Chapter Forty Four

44


You can’t act without a script

Tuesday, January 17

Night in the Hartley Castle court room. The only light in the long, gloomy room came from a desk lamp where Gabriel leant into a laptop computer screen and a fridge light where I bent into a shelf of cold Carlsberg. Then it was just one light as the fridge door closed. I returned to the centre table and handed Gabriel vodka, lime and lemonade in a tall glass. Half her face was in shadow – the bit with eyes – the other half, containing a set mouth chewing gum was bathed in light.

‘I’m opening the video now, monkey face,’ she said. ‘Should be almost done. In fact…’

A small frame appeared which she enlarged to full screen, then the title ‘Killing for Kicks’, then sorrowful violin music, then an Australian narrator…

‘I can’t watch this,’ I said retreating to the bar.

‘Come on, monkey. This is your show!’

‘I don’t care. You watch it and tell me how bad it is.’

‘This isn’t about me! You have to watch it and judge for yourself!’

‘I’m not watching it.’

‘You don’t even know what it is!’

I sat on a bar stool and peered suspiciously at the back of the laptop. ‘For Mister Furry Friend to rate it in his must see videos, it’s got to be grisly. He’s got a history of grisly videos.’

‘Move on, monkey.’

But I couldn’t move on. Not from the happy couples’ video. Not yet. And not from my absolute terror of animal abuse videos. Some people were scared of roller coasters. Others of spiders. My primary fear was being exposed to sixty seconds of grainy but graphic footage that scarred me for life. I’d always been like that. I simply loved animals too much. I was scared of what I might see, not just for what it may confirm about the abuse of those animals, but for how it would affect me.

Herein lay the best possible proof I had never been and never could be an animal activist: As Marcus Friend had said: In order to act, you first needed to arm yourself with the gruesome facts. This meant consuming every morbid article, every piece of shocking footage. And I’d avoided the gruesome facts for fear I couldn’t sleep at night. Granted, I had acted in the sense of a detailed account of battery hen farming, a concise, hard hitting article that had found its way onto a dozen animal rights websites and, perhaps, made a semblance of difference. Yet even I, who didn’t differentiate between any living, breathing creature, still couldn’t deny a fundamental emotion: chickens just weren’t as cuddly as puppies.

Sad fact. I was too sensitive to be an activist. Too soft to make a difference.

So too Gabriel I suspected as, bent into the computer screen watching the video Killing for Kicks playing to her and her alone, her eyes widened, her hands clasped her face and she moaned, ‘Oh God…Oh, my God.’

Chapter Forty Three

43


Into this world we’re thrown

Marcus Ignatius Friend was ‘Jim Morrison’ in a Doors tribute band called Pillion Passengers on the Storm. As career moves go, it panged of desperation. But I guess when you’re a forty five year old loser and you’ve written as many original duds as Marcus Friend apparently had, digging up the songbook of a long dead legend was about all you had left. According to Gabriel ‘Too much information’ Hogg, the closest Marcus Friend had ever come to an actual release was with an angst-ridden ballad called, not surprisingly, Gabriel. I was once blessed with an emailed attachment of this drivelling sobfest, which took fifty minutes to download on a painfully slow 56K modem and three minutes to play. To be frank, the download was less torturous. Not only did he sound like Leonard Cohen gurgling gravel, the whole thing was a drunken, incoherent rant about moons and lonely nights and I think at one point he might have warbled ‘I’m going to top myself’, which, to take Jim Morrison’s example, might have been a good career move.

The four members of Pillion Passengers on the Storm were all on the wrong side of forty and had been knocking about the seedier side of London’s live venues for six months, slowly building a loyal following of equally backward-looking fans and a growing contingent of spotty youths experiencing the Doors back catalogue for the first time. As such, they had a steady flow of gigs that kept them in bourbon and Viagra. And, much though I hate to admit it, baring in mind most drunken uncles can do a decent Karaoke version of Hello, I love you, they weren’t that bad.

We arrived towards the end of the set, by which time Pillion Passengers on the Storm were tidying up the loose ends of Break on through to the other side before a small but appreciative crowd that got slightly smaller and less appreciative with Gabriel’s arrival. I was determined to be scathing. I simply did not see how coming face to face with the man who had deflowered my fiancé could possibly enhance our relationship. Oh, and the blackmail thing. There was that too.

