As the hours pass I develop a resistance to the gore and it's just bone-crushingly mundane. Scrubbing, wiping, drying, more scrubbing, and then there's the body. She has become stiff and cold but the blood has stopped pouring out of the wound. Fortunately, you could say, we've just had a new carpet fitted up in the lounge and there's an off-cut of £500-a-metre deluxe cream shag-pile, which the carpet fitters had forgot to get rid of, still rolled up in the corridor that leads to the garage.

  "Brilliant, let's wrap her in that," Serge says when I suggest it.

  I remember when we picked that colour and how she fretted about how easily it would get dirty. How ironic that we're wrapping up her bloody corpse in it, staining it good and proper. After a struggle, because the carpet itself is so thick and heavy, we fit it round her pretty neatly, and we tie it all up with the silk hand-tasselled curtain holdbacks from the lounge because there's fuck all else to use.

  When we've finished the cleaning, Serge takes all the cloths, brushes and pan-scrubs we've used and burns them, along with my bloodied clothes. Then Serge takes the well-cleaned knife and heads out into the garden, leaving me standing there, sweating in my pants in front of our large open fire, watching the flames lick up around my one-off, custom-made Nike trainers, and it's heart-breaking. I'm so tired my eyes sting and I can't even cry, even though I want to.

  The body in its shag-pile wrapping is so heavy, like someone's added a hundred fucking bricks to it, and it's a complete bastard to move the thing into the back of the Land Rover. I take one end, Serge takes the other. I can see her bare foot just peeking out and I really want to avoid touching it as I crouch in the back of the car, hoisting the thing in as Serge pushes from the other end. The sharp smell of bleach is mingling with the warm, soft scent of the upholstery and as we struggle with it I'm thinking about how I love this car, and how tomorrow it's going to be purposefully stolen and torched. I think I should ask Serge more about this but I'm just so tired I can't be bothered to. The new t-shirt I've put on is already drenched in sweat. Suddenly, something gives and I fall backwards as the body launches forward and I find myself squashed between the front seats and the fucking carpeted-corpse. This is just so sick I can't get my head round it. Anyway, I manage to clamber over it and then we're both sitting up front.