What the hell did that mean? Was there a danger of it going off before he had it in place? It was sitting in his jacket pocket and he didn’t like the idea that an unpredictable commodity of explosives could suddenly explode and tear out his kidney.
‘You’re not even listening to me,’ Nicola wailed.
Her voice was loud enough to attract the attention of colleagues. Geoff cowered from the intrusive curiosity of their glances.
In his memory he tried to mentally play back whatever words she had been saying. It was a futile exercise. His thoughts had been wholly immersed in his own world. By way of an apology he gave Nicola a sheepish grin.
‘You know I’ve not been sleeping well,’ he reminded her. ‘I must have been zoning out again.’
She shook her head with dismay. ‘I’m not sure I can do this.’
Then she was running off to the bathroom.
A couple of the others in accounts glanced at him. He tried to give a shrug that said, ‘Women! What are they like?’ He wasn’t sure his stilted body language conveyed that exact sentiment. He suspected it looked more like he was either indifferent or had a nervous twitch.
He saw her an hour later talking to some old woman he vaguely remembered seeing in the offices. She had a warty face and looked like she was consoling Nicola and showing her some knitting.
‘How many women have you got on the go?’
The voice was murmured in his ear.
Geoff flinched when he realised Roger Black was talking to him. He tried to exercise a politic smile as though he wasn’t sure what the question meant.
Black looked as darkly menacing as ever. His head, with its low brow and piggy eyes, did not look as though it belonged to the company’s only active senior director. Even wearing a lecherous smile, Black looked thuggish and dangerous.
‘How many women?’ Black repeated.
‘I’m single at the moment.’
Black raised one thick eyebrow. ‘You have dinner every day with her,’ he said nodding at Nicola. ‘Surely you’re banging her?’
Geoff opened his mouth and tried to decide how to reply. It was true that he did share a lunch table with Nicola. But that didn’t mean they were in a relationship. The fact that they’d ended up in bed twice this past week was more coincidence than relationship and he didn’t want it to become public knowledge that he had been ‘banging her’.
Nicola was involved with Don.
Don was psychotically jealous.
Geoff had enough problems in his life without trying to incur Don’s easily roused wrath. He wondered how closely Roger Black was currently watching him to have noticed that his relationship with Nicola was more than platonic.
‘Nicola and I are just friends,’ Geoff said, quietly.
‘What about the blonde at the smoking shelter? Who was she?’
Black had seen him make his transaction with Terri?
Geoff’s heart raced.
It had been the briefest of meetings. Terri had sent him a text message telling him she would be at the smoking shelter at nine-thirty. He was to have her ten grand in a carrier bag. She’d said she would come up to him and they would embrace. Whilst they were embracing she would slip the explosive and the instructions into his pocket. He would then give her the carrier bag as though it contained groceries of inconsequential importance.
Geoff thought the exchange had gone unnoticed. The smokers in the shelter, huddled together from the gloom of a grey morning’s sky, had barely acknowledged his presence.
Geoff had been more preoccupied by the money he was handing over.
He was giving her ten thousand pounds. The bundle of notes looked insubstantial in size and seemed to have no weight in the bottom of the Asda carrier bag he held. Yet that sum of money represented a sizable chunk of the payment he had been hoping to pocket in return for this theft.
And now it seemed Roger Black had watched the transaction take place.
Geoff tried to keep his features composed.
‘Who was she?’ Black repeated.
‘An old school friend,’ Geoff told him. ‘I’d promised to pick up some groceries for her on my way to work. She was just collecting them.’
Black laughed and clapped Geoff on the shoulder. His hand landed heavily. It took all Geoff’s willpower not to shriek as though he was being beaten.
‘You’re a lying fuck,’ Black said cheerfully. ‘I think you’re banging them both and maybe a couple of others besides.’ He shook his head when he could see that Geoff was trying to protest. ‘I like that you play things discreetly,’ Black explained. ‘That sort of class should carry you well if you receive a promotion.’
Geoff blinked at this. He was about to ask Black what he meant but the man was already walking away.
Nicola stood where Black had been. She’d finished her discussion with the warty-faced woman and she now glared at him through heavy-lidded eyes.
‘I’m not doing this anymore.’
Geoff checked his watch and shook his head. Ignoring her protest he grabbed Nicola by the wrist and dragged her towards the lift. Without letting go of her he pushed his thumb against the UP button.
‘I’m serious,’ Nicola told him. She was trying to pull herself free. ‘I’m out of this now. Chloe was my best friend. I’m too upset to carry on.’
Geoff waited for the lift door to open and then pushed her inside.
She glared at him in disbelief. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘We’re going to the top floor of the building,’ Geoff said. ‘There’s no one using the top floor at the moment so we’ll have privacy. Whilst we’re up there, you’re going to keep the lift doors open so I can plant a device.’
‘I won’t do it,’ Nicola told him. ‘You can’t make me do it.’
Geoff nodded. ‘This is true. I can’t make you do anything against your will. But I can keep the money that was put aside for you.’
