 
Tales for the Tube

M.L. Stewart

Copyright 2013 by M.L. Stewart

Smashwords Edition.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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The Author.

M.L. Stewart is the author of The Facebook Killer trilogy, The United Kingdom of Islam, Hunter, and The Sunday Club.

Since first publishing in 2011 the author's work has been mostly enjoyed by some 90,000 readers worldwide; reaching the number one spot in several Amazon and Apple e-book charts.

Born in London in 1968ish, M.L. Stewart now lives in mainland Europe, far from the grasp of angry readers and Her Majesty's Tax Man.
Tales for the Tube

Contents

1 - Jack and Jill.

2 - The Backpacker.

3 - The Blind Snail.

4 - The Mysterious Case of the Magically Missing Drugs.

5 - The Montgomerys.

1

# Jack and Jill

Jill and I knew something was amiss the second we realised the front door wasn't locked.

Admittedly, my wife seemed a little more concerned than I; the cocktail of Pimm's and champagne having dulled my senses over the course of the evening.

We'd spent that night celebrating our vet's fortieth birthday: Graham Fotherington-Gill. The same vet who had tended to our livestock since I inherited the farm some ten years before. I shan't bore you with such irrelevant details, but I will say one thing: We will never, _ever_ , forget the date of that man's birth.

Jill had driven the Range Rover home. At seven month's pregnant, she had erred on the side of caution and merely partaken of a single champagne, to toast our host's milestone.

Gable Ends Farm, or 'The Gables' as it's known locally, stands in ten hectares. Rolling fields and grazing pastures for as far as the eye can see. An ocean, constantly changing with the seasons, from green to yellow then brown; broken only by solitary islands of oak and elm.

We had just over a hundred dairy cattle back then and twice as many sheep. The farmhouse itself was a large Georgian property, with bones of sandstone and skin of ivy. I say 'was' because I never look at it now. It's still there. I still live in it, if 'live' is the correct word, but on the rare occasions that I leave the house, it's always with my head down, eyes focussed on the cracked and overgrown courtyard as I run to the car.

The sheds and stables stand empty now: the cattle and sheep long gone; horses too. All sold, shortly after we found that door unlocked.

The darkness has held an eerie silence these past five years; broken only by the occasional scream of a temperamental child, or slamming of a door in the row of four cottages over the road. The same cottages my father sold off just before he passed away. An act I still partly blame for what happened.

He'd lived in cottage number 3. Dawson was his name. Ambrose Dawson.

He was the first official owner of the property, outside of the family that is, in over one hundred and fifty years. A fact that I resented beyond words. The power to choose and control my neighbours, the only neighbours for three miles, had been snatched from me in the time it took that man to scribe his signature.

I remember Ambrose Dawson well. He was older than me back then. Mid-forties I would have said.

Jill and I had agreed to give him some casual work on the farm: clearing the fallen wood from the copses, helping repair the fences, a bit of gardening work around the house, that sort of thing. Admittedly, we didn't pay him much, but he claimed to be unemployed and lived by the motto "every little helps."

And his voice: I recall that thick Somerset accent as clearly as Jill's Londonian lilt; before she stopped speaking that is. But it was indiscernible that night. I don't think a person screams with an accent when his front door is being kicked off its hinges.

I still remember his teeth: Yellowed from years of nicotine and lack of care. Smell the mix of whisky and fear on his breath. See his terrified brown eyes as my fingers tightened around his throat, and those thick glasses that fell from his skinny face to the filthy carpet as I threw him across the room.

I can still hear Jill screaming behind me. The animals becoming agitated. The horses neighing. The sound of terrified hooves slamming into wood. The crack of Dawson's skull against the stone fireplace. Old Mrs Pugh from number 2 begging me to stop.

I don't recall how many times I hit that man. I just remember stopping when I heard the sirens wafting through the open door on the cold night breeze. A sound I hadn't heard since I was a small boy and Father took me to the city, shopping for Christmas presents. He told me the policemen were chasing bad men: murderers and bank robbers. I remember being petrified by the noise and flashing lights; thinking we would never escape that place with our lives. That was my first and last trip to the city. And The Gables, well, no police car had ventured down there since the dawn of time. Not until we found that door unlocked, anyway.

I can still feel the chaos the police brought with them. The animals going berserk at the noise. Jill yelling at the paramedics as they rushed in to treat Ambrose Dawson; telling them it wasn't him they were here for; that they should be in the main house. Old Mrs Pugh demanding I be arrested for trying to kill the poor soul. Then the policewoman dragging Jill outside. More screaming. A woman's voice, demanding everyone calm down. Mrs Pugh sticking her two penneth in. A slap of flesh, palm on cheek. Then Jill being threatened with arrest, followed by the front door to number 2 slamming shut with indignant outrage.

It was over in a matter of seconds but seemed to go on for hours, and I wasn't a part of it. I was disconnected from the whole scene, my eyes remaining fixed on _him_ : Ambrose Dawson. Doubled up, whimpering. His broken tooth on the carpet. His blood-soaked, filthy vest sagging from his skinny body like a mainsail.

I remember a face next to mine: One of the policemen, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. Then the policewoman was back in the room, waving her arms around. Then Dawson was alone in his suffering as we all ran across the road to The Gables. Jill was sitting outside, sobbing into her hands, her long blonde hair hanging like a veil over her face, not daring to go back inside.

The lights were on inside the house. The open door threw a carpet of light across the courtyard. The paramedics ran in first, not bothering to stop and wipe their feet, followed by the policemen and then me.

She was still where Jill and I had found her. I don't know what I expected. Maybe it had been some sort of joke, or a Pimm's-induced hallucination, but no, our little Rebecca was still there, one end of her pony's bridle strapped tightly around her little neck, the reins lashed to the bannister above. Ten years of beauty, joy and pride just hanging there, two feet above the middle stair.

Jill never walked up those stairs again. I dismantled our bed and brought it down to the dining room, relegating my grandfather's oak table and twelve chairs to one of the stables, where they slowly rotted away.

When the police read Rebecca's note, they assured me I wouldn't be prosecuted for the assault against Dawson, but I still had to endure the humiliation of questioning under caution. Eventually someone made the decision not to press charges, but I had to agree to surrender my shotgun. A move I think was aimed at my own safety as opposed to anyone else's.

I neither saw nor heard of Ambrose Dawson for the next six months. Not until that policewoman came to the house and told us a trial date had been set.

Hers were the first human words I'd heard for countless weeks. Jill had fallen silent, and the computer, radio and television were forbidden; banished to the attic. Jill didn't want to hear a word mentioned about Rebecca or that bastard Dawson.

Friends and family would call or turn up at the house to offer condolences, all armed with the same line: "If there's anything I can do...and I mean _anything_ ," only to have Jill hang up on them or slam the door in their pitying face.

After a while, the doorbell stopped ringing, as did the phone. Silence. Broken only by the thump of the dryer and whirr of the washing machine.

In the beginning, Jill spent her days obsessively cleaning the house. Only the downstairs, of course. She would continuously wash, dry and iron anything she could get her hands on. Once the laundry basket was full with the neatly pressed clothes, the cycle would start again. Over and Over. Day and night. Night and Day.

Her silence was accompanied by weight loss and a staunch refusal to see a doctor. And that January, we lost the baby.

Not content with taking our Rebecca, Dawson had killed our unborn son, too. Rebecca's brother. And now we had nothing.

That was the second time Jill left the house - for the funeral. The first was for Rebecca's. Two outings. Two small coffins.

Eventually, Dawson admitted abusing Rebecca. Apparently it had started just before her ninth birthday, on a Saturday. Her mother had been in town on some errand or other, and I'd been working the barley harvest. Dawson had been left alone to fit new ironmongery on the stable doors. He claims he spotted Rebecca through the kitchen window, messing about, practising her ballet moves. Says he knocked on the door and told her he needed a bigger screwdriver. That's when it began, and carried on for just over a year.

In the long, silent, lonely five years since, I only remember Jill uttering two sentences. The first was soon after we lost Rebecca: "I want her things out of here," she'd said. I tried to argue, reason, screamed, cried, and God forgive me, even slapped her across the face. But it did no good. There was to be no debate in the matter.

Our daughter didn't have much to show for her ten years with us: A cardboard box full of clothes, a few books, toys, and a windowsill full of dolls. Yet it took me three days to pack her little life away. The smells and memories being the hardest things to say goodbye to.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I would see Rebecca; her pink duvet pulled tightly under her chin, eyes wide with excitement as she heard those four magical words: "Once upon a time..."

I read each storybook, two, maybe three times before packing it in that box. And each time I finished, I'd hear her voice, pleading: "Please, Daddy, just one more. I'm not even tired yet."

I Held her dolls; stroking their hair and straightening their dresses. Folded her clothes through a window of tears. Each outfit reminding me of a birthday party, or summer holiday. And as the box slowly filled, so my soul gradually died.

I didn't know what the hell to do with that cardboard box. I certainly wasn't going to burn it, let alone bury it in a field to rot. So I decided to post it overseas. I made up a name and address in Madrid, and sent it. No return address. No way to trace its origin. I knew it couldn't be delivered, but at least I know those memories are still alive. Languishing in some warehouse somewhere; waiting to be claimed.

And then, after five years, Jill spoke again: "He's back," she whispered, peering through the kitchen window. " _That fucking bastard's back._ "

Ambrose Dawson had obviously been treated well in prison. He'd put on weight and was verging on the muscular.

Jill and I stood in disbelief, the kitchen lights turned off, watching him unlock the door to his cottage.

"You'd think someone would have told us," she said. "Warned us."

But I had no words for my wife as I watched that man open his front door. He turned for a second, and looked across at our house. I saw him take a step towards us, then another, before stopping, obviously thinking better of it. After all, what could he possibly say? _I'm sorry?_

The next words from my wife's mouth sent a chill through me: "We have to get rid of him," she said. "For good this time."

It was like the first warm day of spring when Ambrose Dawson came home. The ice that had trapped us in that silent void for so long eventually began to thin. And as it slowly melted, the drips took the form of female words: "I'm going to bury that cunt if it's the last thing I ever do."

With the aid of a less than secure ladder, the television was retrieved from the attic; its constant noise soon replacing the silence. The washing machine and ironing board lay redundant and forgotten as Jill's obsessive behaviour turned to a thirst for knowledge.

She watched the news on every channel, local and national, yet nothing was ever mentioned regarding Ambrose Dawson's release. So back I went to fetch the computer, which Jill then set up in my old office. I remember her struggling with the mass of plugs, wires and cables; how useless I felt not being able to help, but I didn't have the first clue about turning on a computer, never mind how to actually use one. A technophobe, she used to call me.

An hour later I was back in the attic rummaging for the printer paper. It took a little longer than expected after I found Rebecca's first tricycle up there, and a doll's house I'd made for her myself.

Half a ream of paper was all that remained: The ashes of my farming days. The rest spent on invoices, milk processing reports, livestock movement records, and a hundred other bureaucratic forms Jill had to deal with.

My mind was still preoccupied with repairing the chimney of Rebecca's dolls house when I lost my footing on the ladder; sending an avalanche of A4 crashing down onto the landing below. But two minutes later I'd picked up every last piece and delivered it to Jill.

I suggested we contact the police station; make a formal complaint about not being informed of Dawson's release, enquire about an injunction, even, but Jill was having none of it. "Let's not raise any suspicion," she said. "I can't see him hanging round for long. We'll have to be quick."

And she was right. When we awoke the next morning, a 'For Sale' sign had already been erected in Dawson's overgrown front garden. I could hear an electric strimmer humming away in the distance. See his head bobbing up and down behind the hedge, and it filled me with a rage I'd never known possible.

"If he sells that house," said Jill, "we'll lose him. He'll disappear for good."

So I called the estate agents and was more than a little shocked to hear the asking price was only £39,000. In relative terms, less than he'd paid for it ten years before.

"It won't be on the market long," said the agent. "In fact I have several viewings arranged for this weekend."

As the ice melted faster, so the words grew harsher: "You've still got your licence. Buy another fucking gun!"

"Don't you think that'll be a tad obvious?"

"Rat poison, then. We must still have some somewhere."

"And if I go within ten yards of that house, the bastard'll be screaming blue murder."

