by John Marrs
‘Did you call your mammy?’ asked Declan, drying his hands on his T-shirt.
‘Yeah, she sends her love.’
‘Is she okay?’
‘The usual, a bit tearful . . . you know what she’s like.’
‘And you?’ Declan replied hesitantly.
‘I’m good.’
‘You know we can go back if you change your mind, don’t you? I’ll go with you, you won’t be on your own.’
‘Yeah, I know, but I also know what’ll happen if we do.’
THIRTEEN MONTHS EARLIER – NAVAN, IRELAND
Mr John Wallace was proud to have held the title of Navan’s postmaster for the last thirty-six years. To take the pressure off his arthritic ankle, he leaned against the counter as he weighed Mrs Flynn’s parcel. He approved of her traditional use of brown wrapping paper and string to hold it together firmly, rather than cramming it into a padded envelope and reinforcing it with sticky tape.
It was the sudden hollering that startled him more than the sight of two figures wearing balaclavas, brandishing handguns and standing by his open door. Mr Wallace had survived six post office robberies to date unscathed, and he was confident number seven wouldn’t be any different. He’d learned from experience that the modus operandi rarely varied: remove all the notes from the safe and the till, place them inside the bags the raiders always brought with them as quickly possible, and once they left, phone the gardaí. Four weeks later he’d be reimbursed by the powers that be.
‘This is a stick-up,’ shouted Matty, failing to control his trembling voice, ‘do what we say and nobody gets hurt.’
Mr Wallace chuckled to himself, wondering if all armed robbers read from the same handbook.
‘This is a stick-up?’ Declan asked his friend quietly. ‘Who the feck says that these days?’
‘Well, in case you've forgotten, this is my first robbery – have you got something better?’ whispered Matty through gritted teeth.
Declan shrugged so Matty continued. ‘Any of you fucking pricks move, and I'll execute every motherfucking last one of you.’
Declan rolled his eyes. ‘Really? You're going to start quoting Pulp Fiction now?’
Matty’s empty threat was greeted by a collective disapproving sigh from the handful of elderly customers waiting in line to be served. Matty and Declan glanced at each other, puzzled; they’d expected to be feared, not groaned at.
‘Is there any need for that kind of language in front of ladies?’ asked Mr Wallace, evidently offended.
‘Sorry,’ replied Matty, before Declan elbowed landed a sharp elbow in his ribs.
‘What was that for?’
‘Why are you apologising?’
‘’Cos I upset the old fella.’
‘Less of the old,’ interrupted Mr Wallace.
‘Little gobshites,’ added Mrs Norton, grasping her walking frame and tartan shopping bag. ‘It’s bad enough you have to rob a post office but to come in and call us . . . what was it again?’
‘Pricks,’ replied her friend, shaking her head.
‘Pricks? The mouthy bastards! Shame on you both.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen, you're missing the point,’ began a rapidly exasperated Declan. ‘We're here to rob the place, not to make friends.’
‘Well that’s a blessing, because with that language, you’re not going to make any fecking friends in here.’
‘Give me your money, everything you’ve got,’ continued Declan, reasserting his authority, until it was Matty’s turn to elbow Declan. ‘Please,’ he added reluctantly.
To a chorus of further disapproval, Declan used his gun to usher the customers towards the wall, while Matty headed towards Mr Wallace. Matty lobbed their two duffel bags over the thick Perspex counter screens, and Mr Wallace complied, stuffing them with euros before throwing the first bag back towards him. He wondered why the postmaster didn’t look more concerned.
‘It's a shame you didn't come yesterday,’ Mr Wallace casually added, ‘Tuesday is pension day, and you'd have got away with a lot more.’
‘Dec, d’you hear that? We should have come yesterday,’ said Matty, lifting the bag from the floor.
‘Don’t use my name, you eejit!’ snapped Declan.
‘Will you be wanting the coins too, Dec?’ added an amused Mr Wallace.
‘Jesus! No, just the notes, thank you.’
