by Heide Goody
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A Heart in the Right Place
Heide Goody & Iain Grant
Pigeon Park Press
‘A Heart in the Right Place’ Copyright © Heide Goody and Iain Grant 2018
The moral right of the authors has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except for personal use, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Published by Pigeon Park Press
Cover art by Mike Watts
www.pigeonparkpress.com
[email protected]
1
Finn selected her café table carefully. She sat where she was able to easily scan the Arrivals lounge crowd, access all exits, and read her Facebook posts without being overlooked. The Starbucks cup in front of her was scrawled with the name Hellebore. Her Facebook account was in the name of Celandine Dogweed: a twenty-nine year old retail manager and mother of two from Hull who liked stylish functional clothing, sharing videos of life hacks, and changing her profile picture to show solidarity with the victims of this week’s atrocity. Whatever it was. Finn was none of those things; apart from the clothes.
What Finn liked was control – having it, taking it, removing it from others. She liked to be in control of any situation; even if it was just picking someone up from the airport. Picking people up from airports was not something she liked. Airports were fine: they were functional and anonymous, Liverpool John Lennon no different to Glasgow, or Leeds, or Bristol. It was the people aspect she found distasteful.
The very best thing about her current job was she never had to meet colleagues. She received instructions and was paid electronically. Meeting people nearly always ended up badly. For them, especially. She had a low tolerance for idiots, and the world was full of them. Her tolerance for other people was very low, and it suited her to avoid them unless absolutely necessary. Once upon a time there were a few people (a very few) she had been fond of, but they could now be variously catalogued as incarcerated, hiding or dead.
Adam Khan walked towards the café. He was thirty-something, slender, a haircut straight out of a boy band and a skin tone which could have signalled mixed race, Muslim, or a two-week holiday in the Canary Islands. She instantly found that irritating. She liked pigeonholing people, and would have to ask for clarification later. Despite the self-consciously sculpted hairstyle, he dressed like his mother had chosen his clothes. He walked with an inefficient, somewhat fussy gait. Gay? she wondered. She would ask him that, too.
She hadn’t been given a picture; just a fair description and told he would be carrying an over-shoulder boxy fabric bag like an old video camera case.
She stood, her Muubaa leather biker jacket creaking. “You are Adam Khan,” she said, holding out her hand to shake because that’s what people did.
“Finella?” he said. His handshake was firm but brief.
“Finn,” she said.
“I was told I was meeting a Finella.” He had flown in from Dublin but didn’t have an Irish accent.
“Finn.”
“Your cup says Hellebore,” he said. He pronounced it Hell-boar.
“It’s Hell-e-bore,” she corrected. “I’m working my way through a seed catalogue.”
“I see,” he said, but clearly didn’t.
“For aliases. I’m looking forward to the vegetable section.” She wanted to test the credulity and politeness of the people she met with names like Cardoon, Chicory and Courgette.
“Shall I call you Finn or Finella?” he asked.
“It’s Finn.”
“I prefer things formal.” His face twitched as he looked at the smart watch on his wrist. “I was delayed in baggage reclaim.” He patted the bulky fabric bag.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
“For the heart.” He checked the smart watch again. “We are on a tight schedule.”
Finn took her Polaroid camera out of her pocket and took a photo of him. He grimaced unhappily. The instant print rolled noisily out of the front slot.
“So what’s that for?” he said.
“It’s a camera,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Biting the top off her black Sharpie she wrote on the drying photo. “Adam. A – D – A – M.”
“But why did you take it?”
She looked him in the eye and blew the photo dry. “You were saying we’re on a tight schedule.”
“I’m booked onto a six o’clock flight. The donor?”
“Oz Bingley. I have an address in Liverpool and a photograph.” She showed him the photograph. It was one she’d been emailed, not one she’d taken himself.
“You can barely see his face,” he protested.
“It’s recent. A grey-haired dude called Oz who owns a huge and hideous sheepskin coat. It’s enough.”
“Does he know we’re coming?” said Adam.
“We’re going to steal his heart. Course he doesn’t fucking know. Ready?”
Adam nodded and pointed at her. “Finn,” he said, as though reminding himself. “Oz Bingley. Six o’clock flight.” He looked at his watch again.
The man was a weirdo, Finn decided and tucked both photos into the lapel zip pocket on her Muubaa.
2
“Oz Bingley? Who on earth is Oz Bingley?” Nick asked of no one in particular. There was no one to ask. He was alone in his house.
Which was sort of the point. All morning he’d waited at home for the parcel to arrive. He should have been at work at the ChunkyMunky offices in Birmingham city centre but he’d taken an official duvet morning (they only got three a year) and waited for the parcel he knew was arriving.
