by Paul Watson
A green fence encircled the red brick building; advertising boards hung from the hoarding with the words: ‘High quality three and four-bedroom homes from Daisy Field Developments. Quercus offers a superb standard of living for you and your family.’
Amy crossed the road to have a closer look. Construction workers strolled around inside the perimeter. Amy looked closer at the hoarding which had logos of the architect and consulting engineer. Above these logos was one that looked like a capital R, in red, with the word: ‘Ranto’ written in capitals below it. Above the logo were the words: ‘Main contractor – Ranto Construction.’
‘Maybe we should give this chap a call?’ Janet pointed to another board. Written on the board was: ‘Site Manager – Ted Mackey.’ There was a phone number next to the name.
‘Let’s wait, units will be here soon.’
Janet took out her phone and called Ted Mackey.
‘Yep,’ came the voice from the phone.
‘Is that Ted?’
‘Speaking.’
‘I’m outside your front gate, and my dog has run through the railings and I saw your number on the board.’
‘I’ll come over.’ The line went dead.
Two minutes later, a man emerged from the front gate. ‘Are you the woman that called?’ Mackey was a bear of a man, and his right arm was in a sling.
‘Yes, Toto just ran through the railing, can we come in and explore?’
‘How can a dog get through the gap in that railing?’
‘He’s a chihuahua; my granddaughter here bought it for me for Christmas; she might care for him soon,’ Janet coughed. ‘That could be the death rattle.’
‘We’re fine waiting here.’ Amy said. ‘We’d appreciate it if you’d check though.’ Amy looked around the streets. Mackey watched her.
The sound of the siren was barely audible.
‘Sure, you can come in and search. We must escort you while you’re on site though. Come over here, and I’ll let you in.’ Mackey ambled to a gate with a turnstile, swiped a card on a reader and walked through it. ‘Come on then, are you coming in or not?’
Amy looked at Janet. ‘I’ll wait in the car. I suggest you do the same.’
‘Don’t worry love, we don’t bite. You’ll not let your Grandma do all the work will you.’
Janet pushed through the turnstile.
‘I’ll wait here,’ Amy said.
Mackey and Janet walked into a Portakabin close to the site entrance.
The first police car arrived and then a second. A van with wire mesh over the windscreen arrived; officers in armour occupied it.
A uniformed officer, with three pips on his epaulettes, got out of the first vehicle. He was thin, with flecks of grey in his short white hair. Amy spoke to him, ‘Sir, I’m Amy Trimble, Met police, I made the call.’
‘You’re Jack Trimble’s daughter?’
‘That’s right. I got a lift here with a lady from a parking garage, and she has gone into the site. I couldn’t think of a way to stop her. She’s in that Portakabin now.’
Janet and Mackey came out of the temporary building, she and Mackey walked over to the fence.
‘Janet?’ the police inspector said.
‘Hello Ed.’
‘We need to come into your site; we think missing people are out here.’ The inspector said to Mackey.
‘No problem mate.’ I’ll open the main gate. Mackey strode over to the Portakabin and entered.
‘You’re looking good Ed,’ Janet said. ‘I guess Rosie’s keeping you in good shape.’
‘How’s the leg? You seem to be moving around OK.’
‘Your idea of OK is different to mine. I can get around, but I won’t be chasing too many folks.’
‘Janet, can you see what that guy is up too?’
Janet popped her head inside the hut and then returned. ‘He’s not in there; there’s a door through to another building.’
‘Time for you to come out Janet.’
‘We both know it won’t happen.’
‘Janet, this may not end well, you’re in real danger.’
More police cars arrived, and officers armed with rifles, and wearing body armour, got out.
‘I’m not in danger Ed, because I’ve been dead for twenty year’s anyway. Amy what’s your number? I’ll tell you what I find; there’s no need for me to be a hero anymore.’
Janet walked away from the fence.
‘Why did you let her in there alone?’ Ed said to Amy.
‘I’m sorry.’
