To Catch A Storm

by Warren Slingsby

  She picked up the fat wallet from the floor and looked though it. There was a lot of cash. No surprise there. No credit cards, but a driving license. The driving license of Joseph Stocksbridge. She figured out his age was 32. His address was listed as Islington in London. A car park ticket for the THE 1862 HOTEL, GLASGOW. She went to the window and peeked around the curtain. She was surrounded by Georgian buildings, she must be in the middle of the city. She put the ticket and the wallet into her handbag.

  She took another look at Joseph and a little shiver passed through her body. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to think, to get her mind moving, but it was just like thick syrup in there. This was just not Janet. Janet didn’t get into situations with men she didn’t know in hotel rooms with bags of cash and guns.

  She lived in London and worked in banking. She was successful in what she did. She worked hard. Long hours and didn’t take all her holidays. She never really spoke about this sort of stuff to her friends, but she was really good at her job and was head hunted recently because she had performed so well. She earned a good salary but then she spent too much of it on clothes and handbags and shoes and holidays and anything else she could throw her credit card at. New phones - as she seemed to be very good at losing them or smashing them. Smart phones were surprisingly expensive. As was her TT convertible. The list was long. Yes, spending was her little weakness. Spending; not getting into tricky situations with guys that ended up in hotel rooms with them dead.

  She slumped back down against the foot of the bed and pushed her head back in anger. She pushed so hard, her head touched Joseph’s foot and she jumped back up letting out a sickly yelp. She grabbed her bag and told herself she needed to get out of the room. She picked up her phone and shoved it into her bag and closed it. Screw the money, screw him and whatever had been happening, she needed this to end. She picked her dress up from the floor and threw it on over her head and zipped it up at the side. She recognised the dress, but couldn’t remember where she’d bought it. She vaguely remembered the purchase. The dress was very simple, black with a halter neck and an attached slim red leather belt. The label said Donna Karen. She looked around to see if she had any other clothes but couldn’t see anything. She went to take a look in the wardrobe, but it was totally empty.

  “Get out of this room Janet.” She looked over at the bed again. “Now!”

  She saw the key card in a slot next to the door. She took it out and slipped it in her bag. She took another look around the room, she went to the bathroom to check in there. The steam had subsided now. The bag sat half hanging out of the gap under the bath. Open and overflowing with cash. This seemed wrong. If she left the room as it was, someone was going to get this cash. She reached in and took the black car key and put it in her bag. It wasn’t her money, she was sure of that. She couldn’t remember what had happened in this hotel room last night, but she had not robbed a bank. She worked in a bank. She didn’t enjoy it anymore, but she hadn’t robbed it.

  Someone was going to get their hands on this cash however. Someone was going to stick all this money into an off shore bank somewhere and live off it and not work another day in their life if they so wished. They’d be going and buying flash cars, taking gorgeous holidays to faraway and exotic places like the Maldives and Mauritius and the Bahamas. They’d be buying beautiful clothes and eating in the finest restaurants and they’d be smug about it all. And whilst they were doing this, what would she be doing? She’d be going back to work in banking? Sitting in an office. Back to her credit card debts. Awful… no that was wrong, she didn’t have an awful life. She had a good life. She had a good job. She had good friends. She was comfortable. But what if it could be better? What if she could live without debt. What if she could travel without sticking the whole thing on her credit cards? She didn’t have a bucket list as such but she had a lot of things she wanted to do and see. She wanted to visit Las Vegas, Sydney, Goa, Barbados, Miami. The list was pretty long. She wanted to go to the top of the Empire State building, see the northern lights, see a whale, climb a pyramid. Now that she started thinking, there was a ton of stuff she wanted to do but possibly would struggle to do. Especially whilst she was young. You could do this type of stuff once you’d retired and paid off your mortgage. But what if she could do it all now?

  She zipped up the bag and grabbed the handles. It was heavy. You’d expect two million quid to be heavy though. She placed the Gucci travel bag and her hand bag next to the door. She looked around the room. Did she need anything else? The room was still a mess with broken glass and a lot of stuff on the floor but this was not a time to be worried about cleaning up. There was one thing she did not want to leave here for whoever would discover him. She gently stepped up onto the empty side of the bed and grabbed her knickers from the chandelier and crumpled them into a ball. She saw his phone and picked it up. One more text message had arrived. From Carl. She dropped both items into the Gucci bag.

