To Catch A Storm

by Warren Slingsby

  On her return, Janet picked up the keys to her new home from the estate agent’s office. It was a world away from the beeps, shouts and screeching tyres of Via Laietana. It was actually 2.1km as the crow flew, but that made all the difference. It was also clear of the humidity that sometimes descended upon the dark streets of Spanish cities helped by a cool, salty breeze coming up off the Mediterranean. The breeze was warm, but somehow refreshing. It drifted over the city, up the hills and finally reached into her terrace and through her open doors and windows. Combined with the marble floors and thick walls, it meant the temperature was always just right. Cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Well that’s what the estate agent had assured her at least.

  It was a town house built above a ground floor garage. She’d selected this house in the same way someone would have selected a plot of land on which to build a castle in centuries gone by. It was atop a hill which meant she had good views around and could see people approaching. Secondly, it was extremely secure. The ground floor was basically just garage and a door with no windows. If someone did manage to get into the garage, there was another locked door before reaching the house. She had had a new door fitted on the day she moved in as she thought the original one looked a little flimsy. That could not be said of her new door which was solid oak, with two latches and a dead bolt. Even though so much time had passed, she knew she would always have to be a little wary. The amount of money she stole from Carl and Charlie and their crew, she knew there was always a chance they would still try to track her down. A small downside really, but one unfortunately that would always be present.

  She was furnishing the place gradually. So far, she had furnished her bedroom and the lounge. She had bought an amazing Italian corner sofa from eBay for a few hundred euros that had cost about five thousand new. It was super low slung and she’d ensured everything else in the lounge from the coffee table to the stand for the TV was equally low. She accessorised the sofa with mix and match cushions and it looked amazing, even if she did think so herself. The bedroom, like a French courtesan’s boudoir, she told herself. Grand and yet feminine with a Queen size antique Louis XVI bed and matching wardrobe. She’d contrasted it with a white leather Barcelona chair in the corner and tucked behind the chair was a blood stained bull fighting spear that had somehow made its way from her rented apartment to her new house. Her last line of defence.

  She knew soon her mother would want to come visit and several friends had expressed an interest in coming to see her. She’d been formulating her house ‘back story’.

  ‘How can you afford this house Janet? This lifestyle?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t, I’m long term house sitting for Nancy, my old friend from Uni / School / my old job / insert as appropriate / who married a Spanish guy. He’s very wealthy and they decided to take a few years off and go travelling around the world. I think they’re in Easter Island at the moment…’

  Her red Vespa stood outside her front door; she knew the salty sea air would eventually be the death of it. Unfortunately, her garage was now filled with a sort of replacement for the Lambo and there was no room for the bike. She’d splashed out on a ‘95 Porsche 911 cabriolet in powder blue metallic with light grey checked cloth seats. She’d thought about something older, more classic like a 60’s Mercedes Sports, but then she remembered she’d heard some stories from friends who had old classic cars that they broke down all the time. The idea of a classic was great but she needed something that was reliable and the Porsche was just that. She had bought it from a classic car garage in Barcelona and was particularly proud as she had spoken only in Spanish during the purchase process. The car had come highly recommended as it had a full service history and had seemingly been maintained without cutting corners. The salesman had shown her several examples of this maintenance such as the tyres which were all matching and (almost) new, Michelins; a gleaming engine and new Porsche car mats. They had said another good reason to buy this car was that there was a good independent Porsche garage nearby in Barcelona which would be able to continue to maintain the car to the highest standards.

  Her car was the two wheel drive model and it had a considerable list of extras such as an electronically retractable roof, heated, electrically adjustable ‘comfort’ seats and dual airbags. When she picked up the keys having paid the outstanding balance, she was so excited. She started up the engine, which though on a different plane to the Lambo still had a throaty exhaust note, hit the roof button to lower the roof in about thirty seconds and off she went. It was so slow compared to the Lambo but it stuck a much larger grin on her face. Something about the top being down and endless blue sky overhead.

