The phone rang, the one phone, the police stations communal phone. The communal phone only Rich seemed to ever use. Rich ran for it and picked it up, nobody but he ever ran for the phone. People picked it up if they were near it, but they knew it was almost always for Rich.
‘What?’ he yelled putting a finger in an ear. ‘OPULENT?’ Officers were looking, nobody needed to yell this loud.
‘Opulent accounts?’ Sara asked this made Richard jump a little when you walk into a
room with someone in, there’s background noise, breathing or something just there telling you they existed. Sara and Adam had neither sign of that. ‘That’s where Alan worked.’ She continued, Rich just stood in silence, it was a little off-putting.
‘Yeah, it’s where he worked. You heard?’ Rich give Sara a smile, the smiles were starting to get on her nerves. It was the smile you gave somebody when they were dying, she wasn’t dying, she was already dead.
‘Booker asks, do you remember going to some event at the Uni in town?’ Rich repeated, giving that smile again.
‘Em, yeah, they’d just given some money, a tax write off, I think.’ Sara looked down as she answered as if searching for the answers on the floor, when really, she was searching the back of her mind, through thoughts she didn’t recall thinking.
‘You hear that too?’ Rich nodded to Booker down the phone. ‘Good, I think we’ve found a way.’ There was silence, he dropped the phone back on to its plastic receiver. ‘I think we’re on our own.’
Sara gave the smile she’d gotten sick of seeing back, like a very odd Indian giver.
Sara seemed to be pulling Adam around, she’d given up calling him Alan. That wasn’t who he was anymore, he was like a child. As they walked through the station, Adam would lose his concentration and find something annoying to do.
There were a few times she’d almost gotten her wrist broke when Adam found a chair which he could swing back on in the canteen. Eating was hard, the cuffs didn’t help but the food didn’t seem to want to stay down either.
It sat in their stomachs for a bit before finding its way back up and into the nearest bin.
Even after releasing her content, Sara would still feel things moving around on the inside. Not living things but as if her body was pushing around what little food she kept, back and forward, working out what to do with it. The answer was normally nothing or get rid of it.
Sara wiped her forehead, she’d have wiped off the sweet if there was any. Instead, the movement was something she did without thought, coded into her muscles.
Rich gave them some time to walk and talk, although they never said much to each other. After a few minutes passed Rich brought them back into the holding room where he’d set up a laptop.
‘It’s for tracking the phone.’ Rich said pointing with his whole hand. ‘It’ll do, won't it?’
Sara nodded and sat down at the keys. A map filled the screen in seconds.
‘You guys must have been a pretty open couple, letting you into his phone like that.’ Rich commented, watching the little cursor move around the screen with ease.
‘Nope, trust wasn’t a thing we had.’ Sara’s words seemed to bleed into each other she spoke so fast.
‘So, how’d you know his password.’
‘I don’t know, I know a lot of stuff I didn’t know before.’ Sara’s eyes glistened in the LCD light of the monitor.
‘Like what?’
‘Like Alan loved me.’ She sniffed a single solid sniff which seemed to pull everything back together.
Rob’s car sat on the side of the road, two figures moved around on the inside. Silhouettes dancing through the windows.
Booker was on his phone, trying to find out as much information about Georgina Harrison as he could. There wasn’t much, she tended to write the droll articles. Shopping centres being opened, the library getting new books, that kind of thing. She was a writer which never seemed to get written about.
Rob was picking at his teeth in the vanity mirror which dropped down from the ceiling of his car. He sucked at a tooth with his tongue. Booker moved, his shadow shown in the little lit mirror.
He’d put his phone to his ear. Rob went to talk but Booker placed a finger over his own mouth, shushing Rob.
‘Are you calling Georgina?’ Whispered Rob. Booker placed a finger over the microphone of his mobile, at least that’s where he guessed the microphone was.
