"Yeah, I'll hopefully not be too late, my love. If I can't manage to change the wheel, I think there's a garage down the road from work or near this common. Speak later. Love-"
"I said, put da phone down!" said the voice again, more aggressively.
The phone was smacked out of Michael's hand and hit the ground.
13. RESOURCEFUL
Rebecca sat on the sofa, in the flat she shared in Luxor Street with her boyfriend, Michael. Her knees were nestled up close to her chest and her two phones were tight in her grasp: her work iPhone and her personal Samsung. Her MacBook Pro was open and split with her Hotmail and her work Outlook Express setup. Her mascara was smeared slightly from her eyes down her cheeks. She had been crying and she was still sniffing. Her thumb scrolled to the name 'Mikey' on her iPhone and she brought the phone to her ear. It beeped and went straight to the automatic default voicemail.
"Hi, my love. It's gone seven, nearly eight and I'm wondering where you are. I've emailed you and can't get through to that or your phone. Just worried, that's all. I don't think you said you were going out tonight. Love you."
She hung up the call and lowered the phone. She wiped a fresh tear from her left cheek with the back of her hand.
She heard a car engine outside. Rebecca straightened and peeped out of the window to a see a dark-coloured Audi. She then noticed a dark blue transit van had pulled up behind the Audi. The windows of both vehicles were too dark to see anyone inside. She shrugged, disappointed by the view. She'd been hoping it was going to be Michael's silver VW Golf. She took her Samsung and scrolled through to another set of names.
A ring sounded out. It was quite loud and was instantly answered.
"Hello Bec, how are you!" came the familiar voice of Michael's father.
"I don't know really. I'm a bit concerned as Mike's not come home from work yet," replied Rebecca, holding back tears. Her hand was trembling.
"He hasn't? Blimey, he's late. OK, did he say he was going out at all?" asked Edward, calmly.
"No. He would have texted me or called or emailed. I know sometimes his phone signal dips in and out, but he'd always manage to get through to me if that ever happened. I'm - I'm worried that something's happened and I can't help thinking he's..." she blubbed, releasing a flood of tears, unable to fight them back any longer. She clutched a paper tissue and brought it to her nose, wiping it.
"It's OK, don't cry. I'm sure he's fine. Don't cry, Rebecca. When was the last time you spoke or had word from Mike?" Edward asked her.
"He - he called me when he was on his way home, saying he had a flat tyre," Rebecca answered, trying to compose herself.
"And what time was that, do you think? Do you remember?" Michael's father held the phone tight against his ear, entered his living room and sat at the wooden dining table. He flipped open an A4 notepad and reached for a ballpoint pen.
Michael's mother, Violet, looked up from the leather Chesterfield sofa, concerned.
"What's wrong? Are they OK? Tell me they haven't broken up!" she said, frantically, receiving a wave of Edward's hand, signaling her to be quiet as he made a face at her, mouthing the words, "No, shut up."
"Mike called me at three forty-nine this afternoon," Rebecca sniffled.
'15:49 - called Rebecca Samson (live-in girlfriend),' Edward jotted down fast upon the notepad. "What time does he leave work?" he asked.
"Sometimes he can get away at half three, but I think his normal time to finish is three forty-five," Rebecca said.
'15:45 - leaves work (Plumstead),' Edward wrote. "That's right, I remember now. So, did he say to you where he was when he called to tell you about the tyre?"
"He left a message on my phone, so I - I didn't get to speak with him." Rebecca started to sob again, breathing with quick jerky breaths, almost hiccup-like.
"Rebecca, it's OK. You're OK, Rebecca. You're calm, you're doing fine," Edward said to her down the line as Violet got up from the sofa, rounded the dining table and, pulling out a chair from underneath, sat next to her husband.
She eyed the notes written on the pad and wondered what was going on.
"He - Mike said he was going to go to a garage near a common where he was at. I don't know - I..."
"Do you still have the message on your phone?" Edward asked coolly.
"Yes. It's saved. I have it," Rebecca answered.
"Good. Now, did you hear anything else in the background of the message at all, Rebecca? An unusual sound, another person's voice, traffic noises?"