  She’d spent a lot of time exploring around Sitges further down the coast from Barcelona and she liked it very much there. She would go north up the coast today though towards Blanes and see if there was anywhere that took her fancy. She blipped the garage door remote control she kept in her glove box and it slowly raised up. She eased the car out and hit the close button. The roof lowered as she waited for the garage door to finish closing. All set, her hair still wet from her shower, she set off. Driving coastal roads in a topless Porsche was a great way to dry your hair and give it a natural Latin tousle.

  After lunch on the beach. Her phone pinged and she grabbed it to read the mail that had just arrived. Oddly, now that she rarely got emails, they were exciting to receive. It was from her mother.

  Hi Janet, thanks for sorting my flight ticket darling. Business class on British Airways... what a treat. Just let me know if I can give you something toward it. I do have money you know! I’ll see you at the airport on Friday. It’ll probably be 2 o’clock by the time I get through the customs. Do you want me to bring you anything out from the UK?

  Your dad keeps asking why he can’t come out, but I’ve told him we’re having a girly weekend and he would be bored. Perhaps he can come out in a few months? It would be nice for him to see you if you are not planning on coming back to the UK this year.

  See you Friday! Mum xxx

  PS. Alex sends his love and he wants a trip too.

  PPS. Can we go see flamenco?

  She felt a warm glow inside at the thought of seeing her mum soon. If she was really honest with herself, she had been a little lonely. Apart from meeting and spending time with Tess, there was a slightly solemn loneliness. She picked her book up again and the bookmark fell out and blew off a few meters before she had chance to weigh it down. She grabbed it and took it out to have another read. She’d been doing odd bits of research about the Sea of Galilee and had thought she might be onto something. It turns out the Sea of Galilee still exists and there had been several reports of findings including a 6,000 year old burial site that was now underwater. Part of Christ’s cross was apparently found there. There were tons of news reports and articles on Google about this type of stuff. Could it be that they had part of this cross? If so, it would be worth a fortune to the right buyer or collector or museum. What was the film where they were hunting down the Holy Grail? Could have been one of the Indiana Jones films, but that was supposed to be worth a fortune, if it existed.

  What did the letter refer to exactly? Once again she took her phone out and typed Sea of Galilee into Google. This time however she scrolled lower down through the results that showed up and one in particular jumped out at her:

  ‘The Storm on the Sea of Galilee’.

  She clicked on the link which took her to a Wikipedia page and very quickly she read ‘...biggest art theft in US history and remains unsolved’. This looked a whole lot more interesting and it sparked a memory she’d forgotten all about. On the night she met Joseph, he made a joke about a stealing a piece of art. He joked that he’d stolen a painting worth millions of pounds then she’d seen the article about the stolen modern art painting. A Rothko she seemed to remember. Could this person who wrote the letter - MPW - be part of Joseph’s gang? No, he’d said he couldn’t meet him in person. It seemed that MPW had paid Joseph the
money for something. Perhaps for stealing the Rothko and now MPW had the whereabouts of another piece of art that he wanted Joseph to steal. It seemed like a piece of a puzzle might have clicked in.

  . . .

  “She’s in Barcelona.” Charlie said over the phone to Carl.

  “Fucking bitch, really? How do you know?” Carl asked sounding anxious. “Do you have an address?”

  “No, not yet. I just know she’s there.”

  “Come round.” and with that, Carl hung up.

  Following Janet’s escape with their hard earned cash, Carl and his cohorts had searched tirelessly for her. Once they tracked down the phone to a semi detached house in Brighton owned by a self employed couple, they knew the trail had gone cold. They decided to spend a night in a low grade hotel in Brighton during which they could look at their options for getting the cash back. There seemed to be fewer and fewer options. Things got very heated. The ‘conversation’ ended with a scuffle which left Jim with a broken nose from Dan. Jim left shortly after followed by Kyle. For them the trail was dead, they accepted that they had been outdone by this woman. Kyle’s advice to the group was ‘know when you’re beaten’. That advice only strengthened Carl’s resolve to get that ‘fucking woman and their cash’.

