by Beau Johnson
Chapter 1
I drop from the window and land in the freshest dog turd north of Carlisle. My new, but somewhat distressed, loafers soak up some juice and the tread accepts the new filling. I want to curse, but silence is needed. Silence is demanded. I trail my non-excrement-laden shoe across the small flower border. A lawn, dark in the moonlight, stretches out before me. I can’t see the far end in the gloom. To be fair I couldn’t have seen the far end in the noonday sun with a pair of binoculars and Google maps open on my iPhone. This is not a lawn cut by a fifty quid Flymo from B&Q. It is one that requires the services of a top of the range John Deere industrial grade tractor and cutting set. I have visions of dropping the turd laying dog into the blades and starting it up.
I scrape the dog dirt shoe across the lawn in a lame attempt to rid me of the worst of the, now smelling, mess. Knocking the crust off one is never a good mood enhancer. This one seems to release the sort of scent that suggests the dog has a regular evening diet of meat vindaloo, eight cans of Special Brew and a fully loaded kebab. Either that or terminal colon cancer.
I rub the shoe a little more, this time at angle, but time is not a friend. Escaping from a window is not a method chosen by those with hours to spare. I move to my left, keeping the side of the enormous house close at hand.
I say ‘house’, but the house is a house in the same way that Cunard liners are considered rowing boats. As one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in Scotland it has little in common with what I called home other than it sports the required walls, roof, windows and other basic necessities.
I know the risk I’m taking. My heart is reminding me one hundred and thirty times a minute. I scuttle along, waiting on the beam of a searchlight or the sound of a siren. It is not inconceivable that, at this moment, a pack of slobbering Rottweilers are sniffing my spare underpants and being given instructions to seek, kill and then eat. As to the probable appearance of heavyweight armoury, well, that is as likely as the dogs. Maybe a manhunt with me as the live bait. I shit you not. This is not mad imagination running away with itself. This is all based on the most likely of reactions when the owners of the pile establish what I’ve just done.
I reach a corner, not the corner, of the house, for this house has many corners. Too many to dick around with. At some point, I need to cut loose and make a break for it. However, given the scale of the openness surrounding me, I need to choose my moment. The nearest road is five miles away and public transport from here to the road is strictly for paying guests at the weekend. For the sake of clarity, the estate owns its own London Routemaster for the convenience of the public. No cars are allowed in and the public only gain access because of the enormous tax burden that would ensue were the house not a visitor attraction. I should know; I worked out all the tax kinks.
Gravel is next. And gravel is a noisy bastard. It may reek of upper class wealth and sound wonderful under the tyres of a newly minted Range Rover, but it doesn’t make for a quiet getaway. There is no silent way to walk on the stuff. If you slow down it just advertises the fact that you have slowed down. Speed up and it telegraphs the increase in velocity. It is also non-skirtable. The stones are a moat to a castle. At a minimum, a hundred yards wide. At the maximum, twice that.
I have no intention of walking the five miles to the gate, partly because there is a further twelve miles of single-track road to negotiate beyond. Partly because I have an aversion to walking that delayed my first steps until I was four years old. (I sometimes wish I had kept up with the crawling.) But in the main I won’t get five miles. The security around here will pick me up in less than a quarter of that. I may have got lucky with the window, but the motion detectors are relentless around here. My only option is to steal a car from the eight-car garage that looks lost next to the south wing of the house. Even that’s a long shot, but having now done what I have done—I have no choice.
I was once, many years back, faced with the choice of run, die or fight back. I have lost the latter option, unless I fancy fighting fire with something that isn’t even close to fire, a match at my end while the others are playing with Vietnam issue flamethrowers. And I’d rather run than die.