‘No, I’m trying Brixton’s phone.’ Booker still had no clue who he’d be calling, it didn’t matter because they were unlikely to pick up. It rang, that was a good sign. ‘Nothing.’ Shrugged Booker.
‘Where are we going then?’ Rob started the car, he’d become a little impatient.
‘The North Bank Gazette, I guess?’ Booker wasn’t sure. Rob nodded and drove off.
In Booker’s younger days, he knew a few reporters for the Gazette, it was useful to know one or two. There were benefits on both sides. To Booker the benefit was twofold, Reporters were dirty, they knew things nobody else did. Who ran what in the background, who funded who and most importantly if anything fishy was going on. Reporters are just P.I’s with loud mouths. The second use was most the reporters were women, this meant Booker was never short for dates. Even if it was just so they could dish some dirt.
Things had changed now, reporting was waiting at a desk. Reading emails and press releases, it was all waiting for things to print, nobody ran out with a flat cap, notebook and pen nowadays.
Booker missed the days of the digging news reporter, sorting through dirty laundry to find a lead. It used to make his job so much easier, cases would fall into his lap in the AM and he’d have his name printed in the paper by the next day saying he’d solved the case.
‘Shame.’ Booker said aloud.
‘What?’ Rob asked taking a left and slowing down.
‘Just thinking to myself.’
‘Oh.’ Rob pulled at the handbrake, it creaked a little and locked into place, holding the car.
‘Let me do the talking.’ Booker told.
‘I always do.’ Rob unlocked his seatbelt and got out. Booker never wore his, to start this worried Rob, but after a while, he didn’t even notice, the little flashing light which told him somebody wasn’t strapped in had gone years ago. It was the only thing he was meant to fix and never got the chance to.
I little red light sat in the middle of the computer screen, surrounded by green. The dot followed the little grey line which cut through the green. These maps were almost impossible to read and were very rarely correct.
GPS was always about seven feet to the right and about three minutes behind. That made chasing someone using it impossible, but if they stopped and stood still for around forty-five to fifty minutes the police could be on them. It was much better than phone triangulation because that never worked.
‘He’s moving.’ Sara exclaimed her finger pointing at the little dot as it moved from road to road, street to street.
‘I’m just surprised he still has the phone.’ Rob leaned over Sara’s shoulder to get a closer look. Adam was drawing.
Rob analysed the map, the thief hadn’t gotten far, he was driving at some speed but not passing the speed limit. At the top of North Bank, there was a hugely underdeveloped area, too far away from the docks which fuelled the town in the early days of its growth. When cars were less common, this huge patch of land was converted into hanger sized stores. Each shop half the size of a football pitch, some even having two floors, this is where the little red dot had just passed.
‘It’s stopped.’ Sara said, her finger prodding the collection of stores there, she squinted at it, her eyes drying out. Nothing moist was moving around her body, which made her eyes dry like the desert. ‘I know where that is.’
‘So do I.’ Rich had an issue, it crawled under his skin and had printed itself on the back of his eyes. Sara got up, expecting a huge run for the door and the start of a chase. Richard just sat, he lent over the back of his chair. ‘When you sa
id you knew his password, you didn’t mean he told you, did you? You want to tell me what you mean by that?’ Adam sort of hung from Sara, even though he was much taller than her, she seemed huge. She filled a room, not literally of course, but no matter the room she walked into, no matter the shape or size. The room would change, drawing everything to make her the centre of attention. This was before her timely demise.
‘It’s like things are in my head, his head is in mine, seems stupid, but if he’s lost his memories, it’s like I’ve found them.’ Sara explained, she liked how that sounded, she’d never been good at turning a phrase, this was a great one. Alan was always the better one at coming up with great lines, that made her depressed again.
‘Oh, that doesn’t make the bit of sense.’ Rich broke the silence. ‘But thing’s involving Booker rarely do.’ He got up, dusted himself off and headed to the door carrying Adam’s sketches with him. The door was pushed open by Rich and Sara and Adam scurried out. ‘I’ll bring the computer just in case.’
