by Matt Hammond
Milkshake
by
Matt Hammond
Published by Night Publishing, Smashwords edition
Copyright 2011, Matt Hammond
ISBN 978-1-4661-8290-5
Thank you for downloading this e-book. You are welcome to share it with people you know personally for non-commercial purposes but it may not be shared over the Internet other than via the network of e-book distributors supplied by Smashwords and according to Smashwords terms and conditions.
All characters are fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is accidental.
To discover other books by Matt Hammond, please go to http://www.nightpublishing.com/matt-hammond.
Chapter 1
Shredded paper lay on the restroom floor, still wet from recent mopping. A steady stream of scalding water misted the mirror above a hand basin. Standing at the urinal, David heard the creak of a stall door. A warm hand from behind pressed something firmly over his mouth. As he inhaled and began to drift asleep, his mind replayed the last conversation before David Turner’s life paused.
“You bloody do this every time we fly. You get sucked into the whole holiday mode thing, have to buy the largest cappuccino you can find, then spend the next three hours backwards and forwards to the loo.”
“I need a pee before we board the flight, I’ll be back in a minute. I’m sorry but once we’re on that plane it might be another hour before that seatbelt light goes off, so I’m just making the most of every opportunity.”
Twenty years of marriage to Katherine had taught David to leave it there. Anyway, this was different. It wasn’t a holiday. They were emigrating. The events of the previous September had unsettled millions of people. Thousands had investigated emigrating to safer, distant shores. The Turners had secured teaching posts in New Zealand. This would be a one-way flight from London to Auckland, via Singapore.
* * *
David was sitting in the staffroom, eating a sandwich he couldn’t taste. “A bloody plane’s only flown into the World Trade Center.”
“A plane, straight into it,” repeated the Deputy Principal.
“How big was it?’
“A smallish one, I think, but the top of the building is on fire. People are trapped. It’s live on the News.”
The sandwich and staffroom were gone. Faceless people stood in silhouette against the glass and the open sky beyond it. He could make out the flat roofs of office blocks, cluttered with elevator machinery, switchgear rooms and air conditioning units.
He walked towards the window, focusing on water running down the glass. It was snowing. His eyes followed the flakes downwards, watching as they became caught in the violent updrafts which swirled beneath him. A flashing blue light caught his eye. He was up against the glass, looking straight down, past his feet, to the New York street far below.
He stepped back, turned and was now looking around his own living room. He heard a television and his mind found the images of a second plane being eaten alive by the South Tower.
The wing dipped, the plane gracefully turned and the Tower took the impact as if full in the chest. No time to dodge, it absorbed the missile and was torn apart on the opposite side by the force of the explosion within.
“What film is this?”
David turned to answer Katherine and found he was in bed, tightly holding her hand. Pixelated orange fire shimmered on the ceiling above his head as fragmented shards of glass and masonry wafted down in slow motion towards him.
“Are you awake?”
“Yes,” she replied
“I think we should go.”
* * *
Somewhere deep in his unconscious brain, an electrical impulse touched a neuron and David sparked back to life.
Blinking hard, trying to focus through the blackness, David felt the cold solidity of unyielding concrete against his cheek and the cool of the May evening. The drone of nearby aircraft and the smell of their fuel re-awakened his other senses. He was lying face down, looking underneath a row of parked cars. Head aching and eyes stinging, he tried to stand as he struggled to remember.
Swaying unsteadily in the vacant space between two cars, his vision cleared, sharpening the bright yellow lights, aeroplane tails and shining paintwork of illuminated car bodies. Looking out across the airport from the top floor of a car park, his mind replayed.
Two hours ago they had checked in for their flight, watching as their cases disappeared through a rubber flap. David had joked about the sum of his possessions: passport, ticket, wallet containing a small amount of Singaporean cash for their short stopover, a credit card and his British driving licence. Everything else they owned was either in a shipping container about to land in New Zealand or in one of those cases.
Now the gentle ‘tick, tick, tick’ of an idling car engine snapped him back to the present. Cars enclosed him on three sides. The fourth enclosure was the low wall of the car park. He crouched, feeling sick.
His foot brushed something. He looked down, the glare from the lights blinding him as he peered into a void, his head instantly filling with waves of disorientating vertigo. Moving his hand to meet his foot, he could feel leather. It was soft, in folds, hard beneath. Both hands felt a jacket and it was on someone’s back.
Cigarette smoke seeped into his nostrils, clearing his head. Someone pushed him roughly from behind. He fell, turning to rest the back of his head against a car wheel, feigning confusion, looking up, through semi–closed lids, squinting for a clearer view.
The silhouette of a man gripped the leather–jacketed figure under both arms and lifted, shuffling towards the low car park wall until the limp body was against it, facing out into the night.
The body slumped forward, torso resting on the wall, arms dangling over the edge. David’s throat tightened as he realised what was about to occur. How long had he been there? Had he been drugged?
