Finding Milly

by Nathan Burrows

  ‘Mr Tucker?’ the man said, standing as Jimmy approached. It was Carlos, the man who had questioned him about wanting a cup of coffee.

  ‘That’s me,’ Jimmy replied. The two men shook hands, and Jimmy looked at Carlos. He was a big man, but Jimmy had noticed that the other day. One of his dark brown eyes drooped slightly, he was unshaven, and Jimmy caught the faint smell of body odour and stale alcohol coming from him. He was wearing a suit which, although it fitted him better than the one Jimmy was wearing did, was creased and slightly worn.

  ‘Sit down, please,’ the man said. ‘I’m Carlos. Head of Security.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jimmy replied with a tight smile, glancing at Carlos’s name badge. It wasn’t quite straight on his lapel, which irritated Jimmy. He wanted to reach out and straighten it up. ‘So you are.’

  ‘If I’m not mistaken,’ Carlos said, ‘you were in here the other day as a guest?’

  ‘That’s correct,’ Jimmy replied. Carlos’s eyebrows went up, and for a few seconds his eyes equalled themselves out. ‘I wanted to get an idea of the place before applying for the position.’

  ‘We’d not advertised it then, though.’ Carlos’s eyebrows returned to their original position, and his eye drooped back down. His mouth stretched into a cruel grin. ‘But I guess you heard about it on the grapevine?’

  Jimmy settled back into his seat and started to fold his arms before letting them relax by his sides.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I did.’ Carlos regarded him for a moment.

  ‘You come, well, recommended shall we say?’ Jimmy didn’t reply, but just looked at the man. He suddenly realised he had no idea what Gareth had told Carlos about him. Did he have a back story of any description?

  ‘Pleased to hear that,’ Jimmy replied eventually with the ghost of a smile. ‘Do you get much bother here?’

  ‘Very little,’ Carlos said. ‘But as I tell Mr Hollister, that’s because I’m very good at what I do. And very careful about who I employ to help me with what I do. It’s more about presence than actual bother. You get the first bit right, you don’t get the second bit. But you’ll know that, a man of your pedigree.’

  Jimmy stiffened slightly at the mention of Martin Hollister before forcing himself to relax. He wanted to get the conversation away from his own pedigree, mostly because he had no idea what it actually was.

  ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Mr Hollister?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He’s okay. Likes his privacy,’ Carlos said. ‘But don’t we all?’ Carlos’s eyes shot across to the closed bar and he licked his lips. ‘Do you want a drink? I’m going to grab myself a coke.’

  ‘No, I’m good thanks.’ Jimmy glanced at his phone as Carlos made his way to the bar and let himself through the door to the side of the shutters. Through the small slots in the louvred metal, Jimmy could see Carlos pour something from a bottle into a glass before reaching for a can from the fridge. It wasn’t even twelve o’clock, but if the Head of Security wanted a drink, that wasn’t Jimmy’s problem.

  Carlos sauntered back over to the table and sat back down, sipping his drink and staring at Jimmy who realised that the other man was deciding on the spot. This would be a short interview.

  ‘Yep, we’re good,’ the head of security said a moment later. ‘I’m happy.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Jimmy replied. So was he. ‘So what are we looking at?’

  ‘Hours wise or money wise?’

  ‘Both, I guess.’

  ‘It’ll be as and when, so no contract. You’ll get more money if it’s cash in hand.’ Carlos sipped his drink. ‘Hundred quid a night. Your call.’

  ‘Cash in hand is fine, but I’m keen to get some work,’ Jimmy replied. ‘When you say “as and when”, how often are you looking at?’ Carlos frowned and regarded him through his uneven eyes.

  ‘Well, we’ve got a wedding this evening if you’re up for it? They’re all pretty rich, but they can be the worst.’

  ‘Who gets married on a Monday?’ Jimmy said, more to himself than as a question for Carlos.

  ‘Posh people get married whenever the fuck they want to, Tucker,’ Carlos replied with an approximation of a grin. Jimmy hid a frown at the other man’s presumptuous use of his last name. It was as if because he was now an employee of sorts, it gave him the right to talk down to him. Jimmy filed the slight away in his head, but it wasn’t one he would forget in a hurry. ‘So you up for it then, or what?’ Carlos asked.

