by Robert Clark
‘Who is this?’ barked a voice on the other end of the line. It was the Part-time Model. I recognised the swagger in his voice under the muffle of a couple loose teeth and swollen lips.
‘You need to work on your telephone etiquette,’ I said. ‘You sound like an arsehole.’
‘We have the woman,’ he said, bastardising the the into a ze. ‘Now it is our turn to call the shots.’
‘What shots?’ I snapped. ‘What exactly do you think you’re doing here? Kidnapping the sister of one of your victims pisses away any chance of making it look like suicide, doesn’t it, genius? Best you can hope for now is a quick execution.’
‘Funny man,’ the Part-time Model said. ‘Funny man thinking he’s in charge. But we hold the chips. We will make you dance for us, funny man.’
‘I’ll dance on your grave, you sad little rent boy.’
Bright lights passed me by. I looked up and saw a police car, driving slow. I turned away from it. Hoped it would leave me be.
‘I am not a rent boy!’ the guy snapped.
‘True. Who would pay to have sex with you? I bet you can’t give that away for free. Day old corpses have more appeal than you.’
‘Stop talking.’
‘Why? Am I hurting your feelings? It’s okay to cry.’
The police car moved on. I glanced in a shop window, and saw it trawl onwards, around the corner and out of sight.
‘Fifty thousand or I’ll kill the woman,’ said the Part-time Model.
‘Fifty thousand what, reasons why you’re a piece of garbage? No problem. Number one, you think you can threaten an innocent woman’s life. Number two, you couldn’t sell yourself to pay for a cup of coffee.’
‘Fifty thousand euros, or we kill her.’
‘How you going to do that? Put her in front of a train as well? You think the police will believe lightning struck twice?’
‘They’ll believe whatever we want,’ the Part-time Model snarled. ‘The last of her family is dead. She has no one else. No husband. No children. No parents. Nothing. Making it look like suicide would be easy.’
‘How do I know she’s even alive right now?’
‘Hear for yourself, funny man,’ he leered.
There was a rustle as the phone was passed around.
‘Mr Callahan?’ It was Marie. She sounded petrified.
‘It’s me, Marie. Just hold on tight. I’ll find you.’
‘We’re driving north,’ she said quickly, ‘for Prisches. They’re taking me-’
The phone was snatched away before she could finish her sentence.
‘There,’ said the Part-time Model. ‘She is still alive for now. And yes, we are taking her back. She can die in her dead sister’s house. So you know where we are going, and you have one hour to bring me the money, otherwise she will die. Maybe like her sister. I hear the trains are running smoothly once more.’
Another chuckle, then the line went dead. I stuffed the phone back in my pocket. One hour. That’s all I had. One hour, one shoe, and no other means of transport than my two bruised feet.
Shit.
My clothes were soaked, and my shoeless foot was numb from the rain. I needed three things. Clothes, transport, and a weapon. All within an hour. Of the three hundred euros I’d been given by Marie as an advance, I still had two hundred and twenty left. Not enough to hire a car, not that I could have done so without a drivers license. A taxi might eat a large chunk of that amount, but with my face fresh in the media’s mind, I didn’t dare risk it. It was time for drastic measures.
Nights reclamation had stifled all natural light, and rain forced those still outside to seek cover under umbrellas or coat hoods or roofs. It made my job a little easier. I crossed the road and ducked back into the residential area, taking the streets at what I assumed was a north-westerly crisscross. I kept my head low, and scanned each house I passed, looking for the right one, hoping the rain had caused a degree of misgiving.
I spotted a candidate up ahead on the right. A two bedroom semi-detached property with golden light spooling out through the downstairs windows. Adjoining the property was a garage. With one final check to make sure no one was looking my way, I ducked into the driveway and hustled over to the garage. There was no exterior lock, which either meant the garage had no lock, or it was electronically operated using a fob. I slid my fingers underneath and gave it a wiggle. No dice. Must be the latter.
Finally, something working in my favour.