I didn’t know what I’d expected Marcus Friend to look like. Despite the proliferation of forwarded emails from this supposedly close mate of hers, Gabriel had been suspiciously reluctant to provide any visual reference. So I was forced to concoct an image based on what I knew of forty five year old men who preyed on sixteen year old girls. And all I had was drunken uncles singing Hello, I love you.

I hated this image. Found myself almost resenting Gabriel for it. I wanted, no, needed Marcus Friend, for all his advanced years, to be of a certain aesthetic calibre. I needed to see evidence of some sort of minimum standard in Gabriel’s screening process, because ultimately that screening process reflected on me. I needed to see how such a young, beautiful girl could fall for such an old man. Basically, I needed Marcus Friend to look like Mel Gibson.

He didn’t.

Let me put it this way: Jim Morrison died under mysterious circumstances in a Paris bathtub on July 3rd, 1971, apparently of a heart attack. The only person known to have seen his body – aside from the doctor who scrawled an illegible death certificate and promptly disappeared – was one Pamela Courson, his long standing, long suffering squeeze who committed suicide a few years later. The funeral was a closed coffin affair leading to much speculation as to whether it was actually Jim Morrison in the coffin or just a pile of rocks. It was suggested that he had done exactly what he said he would do – fake his own death and bugger off to live with some remote tribe in Africa.

My belief is that Jim Morrison is dead. One, because he hasn’t been busted for any public indecency since. Two, because I don’t care, I never liked his music anyway. All I know is this: Whatever Pamela Courson saw in that Paris bathtub was probably a wet, blue and bloated shadow of Jim Morrison’s former self. What I saw before me on the stage of Fiddlers was also a wet, blue and bloated shadow of Jim Morrison’s former self.

Granted the wet was now late gig sweat that plastered biker length black hair to his fat face like the tentacles of a dozen torched squid. Granted the blue was mascara that ran from his eyelids like ink from those same squid. But as for the bloat. The lean, mean figure of Jim Morrison would have had to baste in Badedas for a good two days to reach Marcus Friend proportions.

I was horrified, not to mention immensely disappointed. Despite the note perfect vocals he spat into a microphone on the receiving end of considerable spittle, all I could see was a middle-aged, black-clad, drunk, sweaty biker prowling the stage like a camp Ozzie Osborne.

Yes, he was camp as well. Blatantly camp. Julian Clarey camp.

I had no idea how to deal with this other than to glare at Gabriel who was currently buying me a Stella. Fact: the middle-aged biker boy poncing his way through Light my fire with full tea pots, half tea pots and mincing cat walks was my fiancé’s ex-boyfriend. Judging by the way she was singing along, she was the only one in our relationship remotely proud of this.

Then he spotted her. The girl in his dodgy video. Moments after that he spotted me. I could only assume he’d seen photos as I was giving him no visual reference linking me to Gabriel – I wasn’t touching her or talking to her. Nothing, I was just leaning on the bar five feet behind her. Yet, he spotted me. And did the strangest thing. He didn’t spit at me, burst into tears, or worse, knowing the maniac we were dealing with, rush down and strangle me. He closed his eyes and bowed. A slow, flourishing bow like a Knight of the Realm being presented to the Queen. I didn’t know how to deal with this in any appropriately British way. I didn’t know how to deal with it at all. So I did something equally strange: I toasted him with my Stella.

I toasted the man who had orchestrated a campaign of terror against my fiancé’s family; the man who was now blackmailing that fiancé; the man who had committed such lurid videotaped indecencies on that fiancé, they had to be erased. I toasted this man with my Stella. Loathe as I am to admit it, I couldn’t do anything else. Because Marcus Friend – whipping his mane of wet hair back off his face with a macho-feminine flourish, biker tattoos on forearms and neck, biker black clothes and cockily camp stage presence – was strangely, engagingly charismatic. I saw something in his devil-may-care attitude.

I saw me as I wished I was.