She shot him her angriest glare. ‘Stick it up your arse if it makes you happy.’
‘Fair enough,’ Geoff said, amicably. ‘And I can also tell Don how good you were in fucking my brains out the other night.’
She glowered at him. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’
He held her gaze until she looked away and called him a bastard. The lift arrived at its destination and the doors slipped open. Even though Geoff knew that the floor wasn’t being used, he still took the precaution of glancing out into the empty corridor to make sure there was no one there who could see what they were doing.
His bowels clenched tightly as he considered the enormity of the task he was now undertaking. He wanted to swallow but his mouth was suddenly too dry. His tongue was too large.
‘Put your foot there and stop the lift doors from closing,’ he told Nicola.
Petulantly, she stamped her foot in the lift’s doorway. She had her arms folded and her lips were curled into a sneering pout. ‘You’re using me,’ she told him.
Geoff ignored her.
He gingerly lifted the device from his jacket pocket. It was the size of a pack of playing cards. It was a shiny metal box with an LED screen that showed four zeroes. Terri’s instructions had told him to fix the device in the top corner of the lift just above the door. Then he would have to press the reset button and a countdown would begin.
Geoff stuck it in position with superglue.
As soon as he felt sure it was adhered to the roof he pressed the button to start the twenty-four-hour countdown. Momentarily mesmerised, he watched the numbers click away:
23:59
23:58
23:57
‘Is that it?’ Nicola asked.
Her sharp voice dragged him away from his reverie. Geoff drew a deep breath and tried not to shiver. He had just set a countdown on an explosive device that would detonate at noon the following day. It would give him an opportunity to steal from his employer. It would likely kill innocent people. And she was simply asking, ‘Is that it?’
‘That’
s it,’ he said, quietly.
She glanced at him and then at the device. Her folded arms tightened over her breasts. ‘Can we walk back down to the fourteenth floor?’
He followed her gaze.
The box was only sitting there. It wasn’t blinking. It was so small and innocuous it would remain undetected until it exploded. But Geoff could empathise with Nicola’s unease. He was suddenly sure he would never again get into the lift.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Let’s walk down stairs.’
42
‘You look cold,’ he observed.
The shadow of the Raven and Skull building was behind them. The day’s darkening clouds were easing into the blackness of night. A handful of streetlights flickered into life as they walked and the remainder of their journey was illuminated by passing car headlights shining brightly on the slick, wet roads.
‘I am cold,’ Nicola admitted. She smiled, as though touched by his observation. She began to babble excitedly and Geoff understood she had now moved past her upset at Chloe’s death. ‘That nice Moira offered to knit me a beret. She’s got this lovely lilac cashmere and she thinks a knitted beret might help keep me warm.’
‘Who the hell is Moira?’
Nicola shook her head. ‘You probably don’t know her. She works under Tony.’ Her lips were thin and set in a determined line. Her brow was furrowed with wrinkles of concentration.
Geoff had an idea of what she was going to say and he didn’t want to hear it. Like the explosive device that Terri had given him, Nicola was also proving to be something of an unpredictable commodity. Because he’d had a lifetime’s worth of unpredictable commodities over the past week, Geoff felt sure he knew what she would now demand. In truth, he had been expecting this development since Nicola flashed him her angriest glare in the lift and told him to shove the money up his arse.
She grabbed hold of his sleeve, making him turn to face her.
‘I want more money,’ Nicola told him.
‘No.’ He made it a flat refusal and pulled his arm away. There was no opportunity for discussion. No scope for further conversation. Not even meeting her glare he walked past her and headed towards the railway bridge that would lead to his bus route home.
In the distance he could see a train approaching. It was hurtling along at a furious speed. The machine glimmered sleekly in the wet shadows of encroaching night. The windows were aglow with slivers of brightness. The train’s headlights were small beady pinpricks of light.
‘Geoff!’
He ignored her.
‘Geoff!’ This time the shriek of her voice was accompanied by the ungainly patter of her footsteps chasing after him. In her grief that morning she had clearly chosen to wear flats instead of heels. Because she was more used to heels the sound of her step was alien and unfamiliar. In a flash of delayed insight he understood that was the reason he had thought she seemed shorter that morning. ‘Geoff,’ she repeated, grabbing hold of his arm and making him stop. ‘You can’t walk away from me. You have to listen to me.’
He turned to glare at her.
He had once thought Nicola was attractive but now he could see he’d been wrong on that score. She wasn’t wearing make-up today and her face wasn’t pretty enough to be seen without some smear of war-paint. Her skin was porous and uneven. Her eyes were piggy without mascara. Without gloss her lips looked thin and uninviting. The wind tousled the lank and tangled tresses of her hair.
‘I want more money,’ she insisted.
Even though they were alone on the bridge, Geoff instinctively glanced around to see if anyone had overheard their exchange. It was only when he saw there was no one within earshot that the idea crossed his mind.
The train was coming closer. The railing on the bridge was not particularly high. And Nicola was slender and light.