I hustled over to the bush running along the front of the property between the garden and the street. It was a thick, prickly beast, trimmed back into shape to stop it from stabbing out the eyes of passersby. I fumbled around in the dark at the bottom of the hedge until I found something useful. A stick the length of my arm that looked strong enough to survive a bit of jiggery-pokery. Lurking in the shadows, I whittled away all but one of the extraneous spikes, until it was what I needed. Then it was back to the garage door.
A lot of people don’t think about their home security, especially when it comes to the garage. They treat it as an afterthought, expecting the large metallic door to be enough to stop a potential burglar from breaking in. They treat it like it's a wall made of brick and mortar, and not something that can be thwarted by a man with a stick.
The key is to find the release. With one hand on the stick, I pushed the top of the garage door inwards. The door gave way by just an inch. Not big enough to slide my hand inside, but long enough for my stick. I teased it through the gap and wiggled it back and forth until I found the cable connected to the release. The remaining spike caught around the cable, and I tugged.
It didn’t work. Not right away. Without a clear view on it, I knew it was a matter of patience. It all came down to time. Either I was going to disengage the lock, or I was going to get spotted. One or the other. Either or.
I tried again, twisting the stick this way and that until I found resistance. Through the gap in the garage door, I couldn’t see anything beyond what I was holding. I dug the spike into the cable again and gave it another tug.
It worked. With the garage door mechanism disengaged, there was nothing stopping the door from coming up. I released my stick, dropped to the ground, and heaved it up just enough to roll underneath. It was a tight fit, but I managed it. Gently, I lowered the door behind me.
Score one for the fugitive.
Inside, the space was dark. A red Ford not too unlike Marie’s damaged coupé sat quietly, nose pointed towards the road. I looked around in the dark, hoping that the kind of person who would park a car in their garage was the same kind of person who would leave the keys hung on a hook nearby.
No such luck. Today was not my day.
The Ford was one of the older models. The kind that heralded from a time when security was a newfound concept amongst the vehicle industry. While I had learned from a somewhat reputable source the means and methods required to hot-wire a car, I wasn’t sure I could put that into practice with the owners on the other side of a brick wall. If I messed it up and activated the car alarm, I was screwed.
I looked around and saw the door leading through to the house. Did I dare sneak inside to look for the keys?
More so than I dared to gamble with an innocent woman’s life.
Twenty-Five
Time is running out. It’s a phrase that’s been thrown around as long as time itself, like the pair were conceived in unison. First came time, then the concept that it would always be running out. People bleat about it all the time, despite the fact that it is essentially doing the one thing it is capable of doing. It’s like saying “quick, the sky is blue, we must hurry!” All you’re doing is stating the obvious. Time will run and run and run.
But right in that moment, time seemed to be running out extra fast, so I got a move on.
The other stupid thing homeowners who forget to lock their garage doors do is that they lean into the idea that the garage door is an impregnable fortress. If you thought no one can break through,
why would you bother to lock the inside door either? Double down on the stupidity.
I put my hand on the door handle. The brass was cold. I gave it a gentle turn, and it gave way. My heart was in my mouth. As quietly as I dared, I pushed it open a little wider and peered inside. The garage led onto a corridor. Sunflower yellow wallpaper adorned the walls, broke only by intermittent photographs of happy family memories. Directly above me was a set of stairs leading up to the first floor.
From a distant room, I could hear the sounds of a television, but other than that, I couldn’t hear anyone. Best bet, the family was sat in the living room, so engrossed by the television that they wouldn’t notice being burgled. Worst bet, someone was standing behind the garage door, baseball bat raised to put a hole in my skull.
I squeezed out into the corridor. No one murdered the intruder. Not right away at least. I peered the other way and saw through another open door a kitchen mid preparation for an evening meal. If someone was in there, they could be a problem. Last thing I needed was some busy parent hurrying out to summon the family and tripping over me.
