Dying for Millions

by Judith Cutler

  ‘I told Stephenson where I’d be staying. She didn’t object – in fact, she had me delivered here, and a couple of kids checked the place over to make sure it was safe. Don’t see how she could object, anyway – I’m not under arrest. I’ve co-operated fully, my stuff has been searched, I’ve even handed over my keys so they can search my home. They’ve already given what was supposed to be a safe house the spring-cleaning of its life. I did offer them my passport, but I had to change my mind about that – I’m due at the White House next Saturday.’

  Did he really say that? Or had I imagined it?

  I poured a couple of fingers’ worth of Jameson’s for myself, and waved the bottle at the other glasses. Both men nodded absently, but two hands reached eagerly for the tots when I’d poured them.

  ‘So what are you doing here?’ Andy made the question less offensive than it could have been.

  ‘Trying to keep an eye on Sophie, of course. So where the hell were you?’ Chris turned to me. ‘I tried phoning you,’ he said, thoroughly aggrieved.

  ‘Out for supper at Shahida’s. Wonderful meal.’ Oddly, though, my stomach was protesting; since I was always on excellent terms with it, I didn’t know how to react. With contempt, I decided, and swigged the Jameson’s. I did, however, sit down.

  ‘Sophie? Sophie?’ The chorus effect would have made me laugh if I hadn’t been fending off a spear of pain.

  ‘Spot of indigestion, that’s all,’ I gasped. That was all? I hadn’t so much as a peppermint in the house to ease it.

  ‘Whiskey should be good for that,’ Chris said anxiously. ‘Shouldn’t it?’

  ‘Perhaps brandy instead? In the cupboard, chick?’

  ‘Add some water – she usually sloshes it down neat.’

  Had it not been for the pain, which doubled me up if I sat anything other than bolt-upright, I could have found the whole business entertaining. Andy went rooting round my kitchen, and then headed upstairs; he came back clutching a packet of antacid tablets. ‘Corn in Egypt,’ he said, passing one to me. ‘Had a spot of bother in Canberra. These worked. Don’t half make you fart, though.’

  Chris inspected them. ‘I can get some more from the rota chemist tomorrow.’

  ‘Today,’ I said, swallowing gungy peppermint and begging it to work.

  ‘Have you got a hot-water bottle? That might help. Ruth swears by hot bottles.’

  Revolted, I stood up. ‘Never needed one. Night, night. Finish my whiskey, someone.’

  So I had a police escort after all. At bed-time it was my stomach’s fault we didn’t bonk: next morning Chris was up harrying duty pharmacists before I even woke.

  As days of rest went, Sunday wasn’t very restful. After their initial bonding, Andy and Chris rapidly came unstuck. The process began with the news, accelerated with ‘Letter from America’ and was full-blown by the time we discussed lunch. Andy was in awkward though not vegetarian mode again, and was loudly unhappy about eating beef in the form of steak from my freezer. Chris cited government advice, and eventually I threatened to send Andy off on my bike to inspect the ORGANIC sign in Brown’s window for himself.

  Chris, full of conscious virtue, peeled and sliced potatoes.

  What I couldn’t understand was why Chris was hanging on. And on. What on earth was he getting from our relationship – if that was what it still was?

  And then I remembered Ollie. We were supposed to be lunching! So how would the four of us get on? My stomach kicked at the thought of it. What I would dearly have liked to do was simply go on my own, leaving Andy and Chris to fight it out; I had, after all, a very strong suspicion that Chris would disapprove of the list I hoped Ollie was finding for me. And, as I chomped another antacid, I wondered what on earth I’d wanted the list for anyway. Why couldn’t I leave well alone?

  In the end, we all four sat down to a variety of roasts – nut roast for Andy – in a carvery that purported to be posh and specialised in cleverly-disguised cardboard. Chris, spare to the point of asceticism, tried not to sneer at Ollie’s encroaching paunchiness and silly curly hair, while doubtless fulfilling the worst of Ollie’s expectations of what a policeman should look like. Andy was in bland host mode. It was all very dull and depressing.

  Ollie slipped me the list when – eventually – Chris went to the loo. ‘God, that man’s bladder capacity,’ he muttered. ‘There! Put it in your handbag, love. Hey, Andy, remember that time we doctored that geezer’s handbag?’

