“Well well well, looks like I caught the right taxi.”
The Landlord’s eyes went wide and then settled on the rear view mirror. The fear in his expression was clear and it gave Damien a satisfied grin.
The Range Rover started to slow down. Damien dug the knife into The Landlord’s throat. “Slow down and you die.”
“What are you going to do?”
Damien eyed the two suitcases on the front passenger seat and saw what was inside them. “I’m going to have a little revenge of my own,” he said, staring down at the millions in cash. “Then I’m going to take my winnings. Just keep driving.”
The Range Rover switched off its lights and cut through the hills, heading in the opposite direction to the other vehicles. Damien kept smiling at all the money on the front seat and then at the terrified expression on The Landlord’s face. Maybe things were going to work out after all. Harry was going to get his procedure…
And The Landlord is going to get what’s coming to him.
Looks like I win, thought Damien as he watched the sun rise beyond the hills.
One Week Later…
“We still can’t get a fix on The Landlord, Mr Raymeady. It looks like maybe he went off the grid with the money instead of giving everybody their cut.”
Samuel Raymeady looked up from his mahogany desk and studied his employee with his dark, smouldering eyes. “No matter,” he said. “In a few days, the money won’t even matter. There are much greater things ahead of us. It’s time to see some real change in the world. The time for punishing worthless sinners, one soul at a time, is over. It’s time to take a larger approach.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
Samuel smiled, his snake-like incisors glinting in the orange glow of his office lamp. On his desk lay a vast sheet of paper. It was the blueprint for a cruise liner that his company, Black Remedy, owned: The Spirit of Kirkpatrick. “You’ll see,” he said, folding his hands on top of his desk. “You’ll see very soon.”
4. Escape!
Midnight
Hello! Are you still there? Please come. He left me in the woods. I’m… I’m going to try and find the road. I think I hear a car. Please come.
1
“Hey Cher, fancy doing me a favour?”
Cheryl glanced away from her screen and saw Maggie from Accounts standing over her shoulder with her hands on her hips and double D’s thrust forward. The woman liked attention. “Oh, um, sure, Mag, what’s up?”
“D’you hear about the work thing this weekend? You heard, right, the weekend thing?”
“You mean the company getaway I wasn’t invited to? Nope, not sure what you’re referring to.”
Maggie grimaced, then glanced left and right as if checking the coast was clear. She spoke in a low voice, barely audible over the background din of clacking keyboards and the monotonous chorus of: Alscon Tiles, how can I help you? “I agree it was harsh,” she said, “but there were only six places to fill. John had to pick names at random.”
Bullshit, thought Cheryl. John had picked his best buddies to go, like Monty, the company’s top salesman. Funny, how he ended up being one of those ‘random’ names. Did Mag think she was an idiot?
She thinks everyone’s an idiot. That’s her problem.
Cheryl’s chewed fingernails hovered over the keyboard, eager to get back to work. “So, what’s this favour, Mag? I’m kinda busy.”
Maggie licked her lips. Her flushed cheeks dimpled. “Would you take my place at the getaway? Pretty please? Say yes!”
Cheryl raised an eyebrow and swivelled in her chair to face Maggie properly. A waft of sickly perfume hit her in the face but she ignored it. “Huh? Why aren’t you going?”
“Andrew got us tickets to see Wicked for our fifteenth anniversary. Can you believe I’ve been married that long? Makes me feel totally old. Anyway, he meant it as a surprise but it clashes with this company thing. It’s a complete headache, to be honest. I never even wanted to go, but John insisted.”
I bet he did! Cheryl didn’t voice the thought and feigned irritation instead. “Oh great! You don’t want to go on some cheesy work weekend but you expect me to?”
Maggie pouted and placed her manicured fingernails together in mock prayer. “I’m begging you, Cher. If I cancel at the last minute, John’ll have a fit, but if I tell him I arranged for you to take my place he won’t be able to say anything. Please, please, please! You’ll be doing me such a biggie. I’ll do whatever you want in return.”