As Mr Wallace hurled the second bag over his booth, he couldn't help but notice the barrel of Matty’s gun was solid. He’d been eye-to-eye with enough barrels to spot the difference between a real gun and a fake.
‘Well it was nice to meet you all,’ added Matty, as he and Declan slung the bags over their shoulders. ‘And sorry about all of this.’
‘Ah, don't you worry yourselves, lads,’ smiled Mr Wallace, now the holder of the divisional record of most robbed post office in the Republic. His wife was always proud when his picture made the local newspaper.
As Declan opened the post office door, Matty grabbed a handful of euros and dropped them inside Mrs Norton's shopping bag, offering her an apologetic shrug.
‘Sorry for the bad language,’ he added, before he and Declan bolted out of the door and through the town.
‘Ah, what nice lads,’ said Mrs Norton, swiftly changing her tune once she calculated how many Lotto scratch cards she could buy with her windfall.
Suddenly her attention was drawn to Mr Wallace’s peculiar gasping sounds and she turned her head to watch him fall to the floor, clutching his chest.
CHAPTER 50
TODAY
‘Where’s this?’ asked Tommy, as he swiped his way from right to left on Jake’s mobile phone.
‘This is a wind farm I worked on in White Hill, New Zealand, set in 24 square kilometres of land at the bottom of a hill.’
Tommy and Jake sat under the shade of a lifeguard tower, drinking bottles of beer – strictly prohibited on the beach – hidden in brown paper bags.
‘And this?’ Tommy continued.
‘That’s the Lumbini Buddhist pilgrimage on the India-Nepal border.’
‘How did you end up there?’
‘I was in New Delhi having a coffee enema . . .’
‘. . . as you do . . .’
‘. . . as you do, and I got chatting to the woman who was shoving the pipe up my arse. When you’re naked, flat on your back, cupping your balls with a stranger holding your legs in the air, polite chit-chat’s a good way of stopping yourself from farting five litres of Nescafé in her face. Anyway, she told me about this town supposedly being the birthplace of Buddha, so I ended up there teaching English to the local kids.’
‘It looks beautiful.’
‘Yeah, it is. But the enema was a waste of time ’cos I got chronic dysentery and had to leave after a month. Then it was over to Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.’
‘How long do you stay in each place?’
‘It depends. I travel by three rules – never outstay your welcome; leave when no one’s looking and always leave them wanting more.’
‘So I should expect you to disappear when I’m not looking?’
‘It depends on whether there’s something worth staying here for.’
Tommy glanced up and down Jake’s two tattoo sleeves, which appeared to be inspired by religious iconography. The lines of numbers running from just below Jake’s armpit and down the side of his ribs caught his attention.
‘What are they all about?’
‘They’re the map of my journey from the start to here,’ Jake replied. ‘Every time a place inspires me, I get a tattoo of the coordinates.’
‘So you're like a six foot tall Ordnance Survey map.’
‘I guess you can say that,’ Jake chuckled.
‘And what about that?’ Tommy continued, and pointed to a number 23 etched on the skin between Jake’s thumb and forefinger.
‘It’s my lucky number. Or unlucky, depending on your way of thinking.’ Tommy frowned. ‘Google it,’ added Jake.
Suddenly a blonde-haired girl in a one-piece red swimsuit caught Tommy’s eye; her resemblance from afar to Pamela Anderson made him do a double take. He recalled fondly the first porn film his brothers had shown him when he was in his early teens – a sex tape involving Pamela Anderson and an intimidatingly well-endowed ex-husband.
‘I met Pam backstage once,’ began Jake without thinking, and then immediately shut his eyes and cursed his careless tongue.
‘You did what? No way! Did you speak to her?’
‘For a bit.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘And what was she like?’
‘Yeah, she was . . . nice.’
‘Backstage where?’
‘Something an old friend was working on.’
Tommy waited for Jake to expand on his answer, or at least offer an anecdote, but neither was forthcoming.
‘Don’t give much away, do you?’ Tommy continued, growing ever more curious and fascinated by his new friend. ‘I thought us travellers were supposed to share our life stories?’
