by Philip Cox
He watched as Merchant’s tail lights disappeared round the corner. Lifted the last box himself and loaded it into one of the vans.
He made one final check of the building. Two of the men got into the first van; John closed the building doors, and padlocked them. Then got into the other van with the third packer. Looked at his watch: it was three twenty-five.
‘Almost half three, Roy,’ he said. We should get to the A12 by four. Then another couple of hours.’
‘Couple of hours easy,’ said Roy, starting the engine. ‘Especially at this time of night.’
‘Yeah, but take care,’ John said. ‘Keep to the speed limits. We can’t afford to draw attention to ourselves.’
The two vans drove slowly out of the side street onto the main road and started their journey.
*****
Just before dawn the two vans arrived at their final destination.
‘Think Ms Merchant will be here to supervise us again?’ asked Roy as they pulled up.
John laughed. ‘Do you know, it wouldn’t surprise me.’
She was not there.
The four of them opened the building doors, opened the vans’ doors, and transferred the packages. This was a similar storage facility to the one they had left, containing many more packages than the ones they had brought. Once done, they locked up.
‘Thanks, guys,’ John said. ‘I’ll just report in, then we can go get some breakfast.’
The three men commented how this was a good idea, and returned to their vans. John paused outside and took out his phone. Speed dialled a number, then waited half a minute.
‘Mr Fleming, sir, we’ve just completed the transfer.’
‘..........’
‘No, no hitches.’
‘..........’
‘Thank you very much, sir. Everything is now in place.’
Chapter Fifteen
Monday morning saw Tom back at work at his job at the local library. His branch had recently had self-service kiosks installed for readers borrowing and returning items. In theory a good idea, and much quicker than a librarian scanning bar codes on returned books or date stamping due by dates in the front of books. However, that was assuming the machines worked properly one hundred percent of the time, and assuming the readership, many of whom were elderly, understood how to use them.
Tom’s role today, therefore, was to stand by the bank of kiosks for the entire day, supervising the machines, dealing with any faults, and helping the customers if they had a problem. Always mind-numbingly boring, Tom felt; he would rather be stacking the bookshelves than this. However, as it was his turn on the rota, so be it.
He had sent Amy a short text first thing that morning: good luck, speak later, tom. She in turn had sent a brief sms: ok tnx. Okay, thanks, he assumed.
He had just had a problem with one kiosk where it had failed to read the encoding strip on the book, and Tom had to manually override the system. Bidding the customer goodbye after her profuse thanks, he looked at his watch: it was a quarter to twelve. Only fifteen minutes to go before his lunch break. He took his phone off the belt clip he was wearing, and checked for messages or missed calls. There were none. He wondered how Amy was getting on.
*****
Amy’s morning was not quite so boring; however, like Tom, she wished the day could be over. At eleven forty-five, she had emerged from a team meeting. Her team was responsible for a research campaign on behalf of a major high street chain to determine the population’s favourite flavour of toothpaste. There were four others in her team, and at this meeting, they all had to report in the findings of the survey, based on geographical location. Amy’s was the south-west of England.
At her turn to report and go through the figures, she appeared nervous and hesitant. ‘Er,’ she began, her eyes not moving from her spreadsheet. ‘In the Cornwall region -’
‘The region is South West England,’ interrupted Gerald, Amy’s team leader. Gerald was in his early twenties, and was what one could term a real high-flyer. Clearly had ambitions to rise very high in the company. Great asset to the firm, Senior Management had said. Supercilious prick, his colleagues felt. The problem was that many of them, Amy included, let him get to them: if he was in one of his pedantic moments, like now, rather than telling him where to get off, she would get flustered.
Amy stammered, ‘Well, I mean...’ Then had a fit of coughing which made her go even redder.
‘You mean?’ enquired Gerald, sarcastically.
‘I mean, I know what my region is,’ Amy said. ‘I mean, in the county of Cornwall sixty percent of those surveyed said they preferred light mint flavour; er, twenty-three said vanilla; twelve percent said raspberry.’