  ‘Yeah, sure. What time do you want me?’

  ‘Get here for six. I’ll show you around.’ The Head of Security put a hand out for Jimmy to shake. ‘We’ve got a do on Friday night that I need someone for. You do all right tonight, I’ll get you back for that. It’s one of Mr Hollister’s private parties, so the pay’ll be double and all you have to do is stand outside a door.’

  Jimmy shook Carlos’s hand. Friday night suddenly sounded the more interesting of the two events.

  ‘Count me in, Carlos,’ he said, forcing a smile onto his face. ‘I won’t let you down.’

  Chapter 40

  Jimmy tightened the yellow and green scarf around his neck and huddled into his thick coat. It was freezing, and he was glad of them both. Around him, people scurried about. Most of them had yellow, green, or some combination of the colours somewhere on their clothing. Jimmy glanced at his phone to see the time. It was fifteen minutes to kick off, enough time for a last-minute pie or swift pint of lager before the game for the surrounding fans. All Jimmy needed was for someone to come out of—or go into—the block of flats he was standing outside and he would be half-way into Max’s apartment.

  The previous evening at the Royal Hotel had been uneventful. Jimmy had got there just before six o’clock, as promised, and been given a badge to wear on his lapel. It just said Security on it. No name, but Jimmy wasn’t expecting a badge with his name on so soon, anyway. Carlos also gave him an electronic keycard, explaining that while it would open all the service doors and main corridor entrances, it wouldn’t open any of the rooms.

  ‘It’s all monitored,’ Carlos had told him. ‘So if you have to use it for any reason, it’ll be logged.’ He had smiled as he said this, as if to tell him he had his eye on Jimmy. Jimmy didn’t care, but slipped the keycard into his pocket. It might come in useful at some point, he told himself, although at that moment he couldn’t see how.

  The wedding reception was a quiet affair in the end. No shouting, no nonsense, and certainly no fighting. Both the bride and groom were well into their forties, as were most of their guests. The groom seemed to wear a look of resignation on his face for the entire evening, and Jimmy wondered what the story was with the pair of them. He’d seen couples having more fun in the checkout queue for Sainsbury’s. He spent a while watching the guests, some of whom had small children with them. When the ones with kids started thinning out, no doubt using the excuse that they had to get back to sort the children out, the rest of them soon followed.

  By eleven o’clock in the evening, the reception was done and dusted. The most excitement Jimmy had all evening was relieving a drunk elderly gentleman of his car keys and guiding him towards a taxi, reassuring him that his keys would be at the reception desk in the morning.

  Jimmy didn’t give a stuff about the money, but he had to admit that it was the easiest hundred quid he’d ever earned.

  The thick metal door next to Jimmy opened, and a young couple walked through. Both maybe mid-twenties and—even though they were both wrapped up for the weather—he could see they were both very attractive. The man was wearing the same yellow and green scarf that Jimmy was, and he had a hand on the small of the woman’s back. Part protection, part ownership. As the young man walked past Jimmy, he nodded and made a comment that Jimmy didn’t catch. It was something about the match, so he just nodded in reply, making no move towards the door that was slowly swinging shut. Just as they disappeared around the corner of the apartment block to join the other fans making their way towards the
football ground, Jimmy snatched a hand out of his pocket and caught the door just before it clicked shut.

  Not wanting to meet Max on his way to the game, Jimmy got the lift to the sixth floor and wandered along the balcony before pausing half-way along it. He put his elbows on the bannister and leaned forward, looking out over the football stadium. He could see why the flats were so expensive—it was a stunning view.

  Below him, Carrow Road was spread out like a mother-ship. Above the ground, bright spotlights shone down onto the perfect grass and Jimmy could see the last few players who had been warming up make their way back down the tunnel. He could feel the atmosphere of the crowd grow, just as it always did when the pitch emptied before a match. Around the ground, Jimmy could see late-running supporters hurrying towards the turnstiles, past the police vans and television outside broadcast lorries.

