Just a hairdresser

I know what I did was not nice. I’m a good person, but good people can be led astray.

The world is awash with secrets. A married woman has sex with a visitor and her husband never knows that the resulting child is not his. A boy gets a girl pregnant but she does not tell him; she disappears and gives their child up for adoption.

Now though! You take a DNA test intending to research your family history, and oh! the secrets that are revealed.

It started with the small thrill of discovery.

I had bought a DNA test kit for myself but not opened it. I shared a flat with a weirdo circus performer and rigger, Darrell ‘Daz’ Bengtsson. A man who knew how to use ropes and nets. Swedish father, Bradford mother. He was never going to be sane, but he was very protective. He had let his PhD student sister hold her birthday party at our flat because he had a huge crush on one of her friends.

I was joining in, Pilsner in hand, when another friend of Daz’s sister, who may have had too much to drink, made a sarcastic remark about me being ‘just’ a hairdresser. I retired to my room with a serious case of class bitterness and read Faulkner while they reassured themselves of their superiority by drinking more than they could handle. Daz came in to see I was all right and we chatted for a bit. He’s such a love.

Later in the evening most of them had left and I ventured out to see what damage had been wrought. Daz had retired to his room from whence came noises redolent of the rutting jungle. His sister slept on the lounge floor under a blanket. The nasty friend had passed out on the sofa. Her head drooped over, facing the floor. She was drooling. My first response was disgust, but then I thought it would be daft not to take advantage. I found the DNA test kit, tore it open, and held the plastic vial under her lips and collected her dribbling saliva.

In the morning I completed the forms using a fake name and email and posted it off on my way to a salon in Vauxhall. She was still on the sofa. I patted her on the cheek as I walked past. One eye opened but her cortex was not yet processing signals.

When the results came through there was some research to do. A family tree to build and connections to investigate. The thrill of the chase was exciting. I thought about blackmailing her mother by threatening to expose her secret, but I eventually just set up a fake Instagram account, friended a group of her friends then, oops, let it slip out that her biological father was actually her uncle.

It was cruel. I know that. People were upset, marriages collapsed, she got a Third class degree rather than the expected First.

Well, she shouldn’t have been such a snob.

A few days later though, I wanted to do it again.

I loved the chase, the investigation, the research. I got a kick from finding connections. I was very good at it, and I loved the buzz of each discovery. I will even admit to dancing around the room, arms pumping, hooting delight after each big discovery. I was that good!

Then the follow-ups! The revelation – their shock, fear, anxiety, pain. The repercussions – marriage breakups, violence, breaking crockery. All because of me!

But the thrill would slowly fade and I needed to do it again, needed the next thrill.

I was not a monster. I just wasn’t bothered about whether what I was doing was good or bad. It was about the thrill, the buzz, the shiver of success.

I am a hairdresser. Buzz-cut to bangs baby. Short back and sides to split ends trim. Casual. An agency snipper. The salon calls the agency when one of their hairdressers in sick or storms out with a bad case of high dudgeon.

I worked all over London. I never refused a call, as long as the salon wasn’t further than a one-hour commute.

I would look through the day’s bookings to pick a candidate. Lords and Ladies, stars and singers, executives and well-heeled exes offered the juiciest opportunities. There’s no thrill in making a nobody miserable.

Most DNA tests use saliva but some use hair. All it takes is five or more hairs with the follicle attached. Most days a hairdresser will accidentally jerk a comb-full of hair and apologise profusely. The customer doesn’t care as long as the end result looks good. And I’m good. I have a great feel for how to frame a face. Don’t worry about a moment’s pain. You will look better than you have any time in the last decade.

And the DNA? It was this easy. Set up an account in a false name, use an alias and an encrypted email address, send in the hair. For an added level of security I accessed the emails over a VPN.

You may have heard of some of my successes. The baroness called by the Daily Mail to explain why she gave up a child for adoption in Estonia at the age of 45 when her husband thought she was looking after an elderly aunt. The soap star door-stopped by the daughter adopted out when she was 14. The male cabinet minister having to explain to his husband why he was the father of twins born two years after their marriage. The Duke who had to fight his younger brother for the title and the castle when it was revealed that his father was actually the local vicar. Shame on you Duchess, with your gormless airs and graces. How are you enjoying that council flat these days? 

Such fun was had with each of them. Of course sometimes DNA reveals nothing interesting, though I have yet to trace a family tree that doesn’t have a problem still unresolved. Rutting is hardly a recent invention.

But I digress. I wanted to explain how I got to this police cell.