"I - I heard a car beeping and I think someone else's voice, but it was quite faint. I - I don't know." She felt as though she had failed with her not knowing. Rebecca really disliked failure. Sure, nobody does, but her especially. She was a winner, whether at work or playing a board game. She did her best and her best was to win and succeed.
"That's fine. Thank you. You're doing great, Rebecca. You're really good. Now, keep your phone charged and what I'll do, I'll make a few calls and Violet or myself will call you in a short while, all right?"
"Yes," Rebecca said, composing herself once more.
"Do you have any wine at home?" Edward asked.
"Erm, yes, yes. Half a bottle, surprisingly," she replied, caught slightly off-guard.
"Haha, well, you get yourself a glass, make sure your phone isn't on silent mode and plug the charger in now if it's nearby. Is the charger near you?" Edward asked her.
Rebecca turned her attention to the iPhone charging lead which rested on the arm of the sofa and pulled it to her iPhone. She inserted it into the bottom of the phone.
Bleep. The iPhone began to charge.
"Yes. It's charging now," Rebecca informed Edward, Michael's patient, caring and highly professional father.
"Great. OK, don't leave the house, make sure you eat and don't answer the door to anyone," Edward softly commanded.
"OK."
"Speak to you later, Rebecca. Don't worry. Love to you. Love to you. Bye."
"Bye," she replied, laying her charging phone on the arm of the sofa. She sniffed and wiped her eyes and nose.
Edward placed his Nokia mobile phone on the wooden dining table, next to the notepad and jotted down another piece of information.
'Sounds on message: 1) Car horn. 2) Person(s).'
"What's happening, Ed?" Violet asked.
"Hold on, wait a minute," Edward replied as he continued to write further notes. 'Flat tyre: near a Common? May go to a garage nearby.'
"Right. Rebecca said that Mike's not arrived home yet. She's very upset and concerned."
"Well, of course. He should be home by now," Violet stated, looking at and reading Edward's notes.
"Don't use the phone and if anyone calls, can you be quick to let them go, please?" Edward requested.
"Of course. Of course. What are you going to do?"
"I'll give Geoff a call first and then I'll pop down to Simon's."
"Don't you think you should call Carolyn?" Violet said.
"Oh no! Not yet. I don't think it'll get to that. Goodness me! First things first, Vi. That's the last thing to do. Crikey," he blurted.
"Oh, sorry. I just-" Violet humbly replied.
"It's all right," he said, retrieving his pad and mobile phone.
He stood up and passed his wife, who suddenly began to sob. Edward turned and lowered himself to put an arm around her, kissing her cheek. "Hey, it'll be all right. Make some ginger tea, eh?" he said, comforting his nearest and dearest. His most cherished for nearing forty years.
She nodded her head. "I can't help it. He's-"
"Sshh. It's all right. I'm going to phone Geoff in the other room," Edward finished and headed off.
"Edward! How are things?" answered Geoff. The tall, large-framed white man was slumped in a leather armchair in his living room, with a laptop on his big, bare thighs and his legs stretched out. He rested on the extended foot and leg rest that flipped out from the base of the chair. Geoff was in his late fifties and was wearing shorts and a West
Ham football shirt. His mobile phone was in one hand. He muted the television.
"'Allo Geoffrey. Hope I'm not disturbing you," responded Edward, on the end of the line.
"Of course you are, Edward. You interrupted my surfing the net for hot babes and watching mindless Jason Statham films. Course not, what's up?" Geoff quirkily replied.
"Right, I just had a call from a very upset young lady."
"Blimey, what have you been up to?" Geoff joked.
"The young lady is our Mike's girlfriend, Rebecca," Edward explained.
"Right. Go on." Geoff took on a more serious tone.
"Mike's not arrived home yet and it's just gone eight o'clock."
"What time does he usually get home each day?" Geoff asked.
"A little before five."
"Let's say five, then. And when does the youngster leave work in darkest Plumstead?" Geoff inquired.
