Acid Lullaby (2 page)

Still, he had begun to find excuses to stay late. He found himself inventing work simply to stay longer in the office waiting for Liz to finish. He wanted to get an angle on what was happening. He knew she was freezing him out but he couldn’t understand why. A few weeks previously they had been talking about moving in together – she had even given him a key to her flat in Wapping – and now this.

A
key
to
her
flat
in
Wapping.

Now she was stonewalling him. Girls back at his school in Romford had called it the ‘mushroom’. When they had been upset about something they’d let their hair fall in front of their faces to hide their emotions. Whenever he tried to confront Liz about the unfortunate state of their relationship, she mushroomed him. She’d mumbled her exhaustion through a veil of chestnut-coloured hair. When he’d asked her over the phone about the evaporation of their sex life she’d claimed to have ‘issues with herself’.

Whaddafuck?

Crouch was frustrated and furious. He had fallen back into
the bad habits of his early twenties: drink, nightclubs, drugs. He had started snorting coke after two years of abstinence and had even cracked a couple of Es. His old school friend Chris Aldridge – Aldo – had sorted it for him. Aldo was kind of ‘in the trade’. Crouch didn’t ask too many questions. Aldo didn’t like talking about his business interests but he was happy to give out advice with his pills. That week at a busy Holborn bar he had made his opinions on Liz Koplinsky clear.

‘Chuck it. She’s obviously porking someone else.’

The thought made Crouch feel sick. ‘She’s not like that.’

‘Bloody hell, Simon! What happened to you? They are all like that. So are you. So am I. It happens all the bloody time.’

‘She’s at the office all the bloody time. That’s the problem. Besides, she says she’s got some self-esteem shit going on.’

‘That’s what they all say, mate.’ Aldo expelled cigarette smoke and then followed the dispersing fog with his eyes. ‘Take my word for it. She’s getting sausage somewhere else. If she’s got a self-esteem problem it’s because she feels guilty about enjoying herself.’

The words unnerved Crouch: there was something horridly plausible about them.

‘Why not tell me, then? At least have the courtesy to tell me to piss off. I hate all this messing around. I’m too old for games.’

Aldo grinned a yellow toothy grin. ‘You’re thirty-two, mate. Games are all you’ve got left.’

Crouch nursed his pint sullenly tracing the lines of gas bubbles that rose magically from its depths. Aldo watched him closely and relented slightly.

‘You like this girl, right?’

‘Of course.’

‘You want to find out what’s going on?’

‘Welcome to the conversation, Aldo!’ Crouch snapped sarcastically.

‘Then don’t be a victim. Take the initiative.’ He dabbed cigarette ash in to a round black ashtray.

‘I’m not with you.’

‘If she’s not going to tell you what’s going on, then you have to find out.’

‘Okay.’

Aldo glugged a bitter mouthful of whisky. ‘Consider this,’ he leaned forward as if he was about to impart one of the great secrets of the universe, ‘what do women do when they’ve got a secret?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Think about it.’

‘You’ve lost me, Aldo.’

‘They tell it to their mates. She does have mates, I take it?’

‘Of course. But they aren’t going to tell me anything. Most of them look through me like I’m a bleeding window pane.’

Aldo shook his head. ‘Crouchie, you ain’t using your imagination. Look mate, I hate to see you hurt. I’m proud of you. You’re the only one of us that’s actually done something useful with his life. You’ve got a proper job, a flat, qualifications. Don’t get dragged down by some bird.’

‘What are you suggesting Aldo?’

‘Bug her.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You can get voice-activated Dictaphones. Very handy they are too. Next time you’re at her flat, stick one in a fucking pot plant near to her phone. Then the next time she’s having a bleedin’ heart with one of her mates you’ll have the whole thing on tape.’ Aldo sat back in triumph. ‘Banged to rights.’

‘You are having a laugh?’

‘It’s up to you. Be a victim or take control. Same again?’

Crouch watched Aldo as he collected their glasses and sauntered up to the bar. He couldn’t do that to Liz. It was preposterous and unfair. She didn’t deserve that.

Or did she? Crouch considered the issue. He had a right to know. If she wasn’t prepared to tell him the truth didn’t he have the right to root it out for himself? He persuaded himself that if she was screwing him over then she had surrendered her right to privacy. Suddenly, Crouch found himself clear of the moral quagmire and wandering
in the cold light of logistics. It would be difficult but not impossible.

