by Philip Cox
‘The lockers are over there,’ Amy whispered, and led Tom along a corridor, and past a partition to the space outside the toilets. When they reached the bank of lockers, Amy took Lisa’s second key out of her bag.
‘What’s the key number?’ asked Tom, crouching down, checking the lockers.
‘It’s B61. It’s probably over there somewhere. Mine’s 78, and that’s here.’
Tom soon found the locker and held his hand out for the key. Amy passed it over, and he unlocked the cabinet.
‘What’s inside?’ Amy asked, crouching down next to him.
‘Just this.’ Tom pulled out a large brown manila envelope. Standing up, he tore the envelope open.
‘What’s in it?’ asked Amy.
They both gasped as Tom pulled out the contents.
‘My God,’ said Tom.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sully could not concentrate at work; his mind was elsewhere. He had just finished a morning with one of his subordinates. The morning consisted of him watching the subordinate run a team meeting, and carrying out a performance review on one of her own team. The objective of this exercise was for him to give constructive feedback to the subordinate, which basically meant tell them what they did wrong. This type of activity was a mandatory part of Sully’s job, which was not a problem if the subordinate concerned had lots of development points, but in Sully’s case, his team were above average performers, and mornings like this, Sully had to really think to come up with areas for development.
Today though, he just could not focus on the activities he was observing. At the end of the review he was observing, he sat down with the subordinate over a coffee and started to give feedback.
The subordinate, an ambitious young woman named Naomi, leaned forward in her chair, notepad and pen at the ready, eagerly awaiting some criticism.
‘Well, Naomi,’ Sully started. ‘How did you feel the morning went?’ Getting the person under review to come up with their own development points was a useful device if you couldn’t come up with any yourself, or hadn’t being paying attention.
Naomi considered the question for a moment, and then replied. ‘I think,’ she said pensively, ‘I think the meeting went okay. I delivered all the messages I intended to. As far as the review was concerned, maybe I should have got more commitment from Lee. In terms of next steps, I mean.’
‘You’ve got in a nutshell,’ Sully quickly replied. ‘The meeting – yes, that was well conducted. Everybody contributed. With the review: you correctly identified that Lee is slightly under target, and you agreed action points to remedy that. All I would say is: agree a date with him to get together to review his progress.’
‘I did that,’ Naomi pointed out. ‘You remember, we are going to meet on the twenty-fifth.’
Sully reddened at bit and looked down at his sketchy notes. ‘Ah, yes. That’s right. The twenty-fifth. Well done. So, yes; a couple of good meetings.’
Naomi looked at him somewhat puzzled as he put his notepad and pen away. She was clearly expecting more feedback.
‘Are you going to make a paper record of this meeting?’ she asked. ‘For my development file?’
‘Yes, absolutely. I’ll type it out, and email it over to you.’
‘When?’
‘By close of business tomorrow. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ Naomi stood up. Clearly Sully needed to go. He could sense she was expecting more.
‘That was a very good morning’s work, Naomi,’ he said. ‘Well done, keep it up.’
She nodded.
‘Sorry to have to rush off,’ he continued. ‘Another meeting. I’ll spend longer with you next time.’
Naomi escorted him off the premises and he made his way back to where he had parked his car, via the local Subway. Once in the car he sat still without turning on the ignition. He hated mornings like this; although Naomi was easy on the eye, he found it boring sitting watching other people perform, and he hated thinking up phony development points just for the sake of it. That moron Cecil Holland was particularly adept at dreaming up spurious action points, but Sully was different.
What made it worse today, however, was that now he had to drive to North London to go through the same thing again.
He looked at his watch, then his phone, then back to his watch. Then dialled a number. It rang twice before it answered.
‘Steve? It’s Sully. Look, sorry, I won’t be able to make it this afternoon. Something has just come up.’
‘..........’
‘Yeah, I know it’s a pain. I’ll call you Monday to arrange a new date. Is that okay?’
‘..........’
‘Great stuff. Good man. Okay, well, have a good afternoon.’
