by Megan Goldin
‘My objective,’ Vincent responded, ‘is and has always been to get us out of here alive. To do that we need to work as a team, we need to trust each other. Jules, put the gun down.’
‘He’s right,’ Sylvie said. ‘Put it down. We need to work together. Otherwise we’ll all freeze to death long before Monday morning comes around.’
‘Not all of us,’ said Jules. ‘Vincent won’t. Not while he’s wearing that overcoat. You could survive a Siberian winter in that thing. You know what? Vincent, take off your coat. I want it.’
Vincent slowly unbuttoned the overcoat and removed it. He threw it to Jules awkwardly, so that it fell on the floor. It was deliberate, he was looking for an opening to disarm him. Jules knew what he was thinking. He left it lying on the floor even though he felt the bitter cold terribly through the thin fabric of his own coat.
‘It’s my standard winter overcoat,’ said Vincent. ‘And I always keep food and water in my bag. It’s for my blood sugar, I’m pre-diabetic. It was good luck for all of us that I had supplies, no matter how small. You may recall, Jules,’ he added sarcastically, ‘that I didn’t keep it for myself. I shared it.’
‘He has a point,’ said Sylvie.
‘Can’t you see what’s right in front of your face, Sylvie?’ Jules hissed. ‘Vincent wants us to die. From exposure, or dehydration, or whatever. He’ll get out and keep all The Circle’s money without having to share it.’
‘There’s a flaw in your argument,’ Vincent pointed out. ‘The money would be of no use to me if I’m dead. If I really had lured you here, I would have been smart enough to make sure that I wasn’t here. Because the way things are at the moment, I can’t see a way out for us.’
‘Then who could have possibly lured us here and given us clues that only a member of our team could know?’ Jules asked. ‘Lucy Marshall? Sara Hall? They’re both dead. I’ve kept tabs on the two interns who were in the elevator with Lucy. One died of a Ketamine overdose and the other was transferred to our office in Sydney. Eric Miles – you said yourself he’s in a clinic in Switzerland. That leaves the four of us. I know it’s not me, and Sam doesn’t have the brains to set this up. So that leaves Sylvie or you.’
‘It wasn’t me,’ Sylvie said.
‘I know,’ said Jules. ‘I know it wasn’t you, Sylvie, because I have indisputable evidence that it was Vincent.’
He held up Vincent’s phone. There was an email open on the screen, but it was too far away for them to see what it said. ‘I accessed it while you were all dozing. I’ve seen Vincent input his phone passcode hundreds of times over the years.’ Jules threw the phone to Sylvie. She caught it and looked at the email.
Sylvie’s head snapped up as she looked at Vincent accusingly. ‘You booked a flight to Grand Cayman for next Friday night?’
‘That’s right,’ Jules said, lifting the barrel of his gun so that it was aimed at Vincent’s head. ‘What a coincidence! Vincent books a flight to the place where we keep The Circle’s bank account, on the evening the retrenchments are due to be announced. I don’t need to connect the dots here. Vincent probably arranged a generous payout for himself, and then planned to take all our money from The Circle’s account and run.’
‘I was going there on a holiday. It’s the Caribbean! People do go there on holidays.’
‘Fuck you, Vincent,’ Jules exploded. His face flushed with anger. ‘You were planning on robbing us blind.’
‘You’re not thinking straight, Jules.’ Vincent spoke quickly. ‘We have plenty of money in the account. My share is more than enough for the rest of my life.’
‘You became greedy,’ said Jules. ‘You were about to lose your job and you needed the money.’
‘I don’t need the money,’ Vincent said. ‘I don’t do drugs like Sam. I don’t drink like you. I don’t have a wife, or an ex-wife. No kids. No alimony. You all saw my bonus. Seven figures. Out of all of us, I’m the one who least needs the money,’ said Vincent. ‘Jules, you’re projecting your own greed onto me. Maybe you’re the one who set this up!’
Jules hit Vincent across the face so hard with the Glock that Vincent’s face smashed against the wall, leaving a deep gash near his temple.