Pillion Passengers on the Storm completed their set, rather predictably, with Riders on the Storm, the last song the Doors ever recorded. Weeks later, Jim Morrison ran himself a bath. Had I been judging Stars in your Eyes, I would have given them an eight. Marcus Friend was ‘Jim Morrison’, albeit reincarnated after a long soak and too much heavenly exposure to Peter Allen. As for the rest of the band, they had merely been competent, largely anonymous session musicians. And, as they spilled off the stage and headed for the bar, I suspected a session was exactly what they now had in mind.

Marcus Friend left the stage last, stopping to assault his face and hair rather vigorously with a white towel, collect a half full bottle of Fosters and chat to a young female fan who held his hand and gushed into his ear like he was Bono. I doubted Marcus Friend’s cabinet was bare. To young drunk girls, even riders of other people’s storms were entirely fuckable.

Then he was headed our way. I’d expected him to mince. He didn’t.

‘Hello, my dear. Long time no see,’ he said taking Gabriel’s hand and kissing it. She let him. He turned to me. ‘And you must be Bradley.’

‘Bailey,’ I said with a smirk. It was an obvious attempt at belittlement.

We shook, slow but hard. His hand was soaked in sweat and I think he enjoyed this by the way he prolonged the gesture. ‘I’m dreadfully sorry. Bailey. How nice to finally meet you. Gabby has been highly complimentary. You’re…prettier than you look in your photos.’ He stared at my face and made a gesture round his own chin. ‘I love all this. Takes me back to when I started shaving. Come on. Let’s go somewhere we can talk.’

***

‘We’re only called terrorists,’ said Marcus Friend, ‘because terrorist is now the buzz word and it’s easier to lump anyone fighting for a cause in together. Terrorism fights for the right to believe in some adult version of Santa. Animal activism fights for the rights of living things. Kiddies believe in Santa because adults tell them Santa exists. Adults believe in God because adults tell them God exists. Now I don’t wish to start some sort of conspiracy theory, but adults have been lying to kiddies for generations.’

‘You do so want to start a conspiracy theory,’ said Gabriel.

‘All right, my dear. I do.’

The scene: A cramped, windowless, near empty basement bar somewhere in the West End. All I know is we cut down countless side streets and back alleys to get to it. I was just as pleased – we were hidden away from the world and best the world didn’t see us associating with a ranting Marcus Friend.

‘One is inclined to believe the world is now officially mad,’ he continued. ‘A troublesome dog is destroyed. Not killed, destroyed. We kill animals. We kill people. Why do we destroy troublesome dogs? The only thing we ever destroy is monsters, is it not? It goes back to childhood. Yet mass murderers are still executed.

‘The lowly beasts, dear people. There to give us mere factory workers in God&co something to feel superior to. To give us pause when the collection tray demands remarbling of the west wing. To keep us pandering obediently to the machine just in case God or Allah has us pencilled in for the next life as a lowly beast or, worse, a troublesome dog. Yet what is God? What is Allah? They are manmade fictions created to keep the masses in check through a ritualised form of self-policing. To suppress us and make us conform or send us into brainwashed battle as the case may be. The Old Testament. Not just a long winded homage to God as we once thought, but a blatant act of state formation written by the Kingdom Of Judea’s very own Taliban to smother resistance from the Kingdom of Samaria on what we now know as the West Bank. Not the birth of Christianity. No. The death of individuality. That, my friends, is a fact.

‘As for the New Testament…well, little more than a loosely linked compilation of daft fairy tales really. Santa rides in on a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. How is that a sillier concept than a carpenter who walks on water? Man has walked on the moon (apparently), split atoms, cloned sheep and transplanted hearts. Yet I see no one running from their local GP crying ‘I was blind and now I can see!’ To this day wine is still made from grapes and our supermarkets still have disabled car parks. If Jesus was honest to God standing around in a sea of discarded crutches, dark glasses and redundant Labradors, he might have at least had the decency to pass on a few tips. No. He was a fucking carpenter! Name me one Christian who isn’t still bewildered by anything from IKEA.’

‘You’re very dark on religion,’ I said, in no mind to share my own scarily similar, some would say twisted, perspectives.

