by Mark Ayre
James’ hand was an inch from the shiny thing, and he was worried. Very much so.
“You’ve done enough. Get yourself home. I’ll send someone to look around and, when the time is right, they will be the ones to ‘find’ the body. All I need is for you to mention this to no one. Not until we’ve had a chance to speak. Okay?”
James nodded, forgetting she couldn’t see him. He could hear the way she was trying to be matter of fact. Her heart was breaking so she allowed the businesswoman to take over. Everything had to be done right. Had to be handled correctly. Only once this had happened could Jane allow herself to grieve.
Still forgetting she could not hear him, James reached and grabbed the shiny thing. He took hold of the phone in his free hand and rolled onto his back, holding it up. He felt his heart stop.
“Jane?”
“Yes?”
“I want to help.”
A silence. He stared at the bracelet, held it closer to him.
“Are you sure?”
He slid it into his pocket, closed his eyes, thinking how badly he wanted to be out of this. To be free of it. But that was no longer an option.
“I’m sure.”
She did not consider it long.
“Fine, here’s what you need to do.”
She told him, and he tried to listen, but he was distracted. He held the bracelet in his pocket and remembered the last time he had seen it. The way it had glinted in the light. The way the charm had looked like a goat. Still did, he supposed.
Importantly, it told him who Harris had been with right before his murder.
It had been Megan.
5
Go now. Into the kitchen and put on a pair of rubber gloves. Back to my son’s jacket and remove his keys. Leave everything else untouched. I want you to drive to his flat. Listen close, here’s the address.
With the instructions running on inner autocue, James dragged himself up. Suffering body-wide shakes, although the pain was centred in his head and stomach, where he had taken the worse blows, he started the long, painful journey down the stairs.
Movement was essential, loosening his aching limbs with every step. By morning his stomach would be black, his head swollen, but that was then. Best not to worry.
Gloves on. Back up the stairs. Rest at the top then search the jacket. The keys jangled as though signalling for pick up, and he plunged his hand into the pocket, collecting them. Then it was back to the top of the stairs—another deep breath.
One more time.
Driving meant sitting. He thought that might be easier, but each press on the peddle was an invitation for his stomach to contract and release another shot of pain through his system. Practising deep, controlled breathing, he tried to split his focus between the road and Jane’s instructions.
Once you arrive, be thorough. Search the place from top to bottom. Don’t ask what you’re looking for because I don’t know. Anything suspicious. Anything that looks out of place. Take it. Bring it to me. It’s important we get a jump on this before the cops stick their noses in.
Harris’ building, a slightly more modern version of James’ nondescript block of flats, loomed. Three floors. Parking on all sides, 24 flats total. James pulled up and surveyed the building. There were no cameras at his, but it never paid to take things for granted.
Keeping low, he popped the boot of the car and found a hoody. Lucky. As though he’d known there would be skulking in his future. He hadn’t worn it in years, and it was a little tight around the middle. Trying not to let the implication depress him, he flipped his hood—also a little uncomfortable. Head bowed, he approached the entrance and, flicking Harris’ fob against the access panel, was in.
Automatic lighting flicked on. No lift but he saw the door to the stairs. Apprehension seized him, but they were not so bad as the stairwells in most flats James had visited or lived in. These didn’t even smell of piss.
Assuming the police would talk to the neighbours, James focused on a quiet, rather than fast ascent. If someone popped out and saw him, all the rubber gloves and hooded tops in the world couldn’t save him.
He’d have to kill them.
Onto the second floor. More lighting popped on overhead to reveal a corridor with relatively fresh white paint and a relatively stain-free blue carpet. At the hall’s end, he found door 306. Also blue. Also fresh. He withdrew the key, brought it towards the lock, and stopped.
The door was open.
It was only a crack. So close to closed he would never have noticed, had he not approached with a key.
Had Harris left it open? Possible. People were careless. Forgetful. Some coincidence, though. More likely they were linked, which meant either someone had killed him for his carelessness, or it had not been Harris to leave the door ajar.
He touched the door, considering. Had someone come here before Harris was killed—or after?
His hand fell. Imagining the killer driving a foot through James’ stomach then racing here. Unlikely. Maybe if he had never seen, or had killed James, but he had done neither. Even if he hadn’t believed the police lie, he had to know James would call them the moment he scarpered.
Then again, the police would examine the crime scene before heading to the flat, offering a window of opportunity.
Somewhere nearby. Footsteps.
James jumped as though a guard had tasered him, then closed his eyes. Breathe in. Breathe out. Listen.
A floor down, someone stumbling out of bed to the bathroom. Quick wee, then it would be back to bed. None the wiser they were not alone in being awake in the block.
Head to the open door. Breathe in. Breathe out. Listen.
Nothing.
Though the killer had shown a talent for quietness at the bar. Had they heard James traverse the hall they could have flicked the lights off and hidden. Waiting for James to enter. Blade in hand. Tense.
At the bar, James had been allowed to live. The same kindly gesture could not be expected second time around.
