A Well-Timed Death (Booker Shield Book 1)

by Karl Bourdiec

  Booker turned to Rob. ‘Let’s head in.’ Booker nodded to nobody. Rob wasn’t there, there was a little fear in Booker's heart like the seat had been pulled from under him. A small wrap echoed through the car.

  ‘Are you coming?’ Rob yelled, his voice muffled through the glass. The clip of Booker's belt was popped, and the cord went whizzing up almost smashing the car window as it did. Booker hurried out of the car almost clipping the top of his head.

  ‘You could have waited for me.’ Booker said running around to the front of the car to meet Rob.

  ‘You were asleep, dead to the world.’ Rob replied using a saying his grandmother used to use. Booker winced at the phrase.

  ‘Maybe not the best time for that, ay?’ Booker said, his face locked in the wince.

  This time there was no swooshing door, just a plain old handle. Which when given a tug, made a whirring noise as if a motor was kicking in but wasn’t strong enough to actually assist you with the door.

  ‘It’s been like that for years.’ Droned a woman, her voice a collection of what sounded like but weren’t tuber noises.

  ‘Hey.’ Rob used his perky voice, it had helped so far.

  ‘Can I help?’ She spoke again, her voice deep enough that the room shook like somebody had turned a woofer up to max.

  ‘I’ll ask the questions around here.’ Booker kicked into question speech again.

  ‘Will you really?’ The woman asked. This baffled Booker, normally when he said his little line about asking questions the questions stopped. He didn’t expect more questions, that was against precedent.

  ‘We’re looking for Georgina Harrison.’ Booker asked, at least he thought he’d asked, he’d been put a little off balance now. He wasn’t sure what was a question now.

  ‘Are you really?’ The woman had done it again, Booker was sure that was a question.

  ‘Yes, we are.’ Stepped in Rob so Booker could bring his face down two-colour pallets.

  ‘Well, I can’t help you.’ She romped, which seemed to be the only word to describe the noise she made as she spoke.

  ‘Why not?’ Rob popped in again.

  ‘Never heard of her.’

  ‘That’s bullshit, and you can smell it. We’re here to ask her a few questions, not to charge her for her TV licence.’ Booker didn’t know where his ramble about the TV licence came from, but he liked it.

  ‘Fine.’ The women rumbled, ‘She’s in forty-two B. She’ll not be happy to see you.’

  ‘We don’t care.’ Booker walked on.

  16

  The little laptop beeped, they were practically on top of the signal.

  ‘This doesn’t seem like it.’ They were in a large car park surrounded by huge tin coloured buildings. Each one was a shop the size of a plane hangar.

  ‘This is it.’ Sara said, tugging at the man who was chained to her, he’d began to drool a little. Blinking his eyes to fight the long coming rest. Rich turned off the car, it clicked as the engine cooled.

  ‘What do we do, do we steak it out?’ Asked Sara, who seemed a little nervous. Rich marked it up to the fact she’d never been in a cop car before, not for this kind of thing at least.

  Each of the hangers had automatic doors, some which never seemed to open. Other than seemed pointless to close. One set of doors slid open and shut over and over as people dragged huge, tall boxes, all of which were only a few inches wide.

  ‘I hate flat pack furniture.’ Sara said with bitterness in her voice. She thought it looked cheap, not the actual furniture, once it was assembled she never could tell what was flat packed and what wasn’t, but Sara knew it was cheap and once she knew something was flat packed she would change her mind and consider it cheap looking.

  ‘Is that you or him?’ Asked Rich.

  ‘I don’t know anymore, I think we both hated it, me more than Alan.’ Sara glimpsed at the man she once knew, she knew him, but he seemed to be stumbling around in her head just as much as he stumbled around outside of it.

  ‘My house is full of the stuff, some of it pretty good once you get the stickers off.’

  ‘Sorry I didn’t mean too.’ Sara put her hand over her mouth, she wasn’t normally so outspoken. Not that she could recall anyway.

  ‘It’s fine.’ Rich gave the sorry you’re dying smile again. This time it felt honest.

