by Neal Bircher
6. Great Escape
Investment
Once enough Transit diesel fumes had been expelled from Nick’s lungs that he felt able to do so, he rolled over and crawled up to the front of his Celica. It took him no more than five minutes to complete the task of attaching its new number plates, but his chest still ached, and he could still taste the fumes. So, before getting back into the car, he decided to embark on a bit of healthy exercise by taking himself for a short walk.
Returning to the road, he made a right turn back into a bustling row of run-down shops. A fruit and vegetable store sprawled out as far as the gutter, a “hi-fi emporium” blasted Bob Marley through the traffic noise, and a very run-down local bookies gave hope and despair in unequal portions to its roll-up chewing clientele. Nick had no intention of stopping at any of what this community had to offer, but then did find himself drawn to the window of one shop. “J. Sedlacek, Jeweller” was indicated by a once-illuminated bus-stop style 1970s plastic sign that still incorporated a phone number with the long-since defunct “01” prefix (“01, if you are outside London”; Nick was back watching Blue Peter in 1985!) and a peeling gold letters on peeling black background painted sign above its heavily grilled window. Nick found himself peering through the shop’s dusty window at the still dustier merchandise on even more dusty shelves behind.
There was lots of chunky gold in there: chains, cuff-links, and knuckle-dusting sovereign rings, all quite old, and all a bit naff. But there were also some old watches, and Nick found ancient time-pieces, with their intricate workings and artistic but un-flashy designs, to be things of intrigue. There were all sorts there, from ladies’ tiny wristwatches, to a beautiful gold pocket watch, complete with non-bling chain. There were no prices, but Nick was interested enough to go inside.
The narrow shop was surprisingly long, but the proprietor’s appearance unsurprisingly Albert Einstein-like. A glass counter housed any number of similar items to those in the window, crammed in a rather random fashion. Nick felt that he’d seen the best stuff from outside, and he didn’t actually know what he might want or why he might want it anyway. Nor was he too inclined to part with much of the remaining almost five grand that was throbbing away in his top pocket. So he went to turn and go back outside. But then Einstein spoke up.
“How can I help you, sir? A nice little gift for the lady is it? We have lovely gold necklaces.” His accent was a comic combination of Polish and Cockney, but his sales pitch was effective. Of course: a reason to purchase something! A chat with Einstein ensued, and he revealed that at the back end of the shop was a lot of brand new stock (another surprise), and it was in an item of that stock that Nick made an investment. A little Gucci ladies wristwatch with a rectangular purple face, silver surround, and black leather strap was priced at £345, but, after a bit of haggling, an exchange of £285 left both Nick and Einstein happy.
Nick didn’t go in for comfort purchases; he felt that was a female thing. For him and, he imagined, most men, spending money when things weren’t going well just added to any burden and hence to any associated misery. He was of the opposite school: if things were good and exciting then blowing money on something for pleasure served to heighten the enjoyment of the moment. And subconsciously he was having a good time, despite his apparently problematic circumstances. So, having spent more money on jewellery (or indeed on any present) than he had ever done before, he found himself running – almost skipping – child-like, back to his car. The taste of exhaust fumes was fading, as were the thoughts of policemen and journalists … for the time being, anyway.
Karen
Karen’s large glass of white wine was still three quarters full as Nick drained the last dregs of his pint of lager. “Do you fancy another one?” he enquired with a bit of a slur.
Karen picked up her glass and swirled it around before responding politely, “No, thanks, I’d better be going soon. I’ve got to be in for a meeting at eight thirty.”
“OK. I’ll just get myself a half while you finish that one off then.”
Five minutes later Nick returned from the bar with a pint of Foster’s. Karen’s glass was just over half full. He always felt that their evenings tended to end too suddenly; he’d have been up for a club and drinking into the “early” hours if she had, but she never was.
Karen leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “It’s lovely to see you again,” she said, and she seemed to mean it.