‘That’s Cornwall, then?’ Gerald asked.
‘Yes. In Devon -’
‘Hold on. Sixty percent light mint; twenty-three percent vanilla; twelve percent raspberry?’
‘Y-yes, that’s right,’ she stammered.
Gerald gave her one of his smug smiles. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ he said slowly, ‘but sixty plus twenty-three plus twelve equals ninety-five. Hmm?’
Shit.
She looked down at her spreadsheet again. Looked over the Cornwall figures, and then saw her mistake. She had misread a figure.
‘Seventeen. Seventeen percent. Sorry. Seventeen percent said raspberry.’
Gerald theatrically punched these figures into a calculator, then looked up. ‘Yes, that makes a hundred. Well done, Amy. Glad to see you’re on top of your brief. And that you can add up.’
Embarrassed, Amy looked round the table, silently asking for support. Two of the others stared at their own spreadsheets; one other gave her a brief smile, then her eyes returned to her own statistics.
Thanks for the support, guys.
The rest of the morning went in the same way. When the meeting was wound up at eleven forty-five, she breathed a sigh of relief. She packed up her papers, and returned to her desk. On the way back there, the woman who had smiled at her briefly put her hand on Amy's shoulder.
‘Don’t worry, Amy,’ she said. ‘We all get off days. Take no notice of Gerald.’
Amy nodded. Easier said than done.
One aspect of the firm which had not changed since the onset of the recession was the tendency of the senior members of the firm to take two hour lunch breaks. She could understand people like Mr Fleming or Ms Merchant having clients to wine and dine, but people like Gerald and even those junior to him enjoyed this practice. This could be an advantage to her: between twelve and two anybody who was anybody was out of the office. Factor in those who just took an hour for lunch, and for the next one hundred and twenty minutes the place would be deserted. Those who were left wouldn’t care what she was doing anyway.
She waited until ten past twelve, and made her move. She got up and walked over to the desk Lisa Kennedy had used. It had been untouched as far as she could tell since Lisa’s last day - the day she was so keen to leave on time. She decided not to be furtive; that would arouse suspicion. She would act as if she was genuinely looking for something. She opened the top drawers, and gasped at what she found.
*****
It was Tom’s lunch break, and he wandered down the street. He continually checked his phone for messages or missed calls, even though the phone was not on silent, had never left his side, and he had checked it five minutes before. In any case, hadn’t he told Amy to contact him tonight, after work? He considered contacting her, but decided against it. Didn’t want to compromise her. He would just have to go through five more hours of standing by those bloody machines, and wait to hear from her tonight.
*****
As far as Amy could tell, Lisa’s desk had been left untouched since her last day. In reality, that was not the case. Both Lisa’s top drawers, which would normally be filled with paperwork, were empty. Except for a pen, a pencil, and a pencil sharpener. The two lower drawers in the left pedestal were also empty; the larger drawer on the other side contained a large concertina binder. N
ow that’s more like it. She leaned down and looked through the compartments of the binder. Each pocket was set out alphabetically: the first A-F, the second G-K, and so on. Each one was empty, except T-Z. She fished out an envelope: it contained an unsigned birthday card; the envelope had Tom scribbled on it. She exhaled deeply, and replaced the binder, still containing the card.
She looked around the desk: nothing stored on the floor underneath the pedestals. Each of the pedestals contained a pull-out flap at the top, to store pencils, paperclips and other small items. The right hand one just contained paperclips, loose staples, three five pence pieces; the left hand one held two keys.
Two keys!
She carefully took them out. One was clearly a key to a locker: Lisa’s presumably, but why didn’t she take it with her? The other seemed like one to a filing cabinet.
Picking up the keys, she walked out to the area outside the ladies’ toilets, where the female lockers were kept. She found Lisa’s, and tried the key. It worked. She looked around: it was all clear. Apart from an old photograph of Tom on the inside of the door, a rolled umbrella and a Danielle Steele paperback, the locker was empty.
