It said that four people had been shot dead and three injured; one of the dead was a customer and the rest were staff. Two of the injured were also customers.
They suspected that it was a gang shooting over drugs but had no idea where Claudia was and didn’t seem to suspect her of anything. Accounts from the injured said that she’d been forcibly removed.
What am I going to do now? I suddenly felt like a coward. How many people were dead because of me? I might not have pulled the trigger but I’d been involved right from the start. If I’d stayed in London would this have happened? Was this connected? There was a possibility that this was completely unrelated but with Claudia missing it seemed too much of a coincidence.
Were they trying to find me? They didn’t know where I was and so why not run an advert in the paper? It worked. I saw it and it had an immediate effect.
I had to go back. I had to do what I could to find Claudia and do what I could to end it.
But how? The police; tell them everything? Go to see Ethan? I’m not sure which seemed worse to me.
I didn’t know what I was going to do but what I did know was that I was going back to London. I headed back to pack and check out, and two hours later I was sitting on a train heading towards Lancaster for my one change before I headed to London.
My head leaning on the cold glass of the window, I watched the fields glide by, my vision occasionally interrupted by passing bridges and small stations.
I wondered when or if I’d ever see the hills again. I had a feeling inside me like I’ve never had before: a dark, pervasive feeling of dread. I had no idea what was ahead of me but my gut knew I was going to London to die.
I tried to get my thoughts straight. I tried to understand what these events meant and how I should act to give myself the best chance. I’d become sloppy.
I’ve spent the past few years living on my own, using my wits to survive. Not trusting anyone I lived a relatively comfortable life with no commitments to people or things but now what?
I have friends, one missing because of me.
I have a flat that I rent. What about Patch? Was he next? Or his wife?
I’ve tried to build a life and for that I have put so many people at risk.
I felt a tickle on my cheek and realised that I was crying. All I wanted was to finally be normal. To have a home and some friends to spend time with; to call someone up and go for a coffee.
I don’t believe in fate but it was hard not to right now. I felt as though I was fated to be alone; that the first time I tried to change the nature of my existence the universe would stamp down hard on my attempt.
But that was ridiculous. In fact, it was all ridiculous. What possible reason could Ethan have had to involve me in this game?
This struck me as it hadn’t done before. I needed to know. If I was going to die and those around me were going to die then I needed to know why. I needed to understand what it was that motivated Ethan to single me out and to put so much effort into destroying my life.
I’ve tried to think of a reason. I’ve tried to remember any incident that might have put me against this person but over and over again I’ve come up with nothing.
It can’t be nothing. Something.
From this came a sense of purpose. I’ve come to realise that what people need in life is not money or fame or anything else really. All they need is purpose. Purpose drives us. It sets us objectives and lays down a road so that we can continue our journey.
This is now my purpose: find out why Ethan is doing what he is doing and stop it.
Step one, stay away from anyone and anything that is mine. Do not go back to the flat. Do not go to the club. Do not go and sit in Trafalgar Square. Do nothing that is familiar.
In other words, go back to what I knew. Find a hotel; grab myself a room and plan.
When the train from Lancaster finally arrived at Paddington I felt completely exposed. I started to feel that everyone was watching me and by the time I got off the Tube I was almost running scared.
An hour later I was sitting in a Marriott hotel room. It’s funny how the slightest thing can rekindle memories.
I’d paid for the room in advance with cash. Four days. I have no idea why four days; idiotically it seemed to be the optimistic thing to do.
However, although I’d paid for the room I still felt a knot of anxiety in my stomach whenever someone walked past; expecting a cleaner to find me blagging a free room.
I switched on the TV, lay on the bed, wishing I’d bought a sandwich or something, trying to relax and come up with some plan.
I have no idea what I’m doing.
***
Jeremiah was at a loss. He’d been given Matthew Hawk’s name and details to track down but up until now he’d pretty much drawn a blank.
No records, no driving licence, no family, no passport. This guy seemed to not exist anywhere.
All he could hope for at this point was that Matthew would make a mistake; somehow he would slip up and something would tag him to a location.
Jeremiah had surveillance on everywhere that Matthew normally went in London but that would do no good if he’d left.
The country was riddled with CCTV with facial recognition software but this was no good if the person stayed away from public areas and cities.
It was while he was contemplating his next move that his mobile pinged.
He reached into his pocket and drew it out. The message read:
“Acquired subject. Train from Lancaster arriving Paddington at 14:40.”
Trains were fitted with CCTV and the systems on board the trains were linked directly to the central police POLSAR unit. With the right contacts you could use the FACE-FINDER system to locate and track a person by their face.
Jeremiah had the right connections.
Finding him coming off the train was easy. He stood out like a sore thumb; nervous and twitchy, reacting to every sound and almost running towards the Tube.
His phoned pinged: “Tracking”.
