Big dipper, p.12
Big Dipper, page 12
Now it was Julian who was turning away, trying to look relaxed and friendly as every bone in his body urged him to get out of here.
“No – wait.”
A twisted smile appeared on the fat man’s face. Julian forced himself to stop panicking and turn back.
The fat man held up his videos. The pictures of muscular young Chinese men were plain to see.
“You like this? Shall we watch one together?”
Julian hesitated but he couldn’t stop himself.
“Great idea. I love kung fu movies.” The enthusiastic tone sounded false to Julian but Martin Calthrop showed no sign of noticing.
“You really want to?” The eyes were suspicious.
“Of course. I’m Gerald,” he’d said with a bright smile as he shook the fat man’s clammy hand to seal the deal. Self-preservation had kicked in to that extent at least.
“Martin.” No returning smile, just a long unnerving stare.
“Lead on.”
They walked in silence round the darkened square. The man did not appear to have recognised him. Or so he had to hope.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The flat stank of stale human body odour and unhealthy takeaways. As Martin switched on the main light, Julian questioned once again the sanity of coming here. But he had to know what the fat man knew.
The main light revealed a living room/diner so hideous that Julian’s aesthetic sense kicked in despite his fears. Formica tops in the kitchen area, flock wallpaper pink and peeling, polystyrene tiles painted cream on the ceiling. A hideous splodgy flower-patterned plastic cloth on the table by the window. Stained curtains made out of some brown-coloured synthetic recalling excrement. He felt thankful that the lighting was subdued. Mr Calthrop seemed to like darkness and in these surroundings, who could blame him?
“Coffee?”
The fat man stood awkward and undecided in the middle of the room. He’d invited Julian in and now he didn’t seem to know what to do with him.
“I’d love some.” Julian smiled again far too broadly. He needed a stiff drink but that wasn’t on offer. Mr Calthrop shuffled over to his kitchen area and filled the kettle. He didn’t invite Julian to sit down which suited him very well.
He moved as casually as he could towards the window. The curtain was still partly open. He looked down into the square. He felt sick. The angle was distorted but anybody approaching the house next door would be visible in the street light until they climbed the stairs to the front door. So Mr Calthrop couldn’t have seen him searching under the flower pot for the key. But he could certainly have got a good look at his face if he’d peered out early enough to see Julian approaching the house.
“Sorry. No milk.”
It was Nescafe of course. In a hideous mug celebrating the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. But Julian smiled again because he had to keep on smiling.
“I like it black.”
Oh my God. Sexual double meanings were all he needed right now. He waited for a standard camp response along the lines of preferring China tea. But Mr Calthrop thankfully didn’t appear to register anything. Julian accepted the mug as graciously as he could.
Mr Calthrop still stood there frozen. He didn’t sit. He didn’t ask Julian to sit.
“Shall we watch the video?” Julian suggested.
Calthrop seemed grateful for the prompt. He hurriedly switched on his video recorder and fiddled with the remote control. Julian sat on the sofa facing the television. It was synthetic leather. Truly he was being spared nothing.
Calthrop sat beside him, mercifully not so close that his body odour became unbearable. He gripped the remote control and the screen sprang into life.
“I’ve not seen this one before.”
The credits rolled. The film started. Julian asked himself how it was possible to be both wound up with tension and totally bored. The film seemed to have been made in the late sixties. The colour was garish and the dubbing into stilted transatlantic accents grotesque. Did somebody really say, “I am a dealer in illegal products you take up the nose?”
Calthrop stared at the screen but he did not appear to be that engaged either. Julian prayed for a fast-forward to something more gripping.
“You’re not interested, are you?”
How did he know? Was Julian playing his part so badly?
“No, no, I’m loving it.”
Calthrop ignored him and fast-forwarded. On the screen now was a scene in which a young cute Asian guy was being beaten up in some cage-like structure by a hugely muscular but ugly opponent. The rules were obscure but it must have had something to do with kung fu, Julian guessed.
“You’re interested in the Chink, aren’t you?”
“I’m sorry?” The question came out of nowhere as far as Julian could see and he felt his attempt at ignorance was hopeless. “Which Chinese person – Chink – are you talking about?”
“The one next door.”
“You mentioned him. He was murdered I gathered. But I really don’t understand why you think –” The words froze on his lips. Protests were a waste of time. Calthrop was licking his lips.
“I know a lot about him. Things I could have told the police.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“I hate the police. They wouldn’t let me see him.”
Julian scrabbled for words. “So – what could you have told them?”
Calthrop’s dull eyes suddenly turned away the television screen. Even the violent fight and its baying crowds no longer interested him.
“What I saw.”
“I – I don’t understand.”
“The night he was killed.” His eyes were suddenly alert. There was a real look of complicity.
“I’m sorry, I really don’t understand what you’re talking about.” Julian felt the pitch of his voice rising but he had no way of controlling it.
“You know Mr Gardiner?”
“Who?”