“It’s lovely to see you too, as ever,” said Nick, and he squeezed her hand as he did so.
Nick admired Karen, and he enjoyed their twice-a-year or so get-togethers.
“Is Damien home?” he enquired, trying to make sure he wasn’t gritting his teeth.
“No, he’s doing a shoot in Norway. He’s not back until Saturday.”
Nick tried to be interested: “Anything interesting?”
“No, some kind of recruitment video or something, I think; nothing high profile.”
“So, what else do we need to talk about?” asked Nick. “I always think of something as soon as we get on the Tube.”
Karen smiled. “Well there’s always email if we’ve missed something.”
They hadn’t missed anything though. They’d covered everything from holiday plans to work frustrations to football events to films, and even, to a limited extent, to world politics, in a pretty light-hearted way. Personal relationships however had been more or less avoided, as ever.
Nick often wondered how much longer these meetings would carry on … probably until Karen had kids. He was surprised that that hadn’t happened yet; each time they met up he was half-expecting the “I’m pregnant” announcement. Yes, that would surely be the end of things, and it would finally extinguish any lingering thoughts about the two of them as well, changing the 98% to 100% … or at least to 99 anyway.
It was time to go. Karen and Nick headed to the Tube station where they would go their separate ways. They walked alongside each other, but not hand-in-hand. They kissed goodnight. It was only a peck on the cheek, but that was all it ever was – apart from one drunken blowjob in a Soho alleyway a several years before, but that was something never talked about, as were a number of things, good and bad, from their shared past.
Karen got on her train first, and Nick waved her good-bye. He was proud to be seen with a woman as attractive as Karen. They had been an item, briefly, in the sixth form at school, and had met up again when they’d both found themselves working in London. Karen had done well for herself: she had progressed during the last five or six years that she and Nick had been meeting up from a junior role to being “Director of Operations” at whatever the company it was at which she worked. They were accountants or something like that. She had about fifty people under her. Nick didn’t really take in her work talk, but she did mention her boss, Trevor, and some other bloke called Brendan, as well as other people and squabbles in the workplace. She had her eye on the Chief Executive role but would need to overcome politics and rivalry to get there.
Karen was married to Damien: Damien Wells. She didn’t take his surname though professionally – she was still Karen Maguire, just like she had been at school. Damien was in advertising, and seemed to earn a lot of money. Nick had met him a few times, but the two of them didn’t really hit it off, and Karen hadn’t got Damien to meet her at the end of her evenings with Nick for a long time.
Nick tried not to be, but he was envious of Karen, and of her success in life. He was envious of Damien too, for being with Karen. And he was envious of the two of them together with their nice life and their horrendously expensive little house in Pimlico (very nice, even if not really his kind of thing). But he hid it well because he genuinely did like Karen as a person. He waved as her train pulled away, and he smiled. It was a smile for Karen, a really good person, but it was a rueful smile as well at the thought of what might have been.
Martin
Nick was to meet up with Martin in a street in the North London district of Highgate, an
area of which he knew little more than nothing. He had selected the street pretty much at random, and was much relieved when he turned into an adjoining road, only five minutes later than planned, to find that there were plenty of spaces to park at the roadside. He duly parked and made his way hurriedly to the junction that both he and Martin had pinpointed that morning. The road had even fewer parked cars than where he had left the Celica, but Martin wasn’t there yet. Slightly out of breath, Nick sat down on the kerb and blew little clouds out into the cold evening air.
Two cars came around the corner, and Nick was relieved to see them pass him by; they were neither police, nor yobs looking to pick up on some weirdo sitting on the floor. And then the distinctive headlamps of an Alfa GTV hove into view. Martin hesitated while his eyes scanned the scene, before he caught sight of Nick’s up-stretched hand, and pulled up against the kerb, easing the 3-litre sports car gently to a halt without any fuss or unwarranted revving-up.