  ‘Supporting act,’ said Andy, in parenthesis. ‘Bloke had a handbag before they were commonplace. Some of the lads thought it would be funny to fill it with condoms.’

  ‘Not what you lot’d call politically correct, of course,’ Ollie chuckled. ‘Close your bag, sweetheart – Laughing Laddie’s on his way. Bags it isn’t me tells him his flies are undone. Now, drink up, Sophie: A glass of wine for your stomach’s sake. That’s what it says in the Good Book.’

  White wine couldn’t do any harm. Could it? One sip and a red-hot poker plunged neatly into the place the whiskey had found last night. This was no longer in the least entertaining.

  I’ve never played chess with anyone older than five, though I do have a very impressive set, which I keep as an ornament. I’d never have expected it to be a life-saver. Chris and Andy fell on it, pushing all my rubbish to the end of the dining table to make space for their confrontation: my preparation and I were relegated to the sofa. Since they appeared to be vying with each other to see who would take the longest time over each move, I judged it safe to examine Ollie’s list. I knew one or two of the people, of course, including Phiz, but in general they were just names. Ollie had also listed nicknames and the field each man specialised in: sound, lighting, general dog’sbodying. And addresses and contact numbers – home and mobile. All very clear – and no use at all.

  Silence from the chess-players.

  At seven Andy broke it. ‘If you’ve got a bad stomach, chick, you should eat something.’

  Before I had time to be touched by his thoughtfulness, he added, ‘And Chris and I could manage a sandwich.’

  At nine, Chris pushed away from the board. ‘Shit! I’m going to have to concede. I should have been on the road hours ago. Back to the grindstone.’

  He lingered long enough to use the lavatory and pick up his bag – I later found yesterday’s socks, pants and shirt his side of the bed – and was off. A warm handshake for Andy. A distant peck on the cheek for me.

  Andy returned to the board, reliving the moves he and Chris had made. ‘You know, he shouldn’t have conceded.’ He muttered something about rooks. ‘I reckon he’d have had me on the ropes. Good bloke underneath it all.’

  ‘He’s OK. Andy, why are you down here without Griff? It can’t be safe. There’s room for him here—’

  ‘I’d rather he kept an eye on Ruth.’

  ‘One of his henchmen, then.’

  ‘Oh, the police are so keen to make something stick, I can’t wipe my arse without them knowing,’ he said, so airily I could have strangled him. He strolled over to the front window, pulling back the curtains to look out.

  ‘Get away from there, for Christ’s sake!’ I pulled him away and drew the curtains tightly.

  ‘I was only looking—’

  ‘You don’t, when someone’s after you, “only do” anything,’ I said, furious with my voice for cracking.

  ‘Poor old thing,’ he said, stroking my hair as if I were a particularly bedraggled stray cat. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea, shall I?’

  ‘What you ought to be doing is looking at Ollie’s list. See if there’s anyone you’ve ever beaten at chess.’

  ‘Yes, miss. Sorry, miss.’ He took the list from me, and his eyes ranged over it, but he put it down without comment. He went over to the phone. From the number of digits it was long distance. And although he didn’t say her name, it was clear he was speaking to Ruth.

  I gathered up the mugs and plates. Might as well wash up.

  I was drying the last teaspoon when he
breezed in. ‘They’re moving her,’ he said. ‘Now. To another safe house. Another friend of Griff’s. Why don’t you leave that to me and go to bed?’

  Chapter Nineteen

  There was no doubt about it: someone was committing fraud. And it seemed as if it might be on quite a large scale. Gurjit moved the cursor inexorably down the screen, scrolling on to other, equally damning pages.

  I had gone to the airport on the earliest evening I could, Monday – to satisfy either her or my conscience, I wasn’t sure which – and was now peering at her computer.

  ‘Any idea where it’s all going?’ I asked.

  ‘I haven’t had time even to contemplate that. My job, after all, is a clerical one. I have to complete the requisite amount of work each evening I come here. Goodness knows I’ve more than enough! Look at that pile – that’s the backlog I’ve got to deal with. Mark said to send them all out together. And when I go home there are my college assignments. I dare not get behind in those. Mr Jagger thought I might obtain As if I continued to work well.’