And
he
had
a
key
to
her
flat
in
Wapping.

Max Fallon’s office at Fogle & Moore overlooked West India Docks. He could see the crawling dinosaurs of the Docklands Light Railway and beyond them the East End shit heap that soiled his horizons. It was always a reminder. A reminder of what he was working to avoid. A reminder that he had a responsibility to the little people that worked for him: the responsibility to make the right calls. Still, he was finding it hard to focus. His mind was on the coming evening’s festivities, not on the conference call he was supposedly chairing.

‘My concern,’ squawked a disembodied voice from the spidery speakerphone, ‘is the quality of investors that you have lined up for our bond issue.’

The voice belonged to Andrew Pippen, Junior Treasurer at Fulton Steel; a jumped-up accountant. Pippen had a good line in crumpled, charcoal coloured suits and ropey red ties. Fallon loathed him. He loathed the ordinariness of the people he had to be polite to.
Chippy
treasurers
with
their
crappy
red-brick
degrees:
sullen
twats
imprisoned
in
cheap
shoes
and
small
provincial
minds.

‘You see,’ Pippen continued nasally, ‘Fulton Steel is a traditional blue chip. We want our bonds placed with traditional “buy and hold” investors. Pension funds and the like.’

Fallon groaned and looked across at Danny Planck, the Head of European Bond Trading. Planck shook his shaved head and made a delicate ‘wanker’ motion with his wrist. Fallon nodded and released the mute button on the speakerphone. Liz Koplinsky smiled as he winked at her.

‘Andrew, we understand your concerns.’ Fallon’s eye crawled up and down Liz’s legs, lingering at her crotch.
Be
Commanding
.
‘Let’s be frank. The facts are these. First, Fulton Steel is a debut issuer. You have no track record. Second, the investors you refer to are respectable European financial institutions. Thirdly, you need money quickly.’

‘I see your point, Max, and I realize it is in your interest to bring this deal to market quickly.’

Max was irritated. It was a cheap shot and it stung. ‘Andrew, we want a successful deal. Our interest and your interest are one and the same.’

‘But all these Italian brokerage firms …’ paper rustled at the other end of the phone as Pippen read through the underwriting list. ‘Forgive my ignorance, but won’t they just dump the bonds at the first opportunity?’

Fallon pressed mute on the speakerphone and turned to Planck. ‘Danny, this is a dog shit credit in a dog shit market, right?’

‘That is being generous,’ Planck replied.

‘So frankly, he’s lucky to have a deal at all?’

‘Maxy, it’s a marketing miracle that we’ve pre-sold any of this crap.’

Fallon nodded, justified in his anger. ‘Talk to him then. Sell him some technical bollocks. He’s doing my head in.’

Fallon sat back in his seat and put his feet up on the desk. He wanted Liz to see he was wearing Gucci loafers. He tried not to think about what he was going to do to her later. The thought of Liz chewing on his cock was clouding his judgement.
Focus
on
the
little
people.

Danny Planck thought for a second before turning to Liz. ‘You handle this one, hotshot. Feminine touch required.’ He released the mute on the phone.

Liz Koplinsky leaned forward slightly. Fallon studied the flowery white lace of her bra as it pressed against her blouse.

‘Andrew. It’s Liz.’

Fallon admired Planck’s thinking. He could almost hear Pippen’s trousers tightening. The little prick had been drooling over Liz at the pitch for the deal two months previously. Frankly, he couldn’t blame him.

‘Oh. Hello there, Liz!’

‘For a new borrower first impressions count. If these brokerage firms sell your deal quickly, that ain’t necessarily so bad. Quality buyers will snap up their bonds. Take this example. Let’s say that you’re a big soccer fan and you can never get tickets to see your team. The match is sold out. After a while you’re gonna lose interest. But what if some agency offers you tickets at a premium? You get to see your team. The price of the tickets keeps going up. It’s supply and demand. Without supply, demand will eventually die out, right?’

‘I see what you mean,’ Pippen observed quietly.

‘You put shit on your roses and they grow better, right?’

