Roulette (Untold Tales from the Memoirs of a Relationship Assassin) Read online

  Her jaw flopped open. Lovely grey eyes scanned my face, hunting for a beard I no longer had, a pair of golden-rimmed glasses I no longer wore. But otherwise, the same face she had seen and talked to, and even kissed, twice before.

  “You!”

  “I know women like you, ‘Christine’”, I added, making finger-quotes in the air. “You’ve probably spent so long pretending that you’ve forgotten who you really are anymore.”

  Horror on her face. She started to move – but my hand snaked out and gripped hers, freezing her in place.

  “Let me tell you a little story about you,” I said. Like she had a choice.

  “Mrs Sandra Claire Renfrew, née Smith, thirty-three years old, no children, homemaker, part-time volunteer with Oxfam, married to Dr Robert Renfrew, a forty-two year old genetics researcher. Last year he was awarded a highly-paid research post at the University of Edinburgh, his home city. At the Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, to be precise. But Mrs Sandra Claire Renfrew refused to move out of their lovely house in Crouch End which they bought only three years ago. Maybe it’s because she’s a Londoner. So ever since last September, Robert has been working in Edinburgh and occasionally coming back to visit his good lady wife.”

  As she listened, her head twisted from side to side in disbelief. She looked like she might be sick.

  “During that time, all alone in London, Mrs Sandra Claire Renfrew has been keeping herself amused by going to speed-dating events like this one. Meeting dozens, maybe hundreds, of new men. Talking. Flirting. Kissing.” I shrugged. “At least, that was as far as you went with me, but maybe with some others you...?”

  “No!” she snapped. “No, I’ve never done anything more than...” She clamped her mouth shut, realising she’d just confirmed everything I had said.

  Not that it mattered. I’d been watching her for weeks.

  “Dr Renfrew told me he isn’t a suspicious man by nature,” I went on. “But even he could tell that something was different about you. Obviously he didn’t know that you were pretending to be different women entirely. But he suspected something was going on. And that research post is very well-paid indeed. There’s not much else for him to spend his money on, except private detectives to follow his wife around, and lawyers to advise him on divorce settlements...”

  “Oh God!” Sandra looked on the verge of panic. She struggled to stand up – but I grabbed her other hand and pulled her across the table towards me. If anybody else in the circle was watching, it probably looked like we were making a real connection.

  “It’s all right! He hasn’t done any of that yet,” I told her. “He’s just hired me to find out what’s going on. If it’s over between you, he wants to know precisely why. He said he needs details.”

  Sandra stared at me, then nodded. “Yes. He always... he has to know every tiny detail about everything.”

  I smiled softly. “Bet that’s a right pain in the arse sometimes.”

  Despite herself, a half-laugh escaped her. She stared into the middle distance, as if remembering.

  “Thirty seconds, everyone!” called the facilitator.

  I squeezed her hands. “Listen to me. I don’t think Dr Renfrew wants his marriage to be over. But he needs to know if it is. He doesn’t know what you’ve been up to yet. But he does want you to make your decision.”

  He wasn’t the only one. This had been on my mind too. I’d been uncertain about taking on the Renfrew Case (as this was logged in my company database) in the first place. Sandra was clearly addicted to the adrenalin and excitement of first dates, of meeting new men and being reminded she was still an attractive woman. But technically, she hadn’t properly cheated on her husband yet. Lied by omission, yes, but was it proper infidelity? She had to decide. Time to place her bet.

  “Choose,” I said. “What would you rather lose – the dating or your husband?”

  Sandra’s eyes had been darting back and forth, like a gambler watching the roulette wheel spinning round and round. Chance, take a chance, take-a-take-a-chance-chance.

  But now her eyes filled with tears, and I could see that she was definitely remembering something. Something about him, that only she knew. His habits, his phrases, his expressions. Imagining never seeing them again.

  Sudden emotion crumpled her face.

  “...Robert,” she cried.

  A bell chimed. “Time’s up!” called the facilitator.

  I let go of her hands. Switched off the microcamera built into my wristwatch, unstrapped it and handed it over to her.