The garage is a brick faced work of art lying near the mansion’s main door. It would serve as a luxury example of residency in any city suburb and hold up its end well. All the doors are automatic, all the doors are alarmed, and none of the metal that sits behind the solid oak barriers has a price tag south of six figures. The lack of car keys is a bit of a hindrance. The lack of remote controls for the doors in front of me is also an issue. The noise when I fire up a car won’t help, either—it’ll echo around the courtyard, that forms the sweeping entrance to the house, with the sort of volume that would wake a dead whale. All in all, this is not a plan that is, in any way, connected to what a dictionary would describe as a plan. The odds against me succeeding are greater than Pelé making a shock return to football to play with Albion Rovers.
I place my non-caked foot on the driveway and wince at the sound. I take a second step and cringe. A third and I’m scanning the world for signs of life. Step by step I make a crow look wayward as I crunch my way to the garage.
I try and keep my mind on the task at hand. With the threat of a bullet up the backside, or worse, it should be easy, but it isn’t. A few years ago, after a major brush with the crime world, I vowed never to get involved in anything more exciting than a stag night, if said stag night was held at a monastery, was booze-free and had me as the sole attendee. I had promised in more ways than I thought possible that I would spend the rest of my accountancy days in dull, number land. For the last six years I had aged poorly and added little to my bank balance. My job had vanished, only to be born again when an old friend had called me and asked if I could help with his tax. Without the regular, if not substantial, salary afforded me by my previous employers—Cheedle, Baker and Nudge—I negotiated a rate and undersold myself. I found the job less than demanding and…
The call of an owl takes me back to the reality of my current world. The garage in front of me has the appearance of a small castle. At some point in the not too distant past, the owners of the house had grown tired of parking their cars in the open. With each lump of metal costing a small semi in Simshill it was unthinkable that the elements would be allowed to tarnish the unblemished paintwork.
A crenelated wall tops the building, with the eight doors evenly spaced beneath. The doors are double-fronted and each swings open at the touch a remote. Inside is a slab of concrete the size of four tennis pitches. The cars will be lined up against the back wall, tail in—it seems there is less risk of an accident when you exit if you park that way. At least that’s what I’d been told last night.
At the far end of the garage, just visible in the light of a quarter moon, is a door for the humans to enter by. Earlier that night I had seen it used on a frequent basis. I was praying that, in the fug of the party, no one had remembered to lock it. A small pile of cigarette butts lies next to it, guarded by a collection of beer and champagne bottles. I flick a look at my ancient iPhone and need to get a shift on.
The door handle is cold in my hand. It’s round, smooth, golden, with a button in the middle that, if depressed, will pop the lock. If it doesn’t depress then I’m on Shanks’s pony and, in all honesty, dead.
I place my forefinger on the button and rub it, circling the indent in the metal where the button meets the handle. I put some pressure on and back off. I don’t want a negative. I want the damn thing just to press in. I look at the house door, still, silent, solid. I check the lower windows and all is dark. I check the rows above and still no light. I scan the skylights and a dim glow burns behind a curtain. I stop moving and lock my eyes on the light. I wait to see movement, shadows, or any sign that someone is up. I sigh with relief when the faintest sound of a flushing toilet brushes my ears. I see the light flick out as the last of the flush from the toilet drifts away.
I take the count in my head up to twe
nty and, without conscious thought, press the button. It depresses with a satisfying click - and I thank the God of small buttons. I go on to say a prayer to the God of car keys, remote controls, quiet driveways, open gates and any other deity that can help me put distance between my current location and one that’s a lot safer. Although I’ll never be safe, not with what I now know. Not ever.
Chapter 2
The door opens with the silence that quality commands. As I step in, the sensor on the ceiling says hi and the lights fire up. I close the door and let the overhead lighting kick into top gear. I survey the contents and wonder if my non-existent plan is now a ‘never was in a million turns of the earth’ plan. None of the cars are high enough off the floor to qualify for family car status. In colour order we have red, blue, silver, black, yellow (with black stripe), black, white and silver again. This description does them a disservice; I’m sure the brochures have none of the preceding words in them. The first, a Lamborghini, is not so much ‘red’ as ‘heart of the sun’, reflective, iridescent, diamond-studded, eighteen-coated, royal blood red. The next, a Maserati, is the sort of blue that would make a clear day above the Pacific blush at its inadequacy. Each car is polished to a level that would beat the day they left the showroom. The garage is rich with the smell of wax, leather, wood and a subtle undertone of superior grade unleaded. This is what money smells like if you’re a petrol head.
