One Night (24 page)

They left the van there, windows still steamed
up from their passion, and walked up the street. It had been different from the first time. More urgent, fucking rather than lovemaking but just as full of emotion. Eve felt wonderfully relaxed as she walked, still warm from her orgasm despite the cold. She knew she should be tired given the amount of time she'd been awake but she wasn't. Her relaxation was like a blanket wrapped around her. It protected her from the elements but hadn't dulled her senses. Those were still sharp, prickly with the adrenalin that was coursing through her brain. It felt like she was two people, her body warm and sleeping, her head awake and hungrily taking in everything around her.

When she was a kid she'd gone camping with her school
, she’d woken one morning early before anyone else. The sun had just been rising and she'd wriggled in her sleeping bag to the door of the tent and poked her head out into the chilly morning air. The grass outside was wet with dew and in the distance she saw a cluster of small birds pecking at the ground. She remembered watching fascinated as one of them had pulled a worm from the earth, its body stretching and then springing free from the ground. She had felt so alive in that moment, her face fresh with the country air and her eyes alive with the morning light while her body was snug and warm in the sleeping bag. And then without warning the birds had scattered in panic as a fox appeared from the woodland behind them. All except that one bird with the worm in its beak. She couldn't tell if it was so focussed on the worm that it didn't notice the fox or if the weight of it just slowed its escape. Either way it ended up in the fox's jaws.  She heard the sound of its bones breaking and the fox snarling around the bird's thrashing body and ducked her head back inside the tent. She couldn't remember now if that had happened before or after her dad had died. It felt like a dream but she was sure it was real. The memory chilled her and she looked at Joel walking beside her, trying to regain the feeling of peace she'd had moments before.

He was walking with a loose limbed gait that suggested he was as relaxed as she had been. There was something in his eyes though. A glint that told her he was ready for whatever the rest of the night had to throw at him.

"Tell me about Harry's set up then," he said.

"I will, but you have to promise me something first."

"Okay."

"When you have the money back we try and find a way to make this work. To make us work."

He stopped and took her hand. "Yes. And for the record there's no problem with us. It's everything else that is the issue. If this was just about us there would be no question. You're my twenty one, remember."

Eve smiled. She knew
they were just words, that they didn't change the situation, but they still made her feel good. She thought about what they had to do next, focussed her mind on it because getting this right was her only chance of getting and keeping him.

She'd only been to Harry's work place a couple of times and that had been a long time ago but she still remembered it. The smell of the cheap cigars he used to smoke and the sound of the classical music on the radio he used to play to give the place a hint of class. Eve remembered that he used to keep a bottle of whiskey in his desk drawer and bring it out when he had something to celebrate. Harry wasn’t a big drinker normally, didn’t like to lose control he said. She remembered seeing her dad and Harry drinking it once. Harry bringing the bottle out like it was a big deal and pouring them both a drink. “Two fingers?” he’d said to her dad and she’d had no idea what he was talking about. They looked like something from a movie, she had thought. Two men toasting their success. She hadn’t known why at the time but thinking about it now it might have been when her dad had started working for Harry.   

“He has an office out here. Maybe that’s the wrong term, it’s not like he does real work there. It’s where people come to see him though, when he hasn’t gone to see them. I think he keeps it as much because he thinks he should as because he actually needs it.”

“And you think that’s where he’s taken the bag?”

She nodded, “I don’t see where else he could have taken it. It’s either there or at his house and I don’t think he’d want it there. He’ll want to keep close to it while he’s got it. He’s getting it for someone else, right? Not keeping it himself.”

“Yeah, they’ll come for it. The job was arranged by someone, funded by someone and they’ll want the cash.”

“But you don’t know who it is. Who you did the job for?”
“No, that’s not how it works. Safer that way I guess. For them at least. Fuller is the only one who has all the pieces. The planner.”

They walked on in silence. Joel thought about Fuller, wondered what had happened to him after the job went bad. He liked the guy, admired him, and he hoped that he hadn’t caught too much flak for everything that had gone wrong.

