Look Closer

by Rachel Amphlett

  As he concentrated on breathing, he glanced down to the street below and the small park opposite the apartment block. Two toddlers screeched with delight as they were pushed back and forth on swings by their mothers, while a commercial airliner banked high in the sky above them as it took off from the city airport. In the distance, a dog barked as a siren passed its gate, and then fell silent.

  Will wrapped his fingers around the guard rail and gripped it hard, his knuckles turning white. Everything seemed so normal, so peaceful. He turned and surveyed the inside of the apartment, realising he hadn’t even investigated the damage to the bedrooms and bathroom yet, and not really trusting himself to begin to look.

  He inhaled deeply, then stepped from the balcony back into the apartment, and picked up each of the dining chairs in turn, before pulling up the table from the floor. He turned to the coffee table, set that upright and crouched down, reaching out and gathering the scattered magazines towards him before placing them on the table.

  He stood then, and put his hands in his pockets, at a loss what to do next. His fingers brushed against the detective’s business card and his mind jolted. Pulling it from his pocket, he glanced at the number scrawled across the top of the card, then pulled out his mobile. He began dialling the number and then cursed as a message appeared, indicating the battery was nearly flat.

  His eyes swept the debris-strewn carpet until he found the battery charger, plugged in the mobile phone then went hunting for the landline phone among the trashed apartment.

  In four strides, he cleared the room and found the telephone pulled from the wall socket. Amy had insisted on keeping a landline at the apartment in case of emergencies. He smiled grimly at her prescience.

  Will plugged the cable back in, and carried the phone across to the dining table, sat heavily in one of the chairs and put his head in his hands, rubbing at his hair as his mind churned. He breathed out slowly, sat upright and reached out to dial the emergency number.

  His backside left the wooden surface of the chair as the phone began to ring while his fingers were only a fraction away from it, his heart surging painfully between his ribs.

  His hand shaking, he wrapped his fingers around the receiver and picked it up. ‘H-hello?’

  The voice at the other end was husky, low and urgent.

  ‘Do you have her laptop?’

  5

  ‘What?’

  Will frowned, part of his brain asking why the police were asking for a laptop computer, the other part screaming at him in warning.

  ‘Do you have the laptop?’

  ‘No.’

  Silence filled the line, a faint hiss distorting the empty space.

  Will cleared his throat. ‘I mean – I don’t have it at the moment. I can get it.’

  ‘Good. Good.’

  Will frowned, trying to concentrate. The voice was male, older, a little gruff as if the person had once smoked, or still indulged in an occasional nicotine fix.

  ‘Here’s what I want you to do.’ The man paused. ‘Are you listening, Will? This is important.’

  ‘I-I’m here, yes.’

  ‘Good.’ Another pause, and this time, Will heard the faint dragging sound of an inhaled cigarette. ‘You’re going to bring that laptop to me.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You’re not in a position to ask questions, Will. Just do as you’re told.’

  Will picked up the phone and began pacing next to the table, the adrenalin beginning to surge through his veins, the anger rising. ‘Who the fuck are you? Did you break into our apartment?’

  ‘I’m the person who can kill Amy, if I want to.’

  Will fell back into a chair, his legs shaking. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘No questions, Will.’ Another pause. ‘Now, the laptop computer. Does it have a password on it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And would you happen to know what that password is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ Another drag on the cigarette. A breath out. ‘Now, Will, the really sensible thing to do would be to let me have that password now and leave the computer switched off when you collect it. Are you going to be sensible?’

  Will frowned, then turned his head and looked at his backpack.

  ‘I’ll know if you tried, Will.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want you to put this phone down in a moment. You’re going to leave the apartment without calling the police. And you’re going to collect the laptop from wherever it is, and then bring it to bus stop number forty-four on Wimbledon Hill Road by three o’clock. Leave it on the seat there and walk away.’

  Will glanced at his watch. ‘That’s only two hours from now!’

  ‘It wasn’t a request.’ The caller’s voice had lowered dangerously, his impatience piercing the line. ‘What’s the password on the laptop?’

  Will recited it, and then held his breath, only the sound of his heartbeat thumping in his eardrums for company for what seemed like an age, and then the caller spoke once more.

  ‘Two hours. Use them well.’

  There was a soft click and then the tone of a dead line.

  Will lowered the receiver from his ear, glancing at it once before laying it in the cradle. He sat, stunned, for a moment, and then the inertia left him.

  Climbing over the debris scattered across the carpet, he scrambled towards his mobile phone, which was now showing a partly-charged battery. He ripped out the power cord and scrolled through the contact list until he found the one he wanted.

  Pressing the ‘call’ button, he waited until, after three rings, the phone was answered with a distracted ‘Hello? City Computer Services?’

  ‘Simon, it’s Will.’

  ‘Will! My god – was that Amy I heard about on the news this morning?’

  Will heard the sound of a radio being turned down, the music fading into the background. ‘Yeah, yeah it was,’ he murmured. ‘Hey, Simon, what exactly did Amy get you to do with that laptop of hers?’