The weekend came and went; and true to his word, so did the agent's potential buyers. I watched in despair as shiny cars and pristine four-wheel drives, worth more than the asking price of the cottage, appeared on the hour, every hour; spewing forth their contents of city dwellers. I knew the property hadn't yet been advertised in the press; these were merely friends and associates of the agent. More than willing to hand over a few grand as a backhander for a cheap bolthole in the country.

I watched, furious, through the kitchen window as Dawson smiled his nicotine smile at each new couple. I seethed as they stood admiring the view; Dawson pointing like the captain of a ship toward the fields and hills beyond.

Quietly opening the window, I could hear him extolling the virtues of the peace and tranquillity to a middle-aged woman. "There's no cattle," he said. "No sheep, either, nor horses. So you don't have all that noise or stink like most places round here have got."

Jill stopped me from running out when the last party arrived, complete with their young daughter. "We have to be careful," she said, gently prising the filleting knife from my fingers.

I wouldn't have called it an argument, more of a heated discussion. And eventually, Jill won. I was to buy another shotgun. For self-defence, if nothing else, she said. Who knows what sort of hatred had built up in Ambrose Dawson's warped mind during those years in prison?

The first delivery turned up at 8:00 am Monday morning. Well before anyone had arranged a second viewing of the cottage or even considered discussing contracts. I asked the driver to offload it just inside the gate, so it was still on our property: Ten tons of cow manure. Something I hadn't smelt for years, and to be honest, it made me retch a little.

Mrs Chamberlain arrived a little after nine. She'd told me over the phone that she would have to inspect the sheds first, but even if they weren't suitable she was most appreciative of the offer. But they _were_ suitable. In fact they were perfect, and she asked me about the timescale. I had none, I told her, and they were hers for as long as she needed them. The contractor had told Mrs Chamberlain the upgrades to _her_ property would take at least a month, dependant on the weather. That wasn't a problem, I said. A month or a year, we would enjoy the company. And so, by 9:00pm that night, all forty residents from Chamberlain's Rescue Kennels were safely ensconced at The Gables.

I must admit, I didn't sleep for at least three nights after that. And Jill, well, she didn't even try. She'd given up on TV and focussed all her attention on the internet instead.

And so we watched the potential buyers come and go; a little faster this time. Their smiles reduced to grimaces. Noses pinched between thumbs and forefingers. Once excited children now trying to cover their ears and nostrils in unison. Some resorted to pulling their coats over their heads whilst demanding Father unlocked the car.

I tried to avoid talking to Jill about Ambrose Dawson, and as the days went on, she didn't bring up the topic, either. In a way I hoped this was all just part of the grieving process. That she would get it out of her system, and he would quickly move on, then we could somehow try and piece our lives back together. It left a bitter taste in my mouth, but I knew justice had already been served.

Things really started looking up when Jill announced she was taking the car into town. She hadn't driven for years, not since we found Rebecca, and obviously I was a little worried; but she managed just fine. Even if she didn't do any shopping while she was there, it was a start.

By the time I awoke the next day, Jill had already left. But this time she _had_ achieved something, albeit a small act. She'd joined the local library. Again, I was a little bemused by the fact that she hadn't actually borrowed any books, but I was well aware the grieving process can take time and all forms of strange behaviour.

After that, Jill didn't leave the house for a good ten days at least. She divided her time between doing whatever she was doing on the computer, and watching Ambrose Dawson work on his cottage.

He began by attempting to repoint the chimney, before moving on to replacing some broken slates on the roof. Up and down the ladder he went; sometimes being absent from his task for half an hour or more. After three days, he'd built up the confidence to tackle the windows; scraping the old putty from around each pane of glass before cleaning it and then securing it with fresh stuff.

And so it went on, for days and days. Pane by pane. Only stopping to look across and yell at the dogs, or curse the huge pile of stinking cow shit. I counted only two potential homebuyers that week.

What happened next was a little strange. Dawson appeared to have completed his last window. I watched him from upstairs as he packed his tools and ladder away in the shed. About ten minutes later a taxi arrived, and he set off towards town. That's when Jill sat on the hall chair by the telephone, and waited. About an hour later it rang.

"Okay, thanks for letting me know," she said, grabbing the car keys. "I'll be there right away." And then she was gone.

The taxi returned first, about an hour later, and I watched Dawson struggle with his bags of shopping. Then Jill pulled into the courtyard, the right wheel of the car slewing straight through the manure, starting the forty-dog chorus once again.

She sat in the car, watching Dawson in the rear view mirror. Then, when his taxi had left and the coast was clear, she came running into the house, a carrier bag dangling from one of her gloved hands.

_The Big Book of DIY_ read the title, as she slammed it down on the kitchen table, the draught bringing with it the unmistakable smell of window putty.

"He just returned it," said Jill.

But I could only shake my head. The look of puzzlement on my face must have been obvious, though.

" _The fucking book, Jack!_ He borrowed it from the library. I followed him two weeks ago. Don't worry, he didn't recognise me; I wore that woollen hat you've always hated."

"And what? You reserved the book?"

"Yes. That's who called earlier: The library. To say it had been returned."

"But I..."

"Don't you see? This is how we're going to get the bastard. We don't have to kill him, just get him locked up again."

But all I could see were the putty fingerprints on the cover. "You mean frame him?"

"Of course," she said over her shoulder, as she marched off towards my office.

I'll be the first to admit, I didn't quite know what Jill had in mind, but could only assume she was going to transfer Dawson's sticky fingerprints to some 'crime scene' of our own making. All we needed was something serious enough to warrant a further custodial sentence. The longer the better.

My mind began to race, and for the first time in years I felt as though Jill and I were about to start working as a team again. Sharing the same wavelength.

Burglary! We could stage a break-in and leave his prints everywhere. No! Better yet, a robbery. Jill could tie me up and beat me around the head a few times for authenticity. Or stab me. Just a flesh wound, through the shoulder, perhaps. I could see the headlines: 'Released Paedophile Seeks Revenge on Victim's Father.'

I could hear the keyboard being tapped and printer working away in my office, and it brought a long-lost smile back to my face. Jill had it all planned, just like the old days: The dinner parties, where she would organise every last detail for our guests; or Christmas, planned meticulously down to the last detail. That's when I realised the old Jill was back to stay. Everything was going to be okay.

I knew there and then what I had to do. I would have to get in touch with the friends we hadn't spoken to for so many years; tell them things had improved, grovel a lot and start rebuilding bridges.

And the farm. Christ, I could buy livestock. Get back to work. Most of the fields were leased, but those contracts would be due for renewal soon. I could take them all back and start again. When the time was right, we could even talk about trying for another child.

Then I heard Jill behind me. She was on the phone. "Look, to be honest I don't really care. This has got nothing to do with me. It's your job to contact the police, not mine."

I walked out into the hall.

"...and _you_ listen to _me_ ," she demanded. "I have just this minute got into the house, I opened the book and there they were. Now, I would suggest that since you have the record of who last borrowed that book, you pass the information on to the police."

And with that she hung up.

I was still considering whether to go for dairy cattle or beef when Jill stormed past me; a stack of printer paper in her gloved hand. I watched as she opened the book and slid the sheets inside.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

That's when she spun on her heels and I realised things weren't going to be as fine as I'd first thought. _"Curiosity killed the fucking cat!"_ she hissed.

I remember the front door slamming, and then the squeal of tyres as Jill drove off. I stood looking at that closed book, that Big Book of DIY, until I heard the sirens again.

The next few hours were ones of absolute and total mayhem. The police came and seized the book. I offered them all a coffee, but no one accepted, so I made my own. That's when I saw the police van through the kitchen window, and Ambrose Dawson being loaded into the back of it.

"What do you know about this book?" asked the shaven-headed sergeant.

"Absolutely bugger all," I replied.

"You've never seen it before today?"

"Not until a short time ago. My wife just borrowed it from the library."

"What sort of DIY work did you have in mind?"

"Oh, you know, this and that. The chimney needs repointed, we've got a couple of loose slates on the roof, and the windows need seeing to. It's been a while since we did any work on the place."

"Have you, at any time, touched this book?"

"Nope."

"So you know nothing about these?"

I watched his green latex fingers slide out Jill's pieces of paper, then turn them over, one by one.

The first was a montage: Four pictures on the same sheet of A4. A young boy in the bottom left-hand corner, maybe four years old, maximum. His 'loving uncle' must have been in his late sixties, or even seventies, though. His face had been blurred out, but his body hair was as white as snow. Above him was a naked girl of about seven; her face made-up like a woman thrice her age, and to the right, a child of indeterminate sex, and a man I wouldn't have thought twice about killing for what he was doing to that kid.

And so they went on. Page after page of the most vile images one could ever imagine. Images left in this book by its last caretaker: Ambrose Dawson. A man whose fingerprints were all over the cover.

Jill didn't come to bed that night. Instead, she obsessively checked the online news sites. Every half hour; going through them continuously.

The next morning, a forensic team turned up with two uniformed police officers at Dawson's cottage. They spent a good three to four hours in there, before emerging with a couple of plastic boxes.

Over the next three days, we watched and waited; taking turns to peer through the kitchen window. But Dawson never returned.

Eventually, an exhausted Jill found what she was looking for.

Man Charged With Child Pornography Offences.

A 52-year-old man was today charged, under Section 1 of the Protection of Children Act, with possessing indecent images of children. A police spokesman said the unnamed man is accused of having a large quantity of Level 5 images.

Chief Inspector Arnold Baines told the Herald, "We were alerted by a member of the public, after the discovery of a collection of photographs in a library book. Several hundred more were recovered from the gentleman's home address..."

I'll never forget the glint in Jill's eye. "The tool shed," she grinned. "Hanging behind the door; there's still keys for each cottage."

That's right, she'd been into Ambrose Dawson's home and planted even more damning evidence.

How did I feel? Sick. Sick to the stomach, but at the same time elated. I knew if Dawson was out on licence, which he probably was, he could face an indeterminate sentence. Left to rot, as it were.

I also knew that if Jill hadn't done this, I would've probably just let things go. Turned a blind eye as Dawson sold up and moved on to a place where no one knew him. Allowed him to start again. To ruin someone else's life. Out of sight, out of mind. But that wasn't going to happen now. Jill had taken care of things. Probably saved some little girl's innocence, if not her life.

But my elation was short-lived. The next morning's headlines brought a black, rumbling cloud with them. A cloud that settled over The Gables. It's menace permeating the very fabric of the house.

Man Dies in Police Custody.

A 52-year-old man who was due to face magistrates this morning, charged with possession of child pornography, has been found hanging in his cell at Willow Street Police Station.

A spokesman said officers tried to resuscitate the man and paramedics were called, but he was pronounced dead at 5:32am...

Neither Jill nor I said a word that day. I couldn't decipher her emotions after that news. She most definitely wasn't upset, but neither did she appear pleased with the situation. I think 'numb' is the best description I can come up with.

Myself? Christ, I didn't know _which_ way to turn. I didn't know whether to throw up, or drown myself in whisky. But by six o'clock that evening, my mind had been made up _for_ me.

It didn't really register at first. Jill and I sat watching the local news on television. It was almost nice to have someone else's voice in the house for a change, albeit a complete stranger.

The presenter was standing outside the police station where it happened. A grey-haired man in a similarly coloured suit, talking to the camera. It almost felt as though he were speaking to Jill and I personally: _Fifty-two years old... child pornography... the worst he has seen in a twenty-year career_... _used a strip torn from his blanket_.

Then the bastard's mugshot was on the screen. I felt something stir inside. Pride, maybe, but I couldn't be sure. Yes, things hadn't gone quite to plan, but a result had been achieved, nevertheless.

But then, something went terribly wrong. I thought I'd misheard, but Jill's gasp told me I hadn't.

" _Peter Dawson,"_ said the voice in the television, _"was visiting the area to arrange the sale of his brother's property at Gable Ends Farm. Ambrose Dawson, who was sentenced to ten years for rape and indecent assault on a 9-year-old girl, is due to be released from Birmingham's Winston Green Prison next month. It's believed his brother, Peter, a charity worker and father of one, was given power of attorney to settle Dawson's affairs prior to his release..."_

I remember turning to Jill, who was just staring at the screen, her eyes wide and frozen.

" _According to the police, Mister Dawson protested his innocence right up until he took his own life..."_

I recall floating across to the drinks cabinet as the voice talked about Rebecca's suicide and Jill began to sob.