Jeremiah relaxed and walked over to a coffee stand. Once you were inside London it was nearly impossible to hide if the right people were looking for you. CCTV cameras from stations, streets, ATMs, trains, buses, pretty much everywhere, were able to track and hand-off your location to the next.
He could simply wait until Matthew settled into a location and go to find him.
It was around 5pm when he received another message with the location of a hotel. The hotel’s system had checked him into room 523 at the Maida Vale Marriott Hotel; advance purchase, which meant a cash payment and no ability to order food on account.
This meant that he’d probably leave his room later to get some food.
Roche stood up and walked towards the Tube station.
When he arrived at the hotel, he checked in and requested a room on the fifth floor. He checked in with a credit card, and took a note of the make and model of key card generator they were using for the room keys.
“Would you like any help with your luggage, Mr Greyson?”
“No, thank you. I just have this,” replied Jeremiah, holding up a black briefcase.
He popped the fake credit card into his pocket and went up to his room.
Inside the room, Jeremiah placed the case onto the table and opened it; inside were some papers and some tools. One of the tools looked like a handheld Point of Sales device, much like you’d use to pay by card in a shop.
However, this one had a different purpose. He switched on the machine and an LCD panel illuminated. Running through some menus on the device, Jeremiah entered the manufacturer’s code for the card configuration system and then entered the number of Matthew Hawk’s room.
The machine asked for a cloning card and Jeremiah slipped his own room card into the machine. The card
read the details on the card and then asked for a target card. He slipped a blank card into the machine, entered 523 onto the keypad and pressed the green ‘OK’ button. A few seconds later and the card was spat out of the machine, ready to go.
Next, he laid out some tools and mentally checked them off his list; all present, so he wrapped them into a cloth bag, picked it up along with the new card and left the room.
He walked the length of the corridor and positioned himself near the ice machine. It was a good position as it wasn’t unusual to see random guests in this area. From here he also had a clear view of Matthew’s room, so he waited.
Jeremiah was good at waiting.
***
I should have bought a sandwich.
I was starving.
I was so nervous on my journey here, even the thought of food made me feel sick. But now, lying on the bed watching TV, all I could think about was food and the noises coming from my empty stomach.
The bottle of water I was drinking to help take the edge off the hunger seemed to only make things worse and the thought of nothing to eat until tomorrow was driving me nuts.
Finally, around 5pm, an advert came on TV for McDonald’s and my stomach growled.
That was it. If a McDonald’s burger was starting to look like food then this hunger thing was making me delusional. I needed to go out to get something to eat.
I decided that the safest option was to get something that I could carry back to the room so that I wasn’t exposed for too long, so I gathered up some cash, grabbed my room key and headed for the door.
When I opened the door I noticed the ‘Do Not Disturb’ notice hanging from the inside handle. I plucked it off and hung it on the outside; it might stop someone coming in to change towels or whatever and I didn’t want anyone coming into the room.
I pulled the door shut and tried the handle to make sure it had locked. Satisfied that it was locked, I turned to walk down the corridor towards the lifts.
Further down the corridor I saw an older guy reading the notice on the ice machine. As I approached he turned to smile at me and I returned the smile and carried on walking. Oddly, I registered as I passed him that he seemed to smell of coconut.
At the lifts I chose the down button. I glanced back towards the ice machine and saw that the man had gone.
Eventually the lift arrived and I headed downstairs and out, looking for the closest place to get food.
***
Jeremiah watched Matthew walk down towards the lift and, satisfied that he wasn’t coming back, slipped along the corridor and used the card he had made to open Matthew’s door.
Inside the room he switched on the light and took stock of what was there.
Mentally calculating the amount of time that he had, Jeremiah placed a black case on the bed and opened it. Inside were, amongst some other things, a selection of small tools.
He selected a few tools and went over to the main door. Kneeling before the lock he carefully unscrewed the outer casing and the door handle. Inside was another cover with three screws which he also removed.
The door had a thumb-screw deadlock, which a person could turn to engage a bolt to prevent anyone with a card from opening the door.
Jeremiah intended to disable this in such a way that it would still appear to work; he had no intention of alerting Matthew to the fact that someone had tampered with his room.
Inside the mechanism was a small cog that fitted into a metal bar with some teeth along one edge. As you turned the thumb-screw knob the cog rotated and slid the bolt out of the door and into the door jamb.
Jeremiah slid a screwdriver into the recess and lifted the bolt off the cog. He slid the bolt further into the door and rested it back down onto the cog.
Now, when Matthew rotated the cog, the bolt would slide across the gap between the door and the jamb but would stop just shy of the jamb.
He reassembled the mechanism and tested the bolt. Turning the bolt made it bridge the gap so that he could see the bolt in the gap. However, it didn’t actually go into the recess in the jamb so it was effectively useless.
