Death is the New Black Read online

  This is true. Technically we are outside, but a glass roof was built over the courtyard some time ago to protect diners from the elements and to make the restaurant into more of a going concern than it had been.

  She eventually decides on pâté de campagne while I have the crab salad on toast. I decide to make small talk while we’re waiting for the food to arrive. She’s still a little jittery despite the white wine and I want whatever it is to flow naturally.

  ‘So what are you working on at the moment?’

  She reaches in her bag and produces an iPad Mini, pats it delicately for a second and hands it to me. I flick through a series of brightly coloured modernistic paintings; jagged, abstract, scary, many with scrawled words, almost like graffiti. I don’t recognise the artist.

  ‘It’s Jean-Michel Basquiat,’ says Sara, smiling. ‘It’s 1980s American art. I don’t copy stuff, but I like to have things around for inspiration for my collections and this is what I’ve chosen this time. I want the feel, not the actual style. Does that sound mad? I never steal from people, so please don’t think that.’

  I continue to flick through image after image.

  ‘Green is pretty predominant here.’

  ‘Green is the new black. Or it will be when I’ve finished with it. I’m doing two shows at the same time this year. Two different collections. No one else has done this. I’m doing Milan and New York virtually simultaneously in the autumn.’

  ‘Sounds like a lot of work,’ I say, smiling. It might be, it might not be. I have no idea.

  ‘It is, but I wanted the challenge. I just wanted to be the first. It’s a Big Thing, you know? It’d be stressful enough without all that’s been going on, but…’

  ‘I can’t wait to see them. The collections, I mean. This is great stuff. Exciting and colourful. These would make good prints.’

  She laughs. ‘Pretty good mouse mats, too!’

  ‘Or even fridge magnets for the true connoisseur.’

  The food arrives.

  After a few mouthfuls, she looks up. ‘What I’m about to tell you, well, I’ve already told the police. I spoke to two detectives and they’ve been to my flat twice and couldn’t find anything. I’ve been to the police station and made a statement.’

  For a second, it looks as if she might cry, then she composes herself.

  ‘There’s no evidence that anything I’ve experienced has actually happened. There have never been any witnesses. I think they thought I was a bit crazy, to be honest. The police, that is. I think if I wasn’t, well, who I am – does that sound awful? – they, the police, wouldn’t have made any effort at all.’

  She sighs and rubs the palms of her hands together. ‘That might be being too hard on them, the police, I don’t know. But, no evidence, no witnesses, just my word for it, well; you can imagine what it’s been like.’

  I have no idea what she’s talking about, but nod my head sympathetically. I’m good at this and practise it regularly in the mirror. Sometimes I even convince myself that I’m a sympathetic guy; it’s that good.

  ‘It’s all been so complicated and sinister and strange and frightening that I don’t even know where to start.’

  Now there are tears starting to well up in her eyes. I’ve got to say something to calm her down so we can get on with whatever this is. Also, I get viscerally upset when women are crying in front of me. I can’t help it and don’t know whether it’s a weakness or not.

  ‘It’s OK. Don’t worry. Whatever it is, we’ll sort it out. Can you just give me a fuckin’ clue, please?’

  This makes her laugh. She sniffs, wipes her eyes and takes another sip of her wine.

  ‘Well, there’s no other word that I can use here. I think I’m being stalked. I’m being stalked by more than one person. At least that’s what I think it is. It’s been going on for just under a month. At least, I think it has. Does that sound vague? After I went to the police it stopped for three or four days – sometimes it’s hard to tell if it’s happening or not – and then it started again. I’m not suggesting that it stopped because I went to the police. It’s always been erratic.’

  ‘What form is this stalking taking?’

  ‘Well, for a start – and this isn’t in chronological order or anything – someone’s been breaking into my flat and moving things around.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Just – I’ll come back from work and go into the kitchen to make a coffee or something and I’ll just know that the coffee mug wasn’t on that shelf when I went out to work that morning. I live alone, by the way, so the blame can’t be put on anyone else.