I smelt the window putty as I drank the whiskey straight from the bottle.

Then the dogs began barking as the first police car pulled into the courtyard.

Another mouthful, larger this time; of cheek-swelling proportions.

The doorbell rang. I drank some more. It rang again. I turned, to see Jill's armchair empty. It rang again.

Car doors slammed shut. Our bathroom door slammed shut. Mrs Pugh's front door creaked open.

Ringing, banging, knocking on the window. More whisky. Then my name being called: "Mister Havers, it's the police."

The news presenter fell silent, waiting to see if I would answer. Then there was silence. My throat burned. Fingers trembled. Stomach churned. I held my breath. Listened to my heart banging against my rib cage. Closed my eyes and prayed the silence would last forever.

That's when I heard the shotgun go off. I remember the bathroom door rattling with the force of the blast. Then I was running, retching, screaming for Jill, begging to Jesus Christ that this wasn't happening.

The last thing I remember was the front door coming off its hinges and crashing to the floor behind me.

"And that's it?"

"I've told you everything."

"Jack, I was your father's solicitor before you, and I'm asking you now, as a friend. _Please_ reconsider your plea."

"But I haven't done anything wrong."

"There were over seven hundred child porn images on your computer, Jack. Your fingerprints and DNA were on every single page of that paper. You had a key to Dawson's cottage. You _knew_ he was in prison and that it was a safe place to hide them from your wife. And, God rest her soul, Jill isn't here to corroborate any of your testimony. And this cock and bull story about using his fingerprints won't wash, either: They would have been back to front. I'm sorry, Jack...but the prosecution are going to crucify you tomorrow."

The End

#  2

#  The Backpacker

Mohammed Husqat was destined for martyrdom; and London's Stanley Road Mosque was destined for obliteration.

Mohammed was only ten years of age when the first plane smashed into the World Trade Centre. Too young to realise what was going on, yet old enough to join in the celebrations.

Only too well did he remember his mother and father dancing around the living room of their dingy council flat in Tower Hamlets. His older brothers and sisters, none of whom had ever set foot in their parent's homeland of Palestine, clapping and hugging one another. His father singing songs in his native Arabic, whilst his mother handed out sweets, normally reserved for special occasions, to each of her seven offspring.

"This is a sweet from Osama Bin Laden," she'd said, smiling for once in her life.

Mohammed didn't want that sweet to end. It was mint. It was happiness. It represented everything that was good in his family's world, and it made his mother smile.

"Off with the head of the snake," his eldest brother had cried, over and over again.

It had been a day of merriment, and a night spent praising God.

Mohammed's most indelible memory of that day was the constant ringing of phones. First, the old yellow one on the wall in the kitchen; the one with a real bell inside. Then the one in his father's left pocket, then his right, followed by the collection on the coffee table.

But that was twelve years ago. Before Mohammed knew what his father actually did; what he was. Before he had been taken to meet the others, and heard their version of how Islamic life in Britain should be. Before the words 'jihad' and "Sharia" had become part of his daily conversations and thoughts. Part of him. Before he hated the West, their manmade laws, and debauchery. Before his father and brothers were jailed for conspiracy to commit murder, and his mother fled to Palestine with his sisters.

Now, aged twenty-two, Mohammed was a man. A warrior. A jihadi in its purest form. He could still taste Osama's sweet in his mouth and hear his father's singing. See the smoke and flames. Hear the wails of Western grief, and cheers of Arabic joy as those fucking satanic towers collapsed into Hell.

Mohammed adjusted the left strap of the backpack he carried. Its contents were heavy, yet not a burden to the likes of him. He ignored the drizzle as he passed the shops and restaurants of his community. A community soon to be torn apart in the biggest Muslim atrocity ever witnessed in the United Kingdom.

Mohammed nodded politely at an old man rearranging apples on a stand outside his shop. The old man returned the greeting with a polite smile. Then Mohammed was blinded by the intense colours of the sari shop next door, a rainbow of cotton hanging from the shop's canopy, swaying in the breeze. And then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone, replaced by a boarded-up shop: A former bookmakers. A shop with one of his own posters pasted onto the plywood; declaring the area a Gay-Free Zone.

Mohammed touched the plastic 'belt' buckle, the trigger, hidden beneath his black puffer jacket. He felt the smoothness of the rectangular red button. It was made from a car seat belt. "Once fastened," Mohammed had been told. "You are live. There will be no going back. There are wires inside the belt that cannot be cut without setting off the device. All you have to do is unbuckle yourself, and you will detonate."

'Eleven o'clock," they told him. "If you are still alive at one minute past, it means our phone trigger has failed, and you must detonate the bomb yourself. Either way; peace be upon you, brother."

They had first approached Mohammed in January 2010. One of their members had seen him attending some of the more radical meetings at the East London Mosque, and then again, distributing flyers in Tower Hamlets, calling for strict Sharia law to be imposed on the borough.

After twelve years, Mohammed thought he knew every Islamist organisation in the country, but this Brotherhood of Prophecy, as they called themselves, was new to him. A secret organisation, they said. And who could blame them? Their leading council was made up of community leaders, politicians, businessmen and imams from throughout the British Isles. Wise and mighty Muslims who, as individuals in the public eye, fought for peace and cohesion, but behind closed doors were planning the ultimate war against the British infidels.

"We know each and every jihadi soldier in the country," Councillor Ahmed Wilson-Khan had told Mohammed. "You would never believe how many we are. And when the day comes, we will gather the army for righteous glory."

Mohammed was proud they had chosen him, and him alone. Although at first he had been disgusted by the idea. Self-sacrifice for the cause was one thing, but to kill his own was another matter entirely.

"You will become the greatest martyr this country has ever seen," they said. "When the revolution is finally over, you will be part of our new nation's history. Every Muslim on the planet will know the name Mohammed Husqat."

Mohammed patted his trouser pocket. The forged documents were still there. Nice and safe in their blast-proof box. They would be found in the debris: Emails from MI6 detailing the meeting, and how to detonate the explosives manually. A bank statement showing a transfer of three hundred thousand pounds from a government bank account to his mother's in the Gaza Strip. It would all be denied, obviously; but by then it would be too late.

"When the Japanese destroyed Pearl Harbour," they told Mohammed, "the Americans replied with the atom bomb. You, brother, are going to be our Pearl Harbour."

Mohammed maintained a gentle pace as the shops petered out, giving way to houses. The Brotherhood had reassured him the explosives were perfectly stable, but Mohammed had seen too many accidents over the years and preferred to err on the side of caution.

It angered him to think of all the lost opportunities, too: Homemade explosives concocted to the wrong ratio. Leading to explosions as weak as the minds of their creators. And the London Tube bombings. Mohammed had known those four men, as had his father. Not by name or face, only online and by codenames. The radicals didn't trust each other. Too many spies. Their hearts had been in the right place, though, those four men, but their bombs were not. Time and time again they had been told to detonate when the train was standing at a station, not in the tunnel, but they had failed, and by doing so halved their numbers.

"We will retaliate with a ferocity unseen in any war," the Brotherhood told him. "This British Government will be seen around the world to have slaughtered a thousand Muslims in that mosque. Not only will there be global condemnation, but our brothers and sisters will rise up in rage. We will unite like never before. The moderates will join our struggle and we will, very soon, be victorious."

Mohammed checked his watch: 10:47. Two more streets and he would see the holy dome.

"At first, you will be seen as a traitor to your faith. An apostate. A Western collaborator. But we have your video, brother. We have all the evidence to make amends. After the mighty wind of jihad has swept this country, and the dust settles, we will reveal the truth. We will explain it _had_ to be done."

"One minute of prayer," they told Mohammed. "The mobile phone is set to silent. It is stitched into the backpack so as to rest upon your spine and you will feel the vibration. It will do this for one minute only, whilst transferring the charge to the detonator. Pray well, brother. Allah is expecting you."

Mohammed had questioned the timing. The detonation was to take place an hour before prayers. "There is a meeting first," they explained.

"What sort of meeting?" Mohammed had asked.

"The wrong sort. The weak moderates wishing to strengthen ties with the West. With the Government. Trying to break down our cultural barriers and dilute our faith. But don't worry, brother, there will be none of our sort amongst them."

Mohammed turned left onto Stanley Road. At the far end of the terraced street, beneath a green dome, stood a windowless red-brick building. A line of twenty, maybe thirty men slowly filtering through the steel-plated double doors, heads bowed against the crying grey sky.

He stopped half way along the street. 10:51. Nine minutes left of his life on earth, then an eternity in paradise.

Mohammed was pleased to note some of the other men had baggage, too. It would have looked a little strange if he were the only one. But there again, who would expect a suicide bomber to target a mosque?

Mohammed glanced gently behind him. He was alone. The street deserted. He would be the last to enter the meeting.

"It matters not if you must stand at the back, brother," they said. "We have equipped you well. The blast will be sufficient for our purpose. If we have some survivors, then that is God's will. Once they recover, they will be stronger, and angry at the loss of their own. That is when we will turn them."

Mohammed joined the end of the dwindling queue. He remained silent, as instructed, staring down at the pavement, waiting until he was inside and able to remove his shoes.

"Speak to no one, brother. Make your last moments on earth pure and righteous."

The mosque was full, yet only silence filled its vast space. Lines of chairs ran the entire length, all occupied. Another two, maybe three hundred men lined the walls. Both young and old. Asian, African, European, British. All blind to the cause. All worthless traitors to the jihad.

Two trestle tables sat in front of the audience, neatly draped in beige cloths, decorated with four empty glasses, four carafes of water, and four copies of the Koran.

Behind was a large white projector screen, pulled down from the ceiling.

Mohammed felt his heartbeat quicken as he surveyed the scene.

10:57.

His eyes searched for an empty seat in the midst of these moderate cowards, but there were none, so he decided to remain standing near the back.

Breathing slowly and deeply, Mohammed scanned the crowd for someone he may recognise, someone from his community. A leader, preferably. A person he could stand next to while his spine vibrated. But he saw no one.

Yes, there were faces from the past. A young Pakistani man he remembered from somewhere, and the ginger-haired convert with the beard down to his chest. Mohammed frowned in thought. He had spoken to this man recently, but couldn't place the conversation. Never mind, none of that would matter soon. In two minutes those chairs would become his holy weapons; splintered into organ-piercing spears. The multitude of lanterns hanging from the ceiling would shatter like grenades, as the vacuous dome filled with heat, smoke and the torn flesh of the weak.

10:58.

The steel doors of the mosque slammed shut. Mohammed listened to the bolts grinding into place.

A side door opened. A middle-aged man of African heritage appeared, wearing a blue suit and tie. To a deafening round of applause, he strode towards the tables and took a seat at the far end. A fucking politician, thought Mohammed, standing on his tiptoes in an attempt to see over the crowd, many of whom had risen to their feet.

Then a younger man emerged, dressed in traditional beige robes and a white kufi skull cap. A beard the size and shape of a clenched fist. Then, to the continuing clapping of conservative hands, he disappeared out of sight as he sat down.

Mohammed glanced back to the ginger convert as a third man joined the table, sending a murmur rippling around the mosque. Something was bothering him, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He touched the buckle on his waist as the applause continued.

He raised himself up once again, trying to see whose presence had caused such a commotion. What if it was the Prime Minister himself? They would dedicate a new mosque to Mohammed for that alone.

He checked his watch: 10:59. As he did so, he caught the ginger convert, from the corner of his eye, doing the same.

The hand-clapping had been joined by the sound of voices. Men arguing. Someone shouting something, but going unheard. The side door opened once again. Mohammed heard the dull buzz of the phone resonating from his backpack, but his spine wasn't vibrating like the Brotherhood had promised.

He turned to the man on his left. His head was lowered, lips moving in prayer, fingers clasped tightly around the handle of a vibrating laptop case. Mohammed grabbed the man's shirt and yanked it up from his waist. As he saw the belt buckle with its smooth red button, Mohammed heard the final steel bolt slam into place.

The ginger one. The convert. _That's_ where Mohammed knew him from: the Jihadist meeting in the East End last year. Mohammed looked across at him. His head, too, was lowered in prayer.

Suddenly, Mohammed's spine began to tingle as the door to the side room opened one last time. He couldn't fail to recognise the man who strode proudly across the room. The long greying beard, the grey robes and white skull cap. And that smile. The smile that had angered the British press for so many years. The 'Hate Preacher' those dogs had called him.