…

It’s Thursday morning, November 2020. London rain from a heavy grey sky. Dania Skimcross skips into the Knightsbridge salon and bleats “Hi!” to everyone and no-one. Yes dear, we know who you are, and we don’t care.

She sighs more than is necessary when she is told that Dayo is off sick today and she will be with me, Honey Cramer, instead. I smile and wave. She half-smiles with a look that says ‘You’d better not fuck up’.

Oh I won’t fuck up, Dania. You will adore the bounce and flair of your loveliness tomorrow and you will ask for me next time but they will disappoint you, as you deserve.

She squealed when I pulled out her small clump of hair and the salon owner glared at me but what the hey. I apologised profusely and gave her a scalp massage. Soon enough she was purring. Humans can be so weak.

So the follicles were sent off and I tried not to wet myself with excitement waiting for the results to pop up in the Shared Relatives section of the website. Then up it popped up and my oh my did I have a doozy there. Dania, you weak-minded little twerp, I held your fate in my hands.

I had done my research in the meantime. Dania came from a wealthy family and had two older brothers who worked in finance in the City of London. Their father, Isambard Forsyth, was a doyen of Sinclair, Forsyth and Fuchs, one of the biggest re-insurers in the UK. Money became them, it seemed. Her mother Fiona was a Dunkeld from Dunkeld in Scotland; solid Presbyterian stock with ancestors including two brothers who fought on each side at Culloden. A practice guaranteed to ensure the family kept its estates no matter who won the battle. Property over principles every time.

The DNA however showed that Dania’s biological father was not the doyen Forsyth. Her relatives on the paternal side were Croatians called Cosic.  The police later told me that distant relatives were one of the biggest crime families in Europe.

Marko Cosic though was a simple mechanic at a garage in Aviemore. Fiona was a skier, Isambard was not. It’s wonderful what you can find with just a few basic Internet searches.

Car won’t start at the Forsyth ski lodge, mechanic is called, fixes car, fixes randy wife, everyone’s happy. Wife ensures coitus with husband within next few days, much to his surprise, as she has shown no interest for a long time, but you take what you can get. Wife gets pregnant, Isambard gleams with further proof of his robust fecundity. Some of this history is imagined, of course, to fill in the gaps.

To add some titillating splendour to the story, Fiona and Marko died in a car crash on a black ice corner in the Cairngorms some years later. No suspicion was laid at their dead feet because the garage had received a call from a stranded Fiona Forsyth and the crash occurred an hour later on the route between the stranded car and the Forsyth chalet. Marko had called for a towing vehicle but was told none was available until the next day. It all made sense.

I found the police accident report online and the media seemed to have missed two small facts from the report. Fiona did not have a seat belt on, and Marko’s flies were undone. In a wonderful piece of understatement the constable had written: ‘The driver seems to have lost control on black ice, possibly while distracted.’

So that left just Dania and her beloved father. I thought I should let doting dogs lie, but then I came across a news report about the part Sinclair, Forsyth and Fuchs had played in appropriating the company’s pension fund to shore up their finances after the crash of 2008. Somehow the money was never repaid though bonuses and dividends never stopped.

So there I was with my social conscience on fire. A shell looking for a shotgun.

It seems so simple doesn’t it. You anonymously pass on some information to a politician whose electorate includes reinsurer pensioners, assuming he will expose this travesty. That’s what politicians do.

I should have done a little more research.

The politician went straight to Forsyth. They were probably members of the same City club.

Nothing happened. Well, I thought nothing happened. I had assumed I was well hidden behind my secure, encrypted emails and my VPN. I had never heard of social engineers who can bypass telecoms companies’ privacy rules. I didn’t know hackers could take over specific individuals’ PCs and phones.

My luck came in the form of Beebee Lanscombe downstairs. People in the block of flats had often laughed at how similar our hairstyles were. We both loved a bob and were brunettes, about the same height. I was walking home through the park opposite our flats – big plane and horse chestnut trees, some bushes - and saw her walking towards the entrance door past a white van. Two big men jumped out of the van, picked her up and lifted her in before she even had a chance to scream. They slammed the sliding door and the van drove off. I ran out of the park to the footpath. The van pulled up at the end of the street, Beebee was pushed out and the van drove off. It didn’t have number plates.

I ran down to her. She was still shaking and trying to walk home. I got her to sit at a bus stop and calm down a little.

“They called me Honey!” she said. “I said I’m Beebee not Honey. I pulled out my driving licence and showed them. They pulled up, pushed me out and drove off.”

“They called you Honey?” 

“Yes!”

“Did they say anything else? Like what they wanted?”

“No, though one of them said ‘you’re in real trouble now’.”