  ‘Good for you! Look, can you print some of this material off while you continue with your routine work? Then I could have another look without disturbing you.’ What I wanted to do was see if a regular pattern emerged: then Gurjit could present her findings to Mark with appropriate recommendations.

  She hesitated, then switched on the printer. It purred into life, and a stream of paper emerged, gentle as a caress. I thought about our dot matrix at work. I unwrapped a sandwich. A fire-alarm – false, it transpired – had cut short my lunch, and though I’d promised myself another meal at the Italian place, Richard had called a tea-time meeting about our retention rates. Under the new funding rules the college had to recruit eight per cent more students than the previous year, keep the students whatever their behaviour or aptitude, and make sure it maintained its traditional good exam results. It didn’t take a genius to realise that these goals were mutually incompatible, so it was a resentful and frustrated group of people who gathered in an empty classroom. I’d started to chomp surreptitiously on plain biscuits in an attempt to appease my stomach, but had so clearly irritated Richard that I tucked most of the packet into my bag. At least I now had a second course.

  Except that Gurjit pointed silently, and, I’d like to think, apologetically, to a notice: NO FOOD OR DRINK IN THIS AREA.

  ‘Tough,’ I said. And carried on eating, only to endure the embarrassing spectacle of one of my students crawling round on hands and knees after me gathering up my non-existent crumbs. Perhaps I’d better save the biscuits till later.

  Right. The stolen goods.

  Asthma sprays.

  Generic antibiotics.

  Painkillers – aspirin and paracetamol-based.

  A variety of preparations I hadn’t a clue about: vaccines, by the look of it. Never large quantities, but Swiss and German drugs don’t come cheap, so even a small cardboard box might represent several thousand pounds.

  I rubbed my hands across my face. The room was too hot and airless; Gurjit’s relentless tapping would send me to sleep if I wasn’t careful.

  ‘Is this the lot?’ I asked, opening my marking bag – a Tesco’s carrier, this week.

  She jumped. ‘Yes. Sophie, you’re not taking them away with you, are you?’

  ‘It’s nine-thirty, Gurjit, and I’ve got to be at college at eight tomorrow for the field trip. I’ll look at everything as soon as I can. Or you can tell Mark. Or you can call the police. Either would make sense.’ And would spare me hours of work.

  She looked at me, suddenly very young. ‘I’d like everything to make sense before I tell Mark.’

  ‘I still think you should tell him straight away.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘And you won’t tell the police in case it implicates – someone you don’t want implicated.’

  ‘Maybe it will implicate me, Sophie.’

  ‘Of course it won’t!’

  ‘The relevant dates …’

  ‘No! You can see for yourself it’s been going on for months. You proved it to me, Gurjit! Come on, all you’re doing is exposing it!’

  ‘Whistle-blowers are not always popular.’

  ‘Popular be hanged. Gurjit, please report this.’

  She shook her head again.

  ‘Well, why not discuss it with your parents?’

  No. Because their advice would be the same as mine, presumably.

  ‘OK. Have I got the lot? Because I’m off now. Are you coming?’

  She blushed.

  ‘Or do you have to sign off with someone?’

  I barely made out the name Mark. So I smiled, wished her well, and was on my way.

  Andy was playing Chopin on my piano when I got back.

  ‘Like that Wilde character,’ he said, ‘not accurately but with a great deal of feeling. Here, I got you this. The pharmacist said it was more effective in liquid form.’

  As presents go, I suppose most people wouldn’t rate too highly a bottle of antacid medicine, but I accepted in the spirit it was meant.

  ‘You look done in,’ he said. ‘Tell me.’

  I put my feet on the sofa, and did just that. From no lifts in the morning, to no lunch and no tea, to Gurjit gathering crumbs and the airport fraud. He looked as pale and drawn as I felt at the end of it.

  He disappeared into the kitchen, returning with two glasses with ice and lemon. ‘G and T. People I know with ulcers seem to get away with that.’

  ‘I haven’t got an ulcer!’

  ‘You soon will have, the way you’re going on. This is a crazy life, Sophie.’

  ‘No worse than anyone else’s.’