The lights dimmed. The projector screen lit up with the face of the sweet-giver. The burning towers of Satan behind him.

Mohammed pushed his way through the crowd, past the other backpacks, as voices grew angrier. A man to his left tore open his jacket. There was another buckle. Mohammed watched as pushed and pushed at the button, but it wouldn't move.

10:59.

"They said I was the one," someone cried. "The chosen one. They said I would become part of history."

The Hate Preacher called for silence. For respect. The meeting was about to begin.

"They promised me martyrdom," wailed another voice.

"And me," yelled the convert.

And so it went on. Ten people were the 'chosen ones', twenty, fifty, a hundred.

Mohammed watched as the applause died out and terror spread across the faces of all those around him. He closed his eyes as he listened to the Brotherhood's words in his mind: _"We know each and every Jihadi soldier in the country. You would never believe how many we are. And when the day comes, we will gather the army for righteous glory."_

11:00

Even if he'd had time, Mohammed Husqat could never have counted the number of backpacks in that mosque.

London Evening Standard.

_12_ th _March, 2013._

Following last Friday's devastating bomb blast in Stanley Road Mosque, Tower Hamlets. Local councillor, Ahmed Wilson-Khan, has announced the formation of a nationwide, government-endorsed organisation: The Brotherhood of Prophecy.

He told the Standard, "It is our aim to prevent radicalisation of our children and stamp out this demand for Sharia law, not only through education, but by working more openly with the police and government."

Mr Wilson-Khan has already assembled an impressive team to get the Brotherhood up and running; including community leaders, politicians, businessmen and imams from throughout the British Isles.

The series of explosions, which left almost twelve hundred people dead, took place at precisely 11:00am

The reason for the atrocity remains unknown, and no one has yet claimed responsibility, but police say the few bodies they have been able to identify were known to the counter-terrorist unit as active extremists from as far afield as Scandinavia and the Philippines; including major fundraisers and financiers linked to Al-Qaeda, although most of the dead are thought to be British-based.

When asked about the mood of the local community, Cllr Wilson-Khan went on to make this statement. "We have said it many times, and I will say it again: Not often, but sometimes it is best for us Muslims to sort out our own problems."

The End

3

#  The Blind Snail.

Little by little, the reality of the situation filtered its way into her newfound consciousness: The excruciating pain in her arms, legs and chest, the blinding headache, the taste of blood...and the darkness; that terrifying, spinning darkness.

She didn't have a clue where she was, let alone what had happened. A car crash, maybe? Didn't know if her eyes were open or shut; whether she was sitting or lying. The pain had set her on fire. The black silence only broken by the strange gurgle of her breathing as she fought for air.

Then she smelt it: The pork roast in the oven, beginning to burn. Christ, she was still at his house. So what the hell had happened? A gas blast, or something more sinister? But why, when, how? What the fuck? Why would someone want to set off a bomb in rural Wales?

It was _him_ they were after. It had to be. The Right Honourable Huw Fenton. Her lover. The owner of this rambling bloody house she was in.

Maybe his wife had come back early. Caught them. No. Jesus Christ, it didn't make any sense. Why couldn't she remember?

She lay for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts; but found she had none to muster.

A cough. The ferric taste of blood. And then the retching began. As she spat the last of the red bile from her swollen lips, it felt like strips of flesh were being torn from her sides. There was a gap, too. She could feel it. A tooth missing. Maybe a couple.

Then she heard it. Off to her right. _"Hello?"_ asked the voice.

It was a woman. Somewhere in the darkness. Her voice distant, weak, almost a whisper.

She tried to reply but couldn't find the strength.

Another cough. More blood. Another strip of flesh torn from her.

" _Hello? Can you hear me?"_

She froze; an image of Huw's wife in her mind, armed with an axe. But it wasn't her, it couldn't be. This woman sounded English. What the fuck was she doing there? Had she come to help? Maybe it was a neighbour. No, she coughed, that's why Huw had bought the house; for its 'desolate privacy.'

" _Hello? Are you there?"_ asked the voice.

She tried to work out which direction it was coming from. Why didn't the woman just turn on the bloody lights? Then she would _know_ she was there.

" _She's not responding."_

She tried turning her head to the left, but it wouldn't move. That side of her face was numb. Paralysed. When the voice spoke again, she only heard it in her right ear. As she tried to move her left hand, the pain made her want to vomit. The right hand wanted to come, too. That's when she realised her wrists were bound.

" _If you can still hear me, love, I need you to speak to me."_

Each time the voice spoke was like Huw giving her a gentle nudge, telling her to get out of bed, that she was sleeping her life away and wasting their precious time together. And then, like now, each time she came a little more to life, she would realise where she was.

But she wasn't in the four-poster bed now, with the smell of toast and fresh coffee by her side; she was on the floor. Probably in the dining room.

" _Still no response."_

She peeled her face from the polished floorboards, praying she wouldn't throw up as she tried to roll over. Her long black hair was caked with blood. Tears of agony trickled down her cheeks as she tried to manoeuvre like a broken doll. She had no feeling in her legs, just searing pain. Her right arm felt as though something had fractured. She wheezed, gurgled and winced for what seemed like an hour, until she finally crashed down, breathless, onto her right side. "Hello?"

" _I can hear you now, caller. Okay, I need to ask you some questions."_

The woman's voice was clearer. Close. Metallic. Tinny. It was a phone, lying on the floor beside her.

"What happened?" she whispered, the words dripping red from the corner of her mouth.

" _Sorry, caller, I need you to speak up."_

But she couldn't. The whisper had been painful enough. She needed to get closer. Interlocking her fingers, she used the tape binding her wrists for friction; inching her way towards the voice. Crying. Gurgling. Burning up.

"Can you hear me now?" she panted, slumping back to the floor.

" _Yes, that's better. Are you injured?"_

"I think my arm may be...who is this?

" _My name's Rose, an emergency services operator at Cardiff Central. You called 999 a few minutes ago."_

"I did?"

" _To report a burglary. You said you'd been attacked, and then I lost you."_

"Oh, Jesus, I don't remember. I must have passed out."

" _Okay, what's the address?"_

"The address? Shit, I don't know. It's my...it's Huw Fenton's house."

" _I'm afraid that doesn't help. We need the exact address."_

" _I don't know the address!_ It's the first time I've been here. Oh, Jesus fuck, it's in the middle of nowhere."

" _Okay, stay calm and tell me the nearest town."_

" _I don't know!_ He sent a car to pick me up from Bridgend Station. It was about an hour, an hour and a half's drive. I slept most of the way."

" _I don't have a phone number showing. Are you using a mobile?"_

"Yes."

" _You're breathing sounds laboured."_

"I'm finding it hard to..." Cough.

" _Have you brought up any blood?"_

"I don't know. I think so, but it's pitch black in here."

The operator paused for a second, listening to the gurgling, wheezing breath. _"I know this is difficult, but is there any sign of bleeding from your chest area or side?"_

"What do you...?"

" _I need you to check. Immediately."_

Silence; then whimpering.

"I can...I can feel...oh, Christ, yes. My left side. It's soaked."

" _Okay, I need you to stay calm. What's your name?"_

"Jen. Jen Hillcrest."

" _Jen, can you tell me what happened?"_

"I don't remember."

" _Jen, I think you may have a knife wound. What I'm hearing sounds like a punctured lung. We need to get help to you as soon as possible. So, please think. Is there anything you can remember about your journey from Bridgend Station? Road signs or landmarks? Do you remember which direction the car took after it picked you up?"_

Sobbing.

" _Jen, please, listen to me. You're going to need treatment within the hour. Do any of your friends or family have the address?"_

"I didn't tell anyone. I couldn't. No one knows I'm here. No one knows about Huw. I told them I was going on a field trip to France."

" _Okay, can you hear any traffic outside?"_

A pause. "No. Nothing."

" _Is there anyone else in the house?"_

"Huw was here, but I don't know where he is now."

" _Say again. You're breaking up."_

"I said _'no'_."

" _Jen? Are you still there?"_

" _YES!_ I'm here."

" _Hello?"_

"Fuck, no. Please don't leave me, Rose."

" _That's better; you're back. Your phone signal must be weak."_

" _How old are you, Jen?"_

"Thirty-six."

" _And do you suffer from any illnesses?"_

"I'm diabetic."

" _When was the last time you checked your blood sugar level?"_

"I can't remember."

" _Do you have insulin with you?"_

"In a bedroom upstairs."

" _Do you feel nauseous, at all?"_

"Yeah, and I'm burning up."

" _Okay, stay calm and listen to me. We need to stop that bleeding. Is there anything at hand you can use as a compress? You're doing really well, but I need you to put pressure on that wound."_

"I don't know. I'll try and find something."

The sound of fingers scrambling on floorboards. Wincing.

" _Jen, can you tear off a piece of clothing?"_

Sobbing. "I can't. My hands are tied together. I can't do anything. For God's sake, please send someone to help me."

" _I'm trying, believe me, I'm trying; but we need to make sure you're still alive when they get there."_ No reply. _"Jen, do you know which room you're in?"_

"It must be the dining room. I can smell the kitchen." And then more crying as she told Rose her special dinner was burning. The dinner she'd prepared to mark their illicit one-year anniversary.

" _Look for the table. A napkin will do, just to slow the bleeding."_

The sound of flesh and tape squeaking across floorboards; inch by inch. The dragging of legs and squeaking of limp shoes. Getting fainter.

" _The phone, Jen. Don't forget the phone!"_

Then a loud crackling down the line as she managed to pick it up. "Rose? Are you still there? I didn't press any buttons, did I?"

" _No, I'm still here, Jen. Do you have a breast pocket?"_

"Uh huh."

" _Put the phone in there and we'll be able to hear each other."_

More crackling, then the muffled creaks of a broken, bloodied woman dragging herself through the darkness.

" _Can you still hear me, Jen?"_

"Uh huh."

" _Take it slow. Conserve your energy. Let me know when you've found something."_

"I think my arm's broken."

" _Try not to put too much pressure on it then."_

A scream.

" _Jen?"_

Wailing.

" _Jen, speak to me. What's wrong?"_

But all Jen could feel was his hair. Hair she'd guiltily stroked a hundred times. Hair her fingers had run through, hoping he would still be in her London flat when she awoke, but knowing full well he would have already left. Hair shared between her and his wife.

She dragged herself closer. Almost onto his chest. Smelt the aftershave she'd bought him for Christmas, the one he kept hidden from his wife in the safe.

" _Jen? Talk to me. What's happening now?"_

For a blind second she prayed it wasn't Huw; that it was _him_ : the bastard who had done this to her. Maybe she had fought back, managed to pummel him into unconsciousness. But she doubted it, and as her fingers found that mole behind his ear, she knew it wasn't just her bones that had been broken.

"I'm here, Rose. I've found something," she wept, fumbling to untie the cravat from Huw's lifeless neck.

" _Good girl. Now get some pressure on that wound."_

Puffing. Panting. _Come on you bastard thing!_ But it wouldn't move.

The operator couldn't hear her blind struggle with the cravat, or the gasp when she discovered the knife handle in the far side of her lover's neck, pinning it in place. All she heard was the crackling phone as Jen wrestled with the knife handle, followed by the thud as she collapsed back to the floor, exhausted.

She rested for a moment, trying to catch her breath. Trying not to think about what lay next to her.

" _Are you okay, Jen?"_

"I'm okay."

Slowly, and painfully, she undid Huw's cravat, sliding it from beneath his neck, inching away from him as she dragged it along the floor. Then, with an agonised grunt, she rolled over on top of it. Lying on her back, she rocked back and forth until she came to balance on her left side. Then, using a combination of elbows, chin and remaining teeth, she retrieved one end of the cravat, drawing it up onto her chest. When she had done the same with the other end, she bunched her blouse up around the knife wound and struggled to tie the cravat as tightly as could around her chest.

"It's done," she panted. "What now?"

" _Sorry, Jen, you're breaking up again."_

She slowly dragged herself back around, aiming blindly for the spot she'd come from. "Now?"

" _That's better, Jen. How do you feel?"_

"Ha, I've been better."

" _You're doing really well, Jen. Okay, listen. My control officer's been patched into the conversation. He's come up with a couple of ideas. Firstly, I need you to look for some post. Bills, letters, whatever. Something with that address on it."_

"I can't, I'm too tired...there's blood everywhere. I can feel it. I'm fucking swimming in it."