FOURTEEN
Roberts woke on the leather sofa around five a.m. He’d closed the blinds in the office, but they weren’t a patch on the blackout curtains found in decent hotels. Roberts was as tough as they came, but he’d learned to appreciate the more refined things in life. He’d try to avoid rough sleeping, even when working, but Dr Julia Matthews hadn’t offered an alternative.
The office was more spacious than the meeting room, and he guessed that Julia had taken the first pick when they’d come up for grabs. On the big wall behind the sofa was an enormous painting. It wasn’t clear to Roberts what the colours on the picture represented, and he looked closer: Ladies dancing? Naked ladies? Opposite the sofa, on a glass coffee table, lay an Economist magazine, still in its cellophane, a Nature magazine, and two old copies of the Lancet. Roberts glanced at the address on a magazine mailing label: ‘Unit 1, PKL building, Grassmoor Road, Dry Molbury, Lincolnshire’
There had been no sign of any houses during the drive from the station. Perhaps the builders had demolished a village to build the monster PKL building. Roberts walked over to the en-suite in his boxer shorts and showered with water set to lukewarm. For his second shower of the day, in the evening, Roberts would choose the cold setting during the summer months. There was soap in a dish and two bottles of shampoo in the shower tray; he picked up the shampoo: ‘Super Blonde Colour.’
He used a squirt of the shampoo; Roberts thought Julia wouldn’t mind, and it made him feel intimate with her. Roberts was losing his touch if this was intimate. The second bottle was the same brand but was conditioner. Roberts had never understood the purpose of conditioner but had used it by mistake when staying with women. He’d found that it took longer to rinse out than shampoo and left a chemical coating to the hair. Roberts always avoided conditioner on principle and placed the bottle back on the floor in the shower tray.
There were towels on a rail just outside the cubicle; Roberts took one, towelled himself dry and then tied it around his waist. A basin and a mirrored cabinet clung to the wall, and under the cupboard was a ledge that had various blusher brushes, tweezers, exfoliating scrubs, primers and other products. Roberts didn’t understand the purpose of many of the items, but he appreciated that Julia had left a new toothbrush out for him.
While he brushed his teeth, he wondered if Dr Matthews had regular late-night sofa guests. Roberts was a curious man, but didn’t open the mirrored cabinet; Julia had left him out everything he needed.
Roberts padded back into the office, got dressed and then searched the room; there was nothing of interest. His appointment with Julia wasn’t until eight, and he had time to kill, which meant he could search around The Creator’s office.
Approaching the Creator’s door, he studied the name plaque. Next to the writing was a picture or symbol, three dots and then a circle with lines emanating. Was it the sun?
Roberts walked into the room which was the opposite of Julia’s. The odour was stale and unpleasant, the walls were undecorated, and there were documents on the floor, arranged in stacks.
Drawings of the PKL building littered one corner of the room. Roberts looked at the sheet on top: Elevation - Grid Line N – As-built.
The drawing showed a cross section through the building across its short length. There wasn’t much information on it. A few columns and beams supporting the steel roof rafters. What caught Roberts’s attention was the lift shaft continuing to an underground level, and there was a ba
sement across the whole width of the building.
Like Julia, The Creator had a set of magazines, his were from the top shelf of the newsagent, though, and scattered across the floor among other detritus, including crisp packets and empty beer cans. In the corner, Roberts found the prize, a dried turd. Roberts hoped that the man owned a dog.
The more pleasant surroundings of Julia’s office tempted him back, and he walked towards the door. A wall planner hung from it, a freebie from a tyre shop with a picture of a Lamborghini with a model in the top left. The wall planner had arrows drawn down the months. From 5th January to 30th June there was a labelled black line: DARKNESS. 1st July to 31 August there was a similar yellow line: GENESIS. 31st August until the end of September was a red line: EXODUS. The Creator had a sense of the dramatic.
Roberts left and stretched back on Julia’s sofa, closed his eyes and rested. His phone beeped; the message was a job offer for today but down in Hertfordshire. Roberts was about to decline, but Deakin accepted it first, anyway. Roberts fell asleep until Julia woke him at 11.00 a.m.