  Carl asked Charlie to track her down using his knowledge and experience of the internet. He promised him the whole of Kyle’s share of the money if he managed it. They would then share Jim’s. So Charlie had started the process of tracking Janet down. He had the best knowledge of her, but even with his tech skills, the trail really had gone cold. He didn’t know enough about her to dig sufficiently. His understanding was that she would be interrogated once he’d spiked her, otherwise, he would have asked more questions in the short time he spent drinking with her. As it turned out, she was no use once she came around and then they fucked up and allowed her to escape like a set of idiots.

  He knew Joseph had been found the week after Janet had fled Edinburgh. There had been an investigation into his death and possible murder led by Lothian and Borders Police. Charlie had been hopeful that some clue would come out that would help him to track Janet down. There was CCTV footage of Joseph and Janet arriving at the hotel, entering the restaurant and getting into the lift. It was possible to see her face, but it was just not clear enough. The footage was not up close enough and consequently when they zoomed in, it became too grainy. If it had made national news, then perhaps someone in London might have recognised Janet and come forward. For those who knew her well, they might have put together that she had been in Scotland at that time and that it looked sort of like Janet. Even then, her friends would have called her first rather than call the police. However, it barely made an impact south of the Scottish border. An autopsy was carried out on Joseph’s body which found that he died of acute opiate intoxication resulting in sudden cardiac death. When their leads to his date for the night also dried up, they concluded he probably died during sex and his girlfriend or date had panicked and fled the scene. The police appealed to her to come forward for help and therapy to get over her ordeal.

  Carl’s house was huge (but ugly Charlie thought). When he arrived, Carl showed him into what he referred to as his den, it was downstairs and was the size of a large lounge. It had an extremely large corner sofa and an even more extreme TV on the wall. Dan was there, slumped on the sofa. He was living with Carl at the moment, so Charlie was expecting this. He could hear dogs barking somewhere in the house and Carl shouted ‘ZIP IT YOU STUPID MUTS!’ And they promptly zipped it. Impressive Charlie thought to himself.

  “Ok, so I’m ninety nine percent sure she’s in Barcelona, but I want to do some more checking before I fully confirm it.”

  “Ok, that’s cool. So how did you track her down?” Dan asked.

  “Well we only had a few key bits of information, her first name, age, profession and where she lived. But we also knew she had been on some type of conference in Edinburgh and that’s what took her there. I tried to get her full name from the conference organisers, but ‘cos I was not a delegate, they wouldn’t give me the information. But I found her anyway on the delegate list on the website along with the bank she worked for. Turns out her surname is this odd Ukrainian name that’s pretty rare. Karpenko. Janet Karpenko.”

  “Can you get to the point Charlie?” Dan said, an edge in his voice, “How did you find her?”

  “Ok, stay with me. Keep calm. So I remember on the night in the bar she showed me a funny video on her phone that was on her facebook page. Her cover photo, the bit at the top, was of Barcelona. I didn’t realise it at the time but I saw a picture recently of all this crazy wavy architecture and it’s only in Barcelona. Some old dude called Gaudi, from like the sixties or seventies or maybe earlier. So then I started looking for a British woman called Janet in Barcelona, but I still couldn’t find anything. I think she basically deleted her Facebook profile and all her other social networks. Twitter and what have you.” Charlie continued, giving them far too much detail. “So then I started looking for a woman called Janet Karpenko who worked in consumer banking and eventually, I found her on her company website along with a photo. So then I find her mum in London. There’s not many, even in a city of ten million. There were fifteen. Took me a few days, but I managed to find the contact details for all of them. Then I called them all. I rang each and asked to speak to Janet. And Bingo! the last one I got through to told me her daughter Janet was currently living in Barcelona. So, then I managed to hack her. Turns out her mother is called Yana Karpenko. Came here in the sixties. Janet has been emailing her letting her know how lovely it is in Barcelona. Apparently, she’s house sitting out there. No doubt spending all our cash.”

  “Brilliant Charlie! But did you get her address?” Dan asked with an ironic edge.

  “No not yet... But”

  “Well can’t you email as her mother and ask for the address?” Dan interjected once again.