  There was a brief pause at the other end of the line. ‘Nothing much. I just put more memory in there and added a faster back-up drive. Amy wanted the files she’d saved on it tidied away – said she was going to be working on a big story for a while and didn’t want to be distracted by anything else. Why? What’s up?’

  Will took a slow breath. ‘She saved all our insurance details on here somewhere. I was hoping you could copy them for me or something,’ he lied. ‘With everything going on, I thought I’d better, you know…’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ said Simon. ‘I understand. If you come over to get it now, I’ll sort it out for you straight away.’

  Will glanced at his watch. ‘Sounds good,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there in about forty minutes.’

  ‘No problem. See you when you get here.’

  Will hung up and bit his lower lip. As much as he hated lying to his friend, he knew he didn’t have a choice. If he was going to have to hand over the laptop to a complete stranger who was threatening to kill Amy while she was in hospital, he wanted to see what was on her computer.

  He slipped his phone back into his pocket, dropping the charger into his backpack. He shouldered the bag and glanced around the trashed apartment once more. He had the fleeting thought that perhaps he should get the police involved, then immediately dismissed it.

  The caller’s instructions were clear, and if the apartment was being watched, then he’d be putting Amy in even greater danger.

  6

  Will left the apartment and pulled the door shut after scraping the worst of the splintered wood over the threshold with his foot. Until he knew exactly what was going on, he didn’t want to draw attention to the mess and have one of the neighbours phone the police in his absence.

  He pressed the call button for the elevator, waited for what seemed like an eternity, then gave up, and pushed the door to the fire exit open and ran down the concrete stairs to the street.

  He forced himself to walk along
the road towards the bus stop, pausing only to glance over his shoulder, wondering if the mystery caller was watching.

  As he drew closer to the end of the street, a single decked bus drew away from the stop, belching black diesel fumes from its exhaust as it accelerated into the traffic on the main road. Will cursed, turned left and hurried towards the nearest underground station.

  He tried not to push past the elderly couple at the top of the escalator leading down to the platforms and gritted his teeth as they chattered away in front of him, oblivious to his impatience. As soon as he reached the bottom of the stairs, Will brushed past them, tossed a muttered apology over his shoulder, and rushed onto the north-bound platform as a train slid into the station.

  As the doors hissed open, he stepped into the cramped carriage and pushed towards the end, then turned and watched the other passengers. Paranoia swept through him as he scanned their faces. Most ignored him or glanced up and caught his stare, frowned, and looked away.

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers, trying to release the pressure building up into a headache, his body swaying with the motion of the train as it sped along the tracks under the city. A trickle of sweat ran between his shoulder blades, and he shifted the backpack on his shoulder to hide the damp patch forming on his shirt.

  He knew the underground line route, but nervously glanced at the map glued to the carriage wall above the windows while the train pushed through the stations, as if he could make it go faster. As his stop drew closer, he pushed his way unapologetically back through the carriage towards the sliding doors and held on to the handle above his head as the train burst out of the tunnel and slid to a halt at the station.

  Shoving his body past a trio of slow-moving garishly dressed tourists all talking at the top of their voices, he walked quickly towards the exit and stepped onto the escalator. His fingers tapped impatiently on the rubber handrail as the stairs moved towards street level, and then he burst past the remainder of the pedestrians and slipped through the gate with a practiced flick of his wrist at the ticket barrier.

  Hurrying along the street, his throat parched, he stopped at a newsagent to buy a bottle of water, not bothering to wait for the loose change that the Indian man behind the counter waved at him. He tipped half the contents of the bottle down his throat before re-capping it, and then turned up the road towards Simon’s computer business.

  The sound of approaching sirens failed to seep into his consciousness until he was almost at the street corner.

  Will glanced up at the first police car that tore past him, its brake lights flaring as it reached the corner of the street and turned right, before an ambulance and a second police car followed within seconds of each other.

  He frowned, picked up his pace and was running by the time he reached the corner and turned into the road on which Simon’s shop was based.

  Located above a coin-operated laundry and a café, with its front door squashed between the two, Simon’s computer business was set up in such a way as to keep a low profile among his neighbours, to avoid drawing attention to the thousands of pounds worth of equipment on the premises.

  Will slid to a standstill on the pavement as he rounded the corner, his mouth open, his breath passing his lips in gasps as he stared at the scene in front of him.

  A small crowd had gathered to the rear of the two police vehicles that had been parked to create a makeshift cordon either side of the computer shop’s front door. Blue lights flashed, reflecting off the windows of the shops on either side.

  The front door to Simon’s computer business was open, the narrow stairs with their threadbare carpet visible. In front, the ambulance had parked, the back doors open.

  A policeman appeared at the bottom of the staircase, his face pale. Will watched as the man glanced at the small crowd, squared his shoulders and strode over to his car, radio to his mouth as he spoke to his control room.

  A woman was standing to one side of the entranceway to Simon’s business, being comforted by some of the other bystanders.