She carefully shut and locked the locker. Looked round again: still all clear. Now, this other key.
She studied it for a moment. She noticed a serial number engraved on it. It seemed pretty standard: 97134. She recalled that all office cabinet keys, and the corresponding locks, had a number engraved on it. Made the process of replacing lost or damaged keys much easier. Would make her job easier too.
She had a pretty good idea of where all the various filing cabinets were kept in the offices. She found one: a four drawer gun metal drawer, with serial number 97146 engraved on the lock. Hopefully, 97134 was a similar cabinet.
She casually walked past all the cabinets in the main office with no success. There were also some in the Senior Management offices, near where Carol, Mr Fleming’s PA, sat. She carefully walked down the thickly carpeted corridor, thinking through what she would say if she came across anybody.
Just past Carol’s desk, there was a small room marked ARCHIVE. Looking round again, she gently pushed the door open. The room was empty. She took a deep breath and went in.
The room was full of four and five drawer cabinets, about twenty in all. She quickly walked down one side, checking the lock numbers. No luck.
She let out a gasp as she came to the third cabinet on the other side. 97134.
Her hand shaking, she inserted the key - it worked! She looked through the drawers.
Down the corridor, then to the left, was the bank of four lifts. She heard lift doors opening, and men’s voices. Time to get out. She shut and relocked the cabinet, and quickly walked over to the door. Opened it.
And walked straight into the arms of Sebastian Fleming.
Chapter Sixteen
Maybe it was where it happened that made it worse; Jane would never know.
It was just after eleven. It had been a slow day at the store. Business was always uneven: customers didn’t come in at the same rate and purchase items at the same rate. The jerks at Head Office had calculated how many sales took place each month, each quarter, each year; then they divided that figure by the number of hours in a given period, and expected that the figure they got to represent the number of sales each hour, or day. Kelly, the store manager, had been in the job for several years, and had enough experience, and was intelligent enough to know that it didn’t work like that; the business was seasonal, and although there were trends, each day was different. Monday was busy, Tuesday steady, Wednesday quiet, Thursday busier than one would expect as it was market day, Friday and Saturday were busy too, and Sunday was quiet.
Today was Wednesday, and it was even quieter than normal. Kelly had said that she put it down to the weather: it was very cold; there had been a snowfall over the weekend, and although most of the snow had melted by now, the streets were still icy, and that put people off coming into town. A different story for the indoor mall ten miles away. Jane reckoned Kelly was right: she had only served a dozen customers since the shop had opened.
At least if it was busy, time passed quickly. When it was as quiet as this, it positively dragged. Even when she felt okay she hated that. But when she didn’t....
When she came out of the ladies’, she met Kelly in the doorway.
‘You all right, Jane?’ Kelly asked, as she carried a folder down the corridor.
‘Yeah, I’m okay, thanks,’ Jane replied, smoothing down her skirt.
‘You don’t look okay. You look like death warmed up, and that’s the third time you’ve been in there today. Not that I’m counting,’ she added disarmingly.
‘I’ll be all right. Just bad stomach pains today.’
‘Is it...?’
‘Yeah. Last couple of days. Pretty heavy today.’
‘Look,’ Kelly said. ‘It’s pretty dead out there today. I don’t expect it to get much busier, even over the lunch hour. Why don’t you get yourself home?’
‘No, I couldn’t -’
‘Yes, you could. I would if I was in your position. Get yourself home, take some ibuprofen or something, and chill out on the sofa.’
‘All right, I will. Thanks.’
‘No problem. See you in the morning.’
‘I’ll just go log off my till.’
‘No worries. Tell Jean if it gets too busy for her I’ll help out. Go rest. And make sure that boyfriend of yours cooks dinner tonight.’
‘I will. He’s working from home today, so cooking tonight will be a diversion for him.’