  “All the evidence is on there. I haven’t made any backups.” I stood up to move to the next table. “Nice to have met you, Mrs Renfrew. Give my regards to your husband when you see him.”

  There was the usual bustle and chatter as the wheel of people rotated, and the song changed to ‘The Winner Takes It All’. But there was no winner tonight. The ball had landed on zero. All bets were off. Obviously I’d still claim expenses (especially for that wristwatch – surveillance equipment doesn’t come cheap), but I would refund my client’s fee first thing tomorrow.

  Mission aborted. And here’s why.

  Rule One: Never kill a relationship that isn’t already dead.

  It was one of the guiding principles of Infidelity Ltd – not to break up two people still in love. If a relationship is still healthy, I walk away. I don’t break this Rule for anyone. Not since

  ...Becky...

  not since the Hargreaves Case. Never again.

  Sandra sat in silence, as the next man after me took my place on the chair and said hello. She was staring down at the watch in her hands. Abruptly she stood up, grabbed her handbag and strode off, heels click-clacking like an empty gun being fired. She crossed the room towards The Glasshouse’s exit, pulling her mobile phone out as she walked, wiping her face with the other hand.

  There was a shocked murmuring for a moment. But then the facilitators turned to the little crowd of people by the bar, and before long a young woman was squealing and running into the circle, brandishing a pink namebadge. She slid into the chair Sandra had vacated, beaming excitedly at the startled man opposite her. Another eager player. Game on.

  I wasn’t going anywhere. Even when you’ve lost the game, you can still practise your skills. And there was plenty of practice there for a relationship assassin.

  The pretty Asian woman sitting opposite me was all nervous smiles and tight shoulders. I gauged her instantly. Shy. A listener. She wouldn’t say anything until I took the lead.

  Phew, it was going to take at least four minutes to make this one feel like she was The Centre Of The Universe, but I was sure I could pull it off.

  “Let me tell you a little story about me,” I said. Like she had a choice.

  Players

  Three men walked into a bar.

  I wasn’t one of them. I was already there, sitting by myself at a small table against the back wall. But I spotted them a mile off. The way a shark knows when other sharks have swum into its waters.

  Avant-Garde was the newest of Vauxhall’s cocktail bars. The place had only opened a few weeks ago, but was already getting good reviews amongst the trendy press. ‘South London’s red-hot epicentre’, that sort of thing. It was already very busy with a Friday evening crowd, eager for a good night out to blow away the week’s cobwebs. The music was loud and modern, and so were the people. The drinks were expensive and fizzy, and so were the people. The Art Nouveau décor was snobby and in-your-face. You get the idea.

  I sipped my drink and watched the three men walk in. All dressed in sharp suits, all talking loudly and boisterously. All looking around the bar with eager hunting smiles.

  Players.

  To be honest, after that I didn’t pay them much attention. There were plenty of similar guys already there: wealthy office types, slim and good-looking, out on the pull. With the amount of attractive young women filling that place, it was hardly surprising to see men like that too, and there were already several packs of
them hanging around.

  I sat perched on a chrome stool underneath a massive mural of a long curvy woman with long curvy hair. From there, I could keep an eye on both halves of the huge room, which was bisected down the centre by the bar itself. It was the optimum location for one of my favourite sports: people-watching. So I barely registered the three newcomers as they worked their way through the crowd until they were finally served by sweating, harassed bar staff. It was only when, pints in hand, they moved towards the back and ended up standing about a metre away from me that I had no choice but to pay attention. Because they were laughing.

  One of them sounded like a hacksaw going back and forth through wood. “Huh! Huh! Huh! Huh! Huh!”

  Another blasted out a drawn-out bawl, followed by quickfire giggles: “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-hehehehehe!”

  The third’s laugh was like a shotgun being reloaded. “Uh-HA! Uh-HA! Uh-HA!”

