They were allowed a fifteen-minute break at 10 p.m. and Jade dragged him outside to see if they could see anything through the steamed-up glass of the pool room – ‘Let’s try and take some photos on our phones, omigod, maybe they’re skinny-dipping, can you imagine how much The Sun would pay for a photo of OnT naked? We’d never have to work again!’
Kai had already decided that after tonight he was never going to work again, but he didn’t tell Jade that. He followed Jade over to the pool house.
They had signed confidentiality agreements as part of their contracts for the night, but neither of them understood what that meant. Kai was relieved that there was no chance of seeing anything through the window – he’d started obsessing about the size of his willy. OnT were all bound to have massive great pop star wangers, and he didn’t want Jade to start making comparisons . . .
‘We’d better get back to the house, or the dragon will sack us,’ he said, as Jade was putting away her phone. It beeped with a message and when she looked at it, she gasped and jumped as though the phone had given her an electric shock.
‘What, bae?’
Her shoulders were rigid. She shook her head and stared at the screen again. Then, out of the blue, she vomited neatly into a lavender bush by the pool.
‘Jade! Are you sick?’ He rushed over to her. Puking always made her cry – she was practically phobic about anything to do with sick. But to his amazement, when she straightened up she had the biggest smile on her face that he had ever seen, even bigger than when she got them the jobs tonight at this party. Then she started to laugh hysterically, cackling as though she’d lost it.
‘What?’
But she wouldn’t tell him. She tucked her phone back into her bra, still laughing and doing a little dance and basically looking as though she was about to explode with glee.
‘Did one of them footballers give you some drugs, or what?’ he demanded. She looked totally high. He felt even more pissed off. Suddenly, he was sure he knew: she’d had a text from that bodyguard twat!
‘You gave him your number, didn’t you!’ he yelled at her.
‘Who?’ she said innocently, not even bothering to conceal her happiness.
‘Oh, screw you, Jade,’ he said, and stalked back inside to carry on with the dishwashing. He’d have gone home right then, but until he got his cash at the end of the night, he had no way to do so.
Part of him felt a sick little thrill at telling Jade to screw herself; he’d never dared do anything like that before, but suddenly he felt that he, Kai Topper, had a limit, and she had just pushed him right over it. He’d done stuff before that he shouldn’t have, but usually only because other people – often Jade herself – wanted him to do it. This time he was going to do something that he wanted to do. Screw the lot of them, the posh record company twats, the snooty celebs who thought they were better than everyone else – and as for that bodyguard! He was going to fuck them up tonight, good and proper. What he was going to do would get someone into so much trouble . . .
The next time the chef went outside for a fag, Kai slipped into the cloakroom and retrieved his backpack from under a bench. He unzipped it, reached down to the bottom and felt his fingers close around what he wanted. Pulling it out, he smiled to himself.
Nobody was going to walk over Kai Topper, not anymore.
Chapter 42
Day 14 – Winkler
Winkler pulled up in the lane outside Mervyn Hammond’s Surrey home, got out of the car and immediately stepped in a puddle up to his ankle. He cursed aloud, the calming effects of his rainforest CD blown away in an instant. Goddamn fucking countryside; if he could pave over this shithole . . . He took a deep breath.
Cold, stinging rain lashed down on him, soaking his hair. As he walked towards the gate, his sock squelching inside his shoe, he ran a hand across his scalp, icy fingers searching out skin. Last night, he’d had his head between Francesca’s thighs, wondering if she’d ever come, when she’d said, ‘You’ve got a little bald spot.’
He had sat upright. ‘What?’
‘It’s cute. I like it.’
He had immediately got up and run over to the mirror, trying to see the bald spot. He loved his hair, so much so that when he’d left his ex-wife her final words to him were, ‘I wish you baldness.’ Now it looked as if the witch’s curse was coming true.
He hadn’t been able to perform after Francesca’s words. She’d tried to get him back in the mood before eventually leaving in a huff. Winkler had found a hand mirror and located the offending patch. His dad was as bald as Kojak, but Winkler Junior had always believed that he took after his mum’s side of the family: hirsute and manly. But this was it. The beginning of the end. He spent the rest of the evening looking up hair re-growth products on Google.
So he was in a foul mood this morning. And Mervyn Hammond was going to take the full brunt of his bad temper if he wasn’t one hundred per fucking cent cooperative. Over the past twenty-four hours, Winkler had become increasingly convinced that Hammond was, if not the killer, definitely involved. He had the access to the young fans and would easily be able to persuade them to meet with him by making promises these desperate girls wouldn’t be able to resist. He had, Winkler knew, paid off a young girl who’d been molested by Shawn Barrett, which made Winkler wonder if this Irish girl hadn’t told them everything – if Mervyn’s involvement went beyond bribery and corruption.
There was the signed photograph of Mervyn among Nancy Marr’s belongings – the only connection between the old woman and OnTarget anyone had been able to find. Finally, there was Hammond’s mysterious after-dark visit to the children’s home in Isleworth. Hammond liked young girls. Winkler’s guess was that Hammond had molested Rose and Jessica, and they had threatened to expose him. Or perhaps he hadn’t done anything to them directly but they had found out about him. Hammond was so furious that before killing them he had tortured them.
He pressed the buzzer by the gates and a female voice came smoothly through the intercom. A housekeeper or PA, Winkler guessed.
‘Police,’ he said firmly. ‘I need to have a word with Mr Hammond.’
After a long pause, there was a beep and the double gate swung slowly open. Winkler decided to leave his car out there and walked through, finding himself on a path that led through an immaculately landscaped garden, cone-shaped little pine trees and everything, up to a grand house – one of those Huf houses that were popping up around Surrey. Ridiculous – a house that came in kit form and still cost a couple of mill? It was impressive, though, he had to admit, with its glass frontage and chalet roof.
He passed a kidney-shaped pond, gold and white koi darting beneath the surface, and considered propelling a juicy globule of phlegm into the water. He was so going to enjoy taking Mervyn Hammond down.
Winkler reached the house, walking past a white van parked close to the entrance, to find a middle-aged Asian woman in a white apron – yep, the housekeeper – standing in the doorway. Several black bin bags lay at her feet. He flashed his badge at her.
‘Mr Hammond in his shed,’ she said. Not long off the boat, this one, Winkler thought. ‘I call him and he say please go there.’
She pointed towards a large brick building across the garden. A shed! It was bigger than the house Winkler grew up in; it was in fact a converted barn, by the look of it. Winkler was about to walk towards it when he had a thought.
‘How long have you worked for Mr Hammond?’ he asked, using his most authoritative police voice, wanting her to believe she’d be in trouble if she didn’t cooperate. If she didn’t answer, he might have to use the magic word: immigration. That always worked.