A longing for home arose, and he went for the bracelet, feeling the goat that was not a goat. A reminder he could not walk away.
The goat bestowed him with strength, and his hands rose to the door once more. Pushing as though he did not want to open the door, he cringed, praying there would be no creak.
There wasn’t. The door opened in respectful silence, leaving James staring into gloom.
From above, the hall’s automatic lighting fell over his shoulders, reaching into the room. Shapes seemed to form in the dark of the dead man’s flat. A TV to the right, sofa and beanbag chair beyond it. A counter that bordered the kitchen and living room to the left. To the far left and far right of the room, he could about make out the forms of two more doors. Jane had not shared the flat’s layout with him, but it was not too big of a leap to assume one entry led to a bedroom, the other to the bathroom.
Still, there was silence. James glanced to the side and ran his hand up the wall beside the door, first left, then right. There was the light switch. He touched it, let his finger hover. Flicking on the light could be the signal the killer was waiting for. The doors out of this main room were closed, but there was nothing to say the friendly neighbourhood murderer could not be hidden behind either the sofa or the counter. Waiting until the light came on so he could get a good shot when he raced forward.
Except the killer had a knife, not a gun. Even if they were there, they would likely want James to come further into the room. If they appeared when the light came on, James could close the door, and walk away. Well, run away.
Flick. Light drenched the room.
It was indeed sparse. On the far wall, windows looked onto the outside world. To his right was the TV on a stand. Beneath it a games console and around it many discarded games. Beyond the sofa and beanbag chair, there was a tiny sofa side table; James had missed nothing else. To his left was the kitchen. James saw pizza boxes on the side and a leaning tower of dishes by the sink. The way it teetered made him nervous, fo
rcing him to turn away.
More silence. James took another step into the room. He knew he should close the door. If someone came into the hall, he did not want them realising something was up. But closing it was inviting trouble. The click of the door would signal the removal of a quick escape. Then it would be game over.
This was stupid, and a waste of time. There were two places the killer could be hidden, left and right. He needed to know. Choosing wrong could be fatal, but so could indecision.
Taking a deep breath he strode forward, keeping tense, ready to turn and run. Circling the sofa, he came close to the first door off of the room but didn’t take it. He almost jogged to the other end of the room and looked behind the kitchen counter.
Nothing.
This room was clear.
The front door was still open. Again, he wanted to close it, but couldn’t until he was sure he was alone. He made his way to the door beside the fridge. The handle was silver. It looked cold. He reached for it, glancing back as he did, expecting someone to burst from the other room any second. He knew he was on the back foot. If someone were waiting, they would attack as soon as he opened the door.
A pause. A breath. James twisted the handle, shoved the door open, and took a step back and to the side, reckoning if someone came charging out he wanted the slight protection the fridge offered.
No one came.
James stayed by the fridge. From this angle, he could see one side of the small bathroom. It was dark, but the light in the main room lit it well enough. There was a toilet. Seat up, indicating this was probably a man only domain. He took a cautious step forward, taking in the sink and the bath.
Thankfully, the shower curtain was pulled back and, even in the dark, he could tell there was no one hiding here.
To be on the safe side, he found the cable light and pulled, before sticking his head into the room.
Empty. Thank God for that.
Spinning he looked the length of the room to the other closed door. He wanted to feel more confident now he had found the bathroom and main room was empty, but he couldn’t. Truth was, he was sure if he were going to hide somewhere, he would choose the bedroom. The rest of the flat was so sparse; if the killer had come to get anything, it would no doubt have been kept in there.
He waited too long. This was getting ridiculous. He told himself he was brave then, before he could realise he was lying, strode across the room, reaching the bedroom door, taking the handle, and swinging it open in one quick motion.
Again he stepped back and to the side, expecting someone to burst out screaming, brandishing a knife, ready to chop him up.
No one did.
The room was dark. As the other two had been. Immediately ahead he could see an extensive wardrobe—easily big enough to make an adult hiding place. The rest of the room was to the right. As he stepped around a little, he could see the edge of the bed, raised high enough that someone could have been lurking beneath, as the monster had in James’ youth. Moving further, until his shoulder was pressed against the wall, he made out most of the rest of the room. It was windowless, which James wouldn’t have enjoyed, and sparse again. There was a chest of drawers against the far wall but other than that, the wardrobe, and the bed, there was little else. Clearly, Harris was happy so long as he had his games console and his pizza.
Or had been.
James flicked on the light. Waited. Nothing moved, nothing changed. From his position by the door, he crouched to his knees then dropped to his stomach, aware this made him an easy target if he could not get up before the attacker reached him.
There were a few items of clothing under the bed, but nothing more: no assailant, no stacks of pornography, nothing. That left only the wardrobe and, while James liked to think adult murderers were too mature to be hiding in wardrobes, he couldn’t rule it out.
He took two steps forward, tapped the side of the wardrobe, then two steps back. Stupid, he knew. As though he expected someone to call “who’s there” and he would tell a joke or run for his life.