‘I am dark on religion for a host of reasons. I am an unwilling party to the Battle of the Gods. But mostly because religion began the whole concept of animals being inferior to humans and that’s still with us. The bible, the Koran and whatever other diabolical manuals these followers of dangerous fantasies subscribe to instilled in us the concept of ritual sacrifice where animals are routinely hauled out before the screaming masses, frightened out of their tiny skulls, tortured, then slaughtered. And all they did was be an animal.’

‘As for justifying our actions, well, terrorists strap explosives to themselves and murder innocent people in the name of something they can’t even prove exists. Animals exist, dear people. They’re flesh and blood. They’re not something. They’re someone! Male, female. Boy, girl. They’ve just as much right to be here as you and I and that’s why they’re worth fighting for. Now these fundamentalist cunts are fighting what they like to call A Holy War and they keep leaving the e out of holey! At least our acts of random civil obedience can be pinned to something tangible. I make no apologies. I am compelled to act. To fight. I can not lie in my nice cosy bed knowing animals are suffering and be fine with that.’ He prodded his temple. ‘They’re in there all the time. The images. The misery. It never goes away. It messes with your mind, torments you constantly. The only way to get any peace is to fight. I have to fight. It is my destiny, dear people.’

I had sat through this tirade with my elbow on the arm of my chair, my fist rammed into my chin, face set in my most dismissive, disdainful look. I was trying to imagine Marcus Friend with Gabriel. Oddly, I could. His hair was now dry – albeit dry sweat – and cascading quite gracefully down his shoulders like crude oil, thick and gushing from a bore atop his head. The ludicrous blue mascara and most of the lipstick were now merely traces. And yes, much to my relief, I could now fit Marcus Friend in above minimum standard. He was oddly, strangely compelling.

Much of this I put down to the voice – a voice made for car commercials and I can pay it no higher compliment than that. And while the man behind the voice veered wildly from the insane to the merely caustic, he veered so articulately and resonantly, the insane and the caustic were coated in great dollops of double cream.

All of a sudden, I felt entirely at odds with my own voice. For while I was assessing him, he was undoubtedly assessing me and my status as the man Gabriel intended to marry. And while our primary objective here was to seek some sort of resolution from a patently, resolutely, oblivi-ously, defiantly demented man, there were other agendas to address as well.

Unspoken male agendas. And I had to address all mine in a slightly alcohol-numbed New Zealand accent.

I embarked on this quest by sounding patently, resolutely, obliviously thick: ‘I’m sorry, Marcus. I didn’t listen to a word of that.’

His lips curled into a pursed smile. ‘Would you like me to repeat it in Australian?’

‘I’m a kiwi.’

‘Oh. I do apologise.’ He teepeed his fingers. ‘I’ve been to New Zealand, you know. Yes, an aeroplane I was on refuelled there once. It looked very quaint and I wish we’d had the chance to pop out and pat a sheep.’

I sighed. ‘Whatever. I think it’s time we got down to brass tacks.’

‘Down to what?’ He looked across at Gabriel who looked wide-eyed across at me.

‘Down to business,’ I said.

‘Oh, right!’ He sat forward rubbing his hands expectantly. ‘And what business would that be? Timeshare? Insurance? Smack?’ He smiled at Gabriel. ‘Cheese graters?’

‘How many copies of this video have you got?’ I asked.

‘I think the correct term is DVD. Answer: ten. Including the copy in a bubble bag addressed to the London CIB, eleven.’

Suddenly accents didn’t matter.

‘You sad bastard. Why are you doing this? What the hell possesses you to ruin people’s lives like this?’

He sat back, crossed his legs and stared into space. ‘What possesses me? We’re pigeonholing me with Linda Blair. That’s interesting. I’d never thought of it as possession before. Perhaps it is. Perhaps if one sees enough animal cruelty, be it first hand or via the endless stream of footage I am obliged to watch, one does become possessed.’ His lipstick-stained lips curled into a sardonic grin. ‘Owned by the animals.’

‘You’re obviously aware of my own beliefs.’

‘I am. And all credit to you. I don’t normally do chickens.’

He smirked and I laughed despite myself. ‘So this was totally about Gabriel and me?’

