‘Yes.’
‘Well, that’s so much better, isn’t it?’
‘I guess not, but—’
‘How many have there been?’
He shrugged his shoulders. He was growing a little weary of this conversation and was anxious to leave. There were still some friends he could call to make sure that the evening wasn’t a total write-off. He had an urge to get riotously drunk and have sex with a random stranger.
‘A few,’ he said.
‘How many?’
‘I don’t know. A half-dozen or so?’
‘Don’t you feel any shame?’
He thought about it. ‘The funny thing is, I don’t really,’ he said. ‘I think I might be a little deficient on that count. Look, I’m a selfish little twat, okay? I admit it. But it’s not like I’ve murdered anyone, is it?’
‘Not yet you haven’t,’ she countered. ‘But it’s probably only a matter of time until you do.’
He nodded. That had been something he’d worried about in the past. Threats of suicide. He enjoyed the con, but didn’t want anyone’s death on his conscience.
‘Well, I’m very sorry,’ he said, doing his best to sound contrite. ‘Truly, I am. I guess I should go.’
‘It’s not been a good night for you all around, has it?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he admitted, looking down at his shoes before looking up at her again. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked. ‘What do you know about my night?’
‘Only that I wasn’t the only date you had planned for tonight.’
He stared at her, uncertain what she was getting at. She moved towards the door and opened it. Standing in the hallway was Jeremy Arlo.
‘I think you’ve met my uncle,’ she said.
Achilles stared at him. He was holding an iPhone in his hand, recording their entire conversation.
‘Fuck me,’ he said slowly.
‘Actually, I was never really interested in doing that,’ said Jeremy. ‘Sorry to string you along.’
‘Well played,’ said Achilles, nodding his head in appreciation and then giving them a slow handclap. ‘Well played, both of you. I’m very impressed.’
‘I don’t care if you’re impressed,’ said Rebecca. ‘All that matters to me is that you’re never going to be able to do this to anyone ever again.’
‘Let me guess,’ he replied, nodding in the direction of Jeremy’s phone. ‘You’re going to blackmail me now.’
‘I’ve recorded every single conversation since we met,’ said Jeremy. ‘Up to and including you trying to extort five thousand pounds from me.’
‘And now you’re going to demand money from me instead? How much do you want? Twenty? Fifty? I don’t have that much, so you’ll be wasting your time.’
‘No,’ said Jeremy. ‘We need a little more assurance that we’ve put an end to your ways.’
The sound of a car pulling up outside could be heard and all three looked out of the window. The lights of a police car flashed and, as they watched, two officers climbed out and made their way up the driveway.
‘Hurts, doesn’t it?’ asked Rebecca. ‘Thinking someone likes you and realizing they’ve just been using you all along?’
Achilles nodded. ‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘But you know what they say. The trick is not minding that it hurts.’
He looked around the room despondently, recognizing that his time as a small-time con artist had drawn to an end.
‘I’m not even going to get laid, am I?’
‘Afraid not,’ said Rebecca, smiling at him. ‘The sex has been cancelled.’
EPILOGUE: CANCELLING THE CLEVERLEYS
* * *
On the veranda of a small wooden house on the Scoraig peninsula of western Scotland, George Cleverley sits looking across the sea in the direction of the Isle of Harris, an eight-hundred-page biography on his lap, through which he is making great progress, and feels an extraordinary sense of calm. It’s a warm summer’s day and, other than the occasional squawk of a seagull, there’s not a sound to be heard. It’s the beginning of his third week here and he wonders why more people do not come to such remote spots after periods of crisis. The nearest village is a five-mile walk away, and he has completed this twice daily, an activity that has helped him lose some weight as well as filling his mind and body with a general sense of well-being.
It’s been more than three months since his embarrassing arrest for causing total chaos at Soho House and, although charges were eventually dropped, it proved the last straw for the BBC, which made it clear that there would be absolutely no way back for him now. The corporation could not possibly allow itself to be associated with him any more. (At least for a year or so, he was assured quietly, until the dust had settled.)
That Friday had proved one of the more unusual days of his life for, early in the hours of Saturday morning, as he found himself standing before the desk sergeant being released on bail, his wife, Beverley, to his utter astonishment, was brought up from the cells too, having been charged with the murder of a tortoise. (A later autopsy on the animal would prove that its death had been induced by digestive failures, its stomach gluey with After Eights, and subsequent charges against her were also dropped.) That alone would have been a coincidence worthy of a good dinner-party story, but it was improved considerably by the fact that, one after another, each of his three children also appeared in the same position, Nelson charged with impersonating a police officer, Elizabeth with suspected terrorist activities, and Achilles with blackmail and extortion. All in all, not a great day for the Cleverley brand, and only when the ghost showed up to drive them all home did the terror building in their souls start to diminish a little.
‘What is wrong with you all?’ asked the ghost when she pulled up outside their house, turning from one to the other with an expression on her face that suggested she felt nothing but contempt for them. ‘How on earth have you allowed yourselves to turn into these types of people?’
At which point, each of their phones started beeping with notifications of how their adventures were becoming the talk of social media and the pile-on began.
The newspapers, of course, had a field day with it and the stories ran for weeks, the Cleverleys becoming the butt of jokes on all the television and radio panel shows, and while the CPS had ultimately decided not to pursue a prosecution on four of them – Achilles, the only true criminal mastermind among them, was to undertake two hundred hours of community service – their names were mud and they had, as a family, in Elizabeth’s words, been cancelled.
‘Possibly the most cancelled family in the history of the world,’ she’d added, feeling a certain pleasure that they had at least trended on every social media platform during their public disgrace. ‘Worse than the Borgias. Worse than the Trumps, for pity’s sake.’
In the end, it had been George’s idea to come to this most remote region of the United Kingdom, one of the only places left in the country that did not have access to Wi-Fi, and spend some time recuperating from their traumatic experiences. To have no phone or laptop was providing a digital detox that was proving a heavenly experience. Indeed, there was a part of him that was beginning to wonder whether he could move here for ever, grow a long beard and learn Gaelic to converse with the half-dozen or so wildlings that he occasionally encountered on his walks. He’d spent his entire life climbing the greasy pole of the television industry but realized now that he didn’t care if he ever saw Portland Place again. Here was bliss.