They walked round a bend in the road and there was the entrance to the industrial estate. Joel could see the usual collection of local businesses, a plumbers merchants, an electricians and a driving school. Harry’s Jag was parked outside a bare unit that lacked the cheap looking signage that the others had.

"Thank fuck for that," said Eve when she saw the car. She had been sure this was where Harry would come but that wasn't the same as knowing.

Joel looked at his watch. It was probably half an hour since they’d left the park. If Matty and his friends were going to alert Harry that Joel was around then they would have done it straight away over the phone. The fact that the car was there meant they hadn’t which is what Joel had expected. They wouldn’t want their boss to know that they’d failed, or that they’d attacked his niece. Better to forget the whole thing had ever happened and hope that he didn’t find out. 

Joel examined Harry's office. The few security lights dotted around the complex provided enough light to make out the important details. It was the kind of low, cheaply built industrial unit that had sprung up all over the country in the 80s and 90s. Venetian blinds were pulled down over the two windows at the front but he could see slivers of light seeping through them. The door between the windows was shut and there was no way to tell if it was locked or not. Four men in there, he thought, and the
money. He couldn’t take on all four of them, especially not in a confined space like the office, even with Eve's help that wasn't an option. He needed to split them up somehow.

"What's it like in there?" he said to her. "The layout."

She told him that the door led into a reception area with the main office off it. "There's a toilet too, but I don't remember which of the rooms that's off."

"Can you get out the back?"

Eve thought about it, casting her mind back through the years. "I don't think there's a door but there are definitely windows."

"And what's back there."

"Behind the building? Waste ground I think. They've been talking about building on it for years but they've never gotten it together."

Joel’s eyes settled on Harry's car and he had a thought. "Your uncle loves that bloody Jag of his I expect."

"God yes," said Eve. "More than anything."

"Okay," Joel said. Then he told her what they were going to do.

Harry was drinking a coffee. He'd put the kettle on as soon as they'd walked into the office,  spooned instant granules into a mug and added some milk from the fridge. He'd given the milk a sniff first. It was only a day old so he knew it would be okay but it was one of those habits from childhood he'd never been able to shake. Too many times his mum had let milk go sour in the fridge and he and his brother had ended up with it on their cereal.

Poor old Max, he had thought as he stood there remembering his brother, it still sickened him how things had ended up.

Then he’d put the thought out of his head, this was no time for moping over the past. The coming morning was going to be an important one for him. A glorious one.

Harry had made his coffee while the guys poured and drank his whiskey. He didn't begrudge them a drink as long as they didn't take the piss. It had been a long night and a successful one. Harry wanted to keep alert though. He had an important phone call to make.

When his coffee was half drunk he pulled his phone out.

"You lot keep it down for a bit," he said and dialled.

The phone was picked up straight away. "Harry, I take it you've got good news for me."

Harry nodded and then realised he had to speak as well. He was the king of Southend but that meant nothing to the big boys from London and talking to them always made him nervous. Things were so much easier when they were confined to his end of the A13. Still, when he'd got that phone call the day before he'd seen the opportunity in it. The chance to finally make a name for himself with the people who really mattered.

"Yes," he said quietly. "Yes I have."

His voice rose as his confidence grew. "The money's right here in my office." He looked over at the bag and smiled.

There was a noise from outside, he wasn't sure what, a low banging sound like a car door closing. Harry stopped talking to listen in case it came again and missed what the man on the other end of the phone said back to him. There was a pause and then the voice spoke again.

“I said we’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

“Okay,” said Harry. The sooner he was shot of the money the better. “I’ll see you then.” He gave the address of the office and hung up the phone.

His ears were still pricked up waiting for the noise to repeat.

“Di
d you hear that?” he said. “From outside?”

He looked at the men who worked for him
, sitting around looking bored. One of them reading the newspaper, the others playing cards.