  ‘A lot worse than mine. Tell you what – why don’t you take a sickie? We could nip off to Wales for a couple of days.’

  God, it was tempting.

  ‘I’ll get Griff to bring Ruth down too.’

  ‘I don’t need a sickie. Nice easy day tomorrow – sheepdog to an Environmental Studies field trip.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Bewdley. Look.’ I fished out an OS map and pointed out the track we were to follow.

  ‘Nice forecast for tomorrow. Bright and crisp. Tell you what, why don’t I come too? I could buy a kagoul in Harborne. My spare wellies are in that cupboard in the garage, – at least, they were. And I wouldn’t get hassled by your students – they’d never expect to meet me in a kagoul.’

  ‘Why not? I’ll go in to work by bus, and travel to Bewdley on the minibus, as planned – you get your gear and drive my car out to meet me.’

  ‘Right!’

  ‘To be honest, you could save me a lot of embarrassment. The other member of staff is this guy with a thing about me. Carl.’

  ‘Didn’t you have a bit of a thing about him?’

  ‘That was then.’

  And then we remembered: simultaneously. ‘The fuzz.’

  ‘I’ve got to be at Rose Road by nine,’ he continued. ‘More of the same. Glad I’m on the right side of the law.’

  ‘You are now! I mean, on Saturday they were ready to put you on the rack, weren’t they?’ I waited but he didn’t reply. What had I said? ‘I’ll turn in now, Andy. Thanks again for this.’ There was no way I would be separated from that antacid.

  As it was, it took longer than I liked for it to work enough to let me sleep. From downstairs came the sound of Andy’s voice on the phone: the call seemed to go on for ages. Perhaps he was phoning Ruth again. Then he went into the kitchen. Presumably he was swilling the glasses – I’d never touched that gin. And then I heard him switching off lights, checking the lock on the front door, coming up to bed.

  Then I was awake, and looking out of the window. Something had activated the security light. A fox? And then I heard footsteps, starting up the path.

  When I stopped panicking I realised that the car parked across the road was a Panda, and that the figure was a uniformed policewoman. We were being looked after.

  Not, it occurred to me, very carefully. What had cha
nged? Why hadn’t Chris pressed me to have someone living in? Why did no one insist on driving me everywhere? Once upon a time Chris wouldn’t have let me step outside the front door without an escort under these circumstances – had that merely been because he fancied me back then, and now things were cooling I could go hang? But Andy was in the public eye. He was famous. Surely they couldn’t afford to let anything happen to him! Damn it, he hadn’t even got Griff to call on any more.

  My stomach was thoroughly irritable by now, and I was so far from sleep I thought I’d have to clean the entire kitchen to get the pattern back. And then I thought of those homeopathic tablets Griff had given me.

  I don’t know whether it was the tea-towel drawer, the biscuits or the tablets. Whatever it was, I managed to sleep at last.

  This must be a day for miracles. Tuesday broke fine and dry, if very cold, the minibus stood in its allotted place in the windswept car park, and all the students were on time. All except one: Pritpal. Since he was a bit of a poet as well as an environmental scientist, perhaps this was to be expected. He was no doubt knocking off an ode after breakfast. Since we’d actually planned all along to set off at eight-forty-five, we’d only told the students to come at eight-fifteen to urge them on a little – there was plenty of slack.

  Carl and I loaded the bags into the minibus, which we were both trained to drive. Then we let the kids aboard. Most had made an effort to wear warm clothes, the girls crushing anoraks over their delicate kameez and salwar, but their footwear made Carl tear his hair – a mistake, since it was beginning to thin, badly.

  ‘How crazy can you get? I told them sensible shoes. Look at those girls – little slip-ons – no protection at all! And that lad – sandals, for God’s sake!’

  I was afraid his voice would carry.

  ‘It’s not crazy – it’s poor, Carl. Even trainers cost. And most of these kids have parents on the dole – or doing badly-paid piece-work in factories. Remember, two-thirds of them are coming free today because they couldn’t afford the £3 for the bus. And I suspect their lunchboxes will be revelations.’

  ‘They should get their priorities right.’ Carl’s glance swept self-righteously over the Gortex and walking boots we both carried.