  “As popular as ever Joe.” she told him. She suddenly felt very sorry for him. She was about to leave him in this room. Alone. How long would it take for them to ignore the Do Not Disturb sign and enter the room? A fair amount must have been racked up on room service, so they wouldn’t leave it so long.

  “Live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse.” she said almost in passing. “Someone said that, but I think you really did it Joseph.” She grabbed the sheet she had worn earlier. It was dirty, but that didn’t really matter now for him and placed it over his crotch.

  “That’s better isn’t it?”

  She found herself staring at him again, breathing heavily. Her chest tight. It was time to get the hell out of here before she was discovered. She had everything but oddly was as afraid to leave as she was to stay. She opened the door and peeped around the corner. All was clear. ‘Look like you belong here Janet’, she told herself and off she went. Walking fast, but not too fast following the sign to the lifts. Purposeful speed. A train to catch or a meeting to get to.

  She called a lift and the doors opened almost immediately announced with a bing. She walked in and placed the bag on the floor whilst she got the stuff ready. Parking ticket, cash, keys. In the vain hope she was going to exit the hotel unnoticed. She jumped as a young, scrawny lad with dark hair walked past the lift. He looked her up and down briefly, gave her a friendly smile and continued walking. The doors slid closed.

  . . .

  Dan scanned the hotel’s public areas methodically. Floor by floor, corridor by corridor. He’d started with the ground floor and was working his way upwards. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for. Joseph, ultimately but he knew that was unlikely. He walked the full length of each corridor listening intently to see if he could hear Joseph’s voice or his name mentioned perhaps, but the hotel bedrooms were well sound proofed and he could hear nothing much other than his own Adidas Superstars brushing over the plush patterned carpets. The corridors looped, so you could keep walking from the open area by the lifts and get back to the same point. As he completed his loop of the 2nd floor, he heard the ding of the lifts and saw a woman entering. He speeded up to the lifts and then eased back so he gave the impression he was generally walking past. He looked in and smiled at the woman in there. She was wearing a swish black dress but otherwise, looked quite unkempt. At her feet was a distinctive tan leather bag with the green and red stripe across it. The doors swept shut before the recognition hit him, but that bag looked very much like the description he had. He stood glued to the spot watching where the lift floor indicator went, whilst taking his phone out. He dialled Carl and hit the button to call another lift.

  “Yep. Tell me some good news Dan.”

  “I think I just spotted the bag that had the cash in.” Dan came back quickly.

  “Did you see Joseph?”

  Dan ignored Carl’s question. “It’s with a woman dressed in a... black dress… and it’s... hang on… about to walk out into the lobby…” A second later, the flo
or indicator stopped at the B. “Actually, she’s gone to the underground car park. Get the car and meet me at the entrance to the car park. Be quick!”

  . . .

  She didn’t like the fact anyone had seen her. She had a rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins now making her short of breath. She paid the ticket by the entrance to the car park. There were only a handful of cars in the parked. She took the key, pressed the unlock button and a far corner of the garage lit up orange briefly. Whatever it was, it was small and completely hidden by a black Mercedes. She walked toward the light until she found herself looking down upon what seemed like the tiniest, lowest car she’d ever seen. It was white and only seemed to be hip height. She pushed the button again just to be sure this was the right car and sure enough, the indicators doubled flashed and the locks clicked. She looked around and was happy to see no one else around. It took a moment to see how to open the car’s door as the handles were almost totally flush. She got in and read ‘Lamborghini’ written across the dashboard with joined up golden letters. She’d heard of a Lamborghini. It was an Italian sports car. Like a Ferrari. Very expensive. What the hell she thought. She stuck the key in the dashboard and twisted. The engine exploded into life behind her and she jumped, hitting her head on the roof. She’d never heard a noise like it. She pulled the door closed and it was dulled slightly, but still ridiculously loud, like a giant, angry, gurgling animal sat behind her. She was cocooned in black leather and suede. The seats were a black suede with criss crossed white stitching making up diamonds. The steering wheel was also suede covered.