He hung up and smiled. Job done. Steve had no problem at all with not being observed that afternoon. He quickly ate the ham roll he had just bought, then turned on the ignition.
After ten minutes he was on the M25 heading anti-clockwise. Rather than continuing his journey round to North London, he turned off at an earlier exit. Took the car through some residential streets; took a deep breath as he saw the first direction sign for Gidea Park. Not that he needed any direction signs to get to where he was headed.
As he used to do in the past, he parked round the corner from Lisa’s house. He stood outside the house for a few seconds, thinking of happier times here. Took out his key ring and selected a small Yale key. One only he and Lisa knew about. Once inside he stood in the living room. This was his fifth visit here since Lisa died, the second on his own. He sighed. Soon he would be back here with Jane clearing the place out. He looked around: everything was just as it had been on the last visit. Or was it? He frowned slightly as he saw a small pile of magazines on the floor, next to the television. He thought they had left them in that corner. He shrugged. Must have been mistaken.
‘You want a coffee?’
He turned round to the breakfast bar.
‘Pardon?’
‘You want a coffee?’ Lisa asked. ‘I’ve got some beer in the fridge, if you want something stronger.’
‘Any wine?’ he asked.
‘Nice bottle of red here,’ Lisa said, holding up a bottle. ‘We can take it upstairs.’
‘That sounds great. Just what I need after a hard day.’
Lisa took the bottle and two glasses and went upstairs. Sully slowly followed her. Upstairs was quiet. He wandered into Lisa’s bedroom and lay down on the bed.
‘Lisa?’ he called out.
When there was no answer he turned his head and nuzzled one of the pillows. There was still the faintest trace of Lisa’s scent. Slowly fading. Staring up at the ceiling, he was expecting to cry, but no tears came. Maybe the time for mourning was over; maybe it was time to look ahead to a life with Jane.
He still wanted that.
He thought.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Tom pulled out the contents of the envelope. It contained three bundles, each about half an inch thick, of bank notes, each with a rubber band around them. Tom flicked through the bundles. The first was of €500 notes, the second United States $100 bills; the third £50 notes. All crisp, brand new.
‘There must be thousands here,’ gasped Tom. ‘Look at them!’
‘What’s she doing with all that?’ said Amy.
‘Christ knows,’ replied Tom, checking the locker for anything else. It was empty. ‘Right. Let’s get out of here,’ he said, closing the locker, and passing Amy the key. He put the bundles back in the brown envelope, which he folded and crammed in his coat pocket. ‘Make sure we leave things exactly as we found it. Is there anything you want from your own locker?’ he asked. ‘While we’re here.’
She shook her head. ‘No. I just want to get out of here.’
‘Me too. Come on.’
They walked back down the corridor to the glass doors leading to the lift lobby. They paused a moment to make sure the lobby was empty.
‘Do you need to lock the doors?’ Tom asked.
/> ‘No, they lock automatically.’
Sure enough, once they closed the glass doors, there was a click and the green light on the keypad switched back to red.
‘I’ll be glad to get out of here,’ Tom said as he pushed the lift call button. Amy nodded and pulled her bag strap tighter over her shoulder. Tom looked up at the floor indicator above the lift doors. The red light showed one of the two lifts was coming up, passing the seventh floor.
‘Hm. Would have thought it would stay here,’ muttered Tom. ‘The guard said the building was empty.’
‘Don’t know. Maybe they all go back to the ground floor after a while.’
‘Maybe. Here it is.’
The lift lobby was silent, except for the faint hum of some machinery, a vending machine perhaps. Through the grey doors they could hear the lift coming closer. As it got closer - the thirteenth floor - Tom’s ears pricked up. As well as the sound of the lift, he could hear the faint murmur of voices.
‘Shit, there’s someone in the lift,’ Tom said, grabbing Amy’s hand. ‘Where are the stairs?’
Not knowing what was happening, Amy pointed over to a door at the end of the lobby.
‘There,’ she said. ‘Why -?’ She stopped as she heard muffled laughter from the lift shaft.