Sylvie jumped up in the confusion, trying to pry open the elevator doors, screaming for help through the thin crack. Her screams were deafening. Jules stumbled over to her, pulled her around and slapped her hard across the face with the back of his hand. Her head swung around and hit the control panel, which lit up.
‘The problem with you, Sylvie, is that you don’t know when to shut up,’ Jules said. ‘You were the best tail I ever had, but even I couldn’t stand being around you for long.’
‘Leave her alone.’ Sam slurred. Jules swung his head around in Sam’s direction. Vincent used the distraction to kick Jules’s legs out from under him. Jules slammed to the ground so heavily that it jolted the elevator. He pulled the trigger in panic. The gun went off as he fell. The single shot ricocheted through the elevator. Vincent wrestled with Jules for the Glock. He smacked the gun out of Jules’s hand and punched him repeatedly.
‘You know,’ said Sylvie in an icy voice. ‘It’s been a long time since I fired one of these.’ Vincent and Jules stopped struggling and looked up at Sylvie. She’d picked up the gun and was now testing its weight in her hands. ‘I hear that shooting a gun is like riding a bike. Shall we put that to the test, gentlemen?’
‘Hand it over,’ said Vincent.
‘Jules made a very good point,’ Sylvie said, shaking her head. ‘He was always good at making arguments – he should have been a trial lawyer. That’s why we lasted so long. I only broke up with him when he got drunk and punched me. Do you remember that, Jules? I should shoot you right now, just for that black eye. I couldn’t come to the office for a week; I had to pretend that I had a bad flu.’
‘It was an accident. I apologised at the time. I bought you earrings.’
‘Diamonds don’t make up for black eyes,’ said Sylvie smoothly. ‘But I have to hand it to you, you did make a very persuasive argument earlier.’
‘About what?’
‘If three people die in here, the fourth will get to keep everything. The Circle’s money. Their job at Stanhope. Maybe even the promotion to Eric Miles’s job. If you three were gone …’
Sylvie’s hands trembled from the cold. Her legs were bare and her jacket was impossibly inadequate. She dragged over Vincent’s overcoat with her shoe. She bent down and lifted it up while keeping the gun trained on Vincent and Jules.
As she put on the coat one sleeve at a time, she didn’t notice Jules sliding out a broken shard of glass from the cracked wall behind him. She wasn’t expecting it when he lunged towards her, but he wasn’t fast enough to overcome her instinctive reflex. She pulled the trigger and fired twice. Two thunderous shots. One hit its mark, the other missed and ricocheted across the elevator, causing damage wherever it hit.
His eyes wide, Jules coughed blood and collapsed to the ground. A trickle of blood ran from his mouth. Sylvie was stunned by the hot pain rising in her abdomen. She looked down to see blood seeping between her fingers and dripping down to the alabaster floor. She crumpled to the ground and stared blankly as a thick puddle of blood began to form around her. Vincent knelt nearby, bent over, his hand against his chest. His white shirt turned crimson as he breathed raggedly.
Sam picked up the gun. He scrambled to the back corner of the elevator and pointed it all around as if to warn the others away. He was so delirious that he wasn’t sure what danger he was protecting himself from. All he knew was that he had to do whatever was necessary to survive.
When the elevator doors opened, Sam stood up, waving the Glock excitedly. He was finally getting out. His ears were still pounding from the gunfire in the confined space. Through the pulsating numbness, he didn’t hear the cops telling him to drop his weapon. He walked towards the open entrance of the elevator in a trance, focused only on getting free, a smile of relief on his face.
&
nbsp; The shots from the police propelled him against the back of the elevator. His body slid down the mirrored wall as the bullets kept coming. His eyes were open. They registered his shock.
When the ambulance crews arrived, they almost couldn’t find Vincent’s pulse, it was that weak. But he was alive. He was the only one to leave the elevator on a stretcher instead of in a body bag.
George Town harbour is crowded with water taxis dropping off day-trippers from the gleaming white cruise ships anchored in deep water offshore like pods of giant whales. I pause to watch tourists posing for selfies in front of the colourful array of washed-out buildings that line the harbour. I head towards the main branch of the Cayman Capital Bank.