  “Let me finish man... Her mother is going out to see her in a few days. I’m planning to follow her out there. I’ve even got her flight time and number.”

  Carl went behind a large, dark wood desk and unlocked a low drawer and counted out some cash, then held out a wad toward Charlie. “Here’s some cash for a flight and hotel. Get out there and get her located?” Carl asked. “Then let us know and we’ll come out. It’ll probably get messy. I don’t just want the cash back. I want to make her pay. She thinks she’s so fucking clever but she won’t when I’m cutting her thieving fingers off. She’s messed with the wrong guy with me.”

  Charlie just nodded. Feeling a little shocked and queasy at the thought. He really wasn’t into all the violence and needed to get out of this world sooner rather than later. Bloody thugs.

  There looked to be about a grand to Charlie. It went into his back pocket. Charlie knew Carl gave him cash as a way of staying in control. He wanted to play the big boss. That was fine, he could do that. Charlie actually had plenty of money himself that he could use. Carl didn’t know that he earned upwards of £700 per day as an IT security consultant. But hey if someone wants to give you a grand, you take it. Right?

  Once Carl had shown Charlie out, he went back down to the den.

  “What do you think? Good news eh?” he asked Dan.

  “Who knows, hopefully it’s not a wild goose chase like Brighton. That was a fucking dog’s dinner. I think we underestimated that woman all along and look where it’s got us. Hopefully, this isn’t another false trail. We need that money.” Dan’s voice was raised.

  “I know babe, I know.” Carl said placing his huge arms around Dan’s boyish frame. He kissed him gently on the forehead.

  “We still gonna ditch him when we get the money right?” Dan asked hopefully.

  “Yes, we’re not sharing the cash.” Carl said shaking his head gently. “We’ve done the most work for it. We’re gonna move to somewhere warm and have an amazing life together.” Carl kissed Dan passionately on the lips.

>   Twelve years earlier Carl had made one simple mistake that led him to meet Dan in prison. Five full weeks after a robbery in Cardiff, he had been picked up by Police in Leeds. He had thought he was home and dry and enjoying the spoils of his riches. He was speeding. Not even going crazy, just 12 miles per hour over the speed limit and got stopped by an unmarked police car on the M62. Driving the five year old Bee Em 750i L (fully loaded) he’d bought a few weeks before. His Sat Nav’ was guiding him back to his new city centre apartment he’d just moved into with his, then girlfriend, Kirsty. The young police officer that came to his window was very good, he clearly clocked his face straight away but gave away nothing. Spoke very calmly to Carl about the speed he was going and asked the usual sort of stuff - was he aware of the speed limit, was he the registered keeper of the car, etc, etc. He even told Carl he wouldn’t keep him long before returning to his unmarked police car.

  As he went back to his car to do some ‘checks on the car and get the paperwork’, he was straight onto the radio. As Carl daydreamed about his upcoming holiday to the Maldives with Kirsty and whether or not to buy her a new car (was three months in too soon to buy your girlfriend an open top sports car?) two more unmarked police cars, this time with armed officers were flying up the M62 behind him.

  Carl was still thinking he was home and dry, waiting for a ticket and a slapped wrist. Little did he know, even in Leeds he was clearly a big target for them, they blocked him from behind first and by the time he was blocked at the side by another unmarked car in the slow lane, he was in the sights of two semi automatics. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the unmarked police car which was stopped at an angle in the slow lane that caused the fatal pile up, but the people on the other side looking over to see what was happening. One driver turned his head briefly to sneak a quick nosey, unaware the driver in front had slowed for a sly look too. As he turned his attention back and saw the car he was going to hit, the driver behind swerved at the last minute and fish tailed into another two cars then back across the three lanes and into the path of an articulated car transporter. The transporter jack knifed and shed a car from its top deck which wound its way onto the top of a green Ford Fiesta. It stopped it in its tracks and almost flattened it. The young couple inside were crushed to death. Blissfully unaware of what was about to hit them. They died instantly. Another ten were seriously injured.