" _Stay with us, Jen. We're in the process of dispatching paramedics to every rural area within a two-hour radius of Bridgend Station. As soon as we locate you, they'll be there in minutes. I promise."_

"What did you say you wanted me to do?"

" _You're breaking up again, Jen. We can't hear you."_

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

The squeak of tape on floorboards. Stripping flesh. Coughing. Blood.

"Better?"

" _We've got you back, sweetheart."_

"So...what do I have to do?"

" _Find some post. Something with the address on."_

"Can't...it's dark."

" _Say again."_

" _IT'S TOO FUCKING DARK!"_

" _Jen, please. You're doing realIy well, but I need you to stay calm. Now, you said you're in the dining room?"_

"Think so."

" _Is there a sideboard where he keeps his bills?"_

"Maybe, but his office is upstairs. They're probably all up there."

A faint sigh. "Bear with me, Jen. I just need to confer with my control officer."

She could hear Rose's hand covering the microphone of the headset, but it wasn't enough: "If we don't get to her soon, Steve, she's finished. I had a similar situation last year: a young lad, crashed his car into a ditch, drunk, didn't know where the hell he was, punctured his lung. He lasted less than an hour."

Jen didn't hear the rest of the conversation as she scraped her way past table and chair legs to find the plug socket in the far corner of the room. It was Huw's prized standard lamp. Some expensive antique, but the switch didn't work, so it had to be turned on at the plug. And thank God for that; as getting to her knees, never mind her feet, was beyond the realms of possibility.

" _Talk to me, Jen. What's happening?"_

Breathless. "Trying to get some light...let you know."

Her conjoined hands reached out to find the switch; fingers creeping like Siamese Spiders in the dark until they found their prey.

Click.

Click. Click. Click.

"Oh, Jesus, Rose. I think the bastard turned the electric off."

She tried one more click and the room lit up as the oven door buckled, sending flames spewing upwards toward the wood-beamed ceiling.

" _Stop screaming, Jen. Everything's going to be okay."_

"The fucking place is on fire!"

" _Did you say there's a fire?"_

Screaming. "The kitchen's on fire!"

" _We've lost you again."_

"I said I'm going to fucking burn to death!"

" _Jen, if you can hear me, I need you to get out of that room and close the door behind you."_

"I'm going now...oh, God, _help me!"_

" _Jen, you're dropping in and out. Listen, we've come up with an idea. My control officer has requested a triangulation of your signal from Cardiff police. It shouldn't take more than ten minutes, but we need a stronger signal. We think you must be in a dip."_ No reply _. "Jen?"_

"I remember waking up just before I got to the house. I think we were driving down a steep hill."

" _That explains a lot...hang on, we're getting a communication through now. Are you out of the room yet?"_

"I'm going, I'm going."

" _You're doing amazing, Jen. Don't forget to close the door behind you and try and block the gap underneath with something. We have multiple fire stations on standby."_

"Rose, I'm losing it in here. The room's filling with smoke." More coughing. Chestier. Sobbing. "I don't even know if I'm going in the right direction."

" _Can you see the smoke?"_

"Yes."

" _Is it moving?"_

"I think so."

" _Then it's probably going out the door. That's the direction you need to be going in, Jen. Follow the smoke. Stay low and try to hold your breath until you're clear."_

Coughing.

Burning pork.

A light bulb exploding.

The sound of spitting fat changed to that of shattering glass; the stench of burning meat to charring wood.

" _Keep talking to me, Jen. What's happening in there?"_

"I'm looking for the door."

" _Do you know your way out? You said it's the first time you've been there."_

A choking cough. "I've been here six days. He showed me all round the house. I think I'll be okay."

" _The office, Jen. Can you get to the office? We need that address."_

More coughing. "It's on the third floor. I can't get that far. And the fire...I'm scared, Rose."

Her fingers brushed the doorframe before finding the gap. It was still open.

" _Jen, my control officer tells me the Powys police helicopter has just been launched and there are ground units out looking for you, too. The air ambulance is also on standby."_

The creaking of nineteenth-century brass hinges.

" _Where are you now, sweetheart?"_

"In the hallway. I'm trying to close the door...the smoke. Jesus Christ, Rose, the smoke's going to kill me."

" _Can you get outside, Jen? Is there an exit nearby?"_

"The front door."

" _Okay, can you make your way to the front door for me? Let's get you out of there."_

"I'm going."

Dragging. Crying. Knocking. Banging.

"Oh Jesus, it's locked."

" _Can you unlock it, Jen?"_

"No way. I can't reach."

" _I need you to try."_

"I can't. My legs, Rose..."

" _Okay, so you're in the hallway. Is that correct?"_

"Yeah."

" _Is there any other escape route?"_

"Just upstairs."

" _Then take the stairs, Jen. Can you get upstairs?"_

"I can try."

A crackle.

" _We've lost you again."_

"I said _I'll try_."

" _Jen? I know you're still there and I hope you can hear me. We need you to get upstairs as quickly as you can. There's a good chance your signal will improve the higher you go. There's a police communication coming through now. It'll take a few moments to assess, so let me know as soon as you're away from the fire."_

Sobbing. Coughing. Fingers scrabbling at an unseen beige carpet. Sliding. Dragging. The feel of the first step. The senses heightened due to blindness. The smell of smoke seeping beneath the door, trying to chase her up the staircase. A staircase that might as well be Mount Fucking Everest.

" _Okay, Jen. The police need to know your phone number and network."_

She paused for a second, trying to think. "Vodaphone," she said, and then told Rose the number.

" _And you're sure that's the correct number?"_

"Uh huh."

As she dug her elbows into the first step, Jen imagined the old oil paintings of Huw's ancestors lining the walls. Looking down from their ornate gilt frames; laughing at her plight, the dirty little whore.

"What do you think?" asked Great Uncle Meredith. "Is she a gold digger?"

"I don't think so," replied Aunt Gwyneth. "In fact, I much prefer her to Huw's current wife."

"Don't you mean widow?"

And so, two centuries of Fentons watched her climb, step by step, using her elbows; dragging her useless legs behind, like some kind of blind, haemorrhaging snail.

They listened to her quiet sobs. Sobs, not born of self-pity, but agony and determination.

They watched her pace slow as she neared the top of her mountain, her face becoming paler with each heartbeat. The blood-soaked cravat lying, still tied, at the bottom of the stairs.

They choked with her as the smoke rose up the staircase like seawater in a sinking ship.

And then, they breathed a sigh of relief as she finally made it to the top landing.

"Rose? Can you hear me? I'm upstairs."

" _I can hear you, Jen. We've just spoken to the police. They've managed to get two points of triangulation."_

"What the hell does that mean?"

" _They say they need a stronger signal for the third mast to pick you up."_

"Can't they just find me now?"

" _I asked them the same question. Believe me; I'm on your side here. Christ, we'll have a drink when this is all over, but they need that last point to locate you."_

"So what do I have to do?"

" _Can you make it any higher?"_

A scornful laugh. "Impossible. I'm done, Rose. I'm gonna die in this bloody place."

" _Don't say that, Jen. You're not going to die, because I won't let you. You're almost there. Most of South Wales' emergency services are waiting to come and get you. Just hold on."_

"Tell me...tell me what to do then."

" _Okay, the police tell us if you can't get any higher in the house you need to boost the signal."_

"And how in God's name am I supposed to do that?"

" _They say you need to find a signal-amplifier."_

"What?"

" _Basically something made of metal, and big. Something that'll boost your signal when you touch it. What about a fridge or a cooker?"_

"Jesus, Rose, the fucking kitchen's on fire."

" _Sorry. Let me just check their communication again."_ A pause. "Okay. You said you know the house pretty well?"

"Yes."

" _So tell me, can you get to a water tank? It'll probably be in an airing cupboard or..."_

"Or the attic?"

Her words were beginning to slow, along with her breathing.

" _Right, Jen, stay focussed. Do you know if there's a metal stove in the house, preferably with a metal flue?"_

"Christ, there is, but it's back down on the ground floor."

" _A gun cabinet?"_

"He doesn't shoot."

" _Okay, Jen, you sound like you're flagging, so I'm going to read the list out to you. Don't reply unless I mention something you have access to. Understand?"_

"Uh huh."

" _A garage door... a television aerial or satellite dish... an aluminium-framed greenhouse... cast-iron bathtub..."_

"Rose... _please._ "

" _What?"_

"We both know this isn't going to happen. You'll be asking me to shin up a drainpipe next."

" _Jen, you have to trust us on this. All we need is that last point of the triangle and before you know it, some big hunk of a fireman will be carrying you out to a waiting ambulance. Please, don't give up on me now, Jen. You have to think. You have to concentrate."_

"I can't..."

" _Yes you can. You have to think, room by room, try and remember if there's anything suitable you can get close to."_

"Let's be honest, Rose, I'm just another phone call to you. Another statistic. Part of your job. I'm going to bleed out all over this landing, the line will go dead, and you'll just move on with a shrug of your shoulders; try and help some old woman whose cat's stuck up a tree. But I'll hand it to you, you tried your best."

" _Jen, I'm here to help people. To save lives. And today it's your turn."_

Weeping. "I know...I'm sorry."

" _Jen?"_

Panic. "I'm here, Rose."

" _Talk to me, Jen."_

"I'M HERE!"

Coughing.

"I've lost you, Jen."

" _NO!_ Don't leave me to die. Not here. Not alone. I'm still alive."

" _Hello? Jen, I can hardly hear you?"_

She rolled to one side, then the other. Six-inch nails being driven into every part of her body as she went. "I'm here, I'm here. I can hear you. For God's sake, please don't leave me."

" _Okay, you're back. Stay with me, Jen, There's another message coming through."_ Pause. _"Damn, they still can't trace that last point."_

"How big?"

" _How big what?"_

"The metal. How big does it have to be?"

" _It doesn't say. Why? Do you have an idea?"_

"Huw has a safe in one of the bedrooms."

" _Can you make it?"_

"I don't know. I can only try. It's on this floor. At the end of the corridor."

" _Go slowly, Jen. I'll be with you every inch of the way. How's the smoke?"_

"Getting worse."

" _Stay low. Breathe slowly."_

And so she set off; dragging herself round the corner. Grunting and crying as she inched her way through the blackness of the long corridor ahead.

" _So, tell me, Jen," said the operator, encouragingly. "Where do you want to go for that drink when we get you out of there?"_

The faintest snigger. "I'll leave that up to you. You probably know the area better than me."

" _What's your tipple? No, don't tell me. You sound like a G &T girl. Am I right?"_

A fingernail snapped off as her mind drifted to another place. A place of happiness: Friday night drinks with the girls. She could taste the gin, hear the laughter, smell the smoke, feel herself giving up.

Rose could hear her snorting with each drag of the body.

" _Slowly, Jen. I've just booked a table for two at Cardiff's finest restaurant. Had to pay a fifty per cent deposit. Don't give up on me now, sweetheart. They don't refund cancellations."_

She smiled inside, but lacked the strength to reply.

" _Do you have kids, Jen?"_

Her grunt sprayed the carpet with blood as she remembered the hundred broken promises made by Huw, and the same number of excuses for not leaving his wife.

" _Nah, neither have I. My husband's a big enough kid; and one's enough for me."_

The only indication of movement was the sound of fabric brushing against the phone in her pocket. Then it suddenly stopped. Followed by an ear-splitting thud as she hit the floor, exhausted.

" _Jen? Talk to me."_

Weak, gasping breath.

"Jen?"

A mumble.

" _You're almost there, sweetheart. You're doing so well. Don't give in now."_

"Sleepy..."

" _No, no, you're not sleepy, Jen. That's just your mind playing tricks. Your body wants to keep going. We need that signal if we're going to find you, Jen."_

Silence.

" _JEN! WAKE UP!"_

"Uh?"

" _You're going to the bedroom, remember? The ambulance will be their soon, sweetheart. We're going to get you out of there."_

"Bedroom?"

" _Yes, the bedroom. You said it's at the end of the corridor. Keep going, Jen. You can't be far now."_

A groan, and then the dragging sound resumed. "End of...corridor."

" _It sounds like a big house,"_ said Rose cheerily, trying to keep Jen's mind active. _"How many rooms does it have?"_

A grunt. "I don't...forty...maybe."