  I glanced their way as I drank my bottle of beer, enough to get a good look at them. All three were in their late twenties, a few years younger than me. The first was pale, dark-haired and clean-shaven, in a three-piece grey suit with a tie that should have been put down at birth. The second was a baby-faced London-Indian, an obvious gym regular, sports jacket over tight white vest to show off his muscular physique. The third was designer-stubbled with messy blonde hair, one too many buttons open on his white shirt, silently screaming for the ladies to look at my tanned hairy chest right here!

  “So what d’you reckon, Si, good place or what? Y’see what I’m saying?”

  “Mate, it’s fuckin’ rammed with skirt! It looks like such a ponce palace from the outside, but when you get in... well, it’s fuckin’ pussy-tastic, ain’t it!”

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaa! Pussy-tastic! Hehehehehe!”

  I looked away as they clinked glasses. Nothing to see here, move along. Just your normal common or garden London blokes. They laughed and joked with each other, scanning the bar and pointing out girls. Some of whom noticed the attention: heads tilted together to whisper Those guys are looking at us, some turning their backs to signal lack of interest, others returning their stares or giggling to signal appreciation of being given the eye.

  All part of the game. The same game that gets played out every night in every bar in every corner of the world.

  “Seen the redhead? She’s fuckin’ gorgeous!”

  “Where? What, the little short-arse?”

  “No, over there, really long red hair, she’s got this sort of tiger-striped thing on... ah, she’s leaving. Shit, she was like a model, man, I’d have done that some serious damage!”

  Amateur hour.

  I probably had a tiny smile on my face as I shifted away from them and got back to people-watching. These lads reminded me of Darren, my best mate. He had the same rough-and-ready blokiness about him as they did, especially on the subject of women. You couldn’t help but laugh at some of the things Darren came out with. (And, in some cases, copy them when I was pretending to be someone else. Quite a few of my past masks had been based on Darren. Surprising how many rich women are attracted to a bit of rough-and-ready blokiness.)

  I didn’t want to listen to these guys. I wasn’t interested. But they were so close. And so loud. And...

  “Ram, what about ‘er? Those tits big enough for you?”

  “Ohhhhh yes, well spotted mate. That’s a pearl necklace waiting to happen, and earrings too!”

  “You sure? She’d crush your little brown dick with those puppies!”

  “Ahhh, no way man, she’d be choking on the meat, bruv!”

  “Aw, I love that noise they make when they do that, yeah? That’s a right turn on, know what I mean?”

  “Yeah that’s funny, when they’re like ‘Ooh, don’t cum in my mouth!’ Course I won’t, sweetheart!”

  “Uh-HA! Uh-HA! Uh-HA! Uh-HA!”

  ...And so wrong.

  Without meaning to, without really having a choice, I was filtering out all the music and chatter and background noise, and concentrating on the three men beside me. I wasn’t sure why. They were just ordinary young guys on a night out, playing the pulling game. I’d heard it all a hundred times before.

  “Over there behind you, Ed, the two blondes, both fit as.”

  “Yeah I saw them earlier but I reckon they’re rug-munchers mate, they ain’t looked over here once. Too frosty to be proper birds, they’ll be fishmongers, they’ll be, they’ll be cunning linguists, uh-HAHAHA!”

  “Ahh! What a fuckin’ waste, man. You reckon they’d let us watch? I had this Chinese girl do that once with her own sister, she let me watch ‘em go at it all night!”

  “Yeah sure you did Ram, I downloaded that one too!”

  “No, straight up bruv, I did, honest!”

  “What about her by the bar, the black bird in the red, she up for it?”

  “Nah, reckon that’s her boyfriend with her. Or probably her pimp! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

  I brought my beer bottle to my lips, only to find them sealed together. My jaw tight. Teeth grinding.

  No. They weren’t like Darren. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d sat in the pub while he waffled on about the latest girl he’d met, singing their praises in his off-key tone. He might go on about what a lovely arse she had, or how dirty she was in bed... but he’d also say how she was so clever he felt like a caveman, God knows what a class act like her saw in a nob like him but he wasn’t going to fight it. He loved women, in his own way, and I understood that completely. I also understood why so many girls liked him in return. Honest, direct, horny. With Darren, what you saw was what you got. No games.