He flagged a waiter. ‘Not totally, no. Just mostly. A little archive video footage certainly helped sway the decision and gave us the luxury of blackmail. And, of course, factory farming is factory farming no matter how unappealing the victims. Fortunately I knew some people who did do chickens.’

The waiter arrived and we ordered another round of drinks.

‘Are you in charge?’ I asked after he was out of ear shot.

He chuckled. ‘I suppose I must be! In charge isn’t an expression I normally associate with myself. But, in the sense you mean it.’ Another chuckle. ‘Yes, I guess I am.’

‘So you organised the letters, sent them out—’

‘I wrote the letter. One has underlings to delegate such menial tasks as photocopying and posting.’

‘How many of you are there?’

Another chuckle as he looked to the ceiling and mouthed the count - one, two. ‘About three,' he said emphatically with a disconcertingly crazed grin. 'There used to be four of me but Gabriel saw off the happy one about five years ago.’

‘I meant—’

‘I know what you meant,' he said sitting abrupty forward and lighting a cigarette. 'And I can’t honestly say. We have so many fanatical little vegans running around the countryside at any given moment. There’s a cell of sorts, a hard core pool of what I like to call malleable maniacs who do all the research and reconnaissance, all that boring, behind the scenes fiddle that can go on for months and needs to go on for months if you intend to stay out of prison. You don’t just send a lunatic arsonist in to burn down a pub on a whim, you know.’

‘But you chose the targets,’ I said.

‘Gabriel helped immensely with her most informative and chatty emails.' He grinned and rolled his tongue around in his mouth unattractively. 'How did the barbecue go by the way? Quiet a brave undertaking in the depths of winter.’

‘Fine,’ I said flatly. ‘The graffiti?’

‘The which?’

‘The writing on our landlord’s barn.’

‘Ah, yes. That.’ He winced. ‘A spite too far, I’m afraid. May I say in my defence, that I was very drunk at the time. Somehow my bedraggled brain convinced me we weren’t going far enough to put you squarely in the frame. Hence my somewhat ill-concieved piece of personalised activism. Again, in my defence, I made the call at three in the morning. It was done by the time I was sober enough to regret it. Of course, it doesn’t actually change anything. We still have our cosy little stalemate.’

I felt like punching him, I really felt like punching him. But I'd never actually punched someone before and I had delicate wrists. ‘How do you expect this to work, Marcus?’

‘Oh, I think you’ll find it already has,' he said. 'Whatever happens now, Windy Dale Eggs is already worthless. Only the most devout masochist would be interested in it now. Then again, we are talking chicken farmers, so I suppose anything’s possible. Excuse my bluntness, but I can’t help feeling what you two are or were trying to do was about as morally bankrupt as the people you were attempting to extort.’

‘What extortion?’

‘All this moddlecoddling of Gabby’s family. Is it genuine? No. You are a couple of opportunist leeches no worthier than them.’

Gabriel’s turn to talk. ‘You of all people know what I went through.’

‘Yes, my sweet. I do,' said Friend. 'There was also a time I thought you had come out the other end an honourable woman. It’s fair to say you have found an equally two faced ally in Bailey.’

I groaned and flopped back in my chair. ‘Why are we here, Gabriel?’

‘I think I can answer that,’ said Friend brightly, settling back in his chair as well as if we three were going to chat the night away like old mates. ‘Gabriel, as you quaintly call her, thought you would come down here with a miracle cure. That your charms, or fists, or money – I am told you aren’t short in that regard – would somehow make me see sense. Do I need to explain to you that commonsense has already prevailed here? Do I need to explain that I stood to gain nothing from this?’

He didn’t. All he thought he’d gained sat on a threadbare armchair two feet away glowering at him. That was plain. All I thought I’d gained sat on the same armchair strangely mute. She’d been so much more upfront in her video.

So there we were. Sipping our drinks in a West End bar. The three of us it would seem biding time before we all went to hell. I wanted to ask about the legal ramifications of Gabriel’s video but, to be honest, I didn’t need to. Terrorism wasn’t funny anymore. Inciting terrorism was therefore, at best, only mildly droll.