  Through the clear night air, Jimmy could hear the voice of the commentator over the tannoy. Despite himself, Jimmy allowed himself a smile.

  ‘Ladies and Gentleman,’ the voice said, ‘it’s time to welcome your team onto the pitch.’ The noise from the crowd grew along with the anticipation, and as the announcer read out each home team player’s name, they greeted it with a loud roar. Even though he wasn’t at the match, Jimmy could feel the nervous anticipation that he’d felt before every game he’d ever watched—either from the stands or as a steward—which was intensified by the reason he wasn’t going to be able to watch this one.

  ‘Carrow Road, are you ready?’ the announcer shouted. ‘Three, two, one.’

  As the announcer reached “one”, Jimmy raised his arms from the bannister he was leaning on and threw them into a Y shape above his head. Along with the twenty-seven thousand people in the stadium below him, he sang at the top of his voice.

  Kick it off,

  Throw it in,

  Have a little scrimmage.

  Keep it low, splendid rush,

  Bravo, win or die.

  Jimmy extended his arms as far as he could into the night sky. He stopped singing and started shouting.

  On the ball, City,

  Never mind the danger,

  Steady on, now’s your chance,

  Ah, we’ve scored.

  Below him, the crowd chanted City, City, City, clapping their hands three times in quick succession after each chant of the word, and so did Jimmy. The referee’s whistle echoed through the air to start the game and Jimmy returned his hands to his pockets, feeling slightly foolish but at the same time incredibly proud. It was the oldest football song in the entire country, he told himself, so there was nothing to feel foolish about. Seeing as it was the British who invented football in the first place, surely that meant that it was the oldest football song in the entire world?

  A broad grin on his face, Jimmy walked down three flights of the fire escape at the end of the balcony, preferring this to the lift, and onto the third floor. He ambled along the walkway outside the flats, each front door illuminated by a security light, and stopped outside Max’s flat. There were no lights on in the windows of the flat, but he pressed the doorbell anyway. Jimmy wasn’t sure what he would do if someone opened the door, but he didn’t need to do anything. There was no-one home.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his set of lock picks. Unzipping the case, he drew out the tension wrench and the pick that seemed to be the easiest to use—the one with the serrated edge. Just as he had done countless times in his shed, he slipped the wrench into the lock and inserted the pick next to it. A touch of rotational pressure on the wrench, a touch of downward pressure on the pick, and he went to work.

  Ten minutes later, he was still crouched down by Max’s front door. He couldn’t hear the pins dropping as the noise from the crowd in the stadium was drowning it out, but the door remained closed. A bead of sweat made its way down between his shoulder blades and pooled in the small of his back.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ Jimmy muttered as he tried to rake the lock again, this time using a different pick.

  ‘You’re doing it all wrong, Mr Tucker,’ a voice beside him said. He jumped, dropping the pick on the floor where it clattered away from him. Jimmy looked at the shoes of the man beside him, and then up to his face. ‘Come on, move,’ Dave said, nudging Jimmy with his knee so hard that he almost lost his balance. ‘Shift your arse.’ Dave nodded towards the fire well at the end of the balcony. ‘Let’s go.’

  By the time the two men had reached the security of the balcony, Jimmy had gone from being startled to annoyed.

  ‘What the fuck, Dave?’ he said, shooting a fierce look at the young man. Dave was wearing Norwich City colours, but as far as Jimmy knew, he wasn’t a fan. In response, Dave pointed an angry finger in the direction of the football stadium.

  ‘How many coppers do you think are down there, Mr Tucker?’ he asked in a neutral voice. ‘I’ve been watching you from the car-park for the last five minutes. Even the thickest policeman in Norfolk would recognise what you’re doing up here. What are you trying to do the door with?’

  Jimmy didn’t reply, but handed Dave his set of lock picks.

  ‘Fuck me, where did you get this pile of shit? The internet?’ Jimmy didn’t answer the question. Below them, a low groan floated up from the stadium and a few seconds later, Dave’s phone buzzed.

  ‘How did you know I’d be here?’ Jimmy asked Dave as he fiddled with his phone.

