I turned on his computer. Skimmed briefly through his favourites. The result was as I’d suspected: links to the Hubble telescope; to images of galaxies; to webcams at the North Pole; to chat rooms in which photographers discussed the latest solar eclipse. Some porn, all of it plain-vanilla; some legally downloaded music. I went into his e-mail — he’d left the password open — but found nothing of interest there. Not a word from Albertine; no e-mails, no photographs, no sign that he’d ever known her.
No sign of anyone else, either; no official correspondence, except for the monthly line or two from his therapist; no proof of some clandestine affair; not even a quick note from a friend. My brother had fewer friends than I, and the thought is strangely touching. But now isn’t the time to feel sympathy. My brother knew the risks from the start. He shouldn’t have got in the way, that’s all. It wasn’t my fault that he did.
I found the cleanest mug he had and made a cup of tea. It wasn’t Earl Grey, but it would do. Then I logged on to badguysrock.
Albertine wasn’t online. But Chryssie, as always, was waiting for me, her avatar blinking forlornly. Beneath it, an emoticon, coupled with the plaintive message: chrysalisbaby is feeling sick.
Well, I’m not entirely surprised. Syrup of ipecac can have some unpleasant side effects. Still, that’s hardly my fault, and today I have more pressing concerns.
I glanced quickly through my mailbox. Captainbunnykiller is feeling good. BombNumber20 is feeling bored. A meme from Clair entitled: Try this simple test to know — What kind of a psycho are you?
Mmm. Cute. And typical Clair, whose knowledge of human psychology — such as it is — is mostly gleaned from cop shows, shows with names like Blue Murder, in which feisty female profilers hunt down bed-wetting sociopaths by Getting Inside the Criminal Mind —
So what kind of psycho am I, Clair? Let’s look at the results.
Mostly Ds. Congratulations! You are a malignant narcissist. You are glib, charming, manipulative, and have little or no regard for others. You enjoy notoriety, and are willing to commit acts of violence to satisfy your craving for instant gratification, although secretly you may harbour feelings of inadequacy. You may also suffer from paranoia, and you have a tendency to live in a dream world in which you are the perpetual centre of attention. You need to get professional help, as you are a potential danger to yourself and others.
Dear Clair. I’m very fond of her. And it’s really rather touching that she thinks that she can analyse me. But she has a junior social-worker mentality at best, for all her spit and psychobabble, and besides, she’s none too stable herself, as we may discover in due course.
You see, even Clair takes risks online. During what passes for her ‘real’ work — handing out praise to the talentless and platitudinous comfort to the existentially challenged — she secretly spends hours online updating her fansite on Angel Blue, making banners, searching the Net for pictures, comments, interviews, rumours, guest appearances or any information regarding his current whereabouts. She also writes to him regularly, and has posted on her own website a small collection of his handwritten replies, which are courteous but impersonal, and which only someone truly obsessed would ever take as encouragement . . .
Clair, however, is truly obsessed. Thanks to my link to her WeJay, I know that she writes fan fiction about his characters — and sometimes about the man himself — erotic fics that, over the months, are becoming increasingly daring. She also paints portraits of her loved one, and makes cushions on to which she prints his face. Her bedroom at home is filled with these cushions, mostly in pink — her favourite colour — some of them also depicting her face next to his, inside a printed heart.
She follows his wife’s career, too — an actress to whom he has been happily married for the past five or six years — although recently Clair may have begun to indulge in hopeful speculation. An online friend — who logs on under the name sapphiregirl — has informed her of a liaison between Angel’s wife and a co-worker on the set of her new film.
This has led to a spate of attacks on Mrs Angel in some of Clair’s recent journal posts. Her last post makes her feelings more than clear. She does not want to see Angel hurt; and she is slightly bewildered that a man of his intelligence has not yet come to terms with the fact that his wife is — well, unworthy.
The fact that there was no such liaison is surely no fault of sapphire-girl — these rumours are so easily spread, and how could she possibly have known that Clair would respond so impulsively? It will be interesting to see how Clair reacts if — when — Angel’s lawyers write to her.
How can I be so sure, you ask? Well, Internet mail can be ignored, but a letter to Mrs Angel’s address, and the accompanying box of chocolates (in this case containing an unexpected surprise), all traceable to ClairDeLune and posted within five miles of her house — are altogether more sinister.
She will, of course, deny it. But will Angel Blue believe her? And Clair is such a devoted fan: she travels to America to see her idol on the stage; she goes to every convention where she might get a glimpse of him. What might she do on receipt of — let’s say, a court order, or even just a rebuke from her man? I suspect her to be volatile — perhaps even slightly deranged. What would it take to make her flip? And wouldn’t it be fun to find out?
But for now I have other things on my mind. A man should always clean up after himself. And Nigel is, after all, my mess — my mess, if not my murder.
Does murder run in families? I can almost think it does. Who’s next, I wonder? Myself, perhaps, dead of an overdose, maybe, or found beaten to death in an alleyway? A car crash? A hit-and-run? Or will it look like suicide, a bottle of pills by the side of the bath, a bloodstained razor on the tiles?
It could be anything, of course. The killer could be anyone. So play it safe. Don’t take any risks. Remember what happened to the other two —
Watch your back, blueeyedboy.
12
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy posting on :
Posted at: 01.22 on Tuesday, February 5
Status: public
Mood: cautious
Listening to: Altered Images: ‘Happy Birthday’
He has always been good at watching his back. Over the years, he has had to learn. Accidents happen so easily, and the men in his family have always been particularly prone to them. It turns out that even his dad, whom blueeyedboy had always assumed had simply gone out to buy cigarettes and never bothered to come back, had met with a fatal accident: in his case, a car crash, no one’s fault — the kind that the folks at Malbry Infirmary call a Saturday Night Special. Too much alcohol; too little patience, maybe a marital crisis and —
— Wham!
And so it should come as no surprise that blueeyedboy should have turned out this way. No guiding paternal influence; a controlling, ambitious mother; an elder brother who tended to solve all problems with his fists. It’s hardly rocket science, is it? And he is more than familiar with the rudiments of psychoanalysis.