I hear the cutting of the saw before I see him. This week, we’re replacing the floorboards in the area we’ve allocated for the bar, and the wood for the job was dropped off yesterday. A hundred planks of teak need to be cut to size and varnished. It’s going to be a long, hot day of hard work.
Brian is still gaunt but the sun has tanned him and he’s already adding muscle to his frame. He almost looks healthy; he certainly looks better. He waves when he sees me walking through the surf and then, smiling, putting down his saw and brushing sawdust from his arms, holds up two mugs of cafezinho, the strong, sweet black coffee we’ve both learnt to enjoy. Call it a late breakfast.
I managed to pass Brian the ticket to Brazil before I blacked out at the Christmas party. He more or less worked out, from the rest of my gibberish, what I’d done. He spoke to Cohen, who went into the office and stopped the answerphone tape reaching the police. From my computer’s hard drive, Cohen then retrieved backups of the faked letters I’d sent to Brian’s banks that gave them the details of the bank in Brazil I was going to divert the Dahlias’ cash to; knowing this information, they were able to adopt the rest of the plan.
I was in a coma for six days. Brian and Cohen stayed with me Monday night and all of Tuesday. Brian only agreed to leave when the doctors told him they were keeping me asleep to encourage my recovery, and assured him that I was out of the woods. He left Lisa a tidy sum and an open ticket, and flew out on my unreserved ticket on the Wednesday morning.
Following Cohen’s instructions, he arranged for the money from his accounts to be moved between Brazilian banks, eventually withdrawing the cash and holding it in several safety deposit boxes. These tactics would make it nearly impossible for the Dahlias to trace it, once they realized what had happened. After a week he bought the hotel, and had already started to renovate it by the time I arrived.
The days are spent working and the evenings passed on the terrace necking beer (Brian) and fresh fruit cocktails (me). It’s a perfect spot. Lizards and crabs skittle out from the terrace when the tide rolls back and when the tide’s up, the baby sharks pick lazily at the bacon rind we drop down for them. Nelson sleeps on my lap. Brian bought an acoustic guitar from a trader in the town up the coast, and our favourite thing is to watch the sun sink into the darkening blue of the horizon while he plays a few of the old songs. Watching his fingers flash across the strings, the old familiar strength of his voice, refreshed now that the worry and stress have been sloughed away, my foot tapping out a rough beat on the bleached boards of the jetty, the murmuring of the surf - waves splashing up onto my legs and the salt crystallizing on my bare skin in the late evening heat - the whisper of the breeze in the treetops, the dying sun in my face; I don’t know how this could be bettered.
We’re confident the place will prosper. After all, the joint proprietor is Brian Fey; surely that must count for something?
THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY
During my convalescence, I spent several hours browsing in the hospital’s meagre library and found a collection of philosophical musings and quotations amongst the pulp thrillers and cheesy romances. Flicking through the pages, something by the scientist and satirical writer Georg Christoph Lichtenberg caught my eye. He wrote:
‘The journalists have constructed for themselves a little wooden chapel, which they also call the Temple of Fame, in which they put up and take down portraits all day long and make such a hammering you can’t hear yourself speak.’
I returned to it again and again, before surreptitiously tearing out the page and slipping it into the pocket of my dressing gown. I took it with me when I left; now I keep it folded in my wallet. A few yards away from the steps leading up to the hotel veranda, I pause and unfold the creased and crumpled page again. I think of my own brief, and inglorious, dalliance with notoriety.
Hannah Wilde, Vincent Haines, the boys from Monster Munch, Sean Darbo, the rest of the Black Dahlias - their pictures still hang in the Temple, but I wonder how much longer they’ve got left. Brian took time to accept that his moment had passed. But now, as I watch him working happily with a brush and a bucket of creosote, it’s clear that he has accepted the changes that Fate has wrought. For the first time since I’ve known him, he actually looks at peace.
THE WISDOM OF COLE PORTER
It reminds me of something Brian said a week or two ago. The change in his circumstances was something that Brian had obviously spent time considering while he was working on the hotel alone, waiting for me to join him. One evening, frittered away drinking and smoking and watching the bleeding sun go down, he surprised me with an unexpected turn of conversation.
‘Cole Porter,’ he began, apropos of nothing, touching the end of the blunt with his Zippo’s flame.
‘What about him?’ I said, wondering where this was going.