" _Blimey, a proper mansion. That shouldn't be too hard to find. Can you remember what it looks like? Are there trees around it?"_

"Trees...uh huh."

Dragging. Brushing.

" _And the outside. What colour is it?"_

"Don't remember...light, I think. White...got a lot of chimneys."

" _Will there be any cars outside, Jen?"_

"Black...black Jaguar something..."

The thud of knuckles on plasterboard. A wince.

"Here...I'm here."

" _Is the door open, Jen?"_

They both prayed it was.

A moment of silence, then the creak of hinges. The brushing of wood on deep pile carpet.

"I'm inside, Rose."

She was breathless.

" _Good girl. Another minute and we'll know exactly where you are. Can you remember where it is?"_

"It's in...inside the wardrobe...underneath. There's a button."

" _How are feeling, Jen?"_

"Running on fumes, Rose. If I'm in the wrong room...game over."

As she hauled herself through the smoky darkness, she heard Rose muffle the microphone again. _"This is Charlie-Charlie-Echo-Seven to all units. The caller has located a signal-amplifier. Stand by for location in approximately two minutes."_

Something in Rose's voice told Jen she was supposed to hear her, and it worked. She felt a final surge of courage wash through her rapidly emptying veins; the pain superseded by a newfound anger for the bastard that had done this to her and Huw. As she reached towards the bottom of the wardrobe door, she swore to herself she would find him and return the favour. Even if the police got to him first, she would wait. Wait for him to finish his sentence, and then she would be there, outside the prison, waiting for the fucker with a twelve-inch kitchen knife up her sleeve.

The _swish_ of a bespoke wardrobe door opening.

She fumbled for the button she'd seen Huw use to raise the safe from its hiding place beneath the wardrobe floor. The faint whirr of an electric motor, then a slight breeze on her face, followed by the rustle of silk suits and clatter of metal coat hangers above.

"Rose, I've got it...tell me what I need...to do."

" _I'm going to transfer you to a police officer, Jen. He'll talk you through it. Listen, and do exactly as he tells you."_

Then a new voice on the line: a Welshman. _"Miss Hillcrest? This is Inspector Owen of Cardiff Police. The operator tells me you've sourced a metallic surface?"_

"Uh huh."

" _Excellent. What is it?"_

"A safe."

" _Well hopefully it's large enough to serve the purpose. Now, I need you to raise your phone in the air with one hand and make contact with the metal casing using the other. I understand you're in a lot of pain, but I promise you, we can have air support there within minutes. I'll let you know as soon as we get that third signal."_

"My wrists...they're taped together."

" _In that case, hold the phone directly against the safe. Press as hard as you can, it'll act as an antenna. Do you understand?"_

The amplified rustling of fabric as she fought to pull the phone from her breast pocket. The straining sounds of exhaustion as she rolled onto her back. A silent prayer to Jesus. Then her left hand was dragging her right, screaming and kicking, high into the air above her head.

The clunk of plastic against metal. Breath held from sheer exertion. Fingers trembling in the darkness. Body telling the brain it was time to give up. "Can you...can you get it?" she asked. "Can you find me?"

" _Jen, it's Rose. They're working on it now. The inspector will let me know what's happening. Is the phone touching the safe?"_

A frustrated "YES!"

" _And you're...hang on; he's talking to me now."_ Silence. _"Okay, Jen, you're doing amazingly well, but he's asking me to repeat the question: Are you sure the phone is actually touching the metal?"_

"Of course."

" _He wants you to make sure it's flush against the metal casing, the entire phone, not just one corner."_

"For fuck's sake." More groaning. "Now?"

" _Let me check."_ A hand over the microphone. An agonising wait. _"No, I'm sorry, Jen, we still don't have a signal, but don't panic. Stay calm and give me a second."_

"Please, Rose, I can't do this much longer. I'm begging you."

" _Okay, the technicians say the surface area of the safe probably isn't large enough to amplify out of the dip. They're asking if there's anything bigger in the house."_

" _Fuck, no!_ I told you already, this is it."

Sobbing.

A silent phone, then, _"Jen? They're asking if you can open the door of the safe. They say it'll expand the area by twenty-five per cent."_

"No, no, no, no. Jesus...I can't."

" _Jen, listen to me. You're almost out of there. The police have ten of their finest working on your signal. Every hospital in Wales has a team ready for you and the air ambulance took off five minutes ago. It's up there waiting for you. Oh, and I think I'll order the porterhouse steak. Have you decided yet?"_

There it was again; that little nudge she needed to carry on. That precarious bridge between unconsciousness and the outside world.

"I haven't...I haven't had duck for a while."

A caring, worried laugh. _"I'll make sure they have the freshest; especially for you, Jen. You deserve it."_

She couldn't help but find irony in the fact that Huw's wife knew nothing of this safe. Yet he'd entrusted her with the knowledge of its existence, for the safeguarding of such menial items as her return train ticket, purse, and insulin. At the time she'd thought him paranoid, but now she was quietly grateful.

"I can't see the keypad, Rose."

" _The phone. Use your phone to light it up."_

And she did. Then punched in the code Huw had reprogrammed specially for her: 14022012. The date they first laid eyes on each other; sharing the Tube from Westminster Station. Him holding a bunch of roses for his wife, her, a threatening letter from her mortgage company. Within five hours, they had exchanged paper for flora, as well as other things. His wife never received her Valentine's gift; and Jen still owned the apartment she had worked so hard for.

As she pushed the first button, she imagined the ambulance drivers firing up their engines. Pain shot down her arms. The second digit would set the blue lights flashing on a dozen fire engines. The air ambulance pilot would watch as South Wales lit up with a hundred emergency vehicles, a cobweb of red and blue lights with her, trapped, in the centre. As she pressed the last two buttons, she could feel herself on a hospital trolley, hurtling down a brightly lit corridor to the operating theatre at the end.

And then, the safe door opened.

" _How are we doing, Jen?"_

"It's open."

" _Okay, I'm being told they need it open all the way, and keep the phone pressed against it, as hard as you can, sweetheart."_

"No gin, Rose."

" _Say again."_

"I don't...I don't want gin. I want a bottle of Dom Perignon."

" _Whatever you want, Jen. Just stay with us."_

"Oh...and two straws."

She lay on her back, hands aloft, every muscle in her body shaking. Trying to keep the pressure on the metal safe. Fighting to stay awake; to stay alive.

The silence seemed to last a lifetime, and then, _"WE'VE GOT YOU, JEN! Thank God, we've got you on full strength. All units be advised the caller is north west of Merthyr Tydfil. GPS coordinates are being sent out now."_

"How did I do, Rose?"

" _Amazing, Jen. You did amazing. The air ambulance will be there in less than five minutes and the fire brigade are even closer."_

"Ask them...ask them to hurry. _Please_ ," she said, lowering her hands.

" _Jen?"_

"Rose?"

Fuck, the signal had dropped out.

She tried to find the strength to touch the safe again, but the nudges had gone; the bridge begun to collapse.

She felt her eyes closing. Sleep was coming. The duck would go cold, the champagne flat.

Then she woke to the sound of a door being kicked in downstairs. The splintering of wood. Her arms bristled with the pins and needles of hope and excitement.

The hiss of a fire extinguisher. The smell of burnt pork and smouldering wood. Her saviours had arrived.

Then the charge of footsteps up the stairs. A voice. "Do we know which room she's in?"

A muffled, distant reply.

"Then get the electric on."

Doors banging. Opening and closing. Calls of _'Jen?'_ The warmth of blood soaking through her blouse. Then the overwhelming urge to sleep. Footsteps on the ceiling. The floor above.

"I'm down here," she croaked to herself.

Footsteps getting nearer. Hope. The slam of a door in the neighbouring bedroom.

"I'm in here!"

Then a light from somewhere. A torch in the corridor.

"Try the lights," called a man.

A click. Light flooded through the open doorway. The most joyous feeling of being saved, like a woman taking her first drink after two weeks in the desert.

"She's in this one. I've got her."

A switch being flicked, then a blinding overhead light. Jen closed her eyes against it.

A shadow standing over her. Then another.

A woman's voice: "Is she still alive?"

Fingers on her the side of her neck. A pulse being taken.

"Christ, look at the blood."

"We'll have to be quick."

She felt a pair of hands take her by the ankles and gently slide her from where she lay. Then she was being rolled onto her side. With the last of her strength she raised the phone to her lips. "Thank you, Rose...thank you _so_ much."

"Her pulse is weak. Barely there."

"Let's move her onto the bed."

Hands under her legs and armpits.

"One, two...three."

The smell of fresh sheets. The softness of a down pillow beneath her head. The thoughts of going to church when she recovered. The faintest, swollen smile upon her lips.

The sound of a bag opening. Velcro and zips.

As she lay there, she imagined them in their green paramedic overalls; sensed their wholehearted dedication to saving the life of this complete stranger.

Then she heard the tap of fingernail against plastic. Felt the prick of the syringe piercing the skin of her arm. Then the noise of something being tossed into a bag.

The woman: "Hurry up."

A frown. "Rose? Is that you?"

"For fuck's sake, she recognised your voice, you idiot."

"Don't worry. She hasn't got long."

Jen fought to open her eyes. A slit. That blinding light again. A syringe still sticking in her arm. Her insulin syringe. Empty.

Confusion.

"Rose? What's going on? What are you doing here?"

The phone still in Jen's hands. Screen lit.

She squinted. Caller display: Incoming - **Huw Home** : Duration 15:45 mins, 46, 47, 48. Still connected.

"Jesus, Rose. You were here all the time..."

The briefest glimpse of a man emptying stacks of banknotes from the safe; then a woman standing over her, followed by the pain of a metal torch smashing down onto her skull.

Once, twice, three times.

And then...nothing

The End

4

# The Mysterious Case of the Magically Missing Drugs.

Throughout their three-and-a-bit decades, Detective Sergeant Liz Porteous and Conrad Young had taken parallel paths in life. They both attended the same comprehensive school, and both got into equal amounts of trouble. In fact, they first met during after-hours detention at the age of fourteen. Whilst queuing for school dinner, a young Conrad had pulled her mousey brown pigtail; an angry Porteous had replied by wrapping a metal tray around his fat head.

After writing a two thousand word essay on the importance of mutual respect, Porteous and Conrad became firm friends. They often skived off school together, shared a cigarette behind Tesco, next to the skip, and would always sit either side of little Tommy Bainbridge during exams, taking advantage of his diligent revision. A tactic that proved especially fruitful during the maths exam.

During sixth form, the Porteous-Conrad double act managed to fail the exact same subjects without even trying. They even shouldered the blame for Mr Hush, the geography teacher's, nervous breakdown.

Having been kicked out of the 'end of exams' school party by an irate English teacher, with blood alcohol levels Oliver Reed would have been proud of, their friendship waned, eventually reduced to the obligatory Christmas-card-communication.

But that was a lifetime ago. Before a string of dead-end jobs. Before their broken marriages. Before Porteous joined the police service, or the Force as it was back then, and Conrad, Her Majesty's Customs and Excise. Before the onset of wrinkles and demanding letters from the bank. Before the school reunion.

Fifteen years had come and gone in the blink of an eye. Porteous had made detective and eventually applied, and been duly accepted, for Scotland Yard, slowly followed by promotion to sergeant. Conrad had done a little better for himself and worked his way up to senior preventive officer, based at Gatwick Airport.

As a singleton, Porteous had kept up her appearance and a firm eye on her weight. Left mentally scarred by the pigtail-pulling episode, she now maintained a shoulder-length bob. In contrast, Conrad had piled on a few pounds and, possibly due to the constant air traffic above his head, had lost most of his auburn hair.

The school reunion was held in something the proprietor had the audacity to advertise as an 'entertainment venue'. A venue it may have been, but the only entertainment to be found was in trying to guess when it was last decorated, and whether the next pint of lager would have more, or less, sediment in it than the previous.

The turnout had been a little lower than expected. Little Tommy Bainbridge had become a victim of his own success, and was whiling away his time in Wormwood Scrubs for insider trading on the stock exchange. And Mr Hush had become a victim of his own overdose. Apparently Mary Jackson didn't attend due to obesity and Andrew Holloway was on a gay cruise; which was a real shock for Porteous. As for the rest of the attendees, they spent the entire evening either bragging, or lying about how well they had done in life. Apart from Porteous, of course, who took advantage of the karaoke microphone to announce she was a smackhead prostitute with six kids in care.