"Quarter to four," Edward said. "He called his girlfriend four minutes after leaving work saying he had a flat tyre. Said he was near a Common. What would that be Woolwich or Plumstead Common, Geoff?" Edward asked, his own voice now expressing slight concern.
"Mm, left his work at three forty-five, made a call at three forty-nine - four minute drive, taking into account traffic - more likely Plumstead Common, Winn Common, around there," calculated Geoff.
"Yeah, I thought so, too."
"Give me Michael's car reg and leave it with me," Geoff commanded Edward, who reeled off the details and then ended the call.
It was at four twenty-one that afternoon when a uniformed police patrol vehicle drove down Winn Common Road, the very road where Michael had discovered his flat tyre. The police vehicle swirled its blue lights as it pulled into the layby and in front of Michael's parked car.
Three white children, from ten to thirteen years of age, ran across part of the Common, heading for some residential flats as the two male police officers exited their car and walked towards Michael's VW Golf.
Two other kids were inside the car with the passenger door and driver's door wide open. The kids looked up to see the officers approaching.
One was a teenage girl, fifteen, mixed race, full make-up. She sat on the back seat, resting her elbows on the headrests of the driver and passenger seats. She widened her eyes, as did the white boy of seventeen trying to remove the car stereo with a screwdriver and making a real mess of the dashboard.
"Are you the owner of this car, mate?" asked the officer, standing by the driver's side, on the paved area.
"Nah, it's my mate's, init," scowled the young man, sighing, yet he continued to do his best to pull the radio out.
"What's your mate's name then?" asked the police officer.
"What? Oh, I dunno his real name, init."
"Do you want to describe him for me?" the officer asked.
"What?"
"I knew we'd get busted by Feds," the girl complained.
"Shut up, man!" the young man snapped.
"Your mate who owns the car. What does he look like?" asked the officer, patiently but firmly.
"He's er - tall. Like a man. He's hench. Black, yeah."
"What's hench?" asked the officer, which caused the girl to giggle, immaturely.
The young man smirked. "Hench. You know, big init. Shit, man," he said as he tossed the screwdriver to the floor of the passenger side and looked at the officer. He then glanced through the windscreen at the other policeman in front of the car.
He was speaking into his radio. "Do you want to step outside the car, please? And you, love. Come on," the officer commanded.
"I have a registration to a silver Volkswagen Golf," said the second officer, speaking into his radio, eyeing the number plate of Michael's car.
The young man clambered out of the car, along with the girl who clambered through the centre between the driver and passenger seats instead of flipping the seat forward and getting out that way, the normal way. They straightened, annoyed they were interrupted, especially by coppers.
"Look, the car door was open, yeah. Nobody was around yeah, like for ages, yeah, so I took my opportunity init."
"What's your name?"
"Hello Geoffrey. What's the update?" asked Edward, sitting in an office-type room that housed a desk and a standalone PC with a landline telephone.
"At 16:23 two uniforms called in a check on a plate which came back as Michael's car," Geoff informed him from his comfortable, reclining armchair, reading from his own A5 notepad.
"OK. Go on."
"His car was on Winn Common Road, in a layby and was having its stereo removed by a couple of teenagers. They've put a 'Police Aware' notice on the windscreen of the car."
"Right. Any report of Mike?"
"Hold on, I'm not finished with the car yet," Geoff replied.
It was 18:07 and the grass of Winn Common was being churned up by dirty swirling circles from tyre tread marks from a silver-coloured Volkswagen Golf. It slid this way and that. It was Michael's car and the driver was a spotty, white, sickly-looking fifteen-year-old boy, tracksuit clad and with three equally pasty-faced youths inside. He crunched the clutch dreadfully, shifting through the gears awfully as he drove the car over the grass and towards a mass of bushes.
"Shit!"
"Ah man!"
The youth struggled to control the vehicle and tried to steer. He grappled the wheel as if he had caught a Great White shark with a regular fishing rod on the back of a tiny rowing boat.
The car slammed into the undergrowth and suddenly sank into the ground, due to the dip on the bomb-crater-like part of the Common.
The youths jerked forward and winced with pain.