No one spoke.
Having no other choice, James stepped right into the room, moved around the front of the wardrobe and held out his hands like a zombie. He had intended to grab the wardrobe doors and swing them open, but that was the wrong move. He’d have no hands to defend himself as the killer sprung out like one of those built-in ironing boards. Except with a knife.
Instead, he took a step to the side of the wardrobe and swung the closest door towards him.
Nothing happened.
Through the crack between door and wardrobe, he could see what he had suspected already. Stepping around the door and flinging the other one wide, he confirmed he was alone.
Unexpected relief flooded him, and he collapsed onto the bed. He had not, until he had seen the empty wardrobe, realised quite how tense he had been. How afraid. How sure, deep down, he was not alone. Could not be alone. Now he knew he was; he felt a strange calm roll over him. Suddenly he was not putting his life at risk, or even his freedom. He had a job to do, and he would carry it out with as much efficiency as he could muster.
Rising from the bed, he returned into the main room and closed the front door, prompting the hall lights to burst back into life as he did.
Door closed, he turned back into the silence. Time to search.
He was no expert, but how hard could it be? Even if Harris was hiding something, James did not suppose it could be difficult to find. After all, this was not some reclusive billionaire in a movie. There would be no safes behind photo frames—especially considering there were no photo frames—there would be no secret passageways into hidden chambers. There would likely not even be secret panels. James had to be methodical, search the place from top to bottom, and see what he found.
Starting in the bedroom he went straight for the wardrobe, making the last place he searched for killers the first place searched for secrets.
It was a mess. There were plenty of hangers on the single railing, but most were empty. As was the shelf from which the railing hung. Most of the clothes discarded on the floor. Jumpers piled on shirts piled on shoes piled on jeans.
Looking at it made James irritable.
Leaning in, he began grabbing clothes and chucking them on the bed behind him, as though he were a father about to tidy up after his messy child. This was not the plan, though. James did not know what he was looking for.
Then he saw it.
In the back corner of the wardrobe, hidden beneath a mountain of clothes and shoes, was a black sports bag with a large Nike tick across it.
Probably just gym kit.
He reached in, grabbed the bag and withdrew. The calm of realising he was alone had slowed his heart, but the beats came faster now. He felt the edges of the bag, and it did not seem to be clothes or trainers. It felt like something else entirely.
But it couldn’t be. It was all too easy.
It was the movies again, telling him it was supposed to be difficult, but why should it be? Likelihood was, Harris hadn’t expected to be murdered, and he lived alone. The bag had to be hidden well enough that a visitor wouldn’t spot it if they took a cursory glance in his wardrobe, but even if they did, it was just a gym bag, they were unlikely to pick it up. Harris didn’t have to worry.
The question, then, wasn’t why Harris hadn’t hidden it better, but why it hadn’t been found if, as James suspected, someone had broken into the flat after killing him. Did they not have enough time? Or were they looking for something else?
Could it be this bag was full of innocent items after all?
Without sitting James pulled the zip. Knowing it was more than clothes and shoes but it couldn’t be much more.
The zip fell easily away—why wouldn’t it?—And James stared inside.
It wasn’t gym kit. It wasn’t innocent.
His heart was hammering again. He pulled the bag further apart and touched what was within, as though it had to be an illusion. But it wasn’t.
S
taring at James from within the bag was tens of thousands of pounds.
For a long time, James could only stare.
This would be, he supposed, what the police called a critical lead.
6
Discovery made, he almost slipped into the wind.
Bag in hand he swung open the front door, heard the lights above flash on, and closed it again.
There was, he remembered, a whole lot of flat to search, and search it he did—emptying pillows from pillowcases, pulling games from game boxes—even removing the cistern top off the toilet—but there was nothing more to find. He’d hit the jackpot in his first minute. The rest had been busy work.
After the search came the tidy. The meticulous reconstruction of the flat as it had been, so even the homeowner, had the homeowner still been alive, would have struggled to tell there had been a visitor in his absence.
Lights off, bag clasped in one gloved hand, James marched into the chilly night. Under the lit arch of the entranceway, he tucked the bag between his feet and stripped off the gloves, stuffing them in his pocket.
Collecting the bag, he scanned the row of cars parked before the building.
Not all were empty.
Near the end of the row a sleek, black Mercedes lay in wait like a hungry Panther. Two hands gripped the wheel, connecting to arms that stretched into darkness. Impossible to make out more from this distance, but James would guess they were watching him.
Trying not to look at the Merc, he slid the bag behind his back, becoming aware as he did the security lighting was drowning him in visibility.
There was no way the driver could not see who he was, or what he was holding.
Don’t show fear. That was key. James squeezed the gym bag as though trying to pop the strap, and stepped away from the building. Out of the compound and down the street towards his car. Every step taken he expected the click of a car door opening—the pounding of feet on cracked concrete.
Something darted across the road, and he jumped, clutching his heart. The cat stopped and shot him evils, before vanishing into the night.