"For fuck's sake did you hear it?" he said again.

The one reading the paper folded it. "I didn't hear anything, Harry. Not a peep."

Harry was walking towards the window to look out of it when the car alarm went off. He ran to it then, pulling two of the slats of the blinds apart and staring out.

“Fuck, my fucking car,” he sprinted across the room and out into the reception area, tearing open the door to the outside world and staring out in disbelief. Part of him had hoped he’d be greeted with a different view to the one he’d seen through the window but he wasn’t. His car was there, alarm sounding, lights flashing, rolling slowly away from him down the slight incline that ran out of the industrial park and to the road. Harry didn’t hesitate, didn’t think. All he saw was that car slowly drifting away from him. He ran.

As he sprinted towards it he remembered the day he’d driven it off the lot. That feeling of pride. The salesman, Merryweather his name was, Harry still remembered that, had shook his hand when the sealed the deal and said to him. “That’s a man’s car you’ve got there. The car of a man who is somebody.”

It hadn’t really sunk in until he was in it with his hands on the wheel though. A Jaguar, he was driving a fucking Jaguar. It made every sacrifice he’d made to get where he was seem worthwhile. Everything he’d done that had made him wake up in the middle of the night. Even what had happened to Max. Even that. Because he was somebody. He was finally the man his mum had always told him he needed to be.

Behind him he heard shouting and footsteps. He recognised the voice of two of his guys, they were good men. Loyal.

He reached the back of the car and slapped a hand on the boot.  There was nothing for him to grab hold of though and his fingers slipped off the cold gleaming metal. He realised that even if he had managed to hold onto something he wouldn’t be able to stop the car. This wasn’t a bloody mini, it weighed a fucking tonne. The only way he was going to stop it was from the driver’s seat.

He dodged to the right side and ran around the back corner of the car. It was moving slowly but picking up speed with every foot. The road was probably twenty feet away and the bonnet was pointing straight at it. Up ahead Harry saw a lorry drive past, some trucker making an early start. He hated to think what the lorry would have done to his car.

The alarm was still sounding, cutting through the night and through his eardrums, invading his head like a knife. One of the guys was close behind him, he couldn’t tell which one but he could hear their heavy breathing in the moments of silence between the whoops of the alarm. The breathing was almost as heavy as his own. He wasn’t built for this kind of exertion. He was old, he realised, an old man with only the car to show for his life. No wife, no children, just the car that was even now trying to get away from him.

He got level with the rear door, his heart hammering in his chest, and pushed on. There was maybe fifteen feet before the bonnet of the car edged out into the road. Plenty of time, he thought. His hand reached forward and tried for the handle of the driver’s door, his fingers just missing it. He gave two great strides and tried again and this time he made it, fingers slipping under the lip of the handle and pulling it up. It moved but didn’t click and he realised the doors were locked.

Someone was running next to him now and he could hear the others behind. He suddenly realised their mistake and wanted to shout at them to stop and go back but he couldn’t find the breath to do it. He knew he should stop, leave the car to run on and head back to the office but he couldn’t bring himself to, couldn’t abandon the Jag. Instead he thrust his hand into his trouser pocket and found the keys, pressing the button to unlock the car.

The alarm stopped and in the silence that followed Harry heard his heart beating in his ears. His hand found the door handle again and pulled it up. The door swung open and he let it go, let
ting it open fully before he threw himself into the front seat. The underside of the steering wheel bashed his legs but he ignored it, pushing his foot down into the foot well, finding the brake pedal. He pushed it, feeling the reassuring pressure of it back against his foot as it sank to the floor.   

The car stopped six feet from the road. He’d
halted it easily, in plenty of time, but he realised now what a hollow victory that was.

Panting he rested his head on the steering wheel, trying to g
et enough breath back to speak.

“Who is in the office?” he said, lifting his head and looking at the three faces staring in at him. “Who is in the fucking office?” He knew the answer though. The safe man. And probably his treacherous fucking niece too.