As the questions ran through his head, there was a grunt.
The leather-jacketed body was gripped from behind by his belt and heaved off the ground. The rasp of a zip scraping against the concrete wall broke into the conscious spaces between David’s confused thoughts.
The body was lifted until his knees were level with the top of the wall. It was clear his centre of gravity would inevitably send him over the edge.
The man released his grip. The victim instantly crumpled ungainly to one side, half sitting, half kneeling, oblivious to his fate, then toppled silently forward and was gone. The killer stepped back, no macabre curiosity to witness the fatal descent, watching as the limp flailing body collided with the road below.
David’s incoherence flashed an image from the TV News last September. A faceless figure stepping from the edge of the smoking World Trade Center through the void left by the melted safety glass and out into the cool autumn air of the New York morning, leaving behind certain fiery death for one of their own choosing.
He sat motionless. Someone who had just killed a man in front of him carefully stepped over his outstretched legs and climbed into the waiting car. The engine note rose, the door clicked shut and it glided slowly away.
The distant lights blurred as his focus disconnected. They’d both left good teaching jobs, sold their house at a good profit, their cars, and had both gained New Zealand residency. They’d said goodbye to friends and family, and shipped all their possessions on ahead. There was nearly £200,000 waiting for them on the other side of the world. He'd made his choice.
Breathing deeply, he pulled sweating palms slowly over his face, trying to wipe any memory of the last fifteen minutes, erasing all questions from his mind. For now, he had to focus on acting normal, find his way back to Katherine and board the flight.
He peered at his watch. It was more than fifteen minutes since
he had left Katherine waiting in the Terminal below. Where had the time gone? Looking around the brightly lit rooftop, a few cars were huddled together in small groups. Did one of them belong to the victim? He tried the doors of the nearest car; both locked. Nothing to indicate its owner had just been wrenched from his seat and thrown over the side of the building.
Shaking uncontrollably, he made his way towards the lift. The button marked Terminal re-enforcing the reality of what had just happened. The doors closed, encasing him in the warm silent atmosphere.
Had he been drugged or beaten unconscious? He felt a sudden wave of panic as he checked his body for signs of his own blood. Adrenalin could be masking the pain of physical injury. No blood, no stab wounds, no clothing tears, nothing to indicate he had been taken by force.
He had woken next to a motionless body. Could the victim have been alive, alert even, as he plummeted towards the ground. Who was he? Why had David been allowed to witness his murder without any apparent further retribution?
He followed the signs back to the departure lounge, deliberately not looking left towards where, by now, the shattered body would have surely been discovered.
David instinctively felt for his wallet. His passport was still there. The motive for his abduction was apparently not robbery. Perhaps a failed attempt had resulted in an argument between two thieves which had got out of hand.
An irrational feeling of guilt almost overwhelmed him. Could he have saved the man’s life if he had been coherent enough to realise what was going on? Confrontation was not in his nature. Pacifying loud-mouthed teenage boys in class was the limit of his heroism. Should he have tried to reason with the killer? What if he had been armed? Perhaps the victim had been stabbed, shot even? Surely a gun would have been heard even above the constant aircraft noise. Keeping still may have saved his life; the murderer seemed to completely ignore him.
His eyes scanned for the police who roamed the airport, machine guns at the ready, and he was torn between trying to avoid them at all costs and deliberately walking up to the first one he saw.
The sooner he was on that plane, the better. Meanwhile there was a bloodied and battered body lying at the base of the car park. Anyone driving past could not fail to see the crumpled corpse lying in an oozing pool of blood.
David imagined a pretty young woman gazing aimlessly from the airport shuttle bus seeing the unnaturally contorted legs and the growing pool of dark liquid. She screamed at the driver to stop. Startled, he braked hard as the woman frantically pointed to the motionless body now level with his side window. The bus driver called the control centre on his radio. Drivers behind picked up their mobile phones. Ambulances and armed police were already on their way. The area would be cordoned off in minutes.
For now, this was only in his head. If he was arrested on arrival in Singapore, he would just tell the truth.
Peripheral vision caught a familiar blue sign. He still needed to pee! Entering a vacant cubicle, David locked the door and sat down. With legs shaking and palms still sweating, he tried to relax.
“Mr Turner?” It was his name. Someone was calling his name! “Mr Turner, you in there?” David sat perfectly still. The police may have already started searching but surely not found him already, let alone know his name. He took a deep breath, leant back to flush, and unlocked the door. “Mr Turner?”
“Yes. that’s me.”
“Mr Turner, you’re gonna be late for your flight. It’s been called for the final time and your wife asked us to come and look for you. She said you went to look for a loo about twenty minutes ago, so you’d better finish up and follow me.”
David remained a few steps behind, fearing even the most mundane of conversations would reveal his panicked state of mind. They passed a queue of people awaiting security clearance who eyed him suspiciously as he was escorted to a separate x–ray machine.