As I scan for my getaway vehicle my head takes a road trip again. After my first self-employed tax job I found work easy to come by, but hard to charge for. My advice was solid, but lacked flair. My clients had tax returns that took minutes to complete. I wanted the sort that took months. Those pay better. I built up a roster of thirty individuals who couldn’t figure out they needed to fill out less than ten per cent of the paperwork the government so kindly supplied on the Internet. Twelve of my clients didn’t have access to the Internet, three of them didn’t have mobiles and one, dear old Mrs Calgary, had not left the nineteenth century—and was bloody happy with her lot.
Of course, tax is limiting. For one thing, it only has to be done once a year unless you’re in danger of going to prison or earn more than a small Arab state. Doing small company accounts brought in the added revenue I needed. This made me nervous. Small companies can be run by people who have no desire to play by the allotted rules. Money in. No money out. It’s a great mantra, but carries with it a certain degree of ‘Fuck You-ism’ about life. I was required to turn a blind eye to certain dealings by more companies than made me comfortable, and more often than made for a good night’s sleep.
My real issue, and it is an issue, is that I am good at this crap. Better than my clients think and far better than my status suggests.
The lights above me die and I wave my hands to tell the technology I’m still in need of illumination. The magic works and light returns. I survey the available automobiles once more. Discreet and bland is what I want. What I have is loud and attention-seeking. Just like their owner. There’s a not a single car in here that wouldn’t draw a crowd if parked up in George Square.
I look on the plus side. Any one of them will make a hell of a getaway car. None of them will struggle to break one eighty and they can, to a car, pass sixty from a standing start before I could down a small whisky. I’d been told that all were alarmed to the teeth and that the keys reside in a locked cabinet on the hall wall.
Phil, the house’s owner, had made it clear that no night-time revellers were to try a fucking midnight spin. Under normal circumstances this would have been enough, a warning that, if disobeyed, would involve the loss of a toe, finger or worse, but his fears were well-founded. There was no end of cons and ex-cons with break-in skills at the party, any one of whom would happily crack the locked cabinet. And Phil’s flight tickets to a long term stay in a foreign land were five hours in the future and, mistakenly, some took that as a sign to play.
During the night I’d kept my distance from the garage, but I had seen enough people take metal for a turn down the driveway to realise that Phil’s security had been breached. Phil had been oblivious to this. He had been oblivious to most of the world an hour after he had welcomed the last guest in. A combination of Jack Daniel’s and cocaine, in quantities designed to celebrate the leaving of his homeland, had rendered him senseless for the rest of the night. I was now praying someone had left a car unlocked or a key lying around.
The garage floor keeps up the party theme that I left in the house. Bottles lie scattered like pins at a bowling alley and joints outnumber cigarette ends five to one. Gravel, sprayed across the doorways, signals that the cars had been in play, although the vehicles look none the worse for wear. Even with Phil lying comatose on his bed the guests knew better than to take the real piss.
If this was Top Gear, Clarkson would be creaming his ill-fitting jeans to the brim. Even as luxury cars go this is up there. None are the base models; all are fully loaded and all are specials. At least that’s what I had been told. My crusty old Toyota Avensis was so embarrassing that I often sprung for a taxi before arriving at a clients.
The urge to get moving is high and I don’t care about the dollar value of the cars, nor the kudos, nor the bragging rights, nor the testosterone quotient. I have two desires—a key in the ignition and a remote for the doors.