Jake smiled. ‘Always leave them wanting more, Tommy.’
CHAPTER 51
DAY SIX
Eric prayed their pick-up truck hadn’t been towed away or ticketed by a meter maid as he and Nicole returned to the street where they’d parked.
Earlier that morning, they’d decided to delay planning the next stage of their mission which had so far resulted in frustrated dead end after dead end. Instead, they took their minds off their failed journey with a competition to see if Ruth had been telling the truth about her friendship with Zak Stanley. They’d followed a bus from Santa Monica for over an hour and watched from a safe distance as it dropped Ruth off in Melrose, where she then waited for another ride. They followed that bus for a further thirty minutes before she alighted at the foot of the Hollywood Hills. Nicole jumped out of the truck and made a beeline towards the convenience store Ruth entered, crouching out of sight behind a postal van while Eric parked and ran to join her. They couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of their actions.
When the convenience store door buzzed, Ruth appeared with a bulging plastic bag and began her familiar traipse up the Hollywood Hills. Eric and Nicole waited at a safe distance before they followed. However, twenty minutes into what felt like a vertical walk, they were breathless and their target was nowhere to be seen.
‘Bollocks, we’ve lost her,’ said Eric, craning his neck to look around the intersection for signs of Ruth.
‘Shhh,’ whispered Nicole, ‘she can’t be that far ahead, and I don’t want her to hear us.’
‘She’ll be too busy listening to the voices in her head to know we’re here.’
‘Let’s just keep going upwards – I read somewhere the higher you go in the hills, the bigger the houses are. And she seemed to know where she was heading so she’s clearly been here before.’
Eric felt the sweat beginning to trickle from his neck, down his back and under the waistband of his boxer shorts. What had seemed like a fun wager was fast becoming a chore, and he was prepared to hand over his $20 bet to Nicole even though he knew Ruth stood more of a chance of joining the royal family than becoming Zak Stanley’s BFF.
They turned their heads when they heard a vehicle behind them and saw a minibus crammed with tourists driving at a snail’s pace up the hill. Through the windows, they could hear a tour guide over a Tannoy.
‘And further up this avenue is where we find the three Zee’s,’ came a chirpy female voice. ‘We call it that because this is where Zac Efron, Zach Galifianakis and Zak Stanley live.’
‘Bingo,’ smiled Nicole, and beginning to jog to keep up with the bus. ‘We’re making a habit of turning up at strangers’ houses, aren’t we?’
ELEVEN WEEKS EARLIER – HOLLY COTTAGE, GREAT HOUGHTON, NORTHAMPTON, ENGLAND
The ancient white painted walls and thatched roof resembled someone’s idea of what a cottage should look like and not something that actually existed, thought Nicole as she and Eric opened the wooden gate, and made their way up a crazy-paving pathway towards the front door.
As their taxi pulled away, Nicole recalled it had been a long time since she had taken a day trip out of London. She’d forgotten not everywhere smelled of exhaust fumes and ambition.
Mrs Baker’s garden was colourful, pretty and very neatly kept. The flowers and shrubs in borders were spaced symmetrically, the expansive lawns were the greenest things Nicole had ever seen, and the only thing to look remotely twenty-first century was a set of cubed wooden furniture sheltered under a large cream parasol.
Nicole examined the key in her hand and the address attached to the fob – it hadn’t been what either of them had expected to find when they’d lifted the lid of the safety deposit box.
‘Do you think your fairy godmother has left you the keys to the castle?’ asked Eric.
Nicole shook her head. ‘I doubt it, but someone’s been here recently because the lawn’s been cut.’
Nicole looked at Eric pensively and then knocked on the door.
‘What are you going to say if someone answers?’ he asked. ‘“A dead woman left me a key and your address – do you mind if we have a nose around?”’
When there was no answer, Nicole inserted the key into the door’s lock, but before she could turn it, a surly woman with short, curly hair and a masculine air about her swung open the door and looked them up and down.