‘Gabby tells me you’re a writer, Bailey,’ Friend said, tone incongruously chipper as though this was the nicest of gatherings.

I nodded.

‘Yes. She also said this nasty little business couldn’t have come at a worse time.’

‘Is there a better time?’

‘I hear you are on the verge of your dream job?’

‘I have an opportunity, yes.’

‘And am I right in saying that opportunity involves a certain well known brand of football boot?’

‘Did Gabriel tell you how many times a day I pee?’

‘About three. You are an animal sympathiser, are you not?’

‘Yes, Marcus.’

‘And you’re comfortable with the notion of selling vast quantities of these boots?’

‘If that’s what happens, yes. I’d be elated. It’s my job.’

‘And so, I have to also assume you are comfortable with the source of the raw materials for these boots?’

I shrugged. Boots were made of leather. Not ideal. But if people were going to eat animals, they might as well wear them as well. 'Yes,' I said.

He smiled darkly. ‘You don’t know, do you?’

Another shrug. ‘Don’t know what?’

‘Have you been living under a log? I’ll write something down for you. I suggest you have a look at it when you get home. There’s a nice little video you might like to see as well. The pictures are a bit grainy, but you’ll get the gist. I dear say you’ll get the gist very quickly. Then we’ll see for certain where your true loyalties lie.’

He handed me a beer coaster. On it in blue ink he had scrawled a website address containing the name of a prominent icon animal. Below that he’d written: Watch video – Killing for Kicks.

Chapter Forty Two

42


Snuff movie

‘So…Mademoiselle Gabby. Tell me your most intimate secret.’

‘Can you not film me in bed, please, Marcus?’

The DVD playing on the television in Gabriel’s Shaftesbury Hotel room was shaky, hazy and green – handheld night vision video shot in a small dark room amid a mess of newspapers, clothes, coffee cups, ash trays and an empty spirit bottle, all strewn about squatter-like next to a double mattress on the floor, upon which sat a naked, cross-legged Gabriel in a younger incantation. She was slouched forward and flicking ash at an ash tray.

‘Mademoiselle has the sheets if she wishes to be au contraire.’ The voice behind the camera was deeply resonant; mature, no, old; refined, yet smoky, no, make that toffee coated phloem – a posher Simon Cowell force-fed whisky and Camel cigarettes like a French goose. I winced at this first proper reference point of the man who had deflowered my beautiful girl, cringed at the pompously melodious tones, burned inwardly at how positively ancient he sounded compared to the sweet faced girl in his bed, burned everywhere at the way she just sat there so...comfortably exposed.

‘Stop doing that stupid French accent!’ said the girl on the screen

‘Mademoiselle does not like ze French accent?’

‘No. She fucking hates it. Stop it!’

‘Awright love. Keep ya fuckin hair on!’

‘Don’t do the cockney one either! Don’t do any accents! Just be yourself for a change!’

‘As you wish, my dear. One is not seeking to offend.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Now. Tell me your deepest, darkest secrets.’

The girl on the video smiled darkly. ‘What? The one about me hating your flea-ridden apartment?’

‘If you wish.’

‘I hate your flea-ridden apartment. Hurry up and write a decent song so we can live in luxury.’

‘With such patient support, I can hardly fail.’

‘Good. Off you go then.’ A small hand filled the screen as the camera moved in. ‘Stop filming me!’ the young Gabriel said tetchily.

There were several more minutes of idle girl-boy (child-dirty old man) chit chat, then the man behind the camera said: ‘Now, sweet pea, declare to the world your most deadly sin – superbia, avaritia, luxuria, invidia, gula, ira or acedia?’

‘Ya what?’

‘It’s Latin, my dear. Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath or sloth? Although I should point out, luxuria was extravagance in the original sins, now updated to lust. So what’s it to be?’

‘Can I choose two?’

‘Then I assume one of them is greed?’

She laughed. ‘No. Sloth brought on by wrath.’

‘Anger has sapped your will to live?’

‘And this grimy flat. But yes, anger mostly.’