  ‘Is this what a steak outs like?’ Sara pushed her head between the two soft bits of the chair. Her chin stopping her from slipping down.

  ‘This isn’t a steak out.’ Rich said bluntly, he wasn’t actually annoyed, he just felt like he should be. Like the way, Sara reacted told him that because he didn’t care what she thought about flat pack furniture, that he was wrong, what he was feeling and how he was reacting was wrong and that he should be annoyed. Ironically this made him more annoyed at himself than her. ‘We should go in one of these shops, you said you think you know who has the phone, do you know where they worked?’ Rich turned his eyes in his head without actually twisting his head or body. He could just see Sara out of the corner of his eye like a pink blob.

  ‘Yeah, he worked in IT direct. It’s that PC shop.’ Sara pointed over the top of the chair, a large grey building sat at the end of her finger. The grey only cut through because of the massive purple sign which read IT Direct in white block lettering.

  Rich was off, it didn’t even seem like he’d opened the door he just seemed to ghost through it. Sara struggled Adam out and followed up to Rich who had gained quite a lot of momentum.

  Inside the building was white, the walls were white the floor was probably meant to be white. It wasn’t white anymore. On white stands sat little black squares all with screens jutting out of them, the screens swirled with colour showing the extreme power they had hidden within them. They stood out against all the white, the white kind of made sense now.

  ‘Now we’re staking out, pretend to go look at a computer or something, tell me if you see the guy.’ Rich said pretending to read the back of some batteries and not knowing who Sara was. Sara looked confused. Adam looked as if he was about to burst out laughing, he didn’t even know why. Adam held back his chortle and looked around in a daze, he looked at a light for a second. Long halogens which hung from the ceiling, stinging his eyes. Adam blinked bringing his head back down to look around.

  Lots of people presume staking out requires you to be in a car, this is mostly wrong. If you stake somebody out in a car the only time you’d be able to see them is when they or either in a car also, or walking to a car. For optimal staking out, this requires you to be on foot.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll blend in’ pointed out Sara, speaking through clenched teeth, trying not to raise suspicion.

  ‘Huh?’ Replied Rich who had actually started to read the back of the batteries. Sara held up her hand, Adam had little choice but to join in. ‘Oh shit. Yeah.’ Rich pulled their hands down and undid the cuffs. ‘Remember to keep holding hands.’ He told the two, although it was really more aimed at Adam. ‘Keep your head down and but look around.’

  ‘How the fuck am I meant to do that.’ Sara had become a little tired when she was tired she was grumpy.

  ‘Are you sure he’s in here.’ Rich ignored Sara. There was a soft click as Rich had smothered the lock in the hopes to silence it.

  ‘I think so, I’m trying to keep my head down and look around.’ She said sarcastically. Another side effect of her drowsiness. ‘Yeah, he’ll be here.’ Sara rubbed her wrist, it was an off red.

  ‘Don’t let go, I’m not dragging a dead body to my car.’ This time it was aimed at Sara.

  There was snooping, a little, but after a few minutes, Sara found herself falling into her old ways. Holding hands with her husband looking at expensive things she didn’t need, Adam not making a noise, that was something Alan and he still had in common. She’d found a very nice-looking laptop which was overpriced and ran like a sack of bricks, but it looked nice and it was branded. This is when she saw him, the young guy with his ginger hair s
piked up a little, he was handsome but in a mismatched way.

  Sara’s eyes locked. She looked like a raging bull, with speed and bulk she began charging after the ginger store clerk. She’d made it a few feet before Rich had noticed. Freckles covered his face until he looked tanned. His chin stuck out a little, on the bottom of it was a small patch of hair he tried to call a beard.

  ‘Snooping means watching from a distance.’ He yelled this drew the gingers attention.

  ‘Fuck!’ The fear in his eyes seemed minor to begin with, just a little flicker like waiting in line for a roller-coaster. Then he looked closer and spotted Adam who was being pulled along like a dog on a lead. The little flicker of fear turned into a heated fire of dread, and he ran, like anybody seeing a dead man would.

  The ginger was skinny, and light and could run, run fast. Much faster than two people considered legally dead ever could, even if they were living they only looked in shape. A nice layover from good genes.

