Not Dead Yet

slightly absurd on a grown man in his fifties, she thought. His fists rested on the counter, clenching and unclenching, and he was perspiring slightly.
    When Becky Rivett later tried to give the police a description of him, she told them he had reminded her of the actor Robin Williams, when he played that creepy role in One Hour Photo .
    ‘I have a confirmation,’ he insisted. ‘I have your email.’
    She smiled at him again, then frowned at her screen. He hated the way she smiled at him. It was a meaningless smile. She smiled at him not because she wanted to, but because she had to. He felt the anger rising; snakes uncoiling. He wanted to tell her she didn’t need to smile at him, and that if she smiled at him again, with those neat little white teeth, he—
    Calm down.
    Then he remembered. Stupid fool! It was the jet lag. Then doing his recce when he should have gone to bed and rested. You made mistakes when you were tired. ‘I – ah – you know – gave you the wrong name.’
    ‘You gave me Mr Drayton Wheeler?’
    ‘Yuh uh – you’ll find the reservation’s under Baxter. Jerry Baxter.’ He had decided using a fictional name might come in useful.
    She looked down her list, frowned, tapped her computer, then saw it almost instantly. ‘Ah yes, a single room for two weeks?’
    ‘Correct.’ He took several deep breaths.
    She handed him the check-in form and a pen, and he filled it out. ‘Do you need a parking space, Mr Wheeler – sorry – er, Baxter?’ she asked.
    ‘Why would I need a parking space?’
    ‘I wasn’t sure if you had a car.’ She smiled again and his anger rose further. ‘May I take a credit card imprint, please?’
    ‘I’ll be paying cash.’
    She frowned. Guests who paid cash were a rarity these days. Then she smiled again, breezily. ‘That’s fine, sir. But we will need you to pay for incidentals as you go, if that’s all right?’
    ‘I will pay incidentally.’ He grinned at her for some moments through stained teeth, then the smile slipped from his face as she failed to get his little joke.
    She tapped away at her keyboard then, after some moments, handed him his plastic key card in a small folder. ‘Room 608.’
    ‘Do you have anything a little lower? I’m rather nervous of heights.’
    She looked back at her screen, and tapped again on the keyboard. ‘I’m afraid not, sir, we are fully booked.’
    ‘Ah yes, you have that singer staying, Gaia?’
    ‘I’m afraid I cannot comment on other guests.’
    ‘I heard it on the news. It’s in the newspapers.’
    She feigned surprise. ‘Really? I wonder where they got that from.’
    ‘I wonder too,’ he said, a tad too petulantly, taking the card.
    ‘Do you need any help with your luggage.’
    ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I would if I had any. But thank you, British Airways, they’ve managed to lose it.’
    This time her smile was genuine. ‘Poor you.’
    ‘They tell me it will turn up later today.’
    ‘We’ll bring it up to you as soon as it arrives.’
    Really , he nearly said. I thought you might just put it in the middle of the lobby and have all your staff perform a rain dance around it. Instead he replied, stonily, ‘Yes, I would appreciate that.’
    Then he walked away towards the lifts, clutching the little plasticroom key in its paper folder, taking deep breaths to calm himself down.
    He was here. Checked in.
    He’d reached first base of his very sketchy plan. Following his anger, unsure where it would lead.
    The thing was, there was no point in suing those slimeball producers Brooker and Brody, for stealing his story. Lawsuits like that took years, he knew, he’d sued other pondlife in this goddamn viperous movie industry, and each time it was five years minimum and sometimes ten, with no certainty of winning. He didn’t have the luxury of time any more. Six months, tops, the oncologist had said. Maybe a little longer if he could control his anger, and stop that from eating him up. Pancreatic cancer, inoperable, secondaries spread too far around his body. He was riddled with the stuff.
    No point in suing with that time frame. But at least he could get even. Hurt a couple of total shysters big time, before the final cut. Before he himself got flushed out of this shithole toilet called earth.

33
    ‘Unexpected item in bagging area. Remove item from the bagging area.’
    Glenn Branson stared, bleary-eyed, down at the self-service machine in the Tesco Express in Hove.
    ‘Please remove item from the