‘I want more–’
‘No.’ He said the word so it cut directly through her forceful demand. Stepping towards her he raised a finger and pointed it at her chest. Before she could interrupt him he said, ‘My share of this profit is dwindling by the second. So far I’ve received fifty grand. Your boyfriend has taken ten of that from me. I’ve spent another ten buying the explosives. You’re already due to get twenty grand for all the help that you’ve not given me so far. I’ve paid out for meals and gloves and a pilot case and that leaves me with fuck all in the way of a profit so far. Now you’re wanting a bigger share of it?’
She rolled her eyes as though she was talking with someone stupid.
‘You’ll be getting fifty grand tomorrow,’ Nicola reminded him. ‘I’ve done as much on this job as you have. If the police were to find out what we’ve done’
Geoff thought of Roger Black’s dour face and realised the police were the least of his worries. It was a chilling thought. He didn’t doubt, if he earned Black’s wrath, there would be torture, suffering and an unmerciful death. He tried not to shiver. Nicola barely seemed to notice his unease.
‘–I’d be considered just as guilty as you are,’ she went on. ‘I think we should get thirty five grand each.’
Geoff stopped and studied her incredulously. ‘You want how much?’
She seemed to back down from his obvious anger. Swallowing, she said, ‘I deserve half.’
‘For doing what?’
She looked like she was going to respond but he stepped closer and cut her off. ‘You’ve done nothing but moan since we started on this project.’
‘That’s not fair–’
He pushed his finger against her chest. ‘Your dickhead boyfriend had me beaten up in case I tried to stick my dick in you.’
‘You can’t blame me for–’
He noticed she was wearing a thin coat. He could see there was enough loose fabric at the breast of the coat that would allow him to grab a fistful and lift her off her feet if he chose. The idea was appealing.
‘You told him I’d been trying it on with you. That I had a small cock and I smell of chlamydia.’
‘I was trying to–’
‘This morning I had to drag you into the lift so that you’d actually do something useful on this project.’
‘That’s not–’
‘And now you’re demanding a full fifty per cent of the gross profit?’
He was so close now that she cowered beneath him as he spoke over her objections. He could hear a noise rising at the back of his thoughts but didn’t know if it was the sound of the approaching train or something symbolic of his mounting anger. ‘Fifty per cent?’ he repeated. ‘Is that what you’re demanding?’
‘I’ve fucking earned it,’ she hissed.
Geoff shook his head. ‘I’ll tell you what you have earned.’
She looked at him curiously. There must have been some level of menace in his voice that she hadn’t previously noticed because her eyes flickered with uncertainty, as though she knew she had pushed him too far.
‘What?’ she demanded. He could hear that she was trying to sharpen the edge of her voice with the pretence of defiance. ‘What have I earned?’
He grabbed a fistful of her coat and lifted her easily into the air.
Before the panic could properly register on her face he had pushed her over the bridge’s railing and into the path of the oncoming train.
Her horrified scream was cut off halfway through.
The clock on the nearby church began to chime six o’clock.
43
Nicola’s death didn’t trouble him. He suspected it would have been on the news although he didn’t bother putting the TV on to watch. Geoff arrived home, snapped open a bottle of scotch and swigged himself swiftly to sleep.
It was the same dream as usual. It began with a loud explosion whilst he worked in the office. The sound was followed by a rush of air pushing past him. Alarm bells shrieked. The hiss of sprinkler water began to patter on monitors, desks and paperwork. Exclamations of ‘What the fuck?’ and ‘What that hell was that?’ tried to make themselves heard above the scream of the alarms.<
br />
Geoff pulled leather gloves from his desk drawer and slipped them onto his hands. Opening his pilot case he picked the bags of sugar from inside and placed them on his desk. He rose slowly from his desk, took the empty pilot case and walked through the chaos.
Black was out of his office, directing the panicked throng to evacuate using the stairs. Geoff could see Cindy, looking panicked and confused, pushing her way through the doors to the stairs and considering the descent with obvious apprehension.
He glanced at the CCTV units and saw the red eyes of the cameras were no longer lit. The bomb had been effective. He stepped out of the way as Tony and Becky hurried past him. He didn’t bother making eye contact with them. He watched Heather rush out of Black’s office without locking the door behind herself.
Geoff stepped inside.
The skull was on the table. He expected to see a smear of red on the dome-like frontal bone. The mark had been there during every previous dream. He couldn’t understand why this dream would be any different. A voice at his ear whispered, ‘That’s blood that you’re looking for.’
He recognised the voice as belonging to Nicola.
‘You won’t see blood there, yet,’ she told him. ‘The blood’s not on the skull. The blood’s on your hands.’
He looked around, expecting to see her ghostly image at his side.
Instead, he found himself glaring at an old man in a wheelchair.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
But the question was redundant. He knew that the man was Charles Raven. He recognised the haggard figure of the man hunched over in his chair. He recognised the unpleasant plastic pipes that dripped from the man’s nostrils.
Raven’s upper lip trembled in a cruel smile.
‘What are you doing in my dream?’ Geoff demanded.
Raven considered him, warily. He arched one eyebrow into a question.
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