  As Will drew closer, he heard her telling one of the younger policemen that she owned the coin laundry, heard a gunshot and saw the outline of someone leaving Simon’s place in a hurry, their features disguised by a hood, before she went upstairs to check on her neighbour.

  The rest of the conversation was lost as she burst into tears, and the policeman reached out and put a hand on her arm.

  Hitching the backpack up his shoulder, Will approached an old man who stood staring at the commotion with a Jack Russell on a lead which hovered next to the man’s ankles. As Will approached, the man glanced over at him, his dog glaring up at the intrusion.

  ‘What happened?’

  The old man shrugged. ‘Burglary gone wrong by the looks of it.’ He nodded towards the coin laundry. ‘Woman who owns that says she heard shouting upstairs, then a couple of gunshots.’ He shook his head and turned, tugging the small dog after him. ‘Don’t know what the world’s coming to.’

  Will watched the old man shuffle away, then checked the street for traffic before crossing and approaching the people milling around outside the café. A woman watched him draw nearer, her hair piled up on her head with a pen stuck through it and a tea-towel slung over her shoulder, two mugs of coffee in her hands.

  ‘Want a coffee, love?’ she asked as he stepped onto the pavement next to her.

  He shook his head. ‘No thanks. How long ago did it happen?’

  She shrugged. ‘About twenty minutes ago.’ She glanced at his backpack. ‘Hoping to get your computer fixed, were you?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you might want to take it somewhere else,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that place is going to be open for business any more.’ She excused herself, walked past him and up to the police car, where the constable relieved her of the two coffee mugs, turned, and walked back towards Simon’s shop.

  He glanced over his shoulder at Will as he passed, opened his mouth as if to speak, then changed his mind and began to climb the stairs away from the street. He stopped at the third tread, retraced his steps, and then stood to one side.

  Will wiped his forehead as the ambulance crew appeared, walking down the stairs, shaking their heads. A man in a creased suit followed behind them, a harried expression clouding his features. Will guessed him to be a plain-clothed police officer.

  As the crew turned towards the vehicle, a van braked next to it, its liveried panels confirming Will’s fears. He covered his mouth to silence the cry that nearly escaped as the van’s occupants climbed out, pulled pale blue all-in-one suits over their clothing, and turned towards the building, their faces grim.

  Will reached out with his hand and leaned against the building he stood next to, his head swimming. As he watched, the ambulance crew started the engine and drove the vehicle away, its lights still, its siren silent.

  Will turned on his heel and began to put some distance between himself and the row of shops. He hurried across the road, and then turned left, away from the main street. He stopped, out of breath, and leaned forward.

  Only a few hours before, his life had been safe, Amy wasn’t in the hospital undergoing emergency surgery, and the biggest problem he was faced with was trying to get the attention of the coffee barista in the café down the road from the museum.

  He raised his head at the sound of his mobile phone ringing. He pulled it from his pocket, noticed the caller’s number had been blocked, and took the call.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘We’ve got a problem, Will.’ The now-familiar sound of a cigarette being inhaled reverberated down the line.

  Will stumbled, regained his balance, and sat on a set of stone steps that led up to a dentist’s surgery. The words on the brass plaque above his head blurred, his head swimming as the caller’s voice spoke softly into his ear.

  ‘There’s nothing on that laptop of your girlfriend’s. She and your computer friend thought they were being clever.’


  ‘What did you do to him?’ Will whispered. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘I’ll phone you again in one hour, but keep moving,’ said the voice. ‘The police are at your apartment, thanks to one of your neighbours. Don’t go back there if you want to keep Amy safe.’

  The caller fell silent, and the incessant beep of a dead phone filled the space.

  Will lowered the phone from his ear, stunned.

  He cradled the device in his hand, the sickness crawling through his stomach, sending goose bumps racing down his arms.

  He took a couple of deep breaths, then pulled his backpack off his shoulder and tucked his phone inside. His fingers brushed against another phone.

  Amy’s.

  He pulled out her smartphone and frowned when he saw the display showing a missed call, then checked the volume control and found it had been switched to silent.

  He glanced at the time stamp on the message. Ten o’clock that morning.

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ he murmured. ‘She was interviewing Rossiter then.’

  He slid the on-screen lock to the ‘off’ position and typed in Amy’s four-digit password.

  The voicemail icon was flashing. One message.

  His heart pounding, Will pushed the ‘play’ icon and then pressed the phone to his ear. His fingers trembled when he heard Amy’s voice.

  ‘Will, if you’re listening to this, I’m either in danger, or I’m dead. I need you to do something for me. They’ll be looking for you.’

  7

  Will closed his eyes, and let Amy’s voice wash over him.

  ‘Jesus, Amy,’ he whispered. ‘What the hell is going on?’

  ‘Will, there’s not much time,’ Amy’s voice continued in a murmur. ‘You need to be careful. I don’t think you can trust the police, either. I’m not sure.’ She broke off, and he heard her flush a toilet. ‘I’m hiding in the ladies’ at the Three Birches Hotel… Jesus, Will, how could I have been so stupid?’