  Rich made it to the point where Sara and Adam stood, they still moved with a little speed, but Rich had made it to them in a few seconds. ‘You’re not meant to be seen while snooping.’ Commented Rich as he made it close to Sara, Sara just shook her head in reply. She wasn’t sweating but Rich could tell that her body was trying to, just with all of its force and might it could not allow a single drop to pass through its pours.

  ‘It’s him.’ She was hysteric, she wasn’t sure if she even needed to breathe, but she was doing it fast. There was fear behind the gloss of her eyes, her heart would be pounding out of her chest if that was something it did anymore. Instead, she felt silent on the inside, only her mind ran rampant. It was a stressful even and her body showed no signs of it, her vital signs barely showed signs of life.

  When babies are born, they are sometimes slapped to clear their lungs. In those seconds before they are not living for themselves, their mother has done all their living for them, all their bodily functions are catered for by mum. This is how Sara felt as if somebody was keeping her moving, living for her, breathing for her, feeling fear for her. She straightened herself up and composed herself. ‘It was him.’ She said calmly, then Rich ran.

  Adam and Sara just stood, Sara watched, Adam had found pinball on one of the laptops nearby.

  The problem with chasing people through shops is people, other people, not those chasing or those being chased but the bystanders. Those just doing their shopping or buying young Jimmy his first computer for school work, those people get in the way, in a chase, those people get pushed and shoved. CD racks get knocked over, anything to try and evade the person chasing you.

  There was a huge smash behind Richard, large enough for him to look back. He saw Adam standing in one of the isles out of breath, panting and looking to the ground. He looked stressed, holding his head between his hands, clasping at his hair with his fingers. Rich stopped chasing and ran back to Adam.

  In a crumpled-up pile on the floor, Sara lay, her eyes a crystal white.

  ‘She fell down, I couldn’t hold on and she fell down.’ Adam looked as if he could cry.

  ‘Grab her.’ Rich instructed in a hard-military voice. Adam still looked shaken, he seemed to be breathing heavily, which was odd because he wasn’t breathing before. ‘Grab her.’ Told Rich again. Adam grabbed Sara by the hand and the milk of her eye shot black again.

  ‘I know him!’ she screamed.

  ‘I heard,’ Said Rich, deflated he’d lost his chase.

  Sara was dazed, she always was after a drop, she’d only dropped a handful of times but had become noticeable after the first time. The cuffs were back on, Sara and Adam held hands again, she was obviously annoyed at him, Adam didn’t know why. The ironic thing was, even when Adam was Alan, Sara was still annoyed at him and he never knew why. Things never change sometimes.

  The sky had clouded back over, the fog had begun to roll back in, little sensors on the outside of the shop informed the lights which ticked on. It was a fake light, an orange hue no sun or moon could create.

  Sara stumbled outside in silence, Adam followed with little choice. Rich felt the need to keep the peace but didn’t know how. How do you keep the peace between a woman who knows everything about a man and a man who knows nothing about himself or even the how things around him work?

  Rich was deflated, the excitement of the chase had pulled all the life from him, the silver lining was the chase was still on.

  ‘There a thing.’ Yelled Adam, trying to impress Sara, trying to win her forgiveness, somethings are just hard coded. ‘A thing. A thing.’ He pointed at the sparse grass which surrounded the store. ‘A thing.’ He jumped, Sara feared for her life, she knew she’d get it back, but dropping wasn’t an experience she’d like to go through again.

  ‘A what.’ Rich looked to the patch which got all the attention. The last of the silver lining fell from the clouds.

  ‘A phone.’ Adam was proud he’d recalled the word from his jumbled brain.

  ‘For fucks sake.’ Rich fell apart.

  17

  Georgina Harrison was delighted to see Booker and Rob.

  ‘Oh, hello there.’ She squealed like an eight-year-old meeting a puppy for the first time. She was Scottish and tall, but with a small Scottish voice, which was an annoying voice to own.