Grasping her hand, Tom led her to the stairs. Breathing a sigh of relief that the door was unlocked, he bundled her onto the landing and closed the door, just as the lift doors opened. They leaned against the door, not daring to open it, listening.
Two people emerged from the lift, a man and a woman. Amy strained to catch what they were saying. She recognised the woman as Ashley Merchant.
‘Do you recognise the voices?’ Tom mouthed.
Swallowing, Amy nodded.
Tom pointed to the flight of stairs leading to the fourteenth floor. ‘Let’s go,’ he whispered.
Slowly, they climbed down the stairs, trying not to make a sound. Tom winced as his ankle clicked halfway down, but in reality there was no way anybody outside the stairwell would have heard. They stopped for a breather at the tenth floor.
‘We could get the lift from here,’ Amy said. Tom nodded and led her in. He pressed the button with the arrow pointing downwards. Tom looked up at the display above the two sets of doors. One lift remained on the ground floor; the other was descending from the fifteenth. Now on the eleventh...
‘Quick! Back to the stairs!’ Tom said, pulling Amy back to the stairwell. As they flung the door open and ran for the stairs leading to the ninth floor the door banged closed behind them. At the same time as the lift doors opened.
Scampering down the stairs, they had reached the eighth, when they heard the door open back up on the tenth and a man’s voice cry out, ‘The stairs! They’re on the stairs!’ The woman’s voice answered something. Then the sound of footsteps running down the stairs after them.
Tom wanted to stop for breath; he could see that Amy needed to, but they daren’t stop. The tap tap tap of shoes on concrete was getting louder.
Fourth floor; and they could see the flicker of shadow from above on the whitewashed walls as the person giving chase got nearer.
Second floor...
First floor...
As they leapt down the final flight of steps to the ground floor Tom was aware of the door being open. A woman stood in the doorway. Middle aged, with a tweedy business suit. She had a smirk on her face. Amy recognised her as Ashley Merchant.
Tom did not have enough time to react to the sight of Merchant in the doorway. Instinctively, he kept on running. Running with the momentum of ten flights of stairs, he ran right into Merchant. She was around five feet tall, no match for Tom’s six feet, plus the momentum he was carrying. He crashed into her, knocking her six or seven feet away from the door and onto the floor. The collision caused Tom to pause momentarily, and he took Amy’s hand again, leading her away.
Merchant started to pick herself up, and slid across the floor, grabbing Amy’s ankle. Amy screamed.
‘Oh no, you don’t,’ Merchant cried breathlessly.
Again, by instinct, Tom turned and kicked out at Merchant, hitting her in the shoulder, so she released her grip on Amy and clutched at the top of her arm.
While this was happening, their pursuer arrived at the ground floor. It was the albino. He stopped in the doorway, holding onto the door frame with both hands. He was breathless with the exertion, his reddened face in marked contrast to the shocking white mane of hair. His red eyes burned with fury and hatred as he glared at Tom and Amy; the same look he had seen in Hyde Park and she had seen in the office a few days before. Tom noticed a stainless steel litter bin on the wall opposite. He grabbed it, and threw it at the albino. Vine’s attention was torn between his boss lying prone on the floor, his own exertion, and his prey, and moved too slowly to miss the bin. He put his hands up to deflect it, but was too late: the bin hit him square in the face, not quite knocking him over, but causing him to stagger back into the stairwell. More importantly, giving Tom and Amy more time to get away. They ran across the lobby to the turnstiles, and the exit.
Vine ran over to Merchant and attempted to help her up.
‘Get the fuck off me, you idiot!’ she cried out, pushing him away. ‘Get after them!’
The turnstiles in the entrance lobby were such that a smartcard was needed to enter the building, but not to leave. Tom and Amy were able to get through the gates with no delay.
‘’Bye,’ Amy called to the security guard.
‘’Bye,’ Tom said, sotto voce, ‘Thanks for telling them we were there.’
The guard was already on his feet. ‘What’s all the noise about?’ he asked.