  ‘I have a lady who cleans and irons, but she only comes on Saturday mornings and I let her in; she doesn’t have a key. I was burgled a few times in the past – not in my current place, mind you – and I didn’t like it. If I’m away on a Saturday for some reason or other, then the flat doesn’t get her attentions and I’ll clean and iron myself. It’s a small price to pay for security and peace of mind.

  ‘The people who maintain the building do a cleaning service if you want it, but they’d have to have a spare key or keys and I didn’t like the idea. If you rent, the landlord or whatever might have a key or a master key, but not if you own, which I do. I pay a small maintenance charge, but that’s for the appearance of the grounds, reception staff, security, cleaners, gardeners and all that sort of stuff.’

  ‘So you’re the only key holder.’

  ‘Yes. I have the ones on my key chain and spares that I keep in work for emergencies.’

  ‘Who knows about those spares?’

  ‘No one. I keep them taped to the back page of one of my books.’

  ‘OK. Give me another example.’

  ‘In my bedroom, there’s a small chest of drawers with jewellery in it. I came back one day and one of the drawers, the middle one, was wide open. I’m really fastidious and tidy. I know it’s a fault of mine. And I would never, ever go out leaving a drawer open like that. I always close them when I’m finished with them. It’s just a habit. I’m not anally retentive or anything. At least I don’t think I am. Maybe I am.’

  ‘Had anything been taken? Any of the jewellery?’

  ‘Not as far as I could tell. There was another instance that I wasn’t sure about. My stereo was switched on when I got home from work one day. That’s another thing I never do – forget to switch it off when I’ve finished using it. Someone I knew had their house burn down from leaving a stereo on in their kitchen while they were on holiday. I’ve never forgotten that, so I always make a point of turning electrical things off, apart from things like the fridge, obviously.’

  ‘OK. And these things only happen when you’re at work?’

  She wipes away some sweat that’s gathered on her upper lip. She’s displaying lots of physical signs of stress. I don’t think she’s making all of this up, but you never know. The unreal can seem real to some people and the symptoms are the same.

  ‘No. That’s when it started to really get me rattled. One morning when I woke up and went into the living room, there was a neat bunch of magazines on the sofa. I couldn’t have put them there. I knew that the last time I saw them they were on a coffee table by the window. It’s just something that I would never do. It was when that happened that I called the police. I mean – they could have actually been in my bedroom, watching me sleep.’

  This sounds really sinister. Someone’s letting her know that they’ve got access to her flat by doing things that just might be the result of an overactive imagination or plain forgetfulness. The sort of things that would play on your mind the whole time. The sort of things that would make you sound a bit mad if you spoke about them to anybody.

  No wonder the police were dubious. At the moment, I have to admit that I’m dubious, too, though just the thought of something like that happening to me gives me shivers up my spine. At least with a real burglary the motive is clear.

  ‘So you think someone’s been in your flat on three occasi
ons; coffee mug in the wrong place, drawer left open and magazines moved.’

  ‘I know how silly that sounds, but I know it wasn’t me. Any one of those events on their own I might have shrugged off, but three of them…’

  ‘Is it possible that this has happened more times than you’re aware of and that you just occasionally missed some of the signs?’

  ‘I suppose so. I hadn’t thought of that.’ She laughs. ‘Why did you say that? That makes it worse!’

  ‘And the police found no signs of forced entry?’

  ‘None at all. I’m on the eleventh floor. There’s no way that anyone could get through any of the windows from the outside unless they had a helicopter, but they checked them anyway. There’s a front reception area with two full time staff always on duty. They know everyone who lives there by name and by sight. There’s someone there twenty-four hours a day. You have an electronic passkey to get past a turnstile gate before you even get to reception. They’d challenge anyone who tried to vault it, for example; at least I hope they would!