“The man who owns next doors.”
“I don’t know him at all.”
“You’re sure?”
“What was the name again?”
“Mr Gardiner.”
“Not at all.” Julian shook his head emphatically. What a relief to be able to say something which was true.
“I thought you did. It’s his bastard friend who buys up all the houses.”
“Mr Gardiner’s friend buys up all the houses?” Julian remembered talking to his nephew when he was a little boy. You had to be careful about being too patronising. Because the response could be brutal. Why don’t you have any babies, Uncle Julian?
“He’ll get me thrown out, the cunt. I know he will.”
“How could he do that?”
“These poncey bastards come in paying poncey prices. My landlord will see what this place is worth and I’ll be out on my arse.”
“This isn’t Mr Gardiner?”
“No, Wakefield’s his name. He’s a property developer. That’s what they call them, isn’t it? But I don’t care about him. I’ve never seen him. It’s Mr Gardiner I hate.”
There was a hideous clicking sound from the video. The baddie had just dislocated the cute young man’s neck.
A thought chilled Julian. How did he know that this wasn’t the murderer? Weren’t obsessive loners like this one obvious material? He forced himself to respond.
“I don’t understand any of this. You must know him a lot about him to feel that.”
“I didn’t need to know him well. We passed the time of day now and then. When he could be bothered. I just knew something was up when he gave me the key.”
“You had a key to next doors. To – to where this murder happened?”
“Yeah. Course. He was going away on holiday.”
“So why did he give you the key?"
“To make my life fucking difficult.”
“So you think he’s involved in this murder you mentioned?”
“Is he involved?” Calthrop was animated in a way Julian hadn’t seen before. “He’s in deep shit. He’s in some crappy place called Catalonia just now. That’s what he told me. Away for a few weeks. Cunt.”
“You don’t like him.”
“I hate the bastard. I told you. When he comes back, all smarmy and covered in tan, he’s going to have shit all over him. Which is what he deserves. Specially after all the stuff I told the police. They don’t like him either. I could tell. He’s a flashy bastard and we all hate flashy bastards, so I told them about his parties. And his young men. And all his fucking fancy holidays. They know now he’s a queer. And full of shit. They’re bastards but he’s a bigger bastard.”
Julian waited. Best not to say anything just now. Who could tell where the conversation was going?
“He said he gave me a key in case Kim was locked out. But I didn’t believe him. I hated the fucker. I can’t wait for him to get back from his poxy holiday. Fucking Catalonia he said as if I cared. The police are going to hang his balls out to dry. ”
Calthrop gasped for breath. He’d said more than he’d meant to say.
“I didn’t do it.”
“Didn’t do what?”
“I didn’t kill him.”
Were those dull bloodshot eyes telling the truth?
“But I had the key. That’s what they know. Because I had to go and tell them. Because I was scared. So they think it might be me. I could see it in their faces.”
“But they let you go.”
“Yeah, but they can call me back anytime.”
“Is there any reason why they should?”
The fat man’s panic eased. “You tell me.”
“What are you talking about?”
Calthrop’s eyes still seemed dull, but they were oddly knowing too.
“You have to tell me.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything.” He was like a spoilt child, Julian thought. But a dangerous spoilt child.
“Of course you don’t,” he conceded.
“But I know what you’d like to see.”
Julian’s stomach turned. Even more strongly he felt the desire to leave this fetid flat and its unpredictable occupant.
On the screen the fight was over. The bully had departed. The loser lay there moaning. He was probably crippled for life. His bespectacled brother came up full of concern. Even Julian knew that later in the movie the spectacles would be off and the brother would be revealing a rippling hairless torso. He was, after all, the star. Then the screen went dead.
“This video is rubbish anyway.” The fat man had pressed his remote control. The screen faded and the video ejected. Then he was on his knees in front of a narrow cupboard below the T.V. screen. There were commercial videos in there, Julian could see. But the one Calthrop pulled out had no label.
He pushed it into the machine. He pressed the remote control. It was only after the video had started running that he looked towards Julian. But Julian tried very hard not to respond.
For there on the screen was Kim.
“I bought a video camera specially. Never used it again. But it was fucking worth it. I met him coming back from the video store and he saw my kung fu movies. He knew what I wanted.”
The camera work was wobbly. You could see the top half of Kim’s body. Kim was wearing a white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar. He was looking at the camera with a tight smile, sexy but giving nothing away. It was the smile Julian had seen in the department store.
“Wasn’t he gorgeous?”
The past tense. Which was right. But terrifying, because Kim was so alive in this video. He was starting to undo the buttons on his shirt.
“So –is this the guy who was killed?”
There wasn’t any response. As if the fat man didn’t think it was worthy of one.
Kim slowly peeled off his shirt. Like a seasoned stripper. The wobbly camera pulled back a little. Kim started to unzip his trousers.
There was heavy breathing in the room. In his heightened state, Julian didn’t know whether it was his breath or Calthrop’s. Probably both.