“Real trouble?”

“Real trouble.”

I hardly slept. Daz came home late. I knew it wasn’t worth talking to him after a performance. He needed to let his head settle down before he could make any sense. I called the agency first thing the next morning and said I wasn’t available. I walked the London Bridge streets, sampled a few coffee shops until I was buzzing, then caught the tube to Brixton to visit my Dad. His front door was half-broken. I knocked and called out.

“Oh darlin’,” he said as he walked towards me. “I phoned the police. I just got back from breakfast bingo and some buggers had broken in. As you can see they weren’t very gentle. Come in, come in.”

“Why would anyone do this to you? You’ve hardly got two beans to rub together.”

“I know. It’s a mystery to me. They didn’t take anything either. Not that there’s much worth taking.”

“Did the neighbours see anything.”

“Oh you know – white van, no number plates, big guys in hoodies, no faces. They were in and out. I found this on the floor.” He handed me an A4 sheet. ‘Tell Honey to watch out’. “What is this about?” he said.

I took the paper. “Don’t tell the cops about this piece of paper Dad. Please.”

“OK. Are you in some sort of trouble?”

“No. Possibly. I need to make a few calls. Here’s the police. Nothing about the paper!” I said as I left and the cops approached the front door

“No worries darlin’. You be careful eh!” he called after me.

I didn’t dare go back to my flat. I called Daz.  

“I’m at my sister’s. No, she’s not here. Come on over, but not too much of the drama queen vibe eh? I’m half a day into a litre of Aquavit.”

“What? Why? You landed the babe you desired for so long.”

“Hmmm.”

“What happened?”

“Her disappointment was way too apparent. Look, if you come over I will have company so I can get stuck into the rest of the bottle.”  

“One of your father’s weird Swedish rules eh?”

He didn’t answer. “Glad to help, see you soon,” I said.

…

Much later that day, after much Aquavit, explanations, plotting, carpentry and rigging, Daz and I sat in our flat.

We had made a noisy entrance to ensure we were seen and heard, and we did a lot of hammering and drilling. Daz can be very creative when he has a bottle of Aquavit in him. He also has a background with Cirque du Soleil. Ropes, tapes, nets, pulleys…that sort of thing.

The front door was left ajar. The two big guys pushed it open. When they stepped inside, the door slammed shut behind them and a net fell on them from the ceiling. Ropes jerked the net tight around their feet and the squirming, angry mess of net and men was hauled along the hardwood floor into my lounge then into the air via a pulley in the ceiling.

Daz and I walked up to them, holding baseball bats. One them seemed to be pulling a knife from a pocket. He was quite upset when I hit his knuckles. He dropped the knife to the floor and swore viciously. I kicked it away.

I forgot to mention that Daz was now wearing a vibrant red wig and a circus leotard covered with flashing multi-coloured LEDs. “Who sent you?” he said to them in an outrageous accent that might have been Icelandic.

“Fuck you,” one said. As original as one would expect from hired muscle.

Daz poked the baseball bat at his groin. “Who sent you?”

“Fuck you.”

“Haltu kjafti rassgat.” He swung the bat back with cruel intent - but there was a knock on the door. I made a face at Daz and went and looked through the peep-hole. I pulled back instinctively as a metal spike speared through the flimsy wood.  

The men in the net yelled warnings. Daz whacked them with the bat and they yelled with pain. I ran back and joined Daz by the open patio window. We pulled another rope and a metal frame flipped across the opening at the end of the hall and clicked securely into place. The net stretched across the frame was made of cut-resistant wire-core tape soaked with glue and paint. They wouldn’t get through it. The front door burst open. Another heavy stumbled in followed by a slim, older man I recognised instantly as Isambard Forsyth. They walked up to the netting frame.

“Stupidity has its own rewards,” Forsyth sneered. His heavy pulled out a Zombie knife and tried to slash the netting but we pulled another rope and a similar frame of netting flipped out from the wall behind them, trapping them. We pulled our last cord and the furthest net frame slid towards them, pushing then into the first frame.

They yelled and abused us but they were like flies in a web. The more they struggled the more they were covered in glue and paint.

When the police arrived, it was all they could do not to laugh.

…

Our lawyers said Daz and I can get off the kidnapping and assault charges with a self-defence plea. The heavies had clearly entered the flat with intent to harm.

They are not so sure about the impersonation case though. It seems DNA appropriation is a whole new legal grey area.

Forsyth will not face any charges. No surprise there. But the story is all over the papers, and once my bail is approved I might just let slip a little factoid to a journalist who will not say where she got the story. Poor little Dania.