“Oo-er!” came a voice from the next cubicle. Leo, the purchasing manager, peered over the partition wall with a smirk on his face. He had a habit of doing that lately, and Cher spent her days never knowing when he would pop up like a meerkat. Today he was wearing a bright green tie decorated with little lions and tigers. It was awful. “Sounds like things are about to get interesting,” he said. “Nice!”
“Stay out of it you!” said Maggie, pointing a finger at his crooked nose. Everything about Leo was mildly crooked. He had bony cheeks either side of a ridged nose, and a pair of projecting eyebrows — yet he wasn’t bad looking. Somehow his individually harsh features worked in harmony. He was about the same age as Cheryl too.
Just a pity about his slimy personality.
To prove her thought, Leo leered at her, and she didn’t know if it was in jest or if he was actually trying to imagine her tits underneath her blouse. “Just say you’ll come, Cher. It’ll be a laugh.”
Maggie bounced excitedly like a grinning moron. She obviously thought two against one was a sure-fire win — and it was true because Cheryl could feel the peer pressure closing in on her and trapping her inside her tiny cubicle. She sighed. “Look, what is this thing? I stopped paying attention when I wasn’t invited.”
Leo climbed up on his desk so he could hang all the way over the partition wall. He spoke in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. “It’s an escape room.”
Cheryl frowned. “Like what rich people have in their mansions?”
Leo snorted. “No, Cher, that’s a panic room. You’re so funny.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever. So what is it then? Because it sounds stupid.”
Leo suddenly grew serious, which made his thick eyebrows project even further. “It’s a game. All of us get locked up in a room, right, and we have to solve a bunch of puzzles, right, and if we escape in less than ninety minutes, we win a grand in cash — each! John is well excited, which makes a change. It was all he could talk about down the Goose last night.”
Cheryl groaned. “And that there is the reason I don’t want to go. You’re all buddies, aren’t you? But John and I barely talk. I think he forgot he even hired me. I’m just the mousey girl who sits in the corner of the office all day.”
Leo smirked. “What is it you do exactly, Cher? I honestly forgot.”
“Yeah, I’m not too sure either,” said Maggie with an embarrassed look on her face.
“Are you two serious? I’ve worked here for three months!” When they continued staring at her blankly, she grunted. “Fine! I run the company’s social media and web content, okay? All our advertising too. Does anybody appreciate me around here?”
“I appreciate you,” said Maggie, giving her best attempt at being earnest. Her pink lips and unbuttoned blouse made it somewhat farcical. “And I’ll appreciate you even more if you go on this weekend for me. You’ll have fun, I promise. Happy’s going, so you know everybody will behave themselves.”
Cheryl glanced across the room, past the many cubicles arranged in rows. Happy — or Howard Moss, if you used his real name — was the office manager. He was currently standing near the fire exit, tacking another of his ‘motivational’ posters to the wall. He was the dad of the office, and the thought of him being on the getaway did make her feel better, but it still didn’t make spending an entire weekend with her colleagues any more appealing.
But there was that matter of a thousand pounds.
A deposit on a flat. A nice flat.
Or a
car. I could actually go places besides work.
She had known nothing about any prize money until Leo had mentioned it, but it was reason enough to endure one awkward weekend. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll take your place, Mag, but check with John first, okay? Last thing I want is to turn up unexpectedly.”
Maggie clapped her hands together and bounced on the spot. Her breasts wobbled beneath her blouse and attracted Leo’s gaze. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! You won’t regret this, Cher. I owe you one.”
“Yeah, you do!” Cheryl turned back to her screen, hoping it would prompt them to leave her alone. Maggie took the hint and left with a friendly wave, but Leo carried on hanging over the partition wall like a bored child. When she made eye-contact with him, he grinned. “Always knew I’d get you away for a weekend eventually.” He winked at her. “If you play your cards right, we might be trapped together all night.”
“Trust me,” she said, curling her upper lip, “I’ll be doing everything I can to escape as quickly as possible. And not just because of the thousand-pound prize.”