I slid the garage door open by a crack and looked around. Where did people put their car keys? By the front door, maybe, with all the other gubbins required for the start of a fresh new day. Bent low, I scuttled across the corridor, wishing that my damp clothes weren’t leaving such a noticeable mark on the carpet. The sounds from the television grew louder, coming through a door open halfway ahead to my right. I chanced a look inside. The back of a head was visible over the top of an art deco sofa. Rich blonde hair cascading over the back rest.
I looked to the front door. A small cabinet was propped up beneath a rack of winter coats, on top of which sat a wicker bowl. Sure enough, nestled inside was a set of keys. The Ford logo glistening up at me in the hallway light. Carefully so as not to jingle the set, I picked it up and slid off the key for the Ford before replacing the set in the bowl. I contemplated stealing one of the coats, but I felt bad enough taking the car. I’d done enough damage for one day. My seat in Hell was already paid in full.
The sound of movement behind me nearly gave me a heart attack. I turned just in time to see the back of the blonde haired woman walking out of the living room, up towards the kitchen. She stopped only briefly to close the garage door, before heading into the kitchen. The sounds of a man and woman talking drifted through to me.
‘That was close,’ I said to myself.
‘You’ve got to move,’ said the Wolf. ‘Before one of them comes back.’
‘Really?’ I growled, ‘I was going to go and ask if they had some food to spare.’
I shuffled back down the corridor to the garage. As I passed by the living room door, I heard a noise from above. Movement. Hurried movement. Then the thud of someone running down the stairs.
‘Inside’ the Wolf ordered.
Under the cover of the bustle on the stairs, I ran to the garage door, and twisted the handle. But my hand was too wet and slid off the brass knob in haste. The noise on the stairs reached halfway. Then it changed. It sped up, much too fast. Not like someone running, but someone stumbling and falling. The thud thud thud increased to a tumble. Then a scream, young and visceral, as the speaker hit the landing.
More movement, this time off to my right, coming from the kitchen. I didn’t have time to open the door. I darted back down the corridor and, hoping beyond hope that no one else was inside, slipped into the living room.
I darted behind the door and glanced around. No one. Thank Christ. Two grey sofas positioned in an L shape faced towards the television, which was playing some soap opera I didn’t recognise to an empty room. Behind me I heard two hurried footsteps rush towards the front door.
‘Are you okay?’ called a woman.
‘I fell down the stairs,’ wept a young boy, each word forced between sobs.
The woman made all sorts of motherly sounds while the young boy recovered. The man chuckled and said, ‘you’ll be okay, son,’ before turning and heading back to the kitchen.
‘Come in here,’ said the mother.
The living room door opened wide and bounced against my foot. I pressed myself into the wall, wishing I was two dimensional. The blonde mother entered the room, cradling under her arm a small, red-faced boy. They walked within a foot of me as they headed for the sofa and sat down. The moment they had both faced away from the door, I ducked low and slithered out. I heard the sound of the channel change to something noisier and hyperactive to quell the child’s distress, and hoped the mum would stick around long enough for me to escape.
I reached the garage door and opened it. My heart felt ready to pack in. No way I was going to live to one hundred with stress like this. I squeezed through and closed it carefully behind me. Then I breathed out. One part done. One to go.
With the newly acquired Ford key, I opened the vehicle and released the handbrake. Then I got out, moved to the garage door and, very slowly, opened it wide. The driveway sloped down a fraction to meet the road. I didn’t dare start the car inside the garage. I opened the driver door and began to push. My feet scraped on the concrete as I built up traction, but eventually it moved. The car crept quietly down to the road, and I turned the steering wheel to nose it onto the kerb.
Then I hustled back to the garage door, slid it shut behind me, and ran back to the car. Once inside and on the street, I put the key in the ignition and started it up.
Half an hour to go to my deadline.
Time, as ever, running out.