Martin got out of the car and opened the boot to reveal Gail’s huge suitcase, next to Nick’s own holdall. Martin handed Nick the keys to Nick’s van. Then Nick lifted out the holdall, and Martin hauled out the suitcase and placed it at Nick’s feet.
“Blimey, that’s definitely a woman’s suitcase!” he commented. “Where are you parked?”
Nick was surreptitiously checking around that nobody was watching them. “Oh, it’s just around the corner; I’ll be fine, thanks.” He knew that Martin would never betray his confidence, but it was only fair on Martin to not let him see the new car. As far as he knew, Nick had probably dusted off the old Porsche after months of inactivity.
Martin held out his hand, and Nick shook it. “Best of luck, mate,” Martin offered. “Thanks… and thanks again for doing this.”
Martin waved an “it was nothing” kind of gesture, and then was back in his car. Nick had a lump in his throat. Martin was his best mate nowadays; Nick wondered when ever he might see him again.
The Purchase
The Lamb and Flag was a horrible dingy little pub, and the room above it still more so. Discoloured wallpaper peeled off damp lumpy walls, and the smells of must and stale cigarette smoke hung heavily in thick air. Behind a limp grey net curtain a single ancient sash window accommodated enough grime – inside and out – to deter all but the hardiest rays of natural light from venturing inside. What it lacked though in its role as a conductor of sunlight the window more than made up for in its vivid conveyance of the sounds and smells of clogged traffic and street market emanating from the road below.
The room was sparsely furnished. A self-assemble wardrobe had been past its best for twenty years, and a bedside table (non-matching but of similarly poor quality) bore the stains of a thousand slopping coffee mugs; it also sported a dusty table lamp that had no plug. The only other item in the room was a single bed, hidden under a crumpled and well-faded thin brown candlewick bedspread. All in all the room was not a pleasant place in which to be.
But if there was one person who could blend in as if the place had been made with him in mind, then he was standing in the middle of it now.
He was a short man in his mid-fifties with a craggy unhealthy face, smoke-yellowed crooked teeth, darting shifty blue eyes, and breath that smelled even worse than the rest of him. A tie and a pin-stripe suit were both dark blue and crumpled, and a cream shirt filthy and frayed at the collar. His black shoes though were surprisingly well polished and shiny. He placed a cheap briefcase on the bed and it visibly sank into the sponge of a mattress.
“So you’re looking for something small and light-weight then?” he asked in a wheezing East London accent.
“Yes, please. And it needs to be quite cheap.”
The gun trader clicked open his briefcase. He gazed into it for a moment as if he hadn’t previously known what was in there.
“Well I’ve got a couple in here for you to have a look at…” Then he coughed a smoker’s cough for a good thirty seconds. “’Scuse me. As I was saying, there’s a couple here that should suit your purposes. They are both designed for ladies to use, so they’re nice and compact, and light as a feather.”
There were two bundles of white cloth in the brief case. He took out the larger one and delicately began to unravel it.
“There. Isn’t that a beauty?” He looked on adoringly, more as if he’d revealed some cute little animal than a machine made for the purpose of inflicting horrific pain. But he was right; it was indeed a beautiful piece of work. From its knurled granite-coloured handle through the deep metallic shine of its barrel and to all its diligently oiled moving parts, this was clearly a quality piece of engineering. It looked good … and it looked expensive.
“Very nice. Umm, how much is it?”
“Well I’d be able to get six or seven hundred pounds for it any day of the week down in London, but I know you’re on a budget, and I don’t really want to take it back with me, so if you’ve got the cash on you then I’m prepared to let you have it for what it cost me, which is four hundred quid. Now I can’t say fairer than that, can I?”
“… Umm, yes. That sounds like quite a good price … thank you. I just wondered whether you, um, might have something for even less.”
The gun trader did his best facial impression of an exasperated fine art photographer who’d been asked to process some Torremolenos holiday snaps. But at the same time he picked out the other package from his case, just as he’d always anticipated he would have to.