“Ouch,” said Leo. “No need to be like that, Cher-bear. You’ll love me once you get to know me, you’ll see.”
“Or maybe I’ll hate you worse than I do now. And don’t call me Cher-bear, I hate it!” It came out more harshly than she’d intended, and Leo appeared wounded by the jab. He fiddled with his tie and looked away. “Sorry,” she added. “I never was any good at the old office banter.”
“The problem is,” he said, “you’re too good at it. Excuse me while I remove my battered ego from your presence, princess.”
He slid back down into his own cubicle, leaving Cheryl to wonder if she had actually hurt his feelings. The last thing she needed was going into a locked room with someone pissed off with her.
Did I just make an enemy?
She left-clicked the photograph on her monitor and began cropping it ready for the new company catalogue. It was a team shot, featuring the entire staff of Alscon in a group huddle. Cheryl was in the picture, but right at the back, barely visible amongst her smiling, confident co-workers.
Why do I never seem to fit in anywhere? she asked herself. Why do I feel like a tadpole in a pond full of fish?
She didn’t have an answer.
“Do I need to make you sandwiches, sweetheart? I could put some of last night’s spaghetti in Tupperware for you.”
Cheryl was busy bunching her almond-brown hair into a loose ponytail ready for the weekend. She had also dressed practically in a thick tartan shirt and light-denim jacket. Warm but not sweaty. “No, mum!” she said for the umpteenth time. “I don’t need you to make me sandwiches. Jeez, I’m twenty-three. Anyway, this thing is fully catered.”
“But you don’t want to be eating food you haven’t seen prepared. I’ll pack you some sarnies just to be safe.”
Cheryl stood from the kitchen’s small oak table and gave her increasingly frail old ma a hug in front of the Aga. The heat coming off it was comforting, and conjured memories of sitting on the tiles as a child and playing with her dolls. If one thing made her think of home, it was heat from an Aga. “Stop fretting, mum. It’s just a weekend — a work thing — I’ll be fine.”
“What kind of work locks their employees in a room?”
Cheryl chuckled. An escape room must have sounded ludicrous to her sixty-seven-year-old mother — it sounded bizarre enough to herself — but she’d given her word now, and it wasn’t worth the hassle of cancelling at the last minute. “It’s just a game, mum. Like that show you and dad used to watch on the games channel. The, um, Crystal Maze, right? We’ll work together to get out of a room by solving puzzles. It’s a team building thingy.”
Her mother crossed her arms and appeared no less concerned. Since Cheryl’s father died two years ago, things had been difficult at home. The sudden loss had all but crippled her mother, and it was heartbreaking to witness, but Cheryl was grieving too. She’d lost her dad before her twenty-second birthday, and her mother’s helplessness was becoming a burden. He had always been such an imposing figure, a self-made businessman and a workaholic most of the time, but a loving and warm joker the rest. Without his presence, life had fallen into a depressing stasis, and as much as Cheryl was loath to admit it, the notion of a company outing had grown on her. It was the first weekend she’d had plans in over a month.
I’m supposed to be in my own place by now with a boyfriend and plans for a future. Now it feels like I don’t even have a future.
“Have you made a list of everything you need to pack?” Her mother asked, speaking between nibbles at her thumbnail.
“I’m already packed, mum. I’ve got everything I need, I promise. Stop fretting.”
“What about Vaseline?”
“What?”
Her mother rooted through one of the kitchen drawers and pulled out a small steel tin, then handed it to Cheryl as if its purpose was obvious. “It’s going to be minus-one this afternoon. You know how bad your lips get when it’s cold.”
Cheryl didn’t expect to be spending much time outdoors, but her mother was clearly desperate to be useful. Taking the Vaseline was a tiny gesture, so she reached out and accepted it, sliding the tin into her jean pocket. “Thanks mum. I’ll use it if I need it.”