‘Oh, sorry, we didn’t think anyone was in,’ Nicole began. The woman didn’t reply. ‘My name is Nicole Grainger and this is my friend—’
‘I know why you’re here,’ the woman interrupted, and stepped back into the house leaving the door open.
Nicole and Eric glanced at each other, unsure of how to respond. Nicole pulled the key out of the lock and followed her into an immaculately furnished lounge.
‘Wait here,’ the woman ordered, and left the room.
‘I think that’s Maria, her housekeeper,’ whispered Nicole. ‘I saw her visiting Mrs Baker a couple of times.’
They scoured the room. Photographs in ornate frames covered a piano and two occasional tables, and above a large open fire was a shelf tightly packed with books. Nicole noted most were either travel guides or collections of images from around the world. She moved on to the photographs, some black and white, some colour, of Mrs Baker and her husband, and her son and daughter as young children. Recent images included Mrs Baker and three small children.
‘Where do think the housekeeper’s gone?’ Nicole asked.
‘Probably to put the family skeletons back in their closets,’ added Eric, before a cough interrupted them.
‘You’ll find what you’re looking for in there,’ Maria instructed, pointing to an open door leading off the kitchen.
Nicole and Eric tentatively walked towards it. The room was pitch black and colder than the rest of the house, and Nicole groped around the wall for a light switch. She felt a string and pulled it, and as the fluorescent strip light flickered on, Nicole smiled at what she saw before her.
CHAPTER 52
TODAY
Savannah . . . could I, like, bum, a few bucks off you?’ Joe asked when their paths crossed in the hostel corridor.
Savannah knew exactly what Joe planned to spend the cash on, but it didn’t dissuade her, so she reached into her purse and removed a $20 bill. ‘Promise me you’ll use at least some of it for food?’ she asked hopefully.
‘Yeah, sure,’ Joe replied and smiled gratefully. But the years spent watching her father at work in front of a congregation meant Savannah could spot a lie in the dark.
She reached her room, then paused when she found the door unlocked. Ron had been quick to replace the broken handle when she’d asked him, and her safety obsession meant each time she left for work, she’d take a photo of the key in the lock. So later, when she’d question whether she’d locked the door, she had photographic proof it was secure.
‘Hello, I’m Jane,’ came a lo
ud, cheery English accent from behind her.
Savannah jumped as a chunky woman with cropped grey hair barged past. She stood in the centre of the room with her hands on her hips and a broad smile emblazoned across a make-up free face. The woman’s body shape reminded Savannah of an egg. She put her in her mid to late fifties, and judging by her cargo pants, her checked shirt and walking shoes, she wasn’t in Venice for the beach life.
‘Is it just us girls?’ Jane beamed.
‘It was just me,’ came Savannah’s unwelcoming response.
Savannah frowned at Jane’s open suitcase lying on the spare bed, with rolled-up clothes scattered across the floor. ‘I’m sorry I’m a bit messy,’ continued Jane, ‘but don’t worry, I’ll have this place spic and span in a few minutes. What’s your name?’
‘I prefer to keep the door locked when there’s nobody here.’
‘Well we’re both here now, aren’t we?’ grinned Jane, as she continued to unpack.
Savannah sulkily threw her work clothes and make-up box into her handbag, checked the combination padlock was still attached to her locker and went to leave.
‘See you later then, roomie!’ continued Jane, undeterred by Savannah’s hostility.
‘Yeah, bye,’ muttered Savannah, deliberately slamming the door behind her.
CHAPTER 53
Nicole sighed when she spotted Ruth’s lonely figure squatting on the kerb outside what she presumed must be Zak Stanley’s home.
Ruth’s handbag lay by her side, and she seemed engrossed in her scrapbook of stories about Zak. Nicole was now 100 per cent certain that Ruth hadn’t spent the previous day with the film star, and wasn’t completely convinced she’d even met him for lunch. She preferred to find the good in people, and had hoped that by some strange fluke, Ruth had been telling the truth. But the sight of her, so hopeful and yet so doomed to fail, broke Nicole’s heart.