  ‘Gareth asked me to keep an eye,’ Dave replied. ‘Said you might be here.’ He glanced at Jimmy, his face illuminated by the phone screen. ‘Just because he can’t help you directly—or he’ll never get Laura into bed—doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to help you. Actually,’ Dave returned his attention to the phone, ‘that’s a bit unfair. I take the comment about Laura back. He’s after more than that.’

  ‘Is that Gareth?’ Jimmy asked, nodding at Dave’s phone.

  ‘Nah, it’s Charlotte. Norwich just had one off the bar, and by the way, where the fuck am I?’ he replied. ‘I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Come on, let’s get this done.’

  Dave walked back down the balcony, closely followed by Jimmy, before they came to a halt outside Max’s flat.

  ‘Stand there, and try to look big,’ he said, pointing Jimmy toward the bannister before reaching into his pocket and pulling out what looked to Jimmy like an electric toothbrush with a metal shank on the end instead of a brush. Dave inserted the blade into the lock, and Jimmy heard a buzzing noise that only lasted a few seconds before there was a satisfying “thunk”. ‘There you go,’ Dave said, stepping back from the door. ‘All yours. You’re on your own, Mr Tucker. Charlotte will kill me if I don’t get back. I told her I was going for a pee, and now I’m going to have to pretend I’m constipated.’ He grinned at Jimmy for a second before making his way down the balcony toward the lift.

  Below them, a huge roar burst from the stadium. Jimmy looked at Max’s apartment door as the announcer’s voice drifted through the air with the name of Norwich’s goal scorer. Jimmy didn’t care who had scored, although obviously he was pleased that one of them had. He was even more pleased to see that Max’s apartment door was a few inches open.

  Chapter 41

  ‘Hello?’ Jimmy called out as he pushed the door to Max’s flat open. He started giggling as he walked through the door. It was mostly from nerves—apart from nicking some sweets from the corner shop when he was a kid, he’d never broken the law in his life, and now here he was. A fully fledged burglar. Not sure what he would do if someone replied, he pushed the door to behind him, leaving it ajar a couple of inches in case he needed to get out in a hurry.

  To Jimmy’s surprise, Max’s flat was very well decorated inside. Photographs were on almost every wall of the hallway just inside the front door. They were smaller than the ones on the walls of his studio, but much as he hated the man, even Jimmy had to admit that some of them were really good.

  At the end of the hallway were three doors, all closed. One of
them led to a small bathroom. Jimmy had a cursory look inside, but there was nothing in it he wouldn’t expect there to be. A toilet with what looked like a sprinkle of urine on the lowered seat, a small shower, and a sink with some hand wash.

  The second door led to a bedroom dominated by a queen-sized bed and a huge mirror on the wall. When Jimmy walked in and caught his own reflection, he jumped. There was just enough room for a small bedside table wedged between the bed and the fitted wardrobe on the wall. A black duvet with matching pillows on the bed gave the whole room a dark, foreboding air to it.

  Jimmy crossed to the bedside table and opened the drawer, not sure what he was looking for. There was a dog-eared book, what looked like half-empty packets of paracetamol, and condoms. He leaned over to look in the back of the drawer and wished he hadn’t. Nestled right at the back of the drawer was an industrial-looking vibrator, as black as the bedclothes. Sex toys had never really been Jimmy’s thing, but this one didn’t look pleasurable, no matter how you looked at it.

  He bent over to look under the bed—there was a dust-covered suit carrier underneath it but nothing else, and the only things hanging in the wardrobe were clothes. It was mostly men’s clothes, though. Apart from one or two dresses, it was all jackets and shirts. Where did Max’s girlfriend keep all her stuff? Below the hanging clothes were three drawers. The top one was locked, just as Milly’s had been, and the lower two were filled with clothes. Jimmy rifled through them, but it was mostly underwear. A mix of men’s and women’s.

  Satisfied that there was nothing of interest to him in the bedroom, Jimmy opened the third and final door that led off the hallway. He walked into what was a large lounge, with a sectioned off area toward the back with a small kitchenette.