‘Rise and shine. Sorry, I’m late, but you looked like you needed the rest.’
‘Morning.’ Roberts thought her scent was not perfume but expensive shower gel, the kind he’d sometimes used when staying in hotels above the budget range.
‘I’ve got a choice of breakfast for you this morning. All-day breakfast from the kitchen or a choice of fresh pastries and coffee from the petrol station.’ Julia pointed to the coffee table, towards a paper bag and two takeaway coffee cups.
‘The All-day breakfast is tempting, but it might taste the same as last night’s curry, so let’s go with pastries, thanks.’
‘Sleep ok?’
‘I slept great. Shame though, it’s the first time I’ve had dinner and breakfast with someone in a long time; there should have been something in between the two meals.’
‘You looked tired last night, and you might have a busy day today.’ They ate the coffee and pastries. Julia chose an Almond Croissant and Roberts went for the Cinnamon Swirl, which he judged to contain more calories.
‘I had a snoop around our employer’s office. Looks like he might be a nut job?’
‘Laws is at the boundaries of the bell curve.’
‘Is he your boyfriend?’
‘I already told you I don’t have one. Laws is not my type anyway, not anyone’s type. Law’s has no interest in sex, not in the way most people are.’
‘Why have you ended up working for such a loser?’
‘I could ask you the same question, and my answer would be the same.’
‘I’m sure you could have paid the mortgage fixing broken brains. No need to spend your time with a man with dog turds on his carpet if you’re doing it for money.’
‘I don’t have the money to buy all this. I needed a sponsor.’
‘You need all this for medical research?’
‘There has been mission creep. I’ll get my answers, but it’s not my vision.’
‘So, why am I here?’
‘I’ll see if he tells you when he gets here. I wouldn’t want him to realise it’s come from me, and it’s easier for you to deny if you know nothing.’
‘So what are you doing tonight?’
‘The weekend starts from twelve o’clock, and I’ll go for a run, do my laundry and then I’ll cook dinner for one, and watch a movie with a bottle of wine. I’ll be asleep by eleven p.m. Why are you so interested in my plans?’
‘You don’t want to talk about work and I hate silence, and I need to fill the gaps. I can’t bear the sexual tension between us.’
‘You sense sexual tension between us?’
‘I think I sense it.’
‘No. You feel it. The part of the brain governing sexual attraction doesn’t do much thinking, not of the logical sort anyway, it reacts and makes instant decisions to act based on our senses. The same bit of brain that would make you run if you saw a tiger in the street. It’s becoming redundant in our modern world; there’s few tiger’s walking the streets.’
‘I saw on TV that a tiger escaped from the zoo last week; the vet shot darts at it and stunned it in the street. Who said the emotional bit of the brain is redundant.’
‘The emotional centre of the brain also jumps to conclusions and forces us to decide before we’ve got all the facts. This can lead to paranoia, antisocial behaviour and cause a lot of suffering. Brain biology can’t evolve quick enough to keep up with environmental changes.’
‘I decide fast, and my decisions are usually right. Us being here having this conversation proves it.’
‘I know a little about you Roberts; you’ve been around the block, done plenty of training and made mistakes that haven’t killed you?’
Roberts nodded.
‘When you’ve had a lot of practice in a particular field, then it’s ok to trust your instincts. Brains make electrical connections based on our experience, and we become hard-wired to execute certain tasks without conscious thought. If a situation is unfamiliar, then you’d do well to analyse it, as your instincts could lead to poor choices. If a human could analyse all the data and calculate the probabilities, most outcomes would be very different.’
‘You know how to deflect a conversation.’
‘Not at all, would you like to go out for dinner tonight?’
‘Sure, I look forward to it. I sense my mind expanding just sitting in the same room as you, maybe I’ll be able to have an intelligent conversation with you tomorrow.’
‘I know lots of people I can have an intelligent conversation with. There’s no need for us to do that. It would be great if you’d join me on my run though, you look like you might give me a push with my marathon training.’
