I Came to Find a Girl (28 page)

“I couldn’t care less.”

“I’m sorry you feel like that.”

“I couldn’t care less about his art.”

“Right, does that mean we can or can’t show
Aftermath
?”

“Show it, I don’t care – who am I to censor anyone?”

“I applaud your broadmindedness. Awesome, absolutely awesome – Marcus will be so pleased. We will of course send you invites for the private view.”

“I do have one caveat.”

“Oh?” The pitch of Amanda’s voice dropped even lower.

“I want you to look at my portfolio.”

“Your portfolio?”

“You know I’m an artist, right? I did tell you that.”

“Oh yeah, sure,” she said, as if she had no recall.

“Well, I think it’ll be in your interest to see my latest work. Things have really moved on for me recently.”

“Is that because of Flood’s death and his diaries?”

“Yeah, well, more my association with him. It inspired me in a way, and surely there has to be a marketing angle in that, especially with such a big retrospective on its way?”

Amanda agreed and said she’d be happy to take a look, but could I email her some photos as JPEGs of my latest work in the first instance.

Fine, but I won’t be signing anything relating to
Aftermath
until she and Marcus have taken a proper look at
my
work.

I’ve moved into photography and film. Strange though it may seem in some ways I’m carrying on where Flood left off.
Temple
, I think, is a natural progression from the urban embroidery works I showed for my degree show.

I took a large-format camera and walked all of two steps outside my front door. I set it up to peek through the metal railings straight across the road to the sauna/massage parlour opposite. I used only ambient light and an exposure of ten minutes. People passing could have spoilt it but bizarrely no one was around and no one either entered or left the building.

The image has an otherworldly golden glow, the word ‘Sauna’ the brightest part, while the window’s frosted glass offers a more subdued light. It is typically rundown and seedy and yet the light suggests a heavenly place where dreams could come true – or not, as the case may be.

Temple
was my latest favourite piece, but apart from that I’d taken to walking round my new neighbourhood in Hammersmith, looking for things that seemed out of place: a lost shoe, an abandoned laptop case (probably dumped after the computer was stolen), a splurge of pink vomit left over from the night before, a fat businessman in a cashmere camel coat slugging vodka from a bottle, and a pin-thin anorexic with a backpack walking, walking all day long.

Into the Woods
was me filming in the city, looking up at the towering corporate offices – very much on the outside, like the newspaper seller on the corner with his T-shirt-covered paunch and red bulbous nose.

The possibilities are endless.

There’s been another murder. This time in London: the body of a woman called Janine Jones was found in an alley in Acton. And then there was another, as yet unnamed, three days ago in Ealing. Police said both women have been known to work as prostitutes.

Press reports claim the murders are linked and also bear striking, but unconfirmed similarities to the Nottingham murders. Police have so far failed to comment.

Meanwhile, CCTV footage has been released of Janine Jones’ last known movements. In a grainy, ten-second film of a lamp-lit London street, a dark-haired woman of average build, dressed in a short, pale skirt and knee-length boots approaches a white family saloon. She talks for a moment at the window then walks round to the passenger door and climbs in. The car drives off, its registration number barely legible.

Police release a statement saying they are keen to trace the driver of this vehicle and are appealing for help from the public. “Calls will be treated in the strictest confidence.”

“What do you make of that?” Tamzin said, as we sat watching the news in our rented basement flat.

I shrugged, as my gaze rested on my red shoes that I’d slung across the green carpet. “There’s always some evil bastard out there,” I said, remembering what DC Jan Wilson had said, and then I thought of the night I went back to Flood’s hotel, confused as to why we needed a cab. It was a white car, a family saloon – similar to the car shown in the clip on the news?

I went down the corridor to my room, found my college sketchbooks and looked back at the fast spontaneous mark-making that showed: half a car here, half a car there, a woman leaning in to negotiate and the odd number or letter that made up several partially recorded number-plates.

Online, I called up BBC News and watched the grainy CCTV footage repeatedly, straining to see if the car was in any way similar to my sketches. And could there even be a bejewelled blue elephant hanging from the rear-view mirror?

Acknowledgements

The genesis of this novel has been somewhat protracted, and various people have helped along the way. I’d like to say a big thank you to my editor and friend Monica Byles for her sterling work, and to Natalia Jefferson for being so generous with her time and brain power.

Fellow writers and Southbank friends: David Bausor, Christabel Cooper, Kyo Choi, Dominique Jackson, EJ Swift and Colin Tucker have provided ongoing advice and support. And I’d also like to thank Susanna Jones and Jo Shapcott at Royal Holloway, University of London, and my fellow MA students for their help and encouragement.

Writer friends Linda Buckley-Archer, Kate Harrison, Jacqui Lofthouse, Louise Voss and Stephanie Zia were there at the beginning, as was my partner Daryl Gregory and I’d like to thank all of them for their belief in this novel.
Book cover design: Simon Hunt at www.toffeemedia.com

About the Author

Jaq Hazell is the author of
London Tsunami & Other Stories
. She has been shortlisted for the Jane Austen Short Story Award and The Virginia Prize for Fiction. Her work has been published in various anthologies and she has an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway, University of London. Born and brought up near Portsmouth on the south coast of England, she now lives in London.
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