  ‘Apart from that, there’s CCTV surveillance. They keep records for a month before erasing them. The police looked at the images and there was no unusual activity on the night that the magazines were moved. The magazine thing was the only definite, specific date and time I could give them. I don’t want you to think I’ve got anything against the police, by the way. By hiring you, I mean. My dad was a policeman.’

  ‘What type?’

  ‘Detective. With the Met.’

  It’s not impossible to get past that sort of security in a residential block like the one she’s describing. I’ve done it many times. But to go to that sort of trouble just to move a coffee cup around is something else altogether. A highly motivated professional criminal could do this, but only if there was something for them at the end of it. No. This is being done purely to freak her out. I’ll have to see this place for myself.

  ‘Tell me what else has been happening.’

  ‘I was on my way home, um, about two weeks ago this was, and two guys were walking towards me. They intentionally blocked my path. When I tried to get past them, they kept getting in my way. They were laughing and sneering. I was quite frightened. One of them tried to grab my bottom and the other made comments about my tits. He was blowing kisses and saying not to be shy, while the other one sniggered.’

  ‘How long did this go on for?’

  ‘Not long. Perhaps thirty seconds at the top. But it wasn’t an accident, you know? It wasn’t opportunistic is what I mean. This was intentional. I saw them coming and they were both looking at me before they switched on that behaviour. It was as if they’d planned it in advance. It was as if they’d rehearsed it. I know that sounds like I’m paranoid, but it’s the truth. I was about five minutes away from my flat.’

  ‘What sort of people were they? What did the one who spoke to you sound like? How old were they?’

  ‘Casually dressed but not scruffy. Both medium height. Not six foot; not as tall as you, say. One of them had a dark blue suit on, with a buttoned-up shirt and no tie. Shiny leather brown shoes. The other one was wearing smart black jeans and a dark green turtle neck sweater. Light grey suede-effect trainers. Not cheap, not expensive.

  ‘The one in the dark blue suit was the one who spoke. London accent. Nasty voice. Harsh. Not too bright, I would guess. He asked if he could have a feel. I’m not a very good judge of men’s ages, but I would say they were in their forties, maybe late forties. Both had short dark hair. The one who spoke was greying.’

  ‘Did you ever see them again?’

  ‘No. A similar thing happened, but with only one guy. I’d been looking at the shops in Bond Street and South Molton Street. This was late afternoon on a Saturday. Every time I tried to get out of his way he kept stepping in front of me. He was very close and it was really intimidating. He wasn’t having a laugh about it, you know? This guy’s face was hard and serious. I thought that perhaps he was a little mad. I felt that if I’d tried to push past him he’d have hit me. I finally got away from him, but I turned around and he was still there, following me. He was laughing. Then he was gone.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘I was coming out of a restaurant at about eleven at night. I’d been to a birthday dinner for someone in the business. This was, er, eleven days ago. I was walking down Heddon Street on my own. I left a little early as I had a stomach upset. I was going to head into Regent Street and pick up a cab to go home. This guy came out of nowhere, walked up towards me, jostled me hard in the shoulder and called me a bitch. That was it. He almost knocked me down. He spat the word out like he really meant it. It was chilling. He was grinning. That one really hurt. When I was getting dressed the next morning, I noticed a bruise where he’d jostled me.’

  ‘This was another guy entirely?’

  ‘Yes. It’s never been the same people twice, or if it has, I wasn’t aware of it.’

  ‘What did this one look like?’

  ‘Too old to be doing something like that, unless he was a crazy. Short, grey hair, grey sports jacket, white shirt, blue silk tie and a very lined, lived-in face. Hard looking, if you know what I mean. Like a TV criminal. Would have been at least mid-sixties, I think but I’m only going on the hair colour and lined face. Bit of a fat gut. It was a shock to hear him use the word bitch, for some reason. His age, maybe.’

  The waiter reappears and takes our plates. I order another two drinks.

  ‘OK. This birthday dinner. Was it in the public domain at all? Could someone have read about it in a magazine and have known you were going to be there?’

