Normally he would have asked for an explanation of his friend’s remark, but Kenny was preoccupied with his plans for the evening. Even if the audience was small, as audiences for fringe theatre frequently are, he would still have people to vouch for where he was at the moment Vasili committed his murder for him. Kenny Mountford felt a glow of satisfaction at the efficiency of the arrangements he had made.
The serenity of his mood was shattered in the afternoon by a call from Fyodor. “Anatoli, I want you to keep an eye on Vasili. I’m not sure he’s playing straight with me.”
“How do you mean?” asked Kenny nervously.
“I’ve heard rumours he’s doing work on the side, not just jobs I give him for the Simferopol Boys.”
“What kind of work?”
“Contract killing. If you can bring me any proof that’s what he’s been doing, Anatoli, I will see to it that he is eliminated. And you will be richly rewarded.”
“Oh,” said Kenny.
He spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get through to Vasili’s mobile, but it was permanently switched off. By the time he met his friend at the fringe theatre in Kilburn, Kenny Mountford was in an extremely twitchy state. There was no pretending that his situation wasn’t serious. If Fyodor found out that he had actually paid Vasili to do his qualifying murder for him, Kenny didn’t think it’d be long before there was a contract out on his own life. But he couldn’t let anyone at the theatre see how anxious he was, so all his acting skills were called for as he sat through the interminably tedious and badly acted play about glue-sniffing and then, over drinks in the bar, told the actress who’d been in it how marvellous, absolutely marvellous her performance had been.
His friend had his car with him and offered to drop Kenny off. As they were driving along they heard the Radio 4 Midnight News. The distinguished theatre director Charlie Fenton had been shot dead in Notting Hill at ten o’clock that evening.
“Good God,” said his friend. “If you hadn’t actually been with me, I’d have had you down as Number One Suspect for that murder, Kenny.”
“Why?”
But his friend wouldn’t say more.
Had Kenny Mountford not completely cut himself off from the English press and media, he would have known about the affair between Charlie Fenton and Lesley-Jane Walden. Their photos had been plastered all over the tabloids for weeks. He might also have pieced together that the director had never had any interest in him, only in Lesley-Jane — hence the request when they first met for their mutual land line rather than Kenny’s mobile number. How convenient for Charlie had been the actor’s willingness to go undercover and leave the field wide open to his rival.
Vasili, however, read his tabloids and knew all about the affair. He recognised Charlie Fenton as the perfect victim. The guy had gone off with Kenny’s girlfriend! Fyodor wouldn’t need any convincing that that was a proper motive for murder.
So Vasili had laid in wait outside the Notting Hill house, confident that sooner or later Charlie Fenton would appear. As indeed he did, on the dot of ten o’clock. A car drew up some hundred yards away from Kenny Mountford’s house and the very recognisable figure of the director emerged, blowing a kiss to someone inside. Vasili drew out his favoured weapon, the PSS Silent Pistol which had been developed for the KGB, and when his quarry was close enough, discharged two bullets into Charlie Fenton’s head.
Job done. Coolly replacing the pistol in his pocket, Vasili had walked away, confident that there was nothing to tie him to this crime, as there had been nothing to tie him to any of his previous fifty-odd hits. Confident also that Fyodor would assume that the job had been done by Kenny Mountford.
What he hadn’t taken into account was Charlie Fenton’s tomcat nature. No sooner had the director bedded one woman than he was on the lookout for another, and his honeymoon of monogamy with Lesley-Jane Walden had been short. She, suspecting something was going on, had been watching at the window of the house that evening for her philandering lover to return. As soon as Charlie Fenton got out of the car she had started to video him on her camera, and thus recorded his death. The footage, when handed over to the police, also revealed very clear images of Vasili, from which he was quickly identified and as quickly arrested.
Lesley-Jane Walden was in seventh heaven. To be at the centre of a murder case — there were actresses who would kill to achieve that kind of publicity. In the event, though, it didn’t do her much good. The police made no mention of the help she had given to their investigation in any of their press conferences. They didn’t even mention her name. And all the obituaries of Charlie Fenton spoke only of “his towering theatrical originality” and his reputation as “a loving family man.” Lesley-Jane Walden was furious.
Her mood wasn’t improved when Kenny ordered her to get out of the house. She moved into a girlfriend’s flat and started badgering her agent to get her on I’m a Celebrity — Get Me Out of Here!
“You are a clever boy, Anatoli Semyonov,” said Fyodor, when they next met. “To get rid of your girlfriend’s lover and arrange things so that Vasili is arrested for the murder — this is excellent work. I have wanted Vasili out of the way for a long time. You are not just a clever boy, Anatoli, you are also a clever Simferopol Boy.”
“You mean I have qualified to join the gang?”
“Of course you have qualified. Now you will always be welcome here. You are one of the Simferopol Boys.”
So Kenny Mountford too thought: job done. Except, of course, having done that job was not going to lead on to the other job. Kenny had done what he promised — infiltrated a London gang — but the man to whom he had made that promise was no longer around. There would never be a Charlie Fenton production about London gangs. All Kenny Mountford’s efforts had been in vain.
And yet the realisation did not upset him. No one could say he hadn’t tried everything he could to achieve respectability as an actor, and now it was time to move on. Time to get back to being Kenny Mountford. All that Method, in-depth research approach to characterisation might be all right for some people in the business. But for him, he reckoned he preferred something called “acting.”
When he finally spoke to his agent, she revealed that she’d been going nearly apoplectic trying to contact him over the previous weeks. The BBC was doing a new sitcom and they wanted him to play the lead! He said he’d do it.
But Kenny Mountford didn’t lose touch with Fyodor and the Simferopol Boys. As an actor, it’s always good to have more than one string to your bow.
Copyright © 2011 by Simon Brett
Fly Me to the Moon
by Patricia Melo
Brazilian writer Patricia Melo is the author of eight novels, five of which have appeared in English translation. The Killer, a bestseller in Brazil, was made into the 2003 film The Man of the Year, directed by José Henrique Fonseca. In 1999, Time magazine listed Ms. Melo as one of the fifty Latin American leaders of the new millennium. Her novels have also been translated into German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Greek, Finnish, and Chinese. This is her first work of short fiction published in English.
Translated from the Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers
A malfunction of the neurotransmitter system, that’s basically what it is,” he told me. I didn’t understand but I felt relieved. I avoided doctors. I thought the countdown was already under way. The inexorable one. The inevitable one. Death, in a word. I was sure the problem was with my heart, that I would suddenly be turned off. He explained it to me as if I were an imbecile, stressing syllables: PsychoLOGical disORDer, VIRTually incaPACitating, what we call an anxIETY atTACK. “Is it fatal?” I asked. He said no. He was going to prescribe an antidepressant and psychotherapy. Medicine maybe, but psychobabble never. Anxiety attack. That was a crock of crap.