But that was a week ago. Before the hangovers and food poisoning. Before the Porteous-Conrad duo was ejected from the premises for trying to smoke the sediment they'd gathered from all the unfinished pints of lager. Before Porteous chucked up in the back of a taxi. And before Conrad Young asked for her help on a case he couldn't solve.

And now they sat in Porteous's apartment, on her beanbag sofa, a laptop in front of them on a chair, a frame of video footage paused on the screen.

"Four times he's been through now, Liz. _Four bloody times_ in as many weeks _._ And we still can't find anything on him."

"Who is he?" she asked.

"I can't tell you his name. It's classified. But he lives in London. We've been watching him for eighteen months now."

Like twins separated at birth, Conrad took a swig from his can of lager as Porteous sipped from her glass of red wine.

"What is he? Arab?"

"Afghani. And he's killing me, I can tell you that, Liz."

"And you're getting readings from him?"

"Christ, yeah. Sky high for cocaine, but only ever on the outside of his case."

"And he doesn't have any on him?"

Conrad shook his head. "Nothing. We've had his suitcase apart, frisked him, X-rayed him, everything short of a full cavity search. The problem is he's screaming harassment now, and my boss says we're going to have to lay off him."

"So maybe he's using when he's abroad and you lot are just reading the residue."

"And that would be fine. We couldn't touch him if that was the case, but the Dutch police are watching him too, and they say he's definitely taking the stuff out of the country. I've seen the photos of him buying bulk powder from a known source."

"So if the drugs are going missing between there and here, why don't the Dutch boys arrest him if they're so sure?"

Conrad sighed. "We have an agreement. We need to charge him over here. I can't tell you much, but we know he's involved in a lot more than drug importation: Evasion of excise duty, counterfeit cigarettes, possibly even people trafficking, but we need to hang this on him first. This is the top end of his business. This is funding everything else."

Beneath a furrowed brow, Porteous took another sip of wine. "So you're _absolutely_ _sure_ he's buying in Holland. He's not just a stooge to keep you lot busy while someone else brings the drugs through on another ferry."

"He's not using ferries, Liz. He's flying."

"What? So you're saying between him getting on a plane at Schiphol Airport with a suitcase full of coke and arriving in the UK, it's all gone?"

A nod of the head. A swig of lager. "That's the top and bottom of it."

"But where?"

"That's why I'm here, Liz. I thought you might come up with something."

"I'm Scotland Yard, Conrad, I haven't had much to do with drug smugglers."

"I read the papers, Liz. I know you've cracked some pretty tough cases over the last few years."

"And?"

" _And..._ I'm pretty desperate. We've spent a lot of money and manpower on this bastard, and I can't let him get away with it. Not again."

Porteous played the video montage as Conrad went to the kitchen on refill duty. All four scenarios were similar: The Afghani standing near the luggage carousel, looking very nonchalant, waiting for his suitcase.

Families, couples and singles milling around. Groups of 'lads' with more tattoos than hair; the shattered remains of stag parties. Some travellers still dressed for sunnier climes, some obviously still under the influence of laxer drug laws. Some hogging the space around the carousel with their trolleys, others jumping forward to grab a suitcase, only to realise it's not theirs and making a mental note to buy some huge fuck-off sticker next time: A Union Jack. That's it. Stick a massive flag on their case so they can spot it a mile away. Then Porteous watched as a suitcase with a Union Jack made its way onto the conveyor belt, soon followed by another.

A uniformed police officer with a baseball cap and sniffer dog. A cleaner with her trolley, complete with rubbish bag, mops and a brush, putting out yellow 'Caution Wet Floor' cones, before mopping up a section. A maintenance man in a blue boiler suit carrying a toolbox. Like blood cells in this giant breathing monster of an airport. Constantly patrolling, cleaning and fixing things.

As Conrad handed her the glass of wine, Porteous realised why Customs had never appealed: All these people looked the same - Innocent. Hers was a world of facts, research and logic, not hunches and nervous ticks. Christ, she thought, we can send a robot to Mars, transplant an entire face, blow up dislikeable countries with the push of a button; yet we still rely on furry technology, that can't even wipe its own arse and finds pleasure in chewing skeletal parts of dead animals, to detect drugs.

Porteous watched Mr Afghan...

‖ **Pause.**

"Conrad. Do you have a codename for the suspect?"

"Firstly, he's not a suspect; he's guilty as hell. And, yes, he does have a codename. It's 'Mr A'."

"Seriously? _Jesus_ , where were you lot when God was handing out imagination? Giving him a bottom search?"

► **Play.**

The CCTV footage flicked from one camera to the next and the next then back again, Mr A always remaining in the centre of the screen. Another carousel was filling up behind him, number 2. She paused the video. Flight A1285 from Madrid.

"He always flies in and out of Gatwick?" she asked.

" _Always._ That's what's so perplexing. Most mules will use a different airport each time. They swap between planes, ferries and Eurotunnel, but not this bugger."

Porteous watched as Mr A collected his large suitcase. What looked like a yellow Samsonite one. She dragged the slider back, then watched again from the start. His was the first piece of luggage to come out, and the only yellow one on the carousel. She watched as Mr A waited, allowing his suitcase to go round and round four times, whilst the crowd collected theirs before dispersing. She noted him talking to a passing maintenance man, who pauses for a second to chat.

She watched him walk towards the ceiling camera, arrogantly nodding upwards as he did so, smiling, and then walking right across the cleaner's wet section of floor.

"Have you checked the baggage handlers?" she asked.

"We've got undercover working amongst them. They're a bit heavy-handed but none of them are in on it."

"So they aren't swapping cases?"

"Definitely not."

"What about the other carousels? He's not doing a switch with another traveller from a different flight?"

Conrad shook his head. "We've checked that, too. One of our baggage boys even marked his suitcase with a little cross under the handle. It's always the same one he brings through the green channel. The same one that reads high for cocaine."

"The flight crew?" she asked.

"They don't have any contact with his case. He never has hand luggage and they don't have access to the hold."

"In that case, Conrad, it's bloody obvious. I can't believe you haven't seen it already."

He jumped. Eyes wide. Lager frothing out of his can and into his crotch. "WHAT? Tell me!"

Porteous smiled one of her evil smiles.

"No, seriously, Liz. Tell me."

She cracked up at the eager look on his face. "I'm not Sherlock bloody Holmes, Conrad. I'm taking the piss."

Two glasses of wine, three cans of lager, and four videos later, Porteous had seen all there was to see.

"Do you have _any_ ideas?" she asked.

"Nope. And believe me, I've seen it all."

"Give me some brain fodder, then. You know, to get the cogs oiled."

"How do you mean?"

"Get me thinking like a smuggler. Tell me some of the most ingenious ways they've brought the stuff in."

"Bloody hell, Liz, you name it, they've done it: You've got the swallowers, obviously, everyone knows about them, but I've seen condoms inside dogs, as well. Two years ago we had a body repatriated from Mexico. The bloke had been killed in a jet ski accident and his mates took it upon themselves to stuff two kilos of cocaine inside the coffin with him."

"I can't see any dogs or coffins in these videos, though. Apart from the sniffer, that is."

Another swig of lager. "Then you've got the conversions."

"The conversions?" asked Porteous.

"That's when they change the appearance of the original drug. Sometimes they mix the powder into a paste and make something creative out of it."

"Such as?"

"You didn't hear about the designer shoes being smuggled into Spain?"

Porteous shook her head. "And what? They were made of cocaine?"

A nod. "Forty thousand quid a pair."

"Seriously?"

"Look it up," he said, nodding at her laptop. "It's getting tougher, too, as they get smarter. They're working on new shit all the time. Some of these cartels are employing top-grade chemists to stay one step ahead of the game. Last year we stopped a single mum, bringing her kid back from a week in Jamaica. The kid's pulling this little plastic train along on a piece of string, with moving wheels and everything. The whole thing was loaded with coke."

"What? Inside the actual plastic?"

A nod of the head. "We've seen an increase lately, too. The last one was a bunch of tools, the metal parts were okay, but all the handles were made out of this stuff. They're mixing the coke with silicone and moulding anything they think won't arouse suspicion. Which gives us two massive problems: First, we're getting readings for coke, but we can't tell if it's only trace or if it's in the plastic, and second, we don't know what process they're using to separate the drugs from the silicone, once they get it into the country. So we can't tell how much powder they've used. In fact, we can't even prove it's in there."

"So, couldn't Mr A's suitcase be made of the same stuff?"

A shake of the head, "Nah, our baggage guy took a sample last time. It's clean. The Yanks gave us the heads up on Plexiglas as well. That's gonna be their next one."

" _Clear_ plastic?"

"Yep. Before you know it they'll be manufacturing CD cases, bottles, sunglasses, the lot. We'll be flooded."

Porteous was actually a little impressed, but didn't dare say so. She had visions of speedboats and gliders made from cocaine. Christ, where would it stop?

"But this guy, Liz, this Mr A. No one has a clue what _he's_ doing with the stuff. I haven't been this frustrated since the 'acid man'."

"Who?"

"A bloke called McCorran. We knew he was smuggling LSD across the channel, but we didn't know how. Long story short: He was taking a small sheet of blotting paper, soaked in the drug. He'd managed to separate the back cover of his passport. Turn it into two parts, if you know what I mean, like an extra page. Anyway, that's where he was hiding the drugs. Then gluing the two parts back together so we couldn't tell. The irony is that when we were searching him, _we_ were the ones holding the bloody drugs. That's why we never found anything."

"How did you catch him?"

"He split up with his girlfriend, so she grassed him up. Otherwise..." Conrad let the sentence fall away.

"What about liquid coke? I watched _Customs_ on telly. They pulled a guy who'd soaked his clothes in it."

"It's happening more and more. Clothes, paper, paintings, anything and everything. They can dissolve half a kilo of coke in a litre of water. That makes a wine bottle of the stuff worth up to twenty grand on the street."

Porteous looked forlornly at the £3.99 bottle by her feet and realised she was in the wrong business. "And how do they retrieve the drug?" she asked.

"I can't tell you the chemicals they use. We've managed to keep that out of the press thus far. If not, every Tom, Dick and Harry would be giving it a go."

"So let me get this right. Your man jumps on a plane in Holland with a stash of drugs, in whatever form they are, and by the time he reaches the green channel at Gatwick they're gone."

"In a nutshell," said Conrad.

"Jesus, it's like a murder investigation without a body."

"And to make things worse, we think these are only trial runs. If he's found a new way of getting the gear in, we reckon he'll have a full team operating before we know it. It could be every airport, every flight. They'd be raking in a fortune."

Porteous considered what was being said. "That could run into the millions."

"Try billions. With that amount of gear hitting the streets, the price would plummet, and you lot would end up with the biggest drug war this country's ever seen. You'd have the Turks, Europeans, Vietnamese, everybody, trying to put each other out of business. Trying to control the whole trade so they can put the price back up. It would make the London riots look like a Sunday school barbecue."

"No pressure to catch him, then?"

"Oh, and one other thing, Liz. He lands again tomorrow night...and this is our last chance."

After seeing Conrad off in a taxi, Porteous spent the rest of her evening watching the CCTV footage, over and over again.

It was the sheer audacity of the man that got to her. The barefaced arrogance. Always the same suitcase, always the same terminal. Almost like he wanted to be caught.

In one section he even stops to ask a police officer the time, before ignoring the cones and walking all over the wet floor again, leaving the poor, irate-looking cleaner to mop up after him.

Porteous studied Mr A's face for any giveaways: a sideways glance to an accomplice maybe. But there was nothing. Always smiling for the camera. The only slight sign of nerves being the way he gripped the handle of the suitcase as he pulled it along by his side: clenching and unclenching his fist. A sure sign of guilt, she thought. He would then stop as he approached the Customs channels, and bend down, back to the camera, as though tying a shoelace.

The opening of a second bottle of red wine saw Porteous embark on a Googlefest, and by midnight she knew every possible means of importing illegal drugs to these shores. Yet, none of them were being applied by Mr A. 'A' for Arrogant Bastard, thought Porteous. One thing she did glean, though, were several ideas for the book she would never get around to writing.

