Murder Most Fab (30 page)

I
didn’t care. After all I had been through, the waiting was over. I had Timothy Thornchurch
at last. Or, at least, I had part of him once a week. The only problem looming
on the horizon was that, sooner or later, I would want the rest to go with it.

‘Hola?’

‘Sorry?’
I didn’t recognize the voice — the line was crackly and distorted.

‘Johnny?
Ees Juan!’

‘Oh.
Oh. Juan. Hello. How are you?’ My heart sank. I had hoped never to hear from
him again.

‘Johnny,
I meess you. I love you.’

My
heart plummeted into my boots. ‘I love you too, Juan, but we are forced to be
apart for ever, sadly. My life is here, your life is there …’

‘No,
no. Johnny — I no can live wizout you.’

‘Is it
money, Juan? Is that what you need? How much?’

‘No, I
no need money. I rich now. I sell my car for two hundred dollars. Buy ticket.
Johnny, I come live with you. I meess you, I love you.’

‘Oh,
Christ.’

‘You
happy, Johnny, huh?’

‘An —
yes, yes, very happy …‘

‘Me
too. I see you next week. Come to airport, meet me. Next Tuesday, nine o’clock.
Heathrow. Bye, Johnny!’

I
reported this matter rather sheepishly to Catherine, who wasn’t best pleased.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ she said. ‘That’s all we need. Well, he can come for a
week, then salsa back to the coffee plantation he came from. I’ve heard of “Fair
Trade” but this is ridiculous.’

‘He
says he wants to live here.’

‘I’ll
bet he does. But it’s a quick trip round London — Leicester Square, Nelson’s
Column, Buckingham Palace — then home, with a bit of extra dosh as a sweetener.’

I felt
relieved. If Catherine thought it would work out, I was sure it would. She
always had my best interests at heart. And, in the interests of keeping Juan on
side, I might have to force myself into hours of sweaty, pleasure-making sex.
Perhaps this would have the added bonus of making Tim jealous. After all, he
presumably slept with the laminate-flooring heiress, Sophie, although he was
careful never to mention her and I didn’t ask questions. It would all be fine.

The following Tuesday I
stood, disguised in a baseball cap and dark glasses, in the arrivals hall at
Heathrow airport. I was aware of a flutter of excitement and was cross with
myself. The plan, as laid out by Catherine, was for me to be chilly and cold to
Juan, not so much that he turned against me and decided to tell the truth about
Bernard, but enough for him to want to return to Nicaragua on the return ticket
she had so generously bought him.

But it
wasn’t that easy. When Juan emerged, gorgeous but bewildered, my heart melted.
He seemed so innocent and lost. The frosty greeting she had instructed me to
give didn’t materialize. Instead we threw our arms round each other like Romeo
and Juliet, kissed passionately in the taxi on the way home and made our way
straight to the bedroom when we got there.

When I
came out several hours later, hair tousled, lips burning, Catherine was sitting
silently in the lounge with her arms crossed.

‘So,’
she said crisply, ‘I take it your special delivery has arrived?’

‘Er,
yes, he has.’

‘And
what happened to my instruction to drop him at the YMCA? I take it that went
out of the window. From the grunts and groans coming from your room, you’ve
either got Juan or a pot-bellied pig in there. And I know which I’d rather it
was.’

‘I
didn’t have the heart to be horrible to him. He seemed so vulnerable,’ I said
apologetically.

‘Oh, I
think you’ll find it’s you who’s vulnerable, Cowboy. Anyway, he’s here now.
I’ll have to skip to plan B. Get him out.’

‘Plan
B?’ I asked.

‘I
shall keep it to myself. You’d only fuck it up. Chop-chop. Show Mummy what you’ve
dragged home.’

‘He’s
sleeping off his jet-lag. Let the poor boy rest.’

‘I’ll
give him rest,’ she muttered. ‘You’ll not be the first person to discover the
short lifespan of a holiday romance .
Pick Me Up!
magazine is full of
sad twats like you, although their fancy-men are mostly Turkish. I bet Juan
thinks he’s won the fucking lottery. Never mind love — these Latin Americans
will do the business for a Diet Coke! He gives us former working girls a bad
name.’ She got up and hammered on my bedroom door. ‘Come on out,
gracias.
Let’s
have a vada at you.’

A few
seconds later, Juan emerged, sleepy-eyed and terribly sexy.

To my
surprise, Catherine was very welcoming and outwardly pleasant. Of course, there
was a barbed subtext to her words but mercifully it was lost on him. ‘I’m so
pleased to meet you!’ she said. ‘Johnny has told me so much about you. I’ve
boiled some rice to help you feel at home. Would you like some?’

‘Er,
thank you,’ said Juan, confused.

‘Don’t
mention it, sweetie. And I’m going to teach you some proper English. I don’t
know what the Spanish is for “Fuck-face”, but I shall make it my duty to find
out. You’ll find it an invaluable phrase, staying in London. Are you staying
long, or is it just a flying visit? You’ll be very cold here, I expect …

Juan
turned to me. Sweat was glistening on his brow. ‘I no understand,’ he said
helplessly, his golden skin glowing in the lamplight.

‘Your
poor mother will be missing you already, I should think, ‘Catherine went on,
enjoying Juan’s discomfort.

‘My mother
dead. I want be with Johnny,’ said Juan.