I wear a cream jacket and black business pants, my hair scraped back into a tight blonde chignon. I have done everything I can to look like Sylvie. I wear custom-made green contact lenses that are imprinted with the exact pattern of Sylvie’s irises. My hair is salon-dyed caramel blonde. I lost a heap of weight and spent weeks practising Sylvie’s elegant walk in her trademark two inch heels. I almost give myself a fright when I caught my reflection in a store window. I’ve clearly mastered Sylvie’s arrogant swagger. ‘You’ll do,’ I say to myself with a smile.
The bank is in an old colonial building, worn down by the sun and the salt of the sea. It opened ten minutes ago. Already a queue is forming at the cashiers. I stride over to the VIP desk with Sylvie’s entitled expression on my makeup-tinted face.
‘I need to see Mr Russell,’ I inform the clerk. I reel off the details so fast that he can barely keep up.
‘Please come this way,’ he says deferentially.
The bank manager, Mr Russell, shakes my hand warmly as I enter his office. He shows me to an antique chair on a pale pink Persian rug. I tell him that I’m closing an account and wish to clear out the safety deposit box.
‘Of course.’
He speaks in the emotionless voice of a banker, but his curious eyes give him away. He’s seen the zero balance in the account.
Last night I cashed all The Circle’s investments and transferred everything to a new bank account. I didn’t have to worry about any of the other signatories receiving notification texts or emails from the bank, or a verification call from the bank manager, because they were all locked up in the elevator with no phone access whatsoever. That’s why I put the four of them there, to get them out of the way while I emptied The Circle’s accounts into my own.
I spent the rest of the night enjoying a beer and a burger on my hotel room bed, a random cop show playing in the background, while I toyed with the elevator controls on my burner phone and pushed through another ‘clue’ onto the elevator screen to keep my former colleagues occupied while I drained their finances.
By breakfast, I’d split the bulk of the money into another two accounts. By nightfall it will be moved to yet another set of accounts; another bank, another country. It’s my own private shell game.
Mr Russell slides over a pile of documents. He points with his index finger to the various places where I have to sign. Learning Sylvie’s distinctive signature had been a piece of cake. I reproduce it effortlessly on his form. When we’re done, his assistant escorts me to the safe deposit boxes in the basement of the bank.
To be allowed into the safe where the security boxes are kept, I have to scan my iris on a device on the wall. I press my right eye against it, thankful one last time for my old friend Darryl, who was able to direct me to a guy in Amsterdam who created the contact lenses from the scans I took in the office.
Mr Russell’s assistant brings me the safety deposit box in a private booth, unlocks it, and then retreats to a respectful distance. When I finally open up the box I expel a sigh so loud that my escort inadvertently turns his head in my direction.
Inside the metal safety deposit box are neat stacks of gold bullion and a pile of treasury notes. I fill my oversized handbag. The rest goes into a woven tote bag. As I walk out of the bank and slide into a waiting taxi, I am carrying over one million dollars in solid gold and another million in treasury notes.
My hotel is a small, mid-range establishment in the middle of town. There’s no sea view. Downstairs is a kidney-shaped swimming pool filled with sunburnt British and American tourists vying for poolside loungers. They’re loud and seemingly permanently soused.
I head straight to my room, where I close the curtains and lock the door with the do not disturb sign turned to face the corridor. The hotel is one of those places that awards itself four stars on its website though it’s barely worthy of two. My room has a dated peach decor and smells of stale cigarette smoke. The towels are threadbare and the soap comes in white plastic wrappers.
I arrange the gold bars on pieces of newspaper and spray-paint them red and blue. When they’re dry I put them in an empty box of children’s magnetic blocks, which are a similar size and weight to the gold bars. I wrap the box in colourful wrapping paper and attach a birthday card. ‘Dear Jonny,’ I write. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t make your party but hope you have lots of fun building with your new blocks.’ I roll up the treasury notes tightly with an elastic band and put them in an inside pocket of my handbag.