*****
Having left the shop around eleven thirty, Jane walked through the icy streets to the car park and, slowly pulled into the traffic. She moved awkwardly in the seat: the pains were getting worse. Her route home took her past the supermarket. She would ideally liked to have gone straight home, but needed to stock up on things, and thought she had better get a couple of microwave dinners just in case he didn’t want to cook. Depended how much work he had to do. Just because he was working from home, it didn’t mean he could just drop everything.
She paid a quick visit to the supermarket, declined the cashier’s offer of buy one get one half price on the brand of sanitary towels she was buying, and walked back to the car.
As she got in the car, she speed dialled his number. It rang three or four times, then went to voicemail. He must be working.
She left a message: ‘Hello, it’s me. Look, my pains are getting worse, so they’ve let me come home. Really don’t feel like cooking tonight, so I’ve brought something back. Unless you feel like cooking yourself. Ha-ha. Anyway, I should be back in half an hour or so. Assume as you haven’t answered as you are busy working. Anyway, see you later. Love you.’
She hung up, started the car, and drove back onto the main road.
Twenty-five minutes later, she was parking in her normal space, and walked across the snow to their building. Up the stairs to their front door. As she put the key in the lock, she could hear music playing. Either he was playing his MP3 again, or he had the TV on. She tutted: he was supposed to be working. His boss thinks he is.
Once inside, she put the plastic bag with the shopping in the kitchen, and went to see where he was.
The music was coming from their bedroom, but she could hear something else: moaning and deeper, shorter grunts. Jesus Christ, he’s supposed to be at home working, but he’s lying in bed watching porn.
Their bedroom door was ajar: as she stepped towards the room, she could make out movement from the other side of the door. Her heart beating faster, she peered through the gap between the door and the doorway.
He wasn’t watching porn.
She clasped her hand to her mouth, and took three paces backwards. Without saying a word, she walked out of the flat, down the stairs, and back to her car.
She leaned over, resting one hand on her car boot, and threw up.
Chapter Seventeen
Tom was due to finish work at
five thirty. The text from Amy came at five twenty. He finished dealing with the customer he was speaking to, and then checked his phone. dun hav2 mt. He assumed she had been successful in finding something and wanted to meet him. It would have been much easier if they just spoke on the phone rather than trudging across London, but he guessed she would not want to do that. He sent back a reply: Good, well done, where and when?
He wandered off to the Gents holding his phone, expecting a reply immediately, but none came. He frowned: he hoped everything was all right with her.
There was still no word from Amy when he left work. He walked down the main street and called in at the local mini-mart for something to eat that night. As he was paying, the phone bleeped. It was Amy.
The reply was short and concise: costas balham tube 7?
So that’s where she lives, he thought, and replied to confirm. He checked the time: ten to six. Should just have time to pop home, grab a quick bite - the pasta he had just bought would have to wait till another day - and get the tube down to Balham. Bakerloo to the Elephant, then a few stops on the Northern, he recalled. Should take about half an hour or so.
As he climbed the stairs to his flat, he was met on his landing by Mrs da Costa peering out of her door. There was a wonderful smell of cooking wafting out of her flat. Tom groaned: a conversation with Mrs da Costa was never a short one, and he was in a hurry tonight.
‘Ah, Tom boy,’ she said. ‘I was hoping it would be you.’
‘You were?’ he replied.
‘I wonder, have you got a few seconds to drop in?’ Mrs da Costa asked. ‘I’ve dropped something behind a cupboard, and I can’t shift the damned thing myself.’
Tom looked at his watch. ‘Well, I’m in a –’
‘Should only take a few minutes; a big strong boy like yourself.’
He smiled. ‘No problem.’
He followed her along her hallway, past the kitchen, where the smell of cooking was even more overpowering, and into her lounge.
‘It’s here,’ she said, putting her hand on a large dark oak bureau. ‘I left my reading glasses up here, and knocked them behind the bureau. I can see them, but just can’t reach them. If you can pull the bureau out an inch or so....’