‘Anger towards what or whom?’ said the deep voice in slow, measured tones as the picture zoomed in for a clumsy close-up, the images darting giddily around walls and ceiling and fleeting flashes of bits of nude, green girl amid audible camera grappling before locking unsteadily onto a knee, a shoulder, a chin, a wall, half a face, then all of a face. If Marcus Friend's music career failed to take hold, he had a readymade future in Blair Witch Project sequels.

‘Anger towards my family,' said the now full frame grim, grainy green face. 'Except for Simon, of course. I hate everyone else. I hate my parents. I hate my parents.’

‘And why do you hate your parents, my love?’

‘Because they drink all the time and when they drink, they abuse me. Not in a sexual way, but it’s just as bad.' Her eyes burned a hole in the hazy pictures, looked away, and then down. 'My mum was always pissed and screaming and calling me a useless whoring midget and all I’d ever done was get home late from school. And Dad just sat there or wasn’t there at all because he was at the pub or out with his poor chickens. And it only got worse after I went to bed. Dad would have a go at Mum and they’d shout at each other and throw things until midnight. Then there’d be nothing but bumps on the walls and I’d know Dad had gone to bed and Mum was trying to find her way to the attic in the dark, and then I’d be able to get some sleep. I could still hear her clomping around up there. I could hear the bottle clomp on the floor every time she topped up her glass.’

Her eyes met the camera and sort of rolled before fixing it with teenage contempt and it was now clear she, herself, had been drinking. ‘Mum? Dad?' she said. 'I hope you die slow, painful deaths. I hope you pay for what you’ve done to us, me, Simon and my stupid, fat half-sister, Melissa.’ Much jittery handheld grinning into camera followed before she said, ‘Marcus, when is your group going to take an interest in my family?’

‘My group? I’m a solo artist, my sweet.’

‘Your activist group.’

‘Oh yes. My activist group. What about my activist group?’

‘I want them to target my family.’

‘For the record, Gabby has imbibed rather generously this evening,’ said the man behind the camera.

‘I’m fine, thank you!’ came the petulant response.

‘Yes, dear. You’re fine.’

She paused, and then her eyes set on something just off camera, presumably his eyes. ‘So, will you do it?’

‘Do what?’ he said.

Her eyes darkened. ‘I want you to threaten my family. I want you to threaten them, bomb them and burn down their house. I want you to drive them out of business.’

‘Strong words, my dear.’

She cocked her drunken head and grinned. ‘I’m a strong girl.’

‘One is aware of certain drawbacks to this suggestion of yours.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as the distinct possibility we could both go to prison.’

Her eyes narrowed and she cocked her head. ‘Have you ever been to prison, Marcus?’

There was a pause behind the camera. ‘Perhaps. Then again, I am always in prison. I never escape from the atrocities, my sweet. They’re with me wherever I go, when I write, when I play, when I sleep. My only outlet is to act.’

The girl smiled. ‘Will you act for me?’

Another pause. ‘No.’

She looked decidedly put out ‘Why not?’

‘Simple. There are those with a passion for chickens. I am not one of them. And I am not about to waste the considerable time and energy of many and varied people exacting a teenager’s revenge.’

‘Will you think about it?’

‘No.’

She tilted her head. ‘Please? For me?’

‘All right. For you, I’ll think about it…Thought about. The answer’s still no. Now, more important things. There are other more creative uses for this camera.’

The picture suddenly jolted violently around the room, the teenage Gabriel flashing through shot several times, then, abruptly, the screen went solid blue as if whatever had been recorded had been erased.

Gabriel flicked the remote at the screen and the room went quiet. Deathly quiet. Just her looking at me and me looking at the blue screen. For about a minute.

To be honest, in my cloud of cumuli-numbness, I had no idea what I was more shocked by – her damning words or the sight of my beautiful girl naked with another man, probably sleeping with that other man shortly after the picture went blank so abruptly. Somehow the emphatic erasure of whatever had gone on in that bedroom was harder to bear than seeing it in graphic detail. I felt hot and tingly and incapable of eye contact, let alone speech. It took every ounce of will just to haul myself off the bed and silently leave the room.