He’d paid for next day, timed delivery. An extra twelve pounds it had cost him, but he couldn’t afford to miss this delivery. He’d been on high alert all morning, not daring to put on the radio or turn up the television in case he missed the knock at the door. He even went to the toilet in the dark so the noise of the extractor fan wouldn’t mask a particularly stealthy approach. That had been a mistake, on reflection. He’d been so worried about not wiping properly he’d been completely unable to go. He’d come out, walked past the front door on the way to the kitchen and there it was:
WE HAVE A PARCEL FOR YOU…
SORRY WE MISSED
YOU. YOUR ITEM IS:
There was a ticked box.
WITH YOUR NEIGHBOUR:
OZ BINGLEY, 42 LANGOLLEN DRIVE, BRANDWOOD END, BIRMINGHAM
Nick fumed. Not as much as he would have done if they had ticked the box for BEING HELD AT OUR DEPOT, READY TO COLLECT THE NEXT WORKING DAY. And at least it wouldn’t be a repeat of when the postman had left the parcel IN YOUR SAFE PLACE.Said place being his bin. His actual wheelie bin rubbish bin. On bin day.
Nick still fumed.
Being forced to stay in, like a housebound oldster or a sickly child, even for a few hours had driven him near stir crazy. He could have been at work already, trying to fix the shitstorm which was the Kirkwood account. He could be at the gym, lifting weights and making a start on the New Year’s resolution he’d made five months ago. He could be in town buying an apology gift for Abigail. Or just getting drunk and leaving inappropriate and remorseful messages on her voicemail. Anything but waiting for a parcel which was apparently delivered by stealth ninjas.
How had they achieved this in complete silence? Why didn’t they knock the door or ring the bell? Nick went to the door and, looking past his beloved, imported Cadillac on the driveway, scanned the street for signs of the courier. Nothing. Maybe the slip had been there for hours.
He checked the address and crossed the street. Number forty-two was a large, detached house with a big brass knocker on the front door: a gurning lion’s face with a ring in its mouth. He banged it hard as the postman should have done at his house. It made a thunderous racket, which pleased Nick. There was nothing worse than knocking or ringing a door and being unsure whether it could be heard.
The noise set a dog barking inside. Nick listened intently. There was a low whining sound as well. No one came to the door.
He wondered what the appropriate time was to wait before knocking again. Knock too soon and it would appear rude. Wait too long and you were just waiting on someone’s doorstep doing nothing. He counted down from thirty to zero and then waited another minute before knocking again.
The barking dog set off again. He waited. Still nothing.
He looked at the card. OZ BINGLEY. 42 LANGOLLEN DRIVE.
Nick didn’t know his neighbours well. Tall fences made good neighbours and all that. He tried to recall seeing anyone coming in or out of that house. Was Oz a man’s name? He had a vague recollection an old woman lived there, but he hadn’t seen her for a while. Maybe she’d moved out.
He went back to his house and sat at the window, hoping to see Oz returning from some small task – like posting a letter. He checked the time and turned the TV on. He’d go and check again in an hour, and then he’d have to go into work.
3
Finn led Adam to the multi-storey car park and the Volkswagen hatchback she had acquired for the job. She liked Volkswagens. They were reliable, good in tight spaces and were faster than they appeared. If she ever bought a car, actually paid her own money for it, she would buy a Volkswagen.
He went to put his bag in the boot.
“Boot’s full,” she said.
“With what?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. He hesitated before putting the bag on the back seat. He got in the front.
As they drove out, Adam produced a phone and scrolled through windows. “What’s the address we’re going to?”
“Flat fifty-three, Estuary Tower, Conway Street. Just up the river from here.”
“Thirty minutes on the sat-nav.”
“I know where I’m going,” she told him.
He took out a notepad and pen and scribbled. “I’m just factoring in delays and contingencies. Have you read the schedule document?”
She had seen an e-mail and read what she’d needed to.
“I’ve left a one hour window for your part of the … procedure,” he said. “Can you give me details?”
She glanced down at his pad, then at him, and then back to the road. “You don’t need details.”
“I want to know how it fits into my plans.”
“This is my mission; you are coming along for the ride. I don’t need a planner, I’m more of a doer. I don’t even know why you’re here.”
“I do logistics for Mr Argyll.” He looked genuinely confused. “Surely your handler told you that.”
“Handler? I just get texts and e-mails.”
“But do you not wonder who from?”
She shrugged. “Not if they pay. So you’re the postman, or whatever.”