The driver's head whipped forward and his forehead made contact with the steering column. The rear passengers were flung into the front seats and headrests.
Their shoulders smacked one side, really hard.
The front passenger, bizarrely, was the only one with a seatbelt on, which locked the moment the front of the car hit the low level ground that forced it to a sudden stop.
It was 18:26 and the bright blue lights of a fire engine swirled around fast, accompanying its siren, as it headed down Winn Common Road to where a silver Volkswagen Golf burned amongst the mass of bushes in the large dip of the Common. It was Michael's car and it was on fire: a fire that burned ferociously.
The fire spread to the petrol tank.
BOOM!
The silver Volkswagen Golf exploded into a ball of flame and continued to burn as the fire engine closed in.
"It was at 18:18 when a sixty-one-year-old Tibetan woman telephoned for a fire engine to put out a burning car. Once the fire had been put out, the reg came back as Michael's," continued Geoff, speaking on the telephone to Edward, who was nodding as he sat at the desk in the office-type room.
"Still no sign of Michael?" asked Edward.
"No. It is possible that he went to a garage and when he came back, the car was being broken into. I mean, it's wise not to get involved with kids round there," Geoff posited, trying to come up with a plausible scenario.
"Yeah, but the police station is just down the road from where he left the car. He would have gone inside and mentioned his police connections. Any report of that at all?"
"Nothing, Edward, no. Listen, I'll put a call out and description and have it attached to the pick-up of the yobs who the uniforms took in earlier on, as well as the car fire call. It's likely your boy's phone battery has died and he's on the bus home," Geoff said, in a comforting manner.
"Maybe, Geoffrey, but Mike would get a taxi or get in touch with me. OK, I'll wait for you to call if you hear anything more and I'll give his girlfriend a ring to see if she's heard from him. Thanks Geoff."
"No problem. Keep me posted, Edward."
"Will do. Cheerio, Geoffrey," Edward hung up the landline phone. He sighed and closed his eyes briefly, tightening his mouth, thinking, biting his lower lip as he stared into space. He turned to the door to see a worried-faced Violet in the doorway.
"Where is he?"
"I'm going to call Rebecca to see if he's home," Edward announced, taking up his mobile phone again. However, it buzzed in his hand, signaling the name. "Geoff?"
"Just been told that the chav kid who was trying to nick your boy's car stereo is still in custody," said Geoff on the other line.
"Oh right," replied Edward.
"D'you want me to put a word in to keep him overnight?"
"Oh, yes please."
"Will do. Bye Edward," Geoff said, hanging up the phone.
"Nothing too important. I'll tell you in a minute," Edward told Violet as he pressed a button on the phone for Rebecca's number. It didn't even ring twice before she answered.
"Hello?"
"Hello Becky?"
"Yes, Ed, it's me. It's me. Hello," she said, with keen anticipation for news of her boyfriend. Her love.
"Is Mike home?"
"No. No he's not. Oh, oh, no, he-" her voice quivered.
"It's OK. Hold on. We'll get him back to you, d'you understand, Rebecca?" Edward said, with positive passion.
"It's nine o'clock at night. He would have told me if he was going out or was stuck somewhere!"
"I know. I know, and I'm sure there's a very simple explanation as to why he's not turned up yet. Now, do you want us to come round and be with you or did you want to come here and stay?"
"I - I have to be at work. I have to go to Bath tomorrow to see a client. I can't be late for the train. What if he's not back? What do I do?" Rebecca asked, worrying that Michael's absence would interfere with her work.
"Rebecca, you continue going to work and living your day to day life, do you hear? Like you said, it's nine o'clock. We'll play it by ear and if he's not back tonight, I'll get in touch with some people I know, OK?" Edward said, firmly, keeping Rebecca focused.
"Yes. Yes, OK," she sniffed.
"Now, did you get that glass of wine?" Edward asked her in a different, more relaxed tone, but still playing the role of a good cop. It caused Rebecca to form a slight smile.
"Yes. Yes I did," she said, eyeing an opened bottle of Piccini, a Tuscan Chianti Reserva and the filled glass of red.
My Name Is Not Jacob Ramsay Page 22