Rendezvous
The clock on the wall suggested that it was fourteen minutes to eight when Nick walked through the door of the Stanhope Arms. Allowing five minutes for pub clock time that made him eleven minutes later than planned, but still nineteen minutes before the time he’d told Gail to arrive. He ordered a double whisky and Coke; he drank shorts about once every five years. He settled down in a corner with a copy of theGuardian, a paper he’d never bought in his life before. He peered through a pair of horn-rimmed glasses: a prop from a John Lennon fancy dress guise, left over from a student party some sixteen years earlier. And he kept on his donkey jacket, also not worn for about the same length of time as the glasses. His combed-forward hair (another first) hopefully complemented the student look (albeit of a fairly mature student) quite nicely.
He began skimming through the paper, but at the same time he was observing the other people in the pub and in particular any newcomers entering by the only door. There were fifteen people in there initially, and none gave the impression that they might be any kind of undercover person on his trail. This wasn’t surprising as he was completely confident that he hadn’t been followed, and as Gail hadn’t arrived yet, nobody could have trailed her there either.
Over the course of the next twenty minutes or so only two more people came in. First was a short girl in a woolly hat. She looked around as if expecting to meet somebody, then went into the toilets, and when she emerged walked straight back out of the pub and stood on the footpath outside. No undercover activity there. The other person to come in better fitted the undercover profile. It was a man in his mid-thirties with shortish light brown hair, a quality, but worn, overcoat, and a slightly anxious expression. He paused a yard inside the door to let his eyes dart around the room. And then:
“Josh!” A horsy type of girl leapt up from a group of four and cantered towards him.
“Hello darling!” Josh responded in a plummy voice, before exchanging luvvy kisses and heading hand-in-hand to the now excitable other three members of the group. No undercover stuff there either.
The next person to walk through the door was Gail. The hat looked great on her, Nick felt, even if her flowing locks had been bunned-up and hidden underneath it, and the big 1970s glasses and curve-disguising mac could not prevent her from oozing sex-appeal. She walked straight to the bar in her usual slightly nervy fashion, not looking anybody else in the eye, and certainly not even beginning to turn her head in Nick’s direction. She ordered a diet Coke, and took a tall stool at the bar. Two be-suited me
n of about 30, drinking together at the bar, immediately began chatting her up. She reluctantly returned polite but largely monosyllabic conversation.
Nick waited a couple of minutes before quietly going out of the door, leaving his untouched whisky on the table, along with his folded newspaper. He crossed the road to stand in a doorway that he had checked out earlier, a little way along the road. He was shrouded in shadow, and had a good view of the well-illuminated doorway to the Stanhope Arms. After five minutes or so, Josh and his party left. They made loud laughing noises as they disappeared into Gloucester Road Tube station that was opposite the pub. They were quickly replaced by a similar noisy mixed-sex group, this time five-strong. Nobody else came in or out, and, as far as Nick could tell, nobody passing took much of a look inside. Once ten minutes were up he jogged back across the busy road, and returned to the pub. Gail was now sitting at a table, and an Irishman in his mid-fifties was just working his way away from it to return to his previous seat after his Guinness-assisted chat-up attempt had met with a cold response.
Nick greeted Gail with a kiss on the cheek, and she smiled and kissed him back. Her eyes and her touch were each as alluring as ever, but there wouldn’t be a lingering kiss this time, and nor would a leisurely drink in the pub follow, as there was a plan to be getting on with.
They left the Stanhope Arms and made the half hour Tube Journey to North London in relative silence, both feeling a little self-conscious in their disguises. Nick was still keeping an eye out for followers, or of course anybody else that they knew. They were soon though at their next destination, and after a short walk Nick introduced Gail to his new toy. “What do you think?” he asked her, proudly.
Gail did actually rather like Celicas. “Nice. Where did you get it?”