Not answering, Tom and Amy pushed through the main glass doors and out to the street. Turning right, they ran down the street to the stairs leading to the underground car park. At the foot of the stairs, he paused to look round. He could just make out Vine running out of the office building.
‘Quick,’ he said to Amy, leading her down the stairs. ‘He’s coming!’
With a sob, Amy followed him down the steps. They ran across the car park to where they had left the Ka. As they approached the vehicle, Tom flicked the keys to unlock it. Turned on the ignition as soon as they got in. With a screech of wheels on concrete, the Ka shot out of the space.
‘Look!’ Amy yelled, pointing at the stairs from the street. Merchant and Vine had reached the foot of the stairs. Merchant was pointing at the Ford; Vine, with blood coming from his nose, was putting his hand into his coat pocket.
Tom swung the steering wheel to his left, and took the car past the stairs, past Merchant and Vine, and across the concrete towards the exit ramp.
With the noise of the engine in the confined space of the underground car park, Tom could hear very little of what was happening outside, but glanced in his wing mirror at the sound of a loud crack! A piece of concrete from a side pillar exploded and hit the car bonnet. In the mirror, he caught a view of Vine, both arms outstretched, pointing something at them. Then he saw Merchant reach over and push his arms down.
‘Jesus! Did you see that? He had a gun!’ he cried out.
‘Watch out!’ shouted Amy.
Instinctively Tom slammed his foot on the brake. Another screech; and they pulled up inches away from a car which was starting to reverse out of a space. This car’s brake lights came on, and Tom wrenched the steering wheel to the left and shot round this car and over to the exit ramp. Up the ramp, and into daylight and the street.
Chapter Thirty-Six
‘I need to stop soon,’ said Tom, as he drove away from the Canary Wharf car park. Continually looking in his rear view mirror, he took the car back down Marsh Wall. There was an apartment block on the next corner, with parking spaces behind the block. He indicated, and then pulled into one of the spaces behind the block. There they could not be seen from the road. He turned off the engine and they both sat back in their seats, breathing heavily.
‘Whew,’ gasped Tom.
‘Was that a gun he had?’ asked Amy, looking over at him.
‘I think so,’ Tom nodded. ‘Couldn’t see that clearly, but I think he hit that column.’
‘Could have been us,’ Amy sobbed, and then burst into tears. Tom leaned over and put his arms round her.
‘It’s okay,’ he said softly. ‘We’re safe now. It’s all over.’
After a moment she sat up and blew her nose. ‘I know,’ she croaked. ‘Let’s just get out of here.’
Tom turned the key and they got back on the main road.
‘Where to now?’ Amy asked, as they reached the A1206.
‘That SE address, I guess. Unless you want to go back to your place for some stuff.’
‘Er -’
‘You said you wanted to. Remember, they are here. We should have time to get over to Balham for a quick visit.’
‘Yes. All right then. Do you know how to get there?’
‘No idea. You’ll need to direct me.’
They made their way back to the A13, then double backed down to the Blackwall Tunnel. She took him on a route through South London and after an hour they had reached Clapham Common.
‘Who were those people?’ Tom asked, as they were waiting in traffic. ‘The albino I’ve met of course, but who was she?’
‘Her name’s Ashley Merchant. Don’t know exactly what she does. The firm’s security officer, something like that. She’s always in conference with Mr Fleming.’
‘Fleming’s the main man, right? The boss?’
‘That’s right. She’s always following him about. Like some sort of bodyguard.’
‘Seems a charming lady.’
‘Old lesbian, apparently,’ Amy snorted.
‘Yes, I can believe that,’ replied Tom. ‘Classy Saturday morning outfit, I noticed.’
Amy laughed. ‘Yes, she’s always dressed like that.’
‘And the albino? He’s some kind of minder? Does Fleming’s and Merchant’s dirty work?’
‘Guess so. I don’t even know his name. But he always seems to be around. Tom, how did they know we were there?’
‘The security guard must have told them. They showed up this morning too. They would have had to have got past those turnstiles. He would have said somebody else was in the office.’