God
bless him for fighting back, I thought, touched. It occurred to me that
Catherine was being a lot nastier than she needed to be, even if she was
disguising it as niceness. Why did Juan rile her so badly? He was just a simple
lad from Central America, and while he might hold the information that could
destroy us, he had no intention of using it, as far as we knew. He liked me.
Why would he want to turn me in?

Catherine
lowered her voice so Juan couldn’t hear her. ‘Fuckofacio is here to stay, he
thinks. It seems we have a difference of opinion. Shame.’ She was leaning
against the fridge, and stroked it affectionately. ‘I’ll give it a week,’ she
said to both of us.

Clearly Juan had other
ideas. He believed we were at the start of a new life together. ‘I love you for
ever!’ he said, about five times a day.

He was
my constant companion and followed me around like a puppy. On the days when I
was meeting Tim at the Savoy I told him I had to work and sent him to the
cinema down the road: I tied the front-door key round his wrist on a piece of
elastic so he didn’t lose it. He was overwhelmed by the big city. Coming as he
did from peaceful countryside, he was wide-eyed with wonder at the hustle and
bustle of London life. ‘Everything so fast!’ he said.

‘Ain’t
that the truth,’ said Catherine. ‘Apart from Johnny’s arse, which is
sooo
loose!‘
She took delight in making jokes that he wouldn’t understand.

‘Que?’
he said.

Catherine
rolled her eyes.

When
people stopped me in the street and asked for my autograph, he was amazed.
‘You famous!’ he said.

‘Oh,
well, yes. A little!’ I said modestly.

‘Aah,’
said Juan, his big brown eyes wide with wonder. And adored me even more.

At
first, it was lovely in a way. I revelled in his beautiful body, which was mine
to enjoy at any time of day or night. He was sex on tap, always ready to please
me, the other extreme to my secretive hotel love-ins with Tim.

But
after a while, it began to pall. Sexual pleasure is all very well, but if
you’re going to carry on doing it with the same person time after time, you
have to feel something for them, and as time went on, I felt less and less for
Juan. The language barrier was more of a problem than I’d thought it would be.
I was used to people laughing at my witty observations, but Juan just looked at
me quizzically. I tried explaining and translating, with the help of a Spanish
dictionary, but by then the moment had passed.

It
might not have been so bad if he hadn’t been around so much, but the only respite
I had from him was when he took himself off to the English classes I’d arranged
for him to have twice a week; otherwise he made it his duty to be at my side
night and day, at the TV studio or a nightclub. At a time in my life when my
every professional utterance was greeted more or less with unprecedented
rapture, I found myself at home of an evening with a semi-literate foreigner
who smelt of clay and didn’t know what a TV remote control was, let alone a TV
star of my calibre. A divine irony, you might think, but it was cruel and unendurable
.

My
desire for Juan curdled, in the familiar way. The cute face and open arms
became irritating and I developed a permanent headache. I thought if we had a
big row he might pack his bags and go, but that was wishful thinking. Juan
refused to take the bait. If I snapped at him, he reached for my flies. If I
shouted at him, he kissed me. Once, driven beyond endurance, I screamed, ‘I
hate you and want you to leave me alone! Fuck off back to Nicaragua, why don’t
you?’

He
looked at me with sad, spaniel eyes and said, ‘You no mean that. We live only
for each other!’ then took off his clothes and beckoned me to the bedroom.

I’m
only human. What could I do? Sex and love, love and sex — it was all so
confusing.

‘Not
for me, it ain’t,’ said Catherine, when I told her how I felt. ‘I knew this
would happen. I said from the start this was a mistake, but you wouldn’t
listen. He’s like clingfilm. Doesn’t his visa run out soon or something?’

I shook
my head. ‘He’s applied for a student visa, now that he’s at English classes.
He’ll be here for three years or more.’

‘Holy
Christ! No, he won’t. Right. It’s time for plan B.’

‘What
is this plan B you keep talking about?’ I asked warily.

‘Me
learning Spanish,’ answered Catherine.

‘I’m not
with you,’ I said.

‘Don’t
trouble your pretty head, Cowboy. Leave everything to me. It’s a dirty
business, but someone has to do it. However, I feel my commission may be going
up to thirty per cent.’

With
that, she picked up her handbag and made for the door.

‘I’m
off to the shops to buy some
Teach Yourself Spanish
CDs and a luxury
sherry trifle. Do bear with me. I shall keep you informed. Dreary Juan should
be out of your hair in a couple of days, tops. Don’t you worry about a thing.’

‘You’re
a saint,’ I called after her, as I heard the front door slam.

I’d hoped that having Juan
might fill the gap Tim’s part-time love left. We were in love with each other
and that love would endure for ever, but Sophie and Juan were facts of our
lives, too. How grown-up we were being, how very modern.

It
didn’t work out that way. Now, ironically, I found I needed Tim more than ever.
Juan had made me even more aware of how much I loved him.

One
night I returned home after a much-needed evening with him to find Juan almost
hysterical. ‘Where you been, Johnny, huh? Where? I wait long time.’

‘Out,’
I snapped.

‘You
love someone else?’

‘No,‘ I
said, bored. ‘I’m going to bed.’

‘Someone
else, Johnny? Huh? Tell me!’

At that
moment, I hated him with all my heart. All the frustration and sadness I felt
about Tim, and the way Fate had separated us so cruelly, built up inside me.
Tim had Sophie who loved him, and I had Juan, but Tim and I weren’t allowed to
love each other. It was monstrously unfair.

‘Stop
it,’ I said menacingly. ‘Just shut up. I could kill you, I really could.’