He puffed out a cloud of blow-tinged smoke. ‘When I was trying to write my own songs for the band, I looked at tunes he’d come up with to see if I could pick up any pointers. There’s this one song he wrote, can’t remember the name of it now, he said something about "how strange the change from major to minor," something like that. Know the one I mean?’
"Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye",’ I said, thinking of the classic version John Coltrane recorded - one of my all-time favourites.
‘Yeah, that one. I’m probably taking it right out of context, but, I don’t know, that line just about sums up everything that’s happened since I left the band. Getting from where I was then to where I am now. It took some getting used to, but, you know, I don’t care any more. I like this. Things’ve turned out pretty OK.’
I smiled, finished my coconut juice, and took the joint. Nelson sat on my lap, purring. Brian picked up his guitar and started to strum the tune Cole Porter had written sixty years earlier. And, as we watched, the sun melted into the tranquil aquamarine sea.
END OF THE ROAD
As you come closer still you can make out the name of the hotel, painted in broad brushstrokes on a piece of gnarled driftwood the ocean left on the beach a couple of weeks ago. We cleaned up the wood, daubed the hotel’s name in thick black paint and sealed it up with varnish. We sat out on the terrace for hours before we came up with the right name, a whole week toking on enormous spliffs and tossing out ideas, like the dead roaches we threw into the ocean. When the name finally arrived, we both knew at once that it was the right one. It looks perfect fixed up on the wall.
We settled on The Black Dahlia.
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Table of Contents
WEDNESDAY (EARLIER)
OFFICER OF THE COURT
THE CONTESTANTS
HOOK…
LINE…
… AND SINKER
SUNDAY
A CELEBRITY DEATH
WHY I’M HERE
101 REASONS WHY I HATE OLIVER DAWKINS
THE THIN WHITE DUPE
CARMEN MAKES A PASS
A PROFESSIONAL CONFERENCE WITH MY CLIENT
THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS
DANIEL THROUGH THE DRINKING GLASS
FINALLY, HOME
GIRLFRIEND BAIT
WE HATE IT WHEN OUR FRIENDS BECOME FAMOUS
VICARIOUS THRILLS
LAUGHTER IS NOT THE BEST MEDICINE
MONDAY
I DON’T LI
KE MONDAYS
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
BLAMESTORMING
IMMEDIATE SUPERIORS
WHY VICTORIA WILSON AND I DON’T SEE EYE TO EYE
BATTERY LAWYERS
CONTACT WITH THE GUTTER PRESS
A FRIEND IN HIGH PLACES
A NEW FACE AT THE PHOTOCOPIER
APPRAISAL
UNDER A TUSCAN SUN
SEAGULL PARTNER
IT’S A SMALL, SMALL WORLD
AN EXTRACT FROM HELLO!
LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS
DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT
THE HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE
A DATE
GETTING TO KNOW RACHEL
TUESDAY
RUNNING LATE
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES EARLIER
SOME NEIGHBOURLY CONCERN
AT HER MAJESTY’S ROYAL COURTS OF JUSTICE
COURT 64
JUDGMENT
CONSOLATION PRIZE
MEMORIES OF THE BLACK DAHLIAS
MOODSWING
LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS, PART II
THINGS START TO UNRAVEL
CLEANED OUT
MINIMALISM
APOLOGIES
HUNTING HANNAH
COHEN’S INVITATION
AN AUDIENCE WITH PHILLIP SCHOFIELD
VOICEMAIL
A SHOULDER TO CRY ON
BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA
EMAIL
THE CRITICAL ESTABLISHMENT
AN APPEAL TO HANNAH’S BETTER NATURE
WORK: THE CURSE OF THE DRINKING CLASSES
RELIEF
BRIAN IN A BRIGHTER MOOD
A REMINDER FROM WILSON
NOSE TO GRINDSTONE
VINTAGE DAHLIAS
NEWS OF AN ENGAGEMENT
LONDON, ‘06
BIRMINGHAM, ‘90
LONDON, ‘07
LONDON, HERE AND NOW
TIME FOR A DISTRACTION
ON THE TOWN
THE NOBLE ART
PUNCHBAG
CONVALESCENCE
WEDNESDAY
SWEET DREAMS
REALITY BITES
WINTER WONDERLAND
SAMARITAN SECRETARY
ANY LAST REQUESTS?
IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED
CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY
EMAIL
THE LATEST FASHION
SOME ADDITIONAL RESEARCH
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
MORE DECEPTION
SCOTT DOLAN TRIES AGAIN
AN INVITATION TO LUNCH
THE SENIOR PARTNER
BEEF ENCOUNTER
DAVEY HITS HIS STRIDE
PANIC
VIDEO SHOOT
DOWN TO BUSINESS
A DRESSING DOWN
EXTRACT FROM THE MUSIC PRESS
TAKING STOCK
EMAIL
LAST CHANCE SALOON
A VISIT FROM THE COMPETITION
RACHEL
ANOTHER FORGOTTEN APPOINTMENT
PRE-GIG NERVES
HONESTY IS NOT THE BEST POLICY
IS THERE A LAWYER IN THE HOUSE?
THE KING OF SCHMOOZE
ANSWERPHONE
ANY PORT IN A STORM
THURSDAY
THE STAR IN THE SPARE ROOM
A CRITICAL REVIEW
THE POLICE MAKE A BREAKTHROUGH
VOICEMAIL
THINGS GO FROM BAD…
…TO WORSE
EMAIL
THE RETURN OF THE RELENTLESS SCOTT DOLAN
LUNCH WITH GABY
FIVE MUSICIANS, A FUNERAL AND A FIGHT
RECONCILIATION?
POSTER BOY
THE BLACK DAHLIAS’ GREATEST HITS
MORE REMORSE
AN INTERVIEW WITH SCOTT DOLAN
SOME THINGS I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT BRIAN FEY
SKIN TRADE
VINCENT HAINES MEETS HIS PRESS
LOSING IT
A FAMILIAR SOLACE
RUMOURS
A LAST-MINUTE REPRIEVE
MORE APOLOGIZING
THE LAST LAST CHANCE SALOON
THE DORK HAS REASON TO CELEBRATE
RED HANDED
HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE NO ONE
BROUGHT TO BOOK
DEBRIEFING
IN SEARCH OF CLUES
SOME MATERNAL CONCERN
EVEN MORE THINGS I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT BRIAN FEY
DINNER WITH THE COHENS
THE REAL REASON FOR DINNER
EMBARRASSMENT
FRIDAY
AND SO TO BED
AN UNCERTAIN DIAGNOSIS
THE NET CLOSES IN
A VERBAL WARNING
THE FINAL HUMILIATION
WINNER TAKES IT ALL
MY NEW HOME
A WORD WITH MY PATRON
COLD SHOULDERED
EMPATHOGEN
CHASING FAME
THE REASON BRIAN WAS LATE LAST SUNDAY
REVIEWING THE EVIDENCE
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE
TIME FOR A CHANGE OF SCENE?
HOLIDAY MONEY
NOTHING TO SAY
BECAUSE NOW IT ALL MAKES SENSE
BRIAN’S PLAN
ANSWERPHONE
NIGHTCLUB
UNUSUAL SYMPTOMS
3 A.M. AND NOTHING MAKES SENSE
BREAKING AND ENTERING
SMASH AND GRAB
SATURDAY
NOT A BED OF ROSES
AT HER MAJESTY’S PLEASURE
TOO LATE
FINALLY, A SECOND CHANCE
SUNDAY
BREAKFAST
SHOPPING
WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO?
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
AN UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION
THE FAN HITS THE SHIT
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
FAMILIAR FACES
BAILED
NIGHT THOUGHTS
MONDAY
MEDIA CIRCUS
SUCCESS
AN INAUSPICIOUS SUMMONS
AN AWKWARD MOMENT
CAUGHT IN THE ACT
DANIEL IN THE LIONS’ DEN
KNOW YOUR ENEMY
THE END OF AN ERA
SETTLING A SCORE
A CRY FOR HELP
A FINAL PLEA FROM SCOTT DOLAN
SQUARING THE CIRCLE
BRIAN’S STORY
EXPOSÉ
THE WHIMS OF FASHION
PREPARATIONS
BURNING BRIDGES AND THE MIDNIGHT OIL
SOUTH OF THE RIVER
HANNAH’S HOME FROM HOME
THE CHRISTMAS PARTY
BRIAN’S CONFESSION
THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD
RACHEL AND OLIVER
I GET WHAT’S COMING TO ME
TUESDAY (LATER)
WISH YOU WERE HERE
ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE
EVENTS IN LONDON