Twenty-Six
Thirty minutes was a tight deadline, so I had to abandon two of my three requirements and gun it back to Prisches. The clothes could wait. Hell, maybe I’d take them off Buzz Cut and the Part-time Model when I was finished boring a hole through their skulls. The weapon, well, the weapon would be whatever I damn well chose it to be. The spice of life, baby. The world is my oyster.
Driving in the dark in an unknown part of the world with only a vague idea of where I was going didn’t make for a smooth journey. My antics with Marie’s coupé had gridlocked a large section of roads as drivers struggled to accommodate for the emergency services flooding the scene. I prayed that no one had died, and that the most of the damages would be a headache or small bruise.
‘Destruction follows you, James,’ hissed the Wolf. ‘Everywhere you go, it follows you like a shadow.’
‘Leave me alone.’
‘Don’t try to deny it. You’ve brought chaos on the world. You’re a disease.’
I ignored him and looked at the roadsigns. They were all in French, signposting places I had never heard of. None of them said Prisches.
‘Afghanistan, London, Scotland, Belgium. Where will the mayhem end?’ the Wolf snarled.
‘Afghanistan wasn’t my fault,’ I said. ‘Nor was London. I didn’t want this.’
‘Didn’t you? Deep down, I think you did. Otherwise, why would I be here, contradicting you? I know you, James. I know what goes on in the deepest, darkest recesses of your soul. I feed on your darkness. I know it better than you.’
‘Leave me alone.’ I said again.
He laughed.
‘How much further will you go before you accept what you are?’ he asked before drifting away once more.
I kept my eyes on the road, tried to focus my mind on the task at hand. I was tired, beat and bruised. That was why he was here, berating me. I needed all of this to be over so I could shift focus back to the more pressing matter of my innocence. I looked up at the signs, hoping at least one of them would show me what I needed. There, finally. Ahead on the left between two other town names was Prisches with the distance printed next to it. Fifty three kilometres. Nearly an hour’s drive. Not a chance in hell I’d manage it in thirty minutes. Not without breaking the speed limit all the way, and I’d taken the piss with the law enough for one day.
I swore and turned onto the road and fell in behind a truck. The taillights illuminated the interior of the Ford with a blood-red glow. Not enough time.
But not enough for them either. They’d called me maybe ten minutes after they’d taken Marie, which was now half an hour ago. At best, they were forty minutes into their journey, and had at best another twenty remaining. They couldn’t expect me to get fifty thousand euros and do an hours drive. Which had to mean one of two things. Either they were too dumb to realise their demands were impossible, or it was a trap. I stared into the sharp red taillights. Which one was it? Stupid or smart?
If it was just the two of them calling the shots, then maybe it was stupid. If it was Neagley, then I could be walking into a trap. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel and thought. Marie had confirmed their direction, and the Part-time Model had confirmed the destination. I believed the former, and hoped I got the chance to throw the latter into a trash compactor.
The truck took a left turn, leaving me with a clear road ahead. I gunned the Ford up to the speed limit, settled in, and formed a plan.
The drive back took close to fifty minutes. At first, I thought I was doomed for. The original hour deadline came and went and the phone in my pocket stayed silent. Maybe they’d decided to kill Marie and cut their losses, but I didn’t think so. My theory thought otherwise.
Mercifully, the road stayed fairly quiet. Those still braving the weather drove cautiously and didn’t put up a fuss as I overtook them. The signposts took me all the way back to Prisches without much hassle, and I worked the last bit of the journey from memory.
I didn’t go to Amie’s house. My bet was that Buzz Cut and his mate had snitched to the police, and right about now, the street would be locked down with police officers hiding in every hedge up the street, all ready to pounce on the unsuspecting fugitive wandering into their lair. So instead, I took a different route to the nicer part of town.
Marie Giroux’s house looked like a dead bulb in a swathe of Christmas lights. Every other house on the street glowed with life. All except for hers. At first glance, I figured I was wrong and the Part-time Model and Buzz Cut had failed to meet my expectations. Then I saw the shit brown sedan parked up in the driveway exactly where her sporty coupé should have been and realised otherwise.