  It wasn’t a loud voice and more squeaked then spoke. ‘What can I do you for.’ She giggled to herself. Scottish people had stupid sayings like that, what can I do you for, or oh hello there, they spoke in sayings. No one spoke in sayings as much as Georgina Harrison. Booker closed his eyes and prepared his head for a pounding migraine he knew he’d be the owner of by the end of this encounter.

  Georgina didn’t get many visitors, she was a journalist, she did most of the visiting. Her office told much of that story, papers were everywhere, a half-empty bottle of wine sat gathering dust in the corner, something rattled some papers in a draw, you could hear it scurrying around, trapped for who knows how long.

  ‘Don’t you no pay any attention to that.’ Said Georgina, pouring as many double negatives in as she could fit. Booker opened one eye. He was a little disgusted and closed it back up again.

  ‘We were wondering if we could ask some questions?’ Rob asked he made a mental pause. Counting up to three for Booker to inform everyone he would be asking the questions, it never happened. ‘It’s about an article you wrote about a week ago.’

  ‘Oh, ya a fan. Are ya hinny.’ Georgina was the Hinny Scottish, everybody was her Hinny or a chap. Chap was saved for very special occasions though, for those she really liked. Rob was going to become a chap, Georgina knew that she could just sense it. Booker was going to stay a hinny or maybe drop down to a pal if he didn’t open his eyes.

  ‘I wouldn’t say so.’

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t, would you?’ she squawked when people hear the Scottish accent they think of a sweet old lady. Georgina was tall had long flowing brown hair was mostly made up of leg. She wore thick red lipstick but somehow didn’t look like she hung out on street corners. At a guess, rob would have said she was about thirty, which she would have been insulted by. Georgina was normally considered good looking if she wasn’t so freakishly tall.

  Booker finally opened his eyes. Rob was baffled why he closed them for so long, this office looked like his, if not a little brighter.

  ‘It’s about an article you wrote.’ Booker spoke up.

  ‘I got that.’ Georgina was moving things around her desk, not tidying as such, more just moving things.

  ‘You wrote a piece about the university and an experiment they’d been working on.’ This was meant as a question but didn’t really sound like one.

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes, you did, at the university.’ Booker didn’t think she’d gotten the drift.

  ‘Oh ay, that big business giving them that money, I remember.’ How somebody could ruin the English language and be a writer Booker had no idea.

  ‘Could you tell us about that?’ Rob asked.

 
‘What do ya wanna know?’

  ‘Anything you can tell us.’ Shot Booker.

  ‘Nor a lot.’

  ‘How about, start from the beginning, it’s the best way.’ Rob nodded at her as if to say, “go on tell us.”

  ‘I get the shitty jobs, the ones na body wants. Ya know, anyway, I had to go ta the uni to watch a demonstration of this thing. They are untangling things. I made it there an a guy in a lab coat brought me to his office, this big white room where people wore special gloves, anyway, they turned on this machine. It did a little popping and then the science guy turned it back off.’ Georgina felt she explained what she saw pretty well, it was as much as she understood. ‘Are you two the police?’ the question had niggled at the back of her head and was about to escape through her spinal cord if she didn’t finally ask.

  ‘No, we’re detectives.’ Rob answered.

  ‘I’m a detective.’ Corrected Booker. Booker was right, he was the only one who actually was a detective. Sort of. More a P.I but he had a licence, and that made it more official. Rob was just his driver right now, drivers only got to drive and weren’t actually allowed to solve any real cases. He could help, put his two cents in when he felt it right. But any real case solving was solely on Booker’s head. Oh, and a hat, Rob didn’t have a hat. Booker had a hat, he kept in his old car, which was still rusting in that car park. Booker pulled a few seconds from his busy schedule to look at Rob’s head. It looked much too large to even wear a hat, Booker hadn’t noticed until this point, but Rob had an almost impractically large head.

  ‘Are you like his sidekick?’ Georgina seemed a little too chipper asking this question. Booker spoke back, a little too late to agree with the idea of having a sidekick.

  ‘No. I’m his driver, I guess.’ Rob still didn’t like to use the term sidekick.

  ‘Is that all you saw?’

  ‘What else did ya want me to see?’ She was intrigued.