Next he stood up and checked the door chain. The chain was mounted to the door jamb with the receiver slider on the door.
Matthew was sure to engage the chain and so Jeremiah had to render it useless.
Using a screwdriver he undid the chain from the jamb. It was held in place by two wood screws. He took a small battery-operated drill and drilled out the two screw holes so that they were now too big to grip the screws. He was careful to remove the drilled-out wood shavings and dust that fell.
Taking some toilet tissue and wetting it under the tap, Jeremiah then rolled some into a ball and pushed it into the holes.
Then he screwed the chain back into place, the screws biting into the wet paper and holding it in place. Applying pressure to the outside of the door would pull the screws, held only by the damp paper, out of the door jamb but should look normal when securing.
Finally, he placed a small transmitter bug on the back of a bedside lamp so that he could hear what was going on in the bedroom. It was a sensitive bug, capable of picking up wide-frequency sounds and it was near the bed.
Jeremiah then put everything back as it was, made sure he had cleaned up any mess and quietly slipped out.
Nothing else to do for now but wait.
***
I’ve never felt more vulnerable. Every car horn, every person looking at me, the slightest jolt at a crossing and I jumped as if someone was looking at me or trying to grab me.
I scanned the area for somewhere to get something to eat. I was beginning to think this was a terrible idea; that maybe I should have just stayed hungry in my room. Was there a vending machine in the hotel? Too late now. Now I just had to find something to eat and get back to the relative safety of my room.
After about ten minutes of walking I saw a shop sign with a ‘LOTTO’ advertisement outside. This was perfect. A small independent corner shop which usually sold sandwiches, drinks and chocolate. I went inside.
Towards the rear of the shop was a refrigerated display unit carrying various sorts of ready-to-eat food, from sandwiches to pasties and pies, wraps, cheese and salads.
The salads looked old and limp and so I settled on a pack of sandwiches and some mini-pies. Next I grabbed a couple of packets of crisps and a couple of Peperami, a chocolate bar, two bottles of Ribena and a bottle of water.
I took them to the front of the store and placed them on the counter.
A bearded Asian man with a small white hat greeted me and asked if I wanted anything else. Behind him were bottles of alcohol and cigarettes. It struck me that I’d never drank much alcohol and I’d never smoked. Given that I would probably be dead by Thursday, I wondered if my concern over my health was misplaced but I nevertheless resisted the sudden urge to try any of it. It would probably be better to keep a clear head anyway.
I paid the man for the stuff and, carrying it all in a plastic bag, I hurried back to the hotel.
Once inside my room I quickly shut the door, turned the thumb-bolt to deadlock it and fitted the chain. I started to feel a bit safer but suddenly the thought crossed my mind: What if someone had come in while I was out? What if that person was hiding in my room? I might have just locked myself in with my killer.
Without trying to think too much, I opened the wardrobe doors, checked the bathroom and tried to check under the bed, only to find it was one of those solid beds that reached the floor.
At least I was alone.
From the bathroom I took a towel and put it at the base of the door. Now no one could see if my light was on and I closed the privacy shutter over my spy-hole.
I was just starting to feel a bit more relaxed when the thought struck me: What if housekeeping wanted to come in? What if they needed to do a
turn-down service or something? I didn’t want to open the door to anyone and so I decided to put the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign outside again.
Checking that the coast was clear through the spy-hole, I quickly opened the door, hung the sign and almost slammed it shut. I was so jumpy I could feel my heart racing.
I re-engaged the chain and thumbed the bolt.
It didn’t feel like it was enough but I put the towel along the bottom of the door and climbed onto the bed.
After a few minutes I started to calm down. Nothing had happened. I was being paranoid.
I didn’t know what my next move was going to be but for today, this was enough.
Chicken sandwiches and some TV seemed the best option and so I switched the TV on and found myself watching an old episode of Murder She Wrote.
Whether it was the quaint nature of the programme or whether it was having something to eat that helped but I started feeling better.
I spent the rest of the evening watching TV and by ten o’clock I could feel my eyes itching. Time to try to sleep.
I switched off the TV, turned off the lights and lay down under the covers.
Despite feeling anxious lying in the dark, the bed was warm and soft and I was very tired. I felt myself drift off to sleep.
***
Jeremiah was listening carefully. Up until ten minutes ago he’d been reading a book but now his attention was turned to the noise coming from the earpiece in his left ear.
Jeremiah had well-trained hearing and he’d been listening to the noises coming from Matthew’s room.
When the TV went off and the shuffling subsided he’d been listening to Matthew’s breathing. With the correct training you could tell by someone’s breathing which stage of sleep a person was in.
Theta sleep allowed a person to become susceptible to certain hypnotic suggestions if done correctly but Jeremiah was leaving nothing to chance. Delta sleep was the stage he was waiting for, when Matthew would be in the deepest state of sleep and least sensitive to noise and disturbance.
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