***

Gabriel found me in the Shaftesbury Hotel Premier Bar thirty minutes later, gazing absently out at the hustle of Shaftesbury Avenue. Initially, when I’d left the room I’d strutted off down Shaftesbury Avenue and settled in with a beer at a crowded corner bar towards Piccadilly Circus. I’d taken three large sips and scurried back to the hotel – I’d wanted to be broodingly effusive, not feudally elusive.

‘Funny thing, human nature,’ I said after a long stony silence filled by the quiet reflection, sipping and smoking of a once ecstatically happy couple at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. ‘There you were selling yourself down the river and sending us all to jail and all I’ve been thinking about is what happened after the picture went blank.’

She huffed and rolled her eyes. ‘It was a long time ago. I was seventeen.’

‘That makes it better?’

‘This is just stupid jealousy, monkey. It’s nothing to do with anything.’

‘How would you like it? Would you like to see me having sex with someone else?’

‘We weren’t having sex! For God’s sake! Get with the program!’

‘You erased the program!’

Her eyes went to the heavens so fast it was a wonder her head didn't spin right off her neck. ‘Can you stop behaving like a spoilt brat and talk about what really matters?’

‘Sorry, ' I said. 'Not yet.’

Half an hour later I did. Had we still been in her room, I seriously wonder if we’d still have been talking at all. Such is the beauty of arguing in public – being forced to maintain a semblance of decorum. In any case, I didn’t want to lose her.

‘Why?’ I said.

‘Why?' She looked to the heavens for the words, took a deep breath and talked to my knees. 'I was young. I was young and I was angry and it was just a stupid video. Bailey,' she now said to my face, 'I’d forgotten about it. I’d forgotten we’d even done it. I’d forgotten I’d even said that stuff. It was just two bored people having a few drinks and doing boring things. Taping boring conversations. It was six years ago.’

I sighed. ‘Okay. I’m assuming that isn’t the only copy?’

She shook her head sadly. And for a moment I felt sorry for her and her silly teenage indiscretion. For a moment.

‘You didn’t learn about activism from reading, did you?’ Another sad shake of the head. ‘And you’ve known Marcus was an activist the whole time.’

‘I trusted him.’

‘Gabriel, how naïve are you? He’s an active animal activist! You dumped him…Which of these clues didn’t jump out and hit you in the face?’

‘Both of them did! That’s why I was emailing him. I asked him if he had anything to do with it ages ago.’

‘And?’

‘He said no.’

‘No? That’s all?’

‘No! He seemed really happy! He was telling me about his new band and his new flat in Belgravia and how he’d met this amazing girl and fallen in love. He just seemed…fine. More than fine! He was happy and successful and content and I believed him. He had no reason to do it! He even offered to check around and see if he could find out who was involved!’

I scoffed. ‘My God. What sort of monster is this guy?’

‘A sad one.’

‘I take it you’ve seen him?’

‘I have. He hasn’t got a girlfriend. He hasn’t fallen in love. He hasn’t got a flat in Belgravia. He’s still in the same old flea pit in Brixton. He hates his band. He’s um…a bit bitter and twisted and he kind of said he still loves me. He also said he’s going to kill himself if I don’t go back.’

‘Well, nice easy solution! Don’t go back!’

‘He’s got the DVD, monkey.’

‘So what? They were the gibberings of a child.’

‘Uh uh. Seventeen, monkey. A seventeen year old child. Legally I knew what I was saying. Legally Marcus could produce that DVD as evidence of incitement.' She sighed and gave me a sad, apologetic grimace. 'Sorry, but we’re fucked.’

‘Surprise, surprise. Story of our lives really’ I let out a sigh of my own, drifted off momentarily into a shower unit in a prison that looked a bit too much like Chicken Colditz as a guard who looked a bit too much like Austin Hogg dropped a bar of soap at my feet and asked me to pick it up...I slapped my thighs. ‘Right! Okay, let’s keep calm and see if we can sort this out. Where is Marcus now? I think we should pay him a visit.’

She looked at her watch. I looked at mine. It was 9:45pm. Neither of us had eaten. ‘He’ll be playing by now,’ she said.

‘Playing?’

‘His band. They’re playing at Fiddlers in Paddington tonight. It’s a Doors revival band.’

‘Oh God. It just gets worse.’