Her mother finally relaxed. She leaned back against the Aga’s silver handrail. “I don’t mean to nag, but you’re my baby and I just —”
A honking horn made them both flinch. Cheryl’s mother didn’t recover from the fright, and her sallow face hung like a Basset Hound. The weight of her worry dragged her pasty grey eyelids downwards. Would she ever stop being such an anxious mess?
I can’t live at home forever, mum. I won’t.
The car horn honked again.
Cheryl moved towards the door. “That’ll be Leo. He’s giving me a lift.”
Her mother hurried after her like she planned to stop her leaving. “And how long have you known this Leo?”
“Since I started at Alscon.”
“Did you leave me the address for the hotel? You said it’s more than an hour away.”
Cheryl gave her mother another quick hug. “Mum, stop worrying. Leo works in the cubicle next to mine, and he’s a nice guy. I’ve written everything you need to know and put it on the fridge, okay? I have my mobile, and I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. Enjoy some privacy for a couple days. Read a book or something.”
“What on earth would I want to read about?”
“I don’t know, mum. Maybe try reading something interesting. Who knows, you might actually enjoy yourself.”
“Don’t be so mean.”
Cheryl leaned forward and kissed her mother’s forehead. “Sorry, mum.”
“Will you just remember to—”
The car horn beeped again, and Cheryl decided not to prolong the moment any further. “I best get going, mum. I’ll call you tonight, okay? Love you.”
“Love you too, sweetheart. Um, just… keep warm, okay?”
Cheryl hurried out the kitchen’s side door and rushed out the front gate. It had been a goodbye far harder than it should’ve been, which left her frustrated, and yet she was excited too. She was going to have a little fun for one weekend. Was that too much to ask? Besides, it was only a work thing. What was the worst that could happen?
The journey started awkwardly. Leo was chatty, as always, but the general line of conversation oscillated between bad jokes and worse innuendos. Cheryl hadn’t known him long, which meant she spent most of the time laughing awkwardly and not knowing how to take things. In the last ten minutes though, Leo had started to settle down, and his words gradually matured to match his age.
“So you still live at home with your mum, huh?” he asked her as they cruised along the dual carriageway at eighty. She wished he’d do seventy.
She had been warming her hands on the dashboard vent, but she sat back now and looked at him. “Yeah, I was planning to move out by now but my, um, dad died of a heart attack a couple year
s back. It was sudden, you know? He was fit as a fiddle, so it came out of nowhere. Didn’t seem right leaving Mum on her own after such a shock.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
She shrugged. “Why would you? He died suddenly. Mum still hasn’t come to terms with it, really. Not sure she ever will. They were married for over forty years.”
Leo glanced away from the road to look at her. His cheeky visage dropped, and she thought she saw genuine sympathy on his face — and why had she not noticed how dark and brown his eyes were before? They were like pools of chocolate. “Both my parents are still around,” he said, “but my mum’s brother died a few years back from cancer and it really ripped her apart. I thought she was going to get committed at one point, so I get how you needed to look after your mum. It’s good of you. Don’t know many of our age who would.”
“Come on, I’m sure most would. You can’t turn your back on your parents, can you?”
Leo raised an eyebrow at that. He refocused on the road and several minutes passed before he turned back to her again. “So, you been looking forward to this weekend, Cher?”
“No, not at first. I was annoyed at Maggie for landing it on me. I could use a grand though, so I hope we win. You ever done one of these things before, Leo?”
He shook his head. “I watched a few clips on YouTube. They look a good laugh.”
“What made John book it? Seems random.”
“Don’t ask me. He isn’t exactly an imaginative guy, so it surprised me too. Maybe an ad popped up while he was watching porn.”
Cheryl let out a snort, then covered her nose in embarrassment. “Aren’t you and John, like, best mates?”
“No way, Pedro! John’s twice my age. I think he gets a kick out of hanging out with me down the pub and convincing himself he’s still young. Look, I like the guy, don’t get me wrong, but we’re not as close as people think. Doesn’t hurt getting along with the boss though, you know what I mean? When I started at Alscon, I was a warehouse worker. Now I’m head of purchasing. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
Gripping Thrillers Page 54