Kim peeled his trousers off his legs. He stood in front of the camera naked, as far as Julian could see, apart from his white underpants. He was gorgeous. Julian felt his cock rise and then wanted to bury his head in shame. But his eyes kept watching.
“So – is this the Chinese boy who was killed?”
The fat man still didn’t bother to reply. And who could blame him?
Kim stood there, enjoying the camera’s attention. He knew his body was gorgeous and that was what his gaze told the camera. Julian wished he could stop looking. He had only seen this lovely body properly when it lay strangled on a bed.
“Best day of my life.”
The fat man was in a different world now. Julian prayed that he wasn’t going to start masturbating.
Kim was no longer stationary. He lifted his arms up and flexed his muscular but not too muscular biceps. Then he struck a pose.
Julian gasped. He was going to recreate kung fu movies for the camera. He tries various poses. He’s not yet confident.
“It took him time to get into it.”
There was a blip. And then Kim was there again. Somebody, almost certainly Martin Calthrop, had handed him a bottle of baby oil. He was pouring it over his chest. He smirked at the camera as he rubbed it into first his left and then his right nipple. He lingered over the left nipple, massaging it again and again. The knowing glance to the cameras told he was high on the experience but also revealed to anybody except the infatuated Martin that there was a strong element of mockery in this performance.
“Gorgeous, wasn’t he?”
Julian didn’t want to disagree. But he hated the past tense and wanted to cry.
Kim began to enjoy his performance. He came towards the camera and started to deliver karate chops stopping just before the blow made contact with the lens. His eyes revealed that he was aroused by his power and his performance.
“I wish he’d really beaten me up. Like Deathslayer.”
“Deathslayer?” Julian hadn’t caught the name.
“He’s the best baddy. He swipes at them, there’s a chopping sound and they fall down dead. Or crippled. Till the hero kicks and beats him to death. Kim could have done that.”
Kim was very close to the camera now. His lovely chest was oiled and he looked very sexy. Then he decided to stop. He’d gone far enough? He’d got bored?
The video stops. Blackness.
“He told me not to be greedy. He said I still had my videos. Wouldn’t even speak to me again. But I saw him choose the rope and he smiled at me and I knew he was up to something.”
Calthrop hit the remote control. For the first time since they’d entered the flat, he turned to face Julian full on. His breath had quickened. Finally he was coming to the point.
“So tell me what it was like.”
“What what was like?” Julian felt as if he too was being beaten across the chest.
“His dead body.”
“Why should I know?”
“You must be one of the men?”
“Which men?”
“The men who went into the house next doors on Saturday. I saw them both.”
“Both?”
“Yes. The first one was quite a big guy.”
“That’s hardly me.” Julian tried a teasing smile but it didn’t work. The reply was filled with contempt.
“Course it wasn’t you. You were the second guy. He was bigger than you anyway.”
Julian desperately wanted to ask more questions. How much bigger than him? Just taller - or broader too? How was he dressed? Had he glimpsed his face. The window, he now knew, gave a clear view but also because of the angle a slightly distorted one. But he could ask nothing. He had to maintain his bogus innocence of what the fat man was talking about.
“This is absurd. Why should you think I was either of these men?”
“I wasn’t sure before. But I am now. You were the second man.”
Julian tried to hold his gaze. These were Big Dipper times without any chance of escape. He struggled for words.
“But – I don’t see how you can think that. You’ve only just met me?”
“Why else would you agree to come back here with me?”
“I – like kung fu movies. And I like you.”
“Nobody likes me. That Kim, I thought he liked me. But I think he was making fun of me all the time. Got off on turning me on. Chinky bastard. It was all about him, not me.”
“I’m not like that.”
“No, you’re a posh bastard like Mr fucking Gardiner. You just think I’m an idiot. A wanker. But I’m not. You’ve only come here because you wanted to know what I know. And I’ll tell you something I do know. I’ve heard your voice before. You were the guy who phoned me and told me some crappy story about a Residents’ Association. You don’t have Residents’ Associations in shit-holes like this. And, if you do, you don’t invite me.”
To his growing alarm, Julian saw before him a man who had finally been granted power over another human being. And was beginning to realise his power.
“I don’t understand why you’re being so hostile, Martin. We’ve been having such a good time and –“
“I just want you to tell me what you saw. One or other of you did it. The police told me they’d found an empty envelope under a flower pot. They asked me if I knew who else had a front door key. That’s how you got in.”
“This is crazy.” But Julian’s brain was racing. The key was still there when he arrived. Kim must have opened the door voluntarily to this other man.
“Are you calling me fucking crazy? He was strangled next door. With his white panties. Two guys went in there so one of them must have done it.
“You may be right. But why are you involving me?”
“Because either you strangled the Chink. Or you saw what he looked like afterwards.”
The logic was impeccable and Julian tried desperately to counter it.
“I have to warn you that you’re making some very wild accusations. I’m not taking this.”