15
Rich’s car was nice, a dark blue, sleek looking machine, it was sporty and yet practical. It was the sort of car people normally look at in some amazement. Adam looked impressed, he didn’t know why he was impressed but felt he should be. Sara didn’t seem to care about the car, she just pulled Adam to the back door and pulled a little on the door handle, it was locked, she rattled it in desperation but still nothing.
After what she hoped was a sigh although she wasn’t breathing so sighs were really out of the question she stopped trying.
The lights flashed, winking around the car. Sara pulled at the handle again, the door gently opened, obviously, it was aided with something inside the car pushing them. Rich ran around the front of his sports car, it was more of a half-baked jog than an actual run, but it did the job. He spent too many years really running, running after youths who thought it would be fun to set off fireworks in the middle of a crowded area or druggies stealing people’s bikes, why they never peddled the bikes away Rich was never sure. The driving side door opened with a little hiss, Rich stepped in.
His right knee clicked as he dropped himself into the seat, another side effect of all those years running.
A small dish was imprinted under the radio, Rich gave his keys a little toss into there and started the car using a button.
Sara and Adam were still struggling to get into the car, being cuffed made things difficult and having to be constantly touching made things impossible. Adam bashed his head and they were in and the door closed, with its cream, pleather interior intact, if not a little dirty. Adam rubbed at the right side of his head, where he’d hit it. He pushed the hair around making big patches of it stand on end. Sara looked at him, shook her head and once he was finished rubbing, made an effort to push his hair down. At first, he winced, she pressed a little hard and touched the tender spot, so she tried to be more gentle, almost ghost pushing just touching some of the hair which pushed down the rest.
‘That’s going to make date night a bit harder, isn’t it?’ Rich joked, reversing out of his parking space.
‘There'll be lots of hand holding, I guess.’ Sara said, she’d always been the silver lining kind of girl or at least had been before her oddly misplaced death. Once you’re dead, the silver lining doesn’t seem so silver. It looks silver but there’s something off about it like it’s just painted silver or has a silver to it. Hell from her point of view it looked more like tin foil than silver.
The car sped off, dragging Sara and Adam back into their seats as they were unprepared for the sheer G-force this car could do.
‘I was hoping for some proper police stuff.’ Sara spoke up over the motor’s revving engine. ‘Some lights, the siren, you know the movie chase stuff.’
‘This isn’t a police car.’ Yelled Rich, which he didn’t really have to do as the drag would pull anything he said into the back seat.
‘It’s not? I thought it was just an unmarked police car.’ Explained Sara.
‘Them slow things, no, this is a much nicer car.’ Rich replied, Adam, nodded along.
‘I like this car.’ Adam agreed, he’d began to draw a car on his little sheet of paper somebody had given him in the station. It was an okay drawing, for a man with mush for a mind.
‘I bet you do.’ Sara knew Adam’s car history, he had a thing for them. If it looked expensive and people could ask you about it Alan, or now Adam was interested in it. Cars, watches, he even went through a pen phase, but that didn’t seem to last long. Pens have a habit of wandering off sometimes.
Rich drove on, searching the seat to the left of him he grabbed the laptop and past it through the small gap between the chairs where Sara caught it.
‘We should be able to keep tracking him on this,’ he searched again, this time grabbing his phone and unlocking it before passing it to Sara. ‘Try calling Booker for me.’
She grabbed it with the laptop sat on her lap, as the name suggests. There was a pop which filled the car. Adam looked a little shocked, looking around to see where it was coming from.
‘It’s the phone, you bloody idiot.’ Sara told him, failing to calm him down.’
‘Beep, beep, beep, beep.’ The little speakers hidden in the car said loudly, it beeped and clicked some more in time with Sara’s movements before the car began to ring.
‘Hey, this is Booker. Leave a message after the.’ Then there was a tone.