‘Sounds like the best Saturday plans I’ve had in a while.’
As Roberts finished his coffee, a dog barked outside in the corridor.
FIFTEEN
‘Is he going to be OK?’ Andy said to the doctor.
‘It depends. Do you know what he might have taken?’
Andy gave the doctor the purple bottle. ‘He’s taken this; he thought it was a juice; my fault for leaving it around the kitchen.’
‘So what is it, a cleaning fluid or something?’
‘I don’t know. It’s a long story, but something shaped like a duck dissolved in water to produce this liquid. I’ve still got the head of the duck.’ Andy gave the duck’s head to the doctor.
‘A bath bomb?’
‘Maybe but I doubt it. Someone hid it in my friend’s luggage and its owners are trying to get it back.’
‘I’ll get it analysed. Your son is stable and sedated to allow him to rest.’
‘Can I wait here?’
‘Yes, we’ll be moving him soon to the ward, but you’ll be fine to stay with him.’ The doctor left the room.
Andy phoned Jess. ‘He’s ok, no need to worry, you can take Sam to his party and come over later.’
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘They’re doing tests, but he’s fine. I’ve got to go; the doctor wants me to fill in a form. Speak later.’ Andy sat alone in the room; he lied to his wife without remorse; no point worrying her; Andy wanted to be alone with Max until he received any useful information.
Andy sat looking at his son in the bed. It would be many years yet, perhaps ten or even twenty, until he would consider Max a man. Andy imagined the trials that Max would face during his twenties and thirties, losing his innocent charms as his edges hardened with every disappointment and the grinding mundanity of making ends meet. Perhaps not; perhaps Max would be more like his godfather, Steve.
Andy checked his phone; no messages at all; no updates from the police about Steve. Andy had been awake all night and couldn’t think of anything useful he could do to help either Steve or Max. And so, Andy studied Max and remembered Max’s birth.
Andy had sat back then in the hospital corridor as his son lay in a clear plastic cot wrapped in blankets and wearing a little hat.
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Life changed that day for both him and Jess, in ways they could have never predicted. Andy smiled and cried as he recollected his wife full of joy as she called him up with the news she was pregnant. He was too busy to talk at the time; work meant everything, success the goal. Andy loved his time with Jess, but he aimed high and would work through the night, weekends, whatever it took to get an edge, to get recognition.
How did others get the best jobs when he worked harder and got results? Now he understood; Andy still wasn’t a proficient practitioner of people skills, like the masters, like Steve, but he’d changed. If everyone is telling you the same thing, Andy figured, then he’d better listen, even if he didn’t believe it. Andy read books, and he’d put learning into practice. Jess didn’t need books, apart from the fun ones.
Jess had been twenty-four when she’d given birth to Max. The three years leading up to his arrival had been one long honeymoon. Jess had expanded Andy’s world: introduced him to novel concepts like holidays, restaurants, the occasional movie and weekends away in quirky little cottages.
Andy and Jess’s wedding day was pure happiness, and their two-week honeymoon passed by in a flash; they didn’t visit many attractions.
Max arrived nine months later, and Andy recalled Jess looking forward to the birth and decorating a room for the baby; they knew three months into the pregnancy what the colour scheme would be.
They moved out of their flat and bought a small cottage, with a big mortgage. Andy remembered optimism for the future. It was the moment that his dreams disappeared; reality replaced them. That reality had turned out better than any of his aspirations; all started by Jess’s smile all those years ago.
He had not planned to marry his wife, but from their first date, he’d never imagined being without her. It had taken him a long time to understand that it was necessary for her to get married. Now he realised; he smiled at himself back then and smiled as he glanced over to Max and visualised his son’s future.
Andy was not great at reading body language, but he appreciated now that Jess’s sulks and tantrums at their Friend’s weddings were not because of heat and Champagne. She was trying to tell him something. When he’d asked her to marry him on one of their frequent weekends away, he hadn’t planned it; the words just came out; he’d never regretted them.