  ‘Yes. Yes they could. It was Jessica Tan’s birthday.’

  ‘Jessica Tan the model?’

  I know her. Looks seven foot tall, severely beautiful, outraged eyes, Chinese/Danish ancestry and cheekbones you could damage yourself on if you were very lucky. Things are looking up. I wonder if I’ll somehow end up meeting her.

  ‘That’s right. It’s the sort of thing that could appear in gossip columns and the like. Or fashion blogs. At one point a photographer appeared and was asked to leave. A birthday thing like that could probably be leaked by her people on Twitter. That wouldn’t surprise me at all. She’s very nice, but, you know…

  ‘These are just a few instances. There are more. My car was scratched pretty badly last week. It was as if someone had run a key all down the side. They rang me with the estimate yesterday. You wouldn’t believe it. The guy said it was something bigger than a key. He thought it might have been a chisel or a screwdriver.’

  ‘Where was this done?’

  ‘Just outside the office. It would have to have been done in broad daylight. It must have happened sometime between ten and a little past midday. One of the secretaries noticed it.’

  Someone took a risk because they thought it was worth it. We’re dealing with cocky bastards.

  ‘Nobody witnessed this guy calling you a bitch or any of the other stuff?’

  ‘No. It’s as if they’re waiting until I’m alone or there’s a lull in the crowds. I’m aware that this sounds like I could be making the whole thing up and sometimes I wonder if I am.’

  ‘Are you a bitch? I have to check. It could be important.’

  This gets a laugh. ‘Yes. I’m a bitch.’

  ‘I knew it. You said this has been going on for just under a month. How many incidents like this have there been, when you’ve been directly shoved, hassled, insulted or assaulted?’

  ‘Maybe nine or ten. You know what it’s like in London. A few of them could have been genuine wankers, but I can’t be totally sure.’

  She laughs nervously at her own joke.

  ‘Give me a couple of possible genuine wanker incidents.’

  ‘Er, a guy sitting opposite me on the tube, leering in a menacing way. When I stood up to get off, he stood up as if he was going to follow me. Like it wasn’t really his stop, you know? He gave me a really bad look; moronic, lustful, stupid, open-mouthed, simple. But then the
doors closed and he was inside the train. He didn’t get off after all. I turned and saw him through the window, laughing and rubbing his crotch.

  ‘Then another guy shouted at me to come and talk to him. This was near Leicester Square. I started walking away but he followed me. Eventually I had to run and went in a shop. I told them what had happened. I called for a taxi and two of the staff escorted me to the door when it arrived. That rattled me, actually, but I couldn’t tell if it was like the others, though in that case, the guy slightly resembled one of the ones who got in my way near my flat, so who knows?’

  ‘So some of these could have been events you were attending that someone could have heard about, while others could only be the result of you being followed from work or home, if, indeed, they were connected.’

  ‘Yes. But as I said, it’s been hard for me to tell which of these things might have happened anyway, do you know what I mean? The ones I’ve described to you are the most strikingly scary where there could be no doubt that they were aggressive acts towards me personally. It wasn’t just like it was because I was a female; it was because it was me.’

  We both sit in silence for a while. This is a big, nebulous series of events, but I have to start somewhere.

  ‘How many months have you got left before the two shows you’re doing?’

  ‘Six months.’

  ‘Will that be enough?’

  ‘It would be tight, but I know I can do it. On the other hand, I hadn’t reckoned on all of this crap happening. It’s in my thoughts all of the time, particularly the stuff to do with my flat. It’s distracting me. One of them would be bad enough, but…’ The tears start appearing in her eyes again. ‘I had such high hopes for this and now I don’t think I can cope with it. But at the same time, part of me is determined to overcome it. Sometimes I feel like a victim because of it; other times I feel more stubborn. I’m not going to let it stop me going out, I’m not going to let it stop my work and I’m not going to let it frighten me out of my home.’

  ‘I take it that it’s occurred to you to move into a hotel or something until we find out what’s going on?’