“And I need to know how we’re going to do it.”
“We’re going to do the job,” said Finn. “Simple as.”
“But how are we going to—?”
“We locate the mark. We take his heart.”
“And you know how to do that?”
“I watched a video. We just start from the outside and work in. Like that sculptor.”
“Which sculptor?”
“Cut away anything which isn’t a heart until all we’re left with is a heart.”
“That’s not a plan,” said Adam. “It’s not even an approach.”
“What’s the difference between a plan and an approach?”
He sighed and put his hands in his lap. “The importance and difficulty of logistics is often overlooked. There are so many things to sort out. It’s a human heart we’re talking about: you can’t just pop it in a jiffy bag and put it in the post. It has to be prepared and transported extremely carefully. You and I both know how important that is in this case, yes? We need to cross borders too, which is a complicating factor. Without me, you have a very low chance of achieving all of this, believe me.”
“So you’re the man with the box. Got it.”
“Logistics,” said Adam. “It is essential the heart gets to Dublin within twelve hours of removal. We must get it straight into the box, which will maintain a temperature between two and six degrees. The heart must also be securely double bagged in the special solution I have. If any part of this goes wrong, then the mission has failed.”
“Fine,” sighed Finn. “The plan is: we locate the mark, we take his heart and then you can do whatever you need to do with your double-bagging and your special solution.”
“That’s still not a plan,” he said. “There are so many unknowns. If I were you I’d have a dozen questions.”
“I do have one question.”
“Good,” he said enthusiastically.
“Are you black?”
He stared. “What?”
“Black. Racially. Are you? You’ve got brown skin. Not very brown, but brown.”
“I don’t see how…”
“Or are you Muslim?”
He blinked and shook his head as though he’d just tasted something bitter. “Are you being ignorant or—”
“I am ignorant. That’s why I’m asking.”
He looked away out of the window. She thought he wasn’t going to answer and then he spoke with deliberate calm.
“As it happens, I am a Muslim. It’s my religion, not my skin colour.”
“Yeah, but you know what I mean.”
“What you’re perhaps asking is if I’m Indian or Pakistani or—”
“Right, right. That.”
“Lebanese. British Lebanese. My parents are from Lebanon. Does that answer your question?”
“Yes, it does.”
“And is my ethnicity or my skin colour going to be a problem between us?”
“No,” she said, surprised. “I just wanted to know.”
“Fine,” he said, letting his emotions go in a loud exhalation. “And are there any more questions?”
“Are you gay?” she asked.
“For fuck’s sake,” he muttered and looked out the window.
“Is that a yes or a no?” said Finn.
4
Hi Oz, you’ve got my parcel and I really need it ASAP.
If you get this note before I come back,
maybe you could pop it in my porch so it’s out of sight?
Nick (numb
er 37)
Nick had posted the note shortly before 1 pm after hammering on the door for the fifth time that day. The dog had barked, as he’d barked the previous four times. The whining sound he’d heard earlier on had still been there. He’d flicked open the letterbox and called through, but he got no response; saw nothing.
There had been no movement at number forty-two. Nick had watched. There had been no sign of the mysterious Oz. And now Nick, going into work after the most disappointing duvet morning of his life, was consumed with what to do next.
What he should do was sort out the rampaging clusterfuck that was the Kirkwood account job; what he wanted to do was to get his parcel. What he didn’t need or want was a phone call from his mom as soon as he sat down at his desk on ChunkyMunky’s Digbeth offices. There was a pile of papers on his desk in the supposedly paper-free office. Memos and notes from others, the folder for the Kirkwood job, a dozen Post-Its. And underneath, a phone was ringing. He didn’t look at the caller ID before answering: too preoccupied with a Post-It note from the Kirkwood job copy writer asking if the presentation went okay.
“No, it bollocking well didn’t,” he said to the note as he put the phone to his ear.
“Is that Nicholas?” said his mom, Diane, in the tones of one who hoped the speaker of such vulgarities wasn’t her darling son.
“Oh, hi,” he said, realising it was too late to pretend he wasn’t there. “Hi mom.”
“Am I calling at a bad time?”
Every conversation with her started with those words. They could be read at a number of levels from I know you’re busy and I don’t want to intrude through There never seems to be a good time to call you down to It’s like you’ve forgotten us and no longer need us in your life.
“No, not a bad time,” he said, screwing up the Post-It and tossing it away.
“Not too busy.”
“Not at all,” he said.
“Because Simon is always busy.”
Of course, he is. Here, there and everywhere. “Where is he this week?”
“Scuba diving in Mauritius. I did tell you.”
“Hardly sounds busy.”