The first car is locked solid and the lack of gravel in front suggests it was not involved in the festivities. The second is also locked, but a pair of bright red panties nestle in the leather driver’s seat, pointing to some in-car entertainment. The third is shut tight, as is the fourth.
As I check the doors I keep one eye on the entrance. At best, I could duck down if someone came in, although all the cars seem to have been designed to make hiding all but an impossibility. Even to see in the windows you have to bow so low you could be practicing for meeting the Japanese Emperor. Of course, this is deliberate. It plays to the owner’s ego to see someone bent double trying to figure out what all the toys inside the car do. The fact you can look a twat and a half getting into the damn thing is not a consideration worthy of a moment’s attention to the designers. Drag coefficient, looks and performance are far more important than ease of use and comfort. Buy a twenty-five-grand cross-over from one of the mainstream boys, if you want practicality.
The fifth car holds promise. For a start, it’s the only car parked close to the doors, suggesting some haste in its return. I had heard that Phil had roused for ten minutes to top up the cocaine and Jack, during which time he had enquired after the health of his fleet. Fearing a visit was on the cards word had spread to the joyriders with speed. All had returned the cars to their home triple quick.
I pull at the car’s handle and the door swings open, bringing a slice of roof with it. A logo jumps out at me: Ford. Not what I had expected. An aroma rises from the car. Alcohol induced vomiting has a universal fragrance. The offending pool lies behind the passenger seat. I check the other cars, but the Ford is the only one good to go. Not only is it open but the key, replete with door remote, is on show.
I look around for something to scoop out the sick, but the thought of touching it, even with a twenty-foot clothes pole, isn’t appealing. A bucket full to the brim with chamois leathers lies at the back wall. I chuck the leathers behind the back seat, across the vomit, and release half a can of spray wax that was lying at the bottom of the bucket. The new smell is eye-watering. I make a mental note that the contents of someone’s stomach and ‘Supreme Wax Shine’ should never be brought into contact without the presence of a gas mask. A strange green mist now hovers a few inches above the car’s floor.
I’m running out of time. I have to be. I swallow fresh air and get in, leaving the door open a fraction. I do the key thing and the noise from under the bonnet has more in common with a space shuttle launch than a car engine firing up, as it erupts. I remove my foot from the accelerator and it quietens to a mild earthquake. I point the remote at the doors and they begin to swing out. Their pace is set to impress—slow
, careful, deliberate. I should have kept the engine off until there was a gap wide enough to pass through.
The house appears in the crack between the doors. Window by window the building is revealed. Lights out is all I care about. With the doors nearing ninety degrees to the garage I plant my foot on the clutch and find first. I give the car as little petrol as I dare and ease off the clutch. She stalls. I re-fire her and wince at the sound. This time I keep the revs up and she noses out, announcing her arrival somewhere far too high up the decibel scale for my liking. The crunching gravel is not an issue. Ford have inserted an engine that is happy to cover up such trivial sounds.
Trying not to stall her again I edge onto the driveway. I close the car door, and this helps to intensify the vomit/wax smell. I gag. I’m close to making a spew sandwich with the wax and chamois leathers as the meat. I remember to hit the remote to close the door behind me. If, by some miracle, no one has awoken, then the sight of all the doors being closed might hold off any investigation for a while—and I need all the time I can get.
A floodlight that would light Hampden Park explodes into life and I place my foot down, hard.
Chapter 3
The Ford lays down its brake horsepower and turns the rear wheels into weapons. Gravel spits out at high speed and the car goes nowhere just as quickly. Over the roar of the engine I hear glass break. I’m spraying the front of the house with high velocity pebbles. Some are window killers. The car rids itself of the gravel and hits pay dirt. The oversized tyres stop spitting and grab. I’m kicked in the guts by an invisible sucker punch as we launch into the night.
The wheels eat more gravel and I turn the car into a stone flinging machine gun. Then the car gets down to what it’s good at and hands me all the nought to sixty power it has under the bonnet.