  She familiarised herself with the controls - wipers, indicators, lights, they all seemed very similar to her little Audi. She grabbed the gear lever which felt odd. It was bare metal. She wasn’t sure what gear levers were normally made of or covered in, but this felt decidedly strange and cold. She stuck the car into first gear and pushed the throttle and moved the car very gently forward, she turned left toward the exit. It was easy to drive. The doors clicked as they locked themselves.

  . . .

  Dan looked all around. If she was going to drive, surely she couldn’t have reached her car, started it up and exited in that amount of time. He walked toward the exit. Quick, but at the same time, trying hard to look casual. He didn’t want to spook the woman in the black dress. From behind, he heard an almighty roar of an engine which sounded like something was right behind him, but he could see nothing. He doubled back toward the noise, but then thought better of it. She would have to go to the exit. He heard the growl grow louder and he looked behind to see a low sports car coming toward him. He looked away as he didn’t want the driver to see his face. Surely that couldn’t be her he thought. As it slowly passed him, he saw it was a Lamborghini and yes, she was driving. Weird. Odd choice of car for a young woman. He thought he could see the tan bag crammed into the passenger footwell.

  She must have tapped the throttle because the exhaust snarled ferociously. Then the brakes lights came on as the car reached the exit barrier. Her window slid down as she went to put her ticket into the machine. He took his chance just before the barrier went up and tried the passenger door handle. If it was open he would just grab the bag. No questions asked, but it was locked. Damn. Clever girl.

  . . .

  The man reached the passenger side of the car as she was putting the ticket into the machine. She looked around to see him looking in. “C’mon, come on.” she told the machine under her breath. It pulled the ticket in, pushed it out and then swallowed it completely.

  “Nice car darling.” the man said to her through the window. “What sort of car is it?”

  She ignored him and stared at the barrier. He knocked on the window to try to get her attention. He’d definitely got her attention, but she was not going look at him. The barrier finally went up after what felt like a long, dragging minute but was just a few seconds. She turned briefly, blew him a kiss and set off to the left down the one way street. It had been the guy that walked past the lift which was odd that he would then be down in the car park when he was supposedly walking off toward one of the bedrooms two minutes before. She watched in the rear view mirror to see the man get into a Mercedes that pulled up from high speed. This was not good. This definitely seemed like it was bad. She took a left and then a right and then a left, but they stayed in touch and suddenly were right up behind her. Play it cool, she told herself, but this was not a coincidence. No way.

  She pulled up at a T junction and waited for a gap in the traffic. She didn’t go when she could have. She waited for almost two minutes, glancing at the people in the car behind her. The guy driving was huge and bald and looked pretty scary. She did not want to have to deal with him. A small gap came up and just before the first of a long line of cars, she floored the Lambo and flew off up the street leaving them stuck and awaiting a space to get out. She kept her eye on the traffic behind but didn’t see them pull out. Half a mile down the road, she turned right and pulled up at a crossroads, looked left and right and pushed on the throttle; the car howled straight ahead and everyone stopped and turned to look around at the source of the howl. She’d better take it easy, this was the most outrageous car and she was going to get stopped by the police at this rate. Not a good move considering her current position. She eased off the throttle and took the pace right down.

  Things were still fuzzy. She drove toward the edge of Glasgow, vaguely aware she was following signs for Edinburgh. As she got toward the open road, she wound the driver’s and passengers's windows down and let air rip through the car. She breathed deeply for the first time today. Fresh air after the confined atmosphere in the hotel room with its dead occupant felt invigorating and liberating. It tussled her hair around her face and out of the window as if she stood atop a huge cliff. It would have looked crazy to anyone who saw, but the roads were dead. With the noise of the engine, it was deafening, but it was starting to blow away the fuzziness. She could just hear her phone ringing above the cacophony, but still was in no mood to talk to anyone. What would she say? She didn’t know why she was in Glasgow, how she got there, why she was with a dead guy and who the dead guy was. She drove for a short while following signs on a kind of auto-pilot. Before she knew it, she was on the M8 motorway. All she could remember for the last 10 minutes or so was looking at her blackened eye in the mirror and wondering, if and how, she could cover it with makeup. She stuck to the middle lane and tried to be as inconspicuous as it was possible to be in a white Lamborghini. At least, she didn’t look like the typical type of person who would steal a car like this. She drifted along with the ambient traffic, passed a traffic police car driving at about 60mph in the slow lane and it made her panic. She needed to get off the motorway. Taking the next exit (after indicating precisely), she drove south along country roads until she hit the A71 and picked up signs for Edinburgh again (21 miles).