‘Nobody can get these right.’ Rich said to Sara, ‘Hey Booker, it’s Rich, we think we’ve found the person who has the phone.’ He avoided the word killer or thief, neither were cemented terms yet. ‘We’re on our way now. Call me when you can.’ On a small screen above the radio, he pressed a button and the call ended.
‘Thanks.’ Rich said, passing his hand through the gap, where it did claw movements until it felt a phone in it.
‘I know I’ve asked this before, but how did you know his password. I’m just trying to get my head around it.’ Asked Rich, who was trying to understand as much as he could about what was going on. Understanding things was a pretty sizable chunk of his job. You’d be surprised how much easier a police job could be if you just understood what exactly was going on at all times. A lot of things would be saved if Rich just knew what had actually happened at any one point. But that would never be the case.
‘You have his memories?’ this was the thing he couldn’t understand; how could you have your own memories and the memories of somebody else swirling around in your own head. How would you know whose were whose? And what did it all mean really about who you were? Rich hated when he worked with Booker, working with Booker normally meant you had to ask yourself these grand questions like, if memories are all that make up a person, and I lose my memories am I still the same person? Rich had a partner called Terry once when Rich worked with Terry the only question he had to ask was when he could go for lunch. Rich missed the simple time with Terry. Terry was an idiot though. Terry never removed his vest and during a check-up with a local gang area, Terry was shot in the face. This was where Booker got the thought that vests never made much of a difference, if somebody wanted you dead they would make sure they shot you somewhere they knew would take you out for good.
Rich drove, that was his life to be fair. He loved driving, he’d like to say it was the wind in his hair, but he didn’t have a soft top roof. Rich didn’t even have a sunroof. It wasn’t the smell of the engine or the noise it made, Rich had bought a car which made very little noise and had placed enough of those little plastic trees which smelled around his car that the smell of pine fresh quickly overrode the smell of diesel in seconds. It was the silence of driving, you could close yourself off from the world in his little metal case and just drive. That was what made Rich fall in love with driving.
‘Not all his memories. Just a chunk of them, do you know when you remember something, you’re not actually recalling the event but you’re remembering the last time you remembered it. Like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy
.’ Sara answered, watching Adam use the small button on the car door to open and shut the window.
‘No, I didn’t.’ Rich said taking a gentle left.
‘Neither did I. But Alan must of.’ She chortled to herself. Sara crossed her arms, tried to at least. Adam being handcuffed to her made it impossible to actually fully cross her arms so placed her free hand under her armpit as if she was crossing her hands. The knowledge Alan had given her made her feel, for the first time, like a whole person. Like when you first meet your partner and for the first time you feel whole, even if it only lasts a little while, you feel complete.
This is how Sara felt, there was no gap, no hole she had to fill with her overuse of exercises or buying clothes. Crossing your arms just makes you feel like you can hold it all in, hold it all together for a fleeting moment before it seeps away, and you’re left with that little gap inside you again. The part of you which is never filled.
Booker had kept his eyes closed the whole way, it was better if he did, the world didn’t seem to spin as fast that way. This was how he felt when the car moved at a huge speed, anything over forty was fast when you weren’t in control.
Even after the car had stopped moving Bookers stomach seemed to try to carry on. Booker held tight onto the little handle on the car door, the pocket which always seemed to be filled with dust and flecks of dried skin.
There was a door slam, it echoed through the car, a bang which was only heightened by the fact Booker could have sworn the car was still moving. Which meant Rob had tucked and rolled out of his own car.
Booker opened his eyes. The car had stopped moving, it had parked in front of what looked like a large tub of butter. Huge words were printed on the side of the building, maybe it wasn’t butter. North Bank Gazette, they read, although the z had been dislodged and sat at an odd angle. The building looked dated, pebbled walls lay on each side in a slightly off Orange colour which some would argue was pink. It was a long building with two floors to it, all capped off with a flat roof which hung over the edge of the building adding the lid to the tub look.
A Well-Timed Death (Booker Shield Book 1) Page 13