won’t ask anyone who actually
knows
. That’s not what you want, is it? You just want to bring your London sneering down to the provinces. We’d be fine if you’d
all just go away and leave us alone.’
‘I—’ She looks at the tufty hairs on his carelessly shaved cheeks, the tight lips set in stubbornness, the unreasoning knee-jerk
dislike in the eyes, and knows her answer. She’s not going to get anything useful out of this guy. Just the sort of formless
disapproval that blames the media rather than the man who’s actually killing people. ‘OK,’ she says, ‘thanks anyway.’
‘You can’t quote me,’ he says. ‘I didn’t give you permission to quote me.’
‘I don’t have your name anyway,’ she says. Walks away up the beach before he can prolong the encounter. Feels, nonetheless,
his eyes bore into her back as she skirts between the barbecue and the perimeter fence of Funnland, a festoon of yellow police
tape marking out the hole in the short run of wire fence behind a bucket-and-spade stall. From this side, the amusement park’s
concrete fortifications make it look a bit like a prison camp. The front wall, on the blowy road everyone jokingly calls ‘the
Corniche’, is bright with hoardings and coloured lights.
Besides the big party, a few knots of young people talk and doze away their hangovers, and play Frisbee in T-shirts and longshorts. A camera team wanders among them, recording vox pops. Kirsty wonders how the lure of appearing on television can overcome
the horror of doing so without make-up or preparation.
‘Yeah, of course I’m scared,’ says a young woman as she passes, ‘but what am I supposed to do? I only get a week’s holiday.
I’ve got to have fun, innit?’
‘So are you going to come to Whitmouth again?’ asks the reporter.
‘Probably not,’ she replies. ‘It’s a bit pants, really. The booze is dead expensive and, did you know?, that amusement park’
– she gestures at the hulking wall of Funnland, where the police are spending their second day sweeping every inch between
the fence and the death site with camelhair brushes – ‘has been closed ever since we got here. And in high season too!’
She visits the Antalya Kebab House, where the second victim, Keisha Brown, was last seen. The owner is Turkish, voluble and
unfriendly. ‘So why are you suddenly interested?’ he asks. ‘You know what? This happened twice last year as well. There were
two girls last year, and they were just as dead then, and you didn’t give a toss. Not one reporter, not one newspaper, apart
from the
Whitmouth Guardian
, nobody from the telly
then
. They were invisible then. Might as well never have existed. But
now
… you’ve got some
glamour
now. You’re all looking for your Hannibal Lecter and now it matters, isn’t it?’
‘Fair point,’ she says. There are two murders every day in the UK. Only a third of them make much more than a downpage NiB
in the papers. You’ve got to have a stand-out quality, or a determined family, for your death to get past the news editors.
‘But I’m here now. At least it’s a chance to put that right now, eh?’
‘You gonna buy something?’ he asks gruffly, glaring with deep dark eyes.
‘What’s good?’
‘Everything’s good.’
‘I’ll have a doner and a Coke, please.’
‘Chips?’ he barks.
‘No,’ she begins, then hurriedly assents. No point in blowing her chances for the price of a bag of chips. ‘And a receipt,
please.’
She waits a couple of beats as he turns to the fryer and plunges the basket into the oil. ‘So do you remember her?’
He has his back turned. She can see his reflection in the mirrored wall behind the grill, napkin-scrawled, sellotaped-on specials
framing his black hair. He’s fifty-something, and looks older. Everyone looks older around here.
Stop it, she thinks. You’ve turned into the worst sort of bourgeois snob while you weren’t looking. Just because
knows
. That’s not what you want, is it? You just want to bring your London sneering down to the provinces. We’d be fine if you’d
all just go away and leave us alone.’
‘I—’ She looks at the tufty hairs on his carelessly shaved cheeks, the tight lips set in stubbornness, the unreasoning knee-jerk
dislike in the eyes, and knows her answer. She’s not going to get anything useful out of this guy. Just the sort of formless
disapproval that blames the media rather than the man who’s actually killing people. ‘OK,’ she says, ‘thanks anyway.’
‘You can’t quote me,’ he says. ‘I didn’t give you permission to quote me.’
‘I don’t have your name anyway,’ she says. Walks away up the beach before he can prolong the encounter. Feels, nonetheless,
his eyes bore into her back as she skirts between the barbecue and the perimeter fence of Funnland, a festoon of yellow police
tape marking out the hole in the short run of wire fence behind a bucket-and-spade stall. From this side, the amusement park’s
concrete fortifications make it look a bit like a prison camp. The front wall, on the blowy road everyone jokingly calls ‘the
Corniche’, is bright with hoardings and coloured lights.
Besides the big party, a few knots of young people talk and doze away their hangovers, and play Frisbee in T-shirts and longshorts. A camera team wanders among them, recording vox pops. Kirsty wonders how the lure of appearing on television can overcome
the horror of doing so without make-up or preparation.
‘Yeah, of course I’m scared,’ says a young woman as she passes, ‘but what am I supposed to do? I only get a week’s holiday.
I’ve got to have fun, innit?’
‘So are you going to come to Whitmouth again?’ asks the reporter.
‘Probably not,’ she replies. ‘It’s a bit pants, really. The booze is dead expensive and, did you know?, that amusement park’
– she gestures at the hulking wall of Funnland, where the police are spending their second day sweeping every inch between
the fence and the death site with camelhair brushes – ‘has been closed ever since we got here. And in high season too!’
She visits the Antalya Kebab House, where the second victim, Keisha Brown, was last seen. The owner is Turkish, voluble and
unfriendly. ‘So why are you suddenly interested?’ he asks. ‘You know what? This happened twice last year as well. There were
two girls last year, and they were just as dead then, and you didn’t give a toss. Not one reporter, not one newspaper, apart
from the
Whitmouth Guardian
, nobody from the telly
then
. They were invisible then. Might as well never have existed. But
now
… you’ve got some
glamour
now. You’re all looking for your Hannibal Lecter and now it matters, isn’t it?’
‘Fair point,’ she says. There are two murders every day in the UK. Only a third of them make much more than a downpage NiB
in the papers. You’ve got to have a stand-out quality, or a determined family, for your death to get past the news editors.
‘But I’m here now. At least it’s a chance to put that right now, eh?’
‘You gonna buy something?’ he asks gruffly, glaring with deep dark eyes.
‘What’s good?’
‘Everything’s good.’
‘I’ll have a doner and a Coke, please.’
‘Chips?’ he barks.
‘No,’ she begins, then hurriedly assents. No point in blowing her chances for the price of a bag of chips. ‘And a receipt,
please.’
She waits a couple of beats as he turns to the fryer and plunges the basket into the oil. ‘So do you remember her?’
He has his back turned. She can see his reflection in the mirrored wall behind the grill, napkin-scrawled, sellotaped-on specials
framing his black hair. He’s fifty-something, and looks older. Everyone looks older around here.
Stop it, she thinks. You’ve turned into the worst sort of bourgeois snob while you weren’t looking. Just because
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