  But these guys...

  The crowd and noise and shadows filling the bar were like natural camouflage. I was the only one close enough to see them as they truly were. On the outside, all three looked smooth, cool, fit, handsome, good-wages, own-property, expensive-car, holidays-abroad, clothes-and-presents-and-shopping-opportunities, the lot. They looked like proper catches for some lucky lasses. Glancing around, I could see more than a few women responding to their bare-faced looks, their naked grins.

  “Those four have been giving us the eye ever since we got here, boys, reckon we’re well in there!”

  “Don’t fancy yours much, Si.”

  “Which one?”

  “The munter with the squashed-up nose, someone punched her face in or what?”

  “Jeez, mate, talk about runt of the litter! That’s a ten-pinter before I let that dog gobble me off! Do I look fuckin’ Australian? Huh! Huh! Huh! Huh! Huh! Huh!”

  Not amateurs.

  Animals.

  This is what happens, with certain types of men. With most types, actually, even the loving boyfriends and doting husbands. They dumb down together. In order to be the same, in order to make themselves all feel normal and masculine and straight. Like it’s a competition: who can swear the most, who can lust the most. Who can care the least.

  I’ve done it myself.

  Perhaps that was why this irritated me. Echoes of my own voice in theirs. Times when I’d behaved the same way, in order to feel normal. Desperate to feel normal.

  “Oi, Ed, where’s your bird tonight then?”

  “Back home, although she keeps bloody texting me. She’s always a right moody bitch when the painters are in, so I’m staying away.”

  “Best way, bruv, best way! So you won’t be taking anyone back to yours then?”

  “Nope, whoever’s sitting on my face tonight is doing it in the comfort of their own home – or in the back of Si’s car!”

  “No chance, you fucker, last time you did that I had to get new upholstery for the whole fuckin’ car! The missus was well pissed off cos she liked the old pattern, I couldn’t tell her it was ruined by your spunk stains!”

  “Aaaaaaaaaa-hehehehehehehehe!”

  If only they knew. The girls swanning around here in Avant-Garde, the girlfriends and wives back home. If only women everywhere knew: what men are really like, when they’re not around.

/>   Maybe I’m getting old, I thought, wondering why these idiots were bothering me so much. Maybe it’s because I didn’t need to behave like that any more. Not even around Darren, who knew me better than anyone.

  Maybe it was because this reminded me of going out on the pull when I was younger, cruising round the bars and clubs with my gang, looking to get lucky. Days when I pursued a girl because I liked her, properly fancied her, rather than because I was being paid to.

  Maybe I was disturbed by the way they treated the women they were so obsessed with. Like they were points to be won in a game, or...

  “Right, let’s get one more round in, then my mission is to nail that curly-haired one with the tits over there.”

  “Good choice, bruv, good choice, and ‘er mates ain’t too bad either, reckon that blonde’s gonna be Uncle Ram’s pair of beef curtains tonight, yeah? That’s my mission!”

  ...missions.

  I put my beer down on the table and ran a hand over my face.

  I thought about what I do.

  Deliberately target a woman. Learn as much about her as I can. Find out what she likes, what she needs, what her fantasy might be. Transform myself into someone she can’t resist. Lie to her. Seduce her. Set her up to be discovered. Shoot her relationship straight through the heart. Bang.

  And I do it for money.

  Am I worse than them? I thought. Are these guys the normal ones? Is it me who’s the animal?

  There was a scowl on my face while I watched them saunter over to four young women and simply start talking. Their confidence allowed them to just wander up and break whatever little ice there had been in the first place, considering the two groups had been checking each other out for a while. They smiled sweetly, introduced themselves politely, met the girls’ eyes suggestively, complimented them charmingly. Although I couldn’t hear them over the music and noise, I could tell their voices had changed too. They’d all put on their masks. Game on. They’d become what the girls were looking for.

  Just like when I put on my masks.

  Damn. I was annoyed with myself. These morons had actually got under my skin. Because I understood them – I understood them too well.