Pippen laughed an electronic laugh. Fallon could just see him in his miserable little office in Derby rubbing the end of his useless prick through the pockets of his crackly suit and making his fingers smell. ‘I don’t know if my board of directors will be persuaded by the scarce football ticket analogy. Most of them support Stoke City.’

‘They should be persuaded,’ said Fallon, ‘it’s a compelling argument.’

Pippen cleared his throat. ‘Well, thank you, guys. That was helpful. I’ll call you back tomorrow with a decision.’

Fallon turned the phone off. ‘We got him.’

‘Hook, line and fucking sinker. Nice one, Liz.’ Plank patted her on the head as he stood up.

‘You gotta keep it simple, right?’ Liz gathered her papers, and looked Fallon directly in the eye as she left the office. ‘See you later, Max.’

Fallon watched her leave.

‘You are a disgrace,’ said Planck, watching Fallon’s hungry grey eyes moving up Liz’s legs.

‘What?’

‘You’re old enough to be her father!’

‘Wicked uncle maybe.’

‘You seeing her tonight?’

‘Dinner at the Palais and then she’s gonna earn her Christmas bonus the hard way.’

‘Pack your Viagra then.’

‘I’m thirty-eight, you cheeky bastard.’

‘Better take two packets.’

Planck watched through the glass walls of Fallon’s office as Liz returned to her desk on the far side of the trading floor. ‘I thought she was boffing some oik in Settlements.’

‘Well, she obviously fancies some pedigree sausage.’

‘Sloppy, Settlement seconds.’

Fallon grinned. ‘I’ll suffer that indignity.’ He sat down and began to read through some brochures he’d received from an estate agent in Cambridgeshire. He was tired of London. Finally, he had the money to start thinking about moving out for good.

His digital wristwatch beeped. It was 5p.m.

Two
hours
and
counting.

Five minutes later, Liz Koplinsky’s burglar alarm started beeping automatically as Crouch entered her apartment. He walked quickly to the control panel in the hallway and entered Liz’s code. The noise stopped abruptly. It was an easy pin number to remember: ‘212’ was the dialling code for Manhattan and the ‘3’ denoted 3rd Avenue. Liz’s first apartment in New York had been in Manhattan on 92nd and 3rd. 2123. Easy.

He looked around the apartment he knew so well and suddenly felt like a criminal. It was as if his very presence soiled the place. He walked into the lounge area and sat for a second on Liz’s low white leather sofa. The apartment had a wide view of the Thames grumbling by two storeys below. The river was a mixed blessing. He loved the sight of it but the sounds had driven him demented. The thumping disco boats had often kept him awake half the night, the honking barges disturbing him at five in the morning.

To the left of the main window Liz had installed a giant fish tank. It was shaped like a huge letter ‘H’: two hexagonal pillars connected by a horizontal glass tube. It was filled with a galaxy of exotic fish. There was even a frustrated looking crab scratching at the foot of one of the pillars, attracted by the bubbling air filters. Liz had told him that the suppliers had to winch the tank into her apartment, over her balcony. It had cost her thousands. He felt like pissing in it.

After a moment, Crouch stood and began to root through the paperwork on Liz’s desk. Mostly credit card bills and air mail from the US. Crouch studied these in closer detail, imagining some stateside sweetheart. However, the letters offered nothing of interest. He replaced them and turned his attention to the phone.

He picked up her handset and dialled 1471. A recorded voice spoke to him flatly.

‘You were called yesterday at 11.36p.m. The caller withheld their number.’

Who
would
call
her
after
eleven-thirty
at
night?
No
one
from
the
bank.
They
knew
she
had
to
be
up
at
six
in
the
morning.
Someone
else
then?
From
outside
the
bank?

Disappointed, Crouch turned his attention to the answer phone. The red display showed the numeral ‘1’. He hesitated. If he played the message he would have to delete it. He decided to take the chance.

‘Hello. This is Janet from Seamless Dry Cleaning. Miss Koplinsky’s suits are ready for collection.’

Shit.

He deleted the message and removed the Dictaphone from his pocket. It had cost him forty pounds and had a voice activated capability. Crouch looked directly above the desk. There was a shelf; a high bookshelf, cluttered with fantasy novels. Liz liked all that goblin and dwarf bullshit. He reached up and rested the Dictaphone on top of the books before taking a step back.