Chapter Thirty Two

As Duncan sang, drummed and whinged his way through the following hour, with Jake occasionally chipping in around the edges, Sorcha buried herself into a corner of the sofa and reflected that it wasn’t exactly how she’d intended to spend the evening. At least watching them was significantly more entertaining than actually watching the TV would have been.

The general vagueness of their reaction to the fact that Duncan had been assaulted, on the other hand, seemed gratuitously careless to the point where it was making her teeth itch. Given that Duncan seemed to be making few allowances for the fact that she was there, she decided that she didn’t need to make allowances for him, either, and tackled him as soon as the titles rolled.

“Isn’t there a manager or a PR person or someone you should be calling?”

“Haven’t got one love.” An accidentally wonky grin spread across his face, “Christ, Jake, can you imagine what Cam would have been like with all this going on. He would have just loved it, fixing it all up!”

“He’d have fired me the day after Stevo went for me; as soon as we knew I couldn’t do the show. And if he hadn’t fired me then, he’d have fired me last weekend for being a stupid prick whose Dad had gone missing. He’d probably fire me for letting you get into another stupid fight, too, even though I didn’t have a clue where you were or what you were doing”

“You’re lucky he’s dead, then, aren’t you?”

Sorcha said a silent thank you to Duncan: she had been about to suggest that they call him, and sensed that doing so would have made her the butt of some pretty vicious ridicule. She was not, however, ready to give up.

“But isn’t there anyone else you should call? And if Nicola is with the police up here, talking about things relating to Keith, shouldn’t we get in touch with the people running the investigation into his disappearance to make sure that they know about it?”

Duncan ignored her, and spoke to Jake instead.

“Do you know if Jeff’s actually done anything about talking to managers again? I know Cam could be a bastard at times, but it would be dead useful to have someone to deal with the shit again at the moment.”

“She’s right, Duncs: you ought to call the others.”

Duncan looked reproachfully at Jake, and pouted at Sorcha, before answering.

“Don’t be so fucking anal. The police took the video away which some old bag had taken, which was good because it meant they let me go. And I don’t reckon that there were any other photos. At worst it’ll be a few lines which everyone forgets about. The only call I need to make is to the garage, to see when they can fix the fucking car.”

Jake took charge: he’d decided to call the police himself, but wasn’t about to tell Duncan that as it was likely to trigger another tirade.

“It’ll just be few lines so long as you lock yourself away for at least a fortnight: it’ll become a proper story if anyone sees your face, you idiot. And you have no idea what Nicola will say or do. Do you want to call them, or shall I?”

When Duncan returned, it was clear that it hadn’t gone well. He was huffing and muttering, and Sorcha had the impression that what he really wanted to do was to go round kicking things for a while. He flung himself back into the armchair which he seemed to regard as “his”, before standing up to throw two cushions out of the way which hadn’t seemed to trouble him at all earlier in the evening. Jake sat and waited for him to finish.

“What did they say?”

“You fucking know what they fucking said! We both fucking knew before you made me fucking call them! Mouse is cool and thinks I need wraparound shades, and Jeff gave me the fucking sleeping with the fucking fans fucking lecture.”

Jake wasn’t sure what to say: he agreed whole-heartedly with Jeff, but saying so was unlikely to get Duncan to calm down and shut up. Unfortunately, Duncan guessed what he was thinking.

“And don’t you start on that, either. We all did it, all five of us. We did it loads, and it was great. I know Jeff’s married and all that shit, but you’re no fucking nun. Why the fuck is screwing the dancers and the singers OK, but screwing the fans isn’t?”

Jake saw Sorcha shift on the sofa, and could feel himself starting to panic.

“That’s not fair, and you know it’s not. Leave it until we’re all together again on Monday, will you, and we can talk about it then.”

Duncan heard the hint, and flung it straight back in his face.

“What? You don’t want your poor little girlfriend to know that you used to sleep with the groupies too? What fucking planet are you on?”

Sorcha realised that Jake needed rescuing, and extricated herself from the sofa.

“It’s OK Pet. He’s just having a bit of a rough day. You see, he only discovered this afternoon that lawyers have sex too. I think it’ll take him a week or two to get over the shock.”

She was feeling proud of herself for coming up with something reasonably witty that made it clear that she could cope with the news that pop stars slept around. She’d even managed to use words which Duncan was likely to understand this time round. It was only when she saw Jake’s expression of horror that she knew that she’d seriously screwed up. Duncan had gone back to looking from her to Jake, and then back again, and then looking her up and down, before almost erupting in a display of barely intelligible hilarity.

“Fucking hell, mate! You two aren’t even shagging, are you? What the fuck’s the matter with you?”