I shower, take out the contact lenses, and dye my hair from blonde to a forgettable brown. When I’m done, I dress in jeans and a loose linen shirt. I wear oversized black sunglasses and a large straw hat so the hotel staff don’t notice my appearance has changed so dramatically.
I pack the wrapped present in my suitcase under a pile of clothes and lock my suitcase with a combination lock. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I leave the room. I look like any of a thousand tourists walking the streets of George Town. Another shell game.
I toss the spray-paint cans and the hair dye box into a garbage bag hanging off a cleaner’s trolley in the corridor outside my room, then roll my suitcase towards the elevator.
‘We hope you had a pleasant stay,’ says the receptionist when I hand her my key card.
‘Very much so,’ I tell her with a smile.
The cruise ship is due to sail in less than an hour. The staff are effusive as they examine my ticket. I’m headed for Miami with stops at various Caribbean islands. I see none of these islands, instead I stay inside my cabin with the excuse that I’ve come down with a stomach bug. The crew is happy for me to remain inside – the last thing they want is a gastro outbreak. I’m busy on my laptop anyway, getting my finances in order. It takes time. Fifty-eight million dollars is an awful lot of money to invest.
I take a break that first evening on the ship to use my mobile app to turn down the temperature in the elevator to freezing. Just to shake things up a little. I don’t want them to get too comfortable while they wait to be rescued.
When we reach St John, I tell the bursar that I will be disembarking early and flying home due to health issues. His sympathy barely masks his relief at being rid of a sick passenger. He arranges a place for me on an express boat taking VIP passengers to shore, which fast-tracks passport control.
I stand at the stern of the boat, wearing a crimson sundress, as it speeds towards land. Sea foam flicks onto my skin and the wind ruffles my hair. I bubble with excitement as we approach the pier. Not long now, I tell myself. Almost home.
My driver Anthony offers me a newspaper but I decline. I don’t feel like a dose of reality yet. I tell him that I’d rather enjoy the view. He drives off with me comfortably seated in the back, looking out at a flood of cruise ship passengers heading out on a half-day bus tour until the ship sets sail in the late afternoon. Anthony takes a bumpy back road to the other side of the island, where I catch teasing glimpses between palm trees of bright blue sea in the distance.
We turn down a narrow dirt road and continue until we reach a steel gate, which he opens with a remote control fob so that he doesn’t need to stop. We drive towards an expansive, ultra-modern low-rise house of slate and walls of glass, overlooking the sea.
My housekeeper Jasmine greets me with an ebullient
welcome and a glass of iced tea. She takes my suitcase from Anthony and wheels it to my expansive bedroom, which is dominated by a king-size bed of white bamboo sheets and a cotton net canopy that sways slightly in the breeze from the open terrace door.
The house spills onto a timber deck that leads to my private beach. Pristine white sand and azure water hugged by coconut palms. A bottle of champagne awaits in an ice bucket, just as I’d requested.
I pour myself a flute of champagne and wander in my bare feet to the water’s edge. The sand is warm under my feet and gentle waves lap at my toes until it tickles. I raise my glass in a silent toast towards the horizon, acknowledging Lucy for her role in bringing me here.
I slip off my dress until I’m wearing only a bikini. I leave the dress alongside my champagne glass on the sand and walk into the water. The water is so translucent that I can see a colourful school of fish dart about playfully before scattering when my shadow gets too close.
I swim underwater for as long as I can last on one breath and then rise to the surface. There are yachts in the distance and a sea-plane flying low. I look for more fish or a sea turtle, which can occasionally be spotted in the cove for those who are lucky. I look back at the house and watch Jasmine setting up lunch on the balcony. She waves to me, I wave back.
I float on my back for a while, thinking about everything I’ve been through to get here; the loneliness and the overwhelming sense of helplessness when I felt trapped by seemingly insurmountable obstacles. All those times when I thought there was no way out. And yet here I am. A lifetime of worry and stress dissolves as I watch the sun’s rays glint against the azure sky.
As I emerge from the sea with water running down my skin and my long hair all slicked back, I feel as if I’ve been reborn. My mother used to tell me that the best revenge is to live well. I couldn’t agree more.