David walked through the empty door frame of the scanner. He felt its invisible rays amplifying his guilt. “Excuse me, Mr Turner!” He felt his face flush red and his chest begin to thump as he turned around. It was the same security guard. “It’s Gate 30. Your wife is waiting. Go straight down this corridor, then take a right and follow the signs. It’s about eight minutes at a brisk walk. I’ll radio ahead to tell them you’re on your way.” David looked at his watch. A brisk walk? He felt like sprinting.
“Thanks for your help.” He may as well have just shouted, “Look at me!’ having probably just created another few dozen witnesses to the CCTV image likely to appear on the T.V. Breaking News within the hour.
David stepped onto the moving walkway. The machine walked for him. It was impossible to take normal steps. He reached into his pocket, feeling the reassuring presence of his leather passport cover.
He felt in his trouser pocket for the wallet he had placed there moments earlier. It had been out of his possession for a few short seconds as it passed through the x-ray scanner. Justification for a quick check of the contents, not that there was much to check. A brief glance confirmed everything was in place, except there was something he was not expecting.
A small piece of yellow paper protruded from the credit card pocket. He pulled and it came out, stuck to the front of an unfamiliar credit card. He lifted the yellow label. It was plain, mainly silver and, along the top, in bold black lettering Associated Bank of Monaco. To the left, the familiar logo of the credit card company, and next to the expiry date the embossed name was clearly his own. He turned the card over. The signature box was empty.
Was this really his card? He had received unsolicited invitations to apply for credit cards from some pretty obscure institutions recently. An ignored ‘gold card’ invitation was often followed by an improved offer of the ‘exclusive platinum card’. Some companies increased the marketing flattery and went straight for the platinum offer. He had resisted them all. The yellow sticker contained four hand written numbers - ‘1296’. The PIN number for a card he knew nothing about?
The moving walkway gave way to marble. David still had the credit card in his palm. He could easily snap it in two and throw it into the next rubbish bin. He saw the sign for the ATM Machine. Why would anyone want cash between the security check and the departure gate?
There was no queue. It would only take seconds. Before he realised, David had walked up to the machine, offered the card to the slot and it was sucked in. David thought it would end there, that it had been recognised as stolen or fake, and been retained. Then the screen changed:
Please enter your four digit PIN and press #.
He glanced over his shoulder, then at the piece of paper:
1-2-9-6
He was about to leave the country for good but the bill was bound to catch up in the redirected mail, so there was really no point. But the card seemed legitimate. It had allowed him to get this far and he was curious to find out exactly how far it would let him go. He pressed ‘balance enquiry print out’ and checked over his shoulder again as the balance briefly flashed onto the screen before:
If you do not want further services press enter to remove your card.
He pressed and the card was ejected into his waiting hand. Numbers on a piece of paper were sent out through a different slot.
David looked but he couldn’t read it. It was too long. There was no minus figure. This was a credit balance.
If the card was valid, and the ATM machine wasn’t faulty, David was holding a piece of plastic that potentially gave him access to - he was trying to work out the decimal point - two hundred and fifty five million, six hundred and forty thousand, two hundred and eighty seven pounds.
Surely this was a stolen card, yet somehow it was in his possession with his name clearly etched on it. He was too far from the security gate to go back. In fact he was technically already out of the country. He opened his wallet and placed the card and the PIN number inside. Tearing the printout into tiny pieces, he stuffed them deep amongst the other discarded receipts in the small bin under the ATM machine.
/> Katherine stood at Gate 30, impatiently adjusting her hair and thinking she should have tied it back. All except two passengers on flight NZ001 were seated, waiting for the remaining pair to board.
It could still be too late. Security could have radioed ahead, instructing airline staff to hold him at the gate. Even now there could be a dozen policemen behind him, trying to negotiate the travelator.
The stewardess smiled her best professional ‘I don’t approve but this is my job’ smile. “Ah, Mr Turner, I presume. We’ve been expecting you. May I see your passport and ticket? The flight is waiting to depart.” David detected her emphasis on ‘waiting’. It was not just ready to depart; it was waiting. He was keeping an entire plane load of people waiting.
“Sorry, I got a bit held up.” Trying to make his excuse vague, fixing Katherine with his best ‘I’ll explain when we get on board’ smile, he thought it would be better to try and nip any public argument in the bud right there and then, and avoid the ‘where the hell have you been?’ scenario, or at least save it for a confrontation once on board where it would hopefully be diluted by the proximity of hundreds of other people.
“Where the hell have you been? You only went for a pee. You’ve been gone ages. They called our flight. I waited until the last possible minute and then I had to send someone to find you. We nearly missed our bloody flight, David!”
David smiled inwardly as he concluded that, putting aside the tone in which it was delivered, this was probably a fair summary of what had gone on during his enforced absence, and that frankly he did not really care, given what he had just gone through.