  Hitting the countryside, the roads were empty, she pushed her foot down and the car shrieked forward toward Edinburgh. The car oozed raw power and she loved it. No police car could keep up with her if she decided she wanted to get away from them. She looked at the speedometer and it read 130mph. Way faster than she’d ever been in a car and yet she felt a sense of control over this unlike she currently had over her the rest of her life. She eased off the throttle and dabbed the brakes gently until the speedometer came back to read 60mph (the national speed limit, she reminded herself) and tootled onward. Had she left any clues behind? She was definitely in danger as she was involved with Joseph (somehow) and some bad people were after him, plus she’d nabbed the cash. She didn’t think she’d left any clues should the police get involved. She was driving a huge great clue, but that was a different matter somehow.

  As she drifted along the deserted roads, a fragment of a snippet of dream came to her. She was with a stranger, who could have been Joseph, in an unknown place. They were on their way somewhere, she wasn’t sure where, but they were at the sea, yes, on a cliff. It was incredibly windy t
here as it was in the car right now. Perhaps this is what brought the dream back to her. In fact, the place felt strangely familiar. Not like it was an actual place she had been but like it had featured in many of her dreams, a place she often went. It felt dangerous, but exciting and fun at the same time. Unlike dreams where there seemed to be frustration or anxiety, this was a good place. He was laughing at her, but in a good way, like she was making him laugh. Off in the sea, something was moving very fast like a powerful boat, leaving a jet stream of white water behind it. The boat was on its way to the same place that they were going. It seemed to be somewhere further along the coast, not a town but some type of a craggy bluff that stuck out into an ultraviolet ocean. They saw the boat arrive at the bluff, but they were still a way off. That was as much as she could remember for now. She tried to replay the chapter in her mind, but she could not remember anything before or after this walking along the cliff.

  She jumped as a blue hatchback full of young lads overtook, peeping the horn as they were alongside. They pulled in sharply in front of her and the car lolled from side to side on its suspension under its heavy load of testosterone fuelled occupants. The two teenagers in the back looked back through the rear window and were laughing like this was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. It brought her back from her dream and she focused once again on the road. ‘I’ll show you little dick heads’ she thought. She scanned the road ahead. It was clear for half a mile or so. She dropped the car from sixth to third gear, re-gripped the suede covered wheel hard and pushed down on the accelerator, not flat to the floor but enough to make the car jump, leap and howl forward past the teen filled Honda. They wanted to race and the driver also dropped several gears and floored his charge, however it wasn’t really a fair fight in power or weight. Janet’s white sports car flew up the road; spitting out white lines at the Honda as she put an ever increasing chunk of space between them. What was wrong with her? She’d never driven like this in her life, had she? She had never overtaken anything before. It was addictive though. As she crested the next hill to which the boys had not yet begun climbing, a wide grin broke out. Then out of nowhere - chevrons and a sharp corner. She was going far too fast. She’d never make it. She hit the brakes hard whilst steering into the corner. Any other car would have gone straight ahead on the corner and through the wall into the field. But the white sports car seemed to grip down onto the road with all its wheels and flew round the right hander with a screech of tyres. She felt she could have hit the corner even faster and the car would still have flown around it. Lapping it up. Almost like it was enjoying the challenge. It filled her with even more gusto. She adjusted her rear view mirror so she could see how far back they were but they were out of view, probably at the bottom of the hill still. She came off the brake and squeezed the accelerator once again. As the speed increased, so did the width of the grin across her face.