No, Mr A was clever. He had devised some trick never before seen. A conjuring act. And Liz Porteous only had nineteen hours to work out what it was.

Porteous checked her watch. 21:35. Gatwick's North Terminal was busy: Arrivals from Dublin, Havana, Madrid, Rome, Istanbul, and most importantly, Amsterdam.

Passengers carried oversized tourist crap, destined for an eternity in the attic: A large hooker pipe, a stuffed donkey, and a much haggled-over Turkish rug that had been made in China.

Porteous stood near carousel number 2; dressed in flip flops, a Bob Marley t-shirt she forgot she even had, and cut-off jeans.

The anonymous blood cells were busy keeping their master alive: Patrolling, cleaning, and fixing things.

Porteous was exhausted. The 'eureka' moment had hit her at precisely 2:35am. After a long telephone conversation with a very drowsy Conrad, she'd managed to grab a couple of hours sleep before taking the train to Scotland Yard. Not directly of course. They didn't have a secret railway station in the basement.

After a full day of paper-pushing and lunch on the run, comprising a bag of ready salted crisps, she was here, eyeing up her target as he approached the crowded carousel.

Her eyes darted between the policeman, the cleaner and the maintenance man. Patrol. Clean. Fix.

Porteous had used her clout with Scotland Yard to obtain the work rosters of all three. And only one of them was present each and every time the Amsterdam flight landed.

She watched as the yellow suitcase went round and round the carousel. Mr Arrogant Bastard waiting, as usual, until most of the crowd had left.

Patrol. Clean. Fix.

As the revolving luggage thinned, so Mr A made his move. Stepping forward, he grabbed his yellow suitcase after its fourth orbit. Porteous watched very carefully as he lowered it to the floor, then extended the handle and set off on his way.

She watched the policeman patrolling, the cleaner cleaning, and the maintenance man fixing.

She watched as Mr Arrogance nodded politely at the copper, then raised his chin and smiled at the camera on the ceiling. She felt the bile rise in her stomach as he deliberately walked past a yellow cone and straight over the floor the cleaner had just mopped, her protestations going ignored.

That's when Porteous gave the signal. The thumbs up to the camera triggered a delayed, yet violent, chain reaction of yelling UK Border Agency and Customs officers.

Porteous was well within her rights to make the arrests, but to be brutally honest, she couldn't be arsed with the paperwork involved.

"So this is my payment is it?" asked Porteous. "Fish, chips and a red wine in such a salubrious restaurant."

"What's wrong with it?" asked Conrad sipping his coffee.

"It's a bloody Wetherspoon's pub."

"So?"

"And it's in an airport."

"Point taken, but I have to be back at work in half an hour. And you still haven't told me how you knew?"

"Knew what?" she asked, through the last mouthful of overpriced haddock.

"That it was the cleaner."

"Oh...that? Fundamentally simple, really. You had it all there, if you'd looked close enough and filled in the gaps yourself."

"Christ, Liz. Do you know how many times I've watched that bloody footage?"

"Probably not as many as I did last night." She paused as Goran the waiter bent down to take her empty plate from the table. Porteous waved him closer, whispering something in his ear, and then continued her conversation. "He's clever. I'll give him that. In fact, if the cleaner had kept herself off camera, I might never have known. But it's when I saw her switch mops that I knew she was in on it." Porteous leaned in towards Conrad. "She used the 'wet floor' cones to outline his target, you see; knowing nobody else would get in the way. Then she mopped the floor clean, ready for the drop." A sip of wine. A smart arse smile on her lips. "Didn't you think it was odd the way he pulled his suitcase along?"

"Odd? In what way?"

" _Come on_ , Conrad. You work in a bloody airport, and see God knows how many passengers every day."

"A few," he shrugged.

"And how many pull their luggage along by their side? None! It's not natural. We all drag it behind us like a dead dog. But your man was doing that so he didn't walk over the area he was going to release it. So he didn't contaminate the drop zone. And when you look at the video again, you'll see the cleaner switches her mop as he approaches. But she doesn't even mop up his wet footprints. She's mopping up the liquid cocaine he's released to the right, using a clean mop."

"That's why he always used the same suitcase and airport."

"Exactly. You've seen the X-ray of the suitcase. It looks perfectly normal, but he obviously had the frame customised to hold and pump the liquid. His first squeeze of the handle would create enough pressure to pop those two little caps out that we saw hidden above the wheels. Then all he has to do is walk and pump, while she mops up the very expensive evidence behind him. And as for her. I found out she would switch shifts if she had to, just to make sure she was there when he landed. "

"And by the time he got to us, the suitcase was empty. He'd replaced the drainage caps, and all that was left were traces on the outside of the case."

"Exactly! And then all _she_ had to do was avoid any sniffer dogs until the end of her shift, then meet him after work to hand over the loot."

Conrad sighed and shook his head. "Bloody clever bastard."

"Not clever enough, though, eh?" said Porteous with a smile, and a nod to the waiter.

Standing up from the table, she extended her hand, which Conrad shook warmly. "See you in another fifteen years then, old friend?" she said, taking the metal tray from the waiter and wrapping it around the back of Conrad's head.

The End

DS Liz Porteous also features in 'The Facebook Killer: Part 3' and 'Hunter'.

5

# The Montgomerys

Seven months behind on the mortgage, pension and car payments; a personal overdraft drifting perilously close to its twenty-grand limit, and not a hope in hell of being able to afford the children's next term at school.

Two years ago, Roger Montgomery would never have dreamt things could go so horribly wrong, but two years ago his wife was still the main breadwinner in the family: A criminal defence barrister with the prestigious Haig and Hartley chambers of Temple, London.

Roger's freelance work as a building surveyor had topped up the family income to a comfortable six-figure sum. Affording them the luxury of two exotic holidays a year, as and when the children were home from boarding school.

The Montgomerys had all the trappings of wealth: a red, top of the range Mercedes S-Class for her, to match her Lady Penelope looks, and a Land Rover for him. The number plates: ROG 724 and 65 CM for Charlotte, or 'Charley' as she preferred. They still had the cars, _and_ the vanity plates, but they now sat on the gravel drive of their debt-ridden house in Oxford, halved in value and uninsured. A playground for spiders. And thanks to the property slump, their home hadn't fared much better.

The holiday cottage in the Cotswolds was still there too. Neglected and damp. A veritable honeysuckle jungle. The sort of picture they could print on the lid of a chocolate box to discourage the obese from further self-expansion.

Neither of them had bought a stitch of new clothing since God knows when, and Roger, begrudging of the fifteen quid charged by his local barber, had resorted to purchasing a set of electric clippers, which kept his thinning, salt and pepper hair at a constant grade 2.

A hundred albatrosses hung around Roger Montgomery's neck, and all because of a bloody text message.

At the time, Charley had been defending a well-known London villain by the name of Terry Barnett. It was a legal aid case, because all his ill-gotten gains were in his girlfriend's name. Barnett stood accused of possessing an illegal firearm and conspiracy to commit murder. His intended victim, a rival drug baron by all accounts.

Charley didn't know why it happened, or who sent it, but when she received that text, it changed their lives forever.

The cash has been deposited, as agreed. Half for you. Half for the prosecution.

And it had. Someone had walked into a branch of Barclays on Camden High Street, complete with a hundred thousand quid in a holdall, and then proceeded to place it into Charley's bank account. No explanation, no questions asked.

Of course, Charley did the ethical and sensible thing, and contacted the bank, her firm, and the police; in that exact order. The police then spoke to a bubble-head at the bank who vaguely remembered speaking to Charley by telephone regarding the large deposit and, if she recalled correctly, enquiring about withdrawing the lot. But she didn't recall correctly, because she was a fucking plank. Charley wanted the money transferred into a bank-held escrow account until things could be sorted out.

When the police told Charley's senior partners that she'd tried to withdraw the cash; well, that's when a megaton of shit hit the wind farm. Charley was suspended, the prosecutor was suspended, Terry Barnett's trial was suspended, all of the Montgomerys' bank accounts were suspended. In fact, there was a distinct feeling of suspension in the air.

But suspension soon gave way to involvement: Her law chambers got involved, the Bar Standards Board got involved, then the Bar _Council_ got involved, even the gutter press and backbench MPs got involved. At one point, Roger Montgomery thought perhaps the Queen was the only person keeping her nose out of things.

_The Sun_ accused Barnett of trying to rig his trial, whilst mentioning Charley had nice tits. _The Guardian_ blamed a collapse of democracy and family families, then carried a report on how big a role marijuana smoke plays in global warming.

Then Terry Barnett accused his nemesis of being behind the whole farce, attempting to incriminate him in a bribery scandal and perverting the course of justice, thus securing a lengthier sentence.

In turn, the intended recipient of Barnett's four hundred shotgun pellets said _he_ was the one being stitched up, after rumours quickly circulated that the bribe was for Charley to betray Barnett's defence, and ensure he remained in prison until a pensionable age.

_The Sun_ ran with both versions, and included a photograph of Charley in a bikini on Bondi Beach. _The Guardian_ suggested compulsory poetry classes in school to draw kids away from the temptation of drugs.

And all the while, as the moons of suspension, involvement and blame orbited planet Montgomery, Charley slipped deeper into depression; eventually losing her grip and falling headfirst into the dark abyss. Her broken body only coming to rest as it impaled itself upon a nervous breakdown.

That was the point when her family's history of mental illness was unceremoniously wheeled out of the closet. That's when the aforementioned press smelt blood and decided to tear her career and reputation to shreds.

Due to the utter confusion surrounding the whole debacle, neither Charley nor her courtroom sparring partner were charged with any form of misconduct, but the damage had already been done, and Charley was too ill to argue against her dismissal from the firm.

But, ever the battler, she was back on her feet within six weeks, which allowed Roger to get back to work. A godsend in itself, having spent a month and a half watching the family savings trickle away like a leaking tap.

That's when Charley took over responsibility for their finances. Meetings with creditors and bank managers took place, arrangements entered into, verging-on-begging letters sent to the school. And so it went on, a constant battle to stem the monetary flow. But Charley was no financial plumber; and what's worse is that it took Roger Montgomery almost two years to realise not only were they about to run out of water, but his wife had found the most horrific solution to refilling the tank.

Roger dramatically lowered his fees in the hope of generating a larger client base. A tactic that worked, but also took him further and further from home as the news spread. A reputable and experienced building surveyor, he couldn't help but feel he was picking at scraps now. Going through other people's bins in an attempt to feed his family.

Unable to reinsure, let alone M.O.T. his Land Rover, Roger resorted to begging, borrowing and bussing his way to work each day.

Meanwhile, Charley spent every day in her home office, applying for elusive jobs. At one point she told Roger she was seriously considering changing her name, to get away from the spectre of the crazy, corrupt barrister that relentlessly haunted her. But she knew all it would take was for one person to recognise her at an interview, and it would all start again.

Eventually she lowered her sights and began applying for such roles as legal secretary, then clerk, then shop assistant. Ultimately, closing her eyes as she emailed the job application to a Burger King at the M40 services.

Roger couldn't help but feel sorry for his wife. Such a brilliant, strong mind reduced to pleading for minimum-wage jobs. Her lifetime's achievements and awards reduced to a nametag and fake smile.

But one day, everything changed for the Montgomerys: The day Charley went off to London, supposedly to visit her sister. The day Roger took off work because the heavy rain wouldn't allow him on site.

Throughout her years in law, Charley had always been conscientious about her clients' privacy. In the old days, her paperwork was permanently locked away in her own private safe, and then later, as her firm became paperless, her home computer was always password-protected. She wouldn't even get up to make a cup of tea without locking it. But something was different that day. In her haste to catch the midday bus to London, Charley had forgotten to shut down her laptop.

Over the preceding few weeks, Roger had noticed a change in Charley's mood: A little more excitable, agitated, even. There had been hushed phone calls in her office, and more trips to see her sister than he could ever remember. But the strangest part was that she always returned empty-handed. Not that she could afford to go on shopping trips, but for as long Roger had known his sister-in-law, he'd never left her house without being given some sort of gift: Anything from a homemade jar of marmalade to the latest Jeffrey Archer book that she'd just finished reading. Yet recently, each time Charley visited, she returned with nothing. Many times Roger had to prise her sister's welfare out of her.

"How's Rachel?"

" _Fine."_

"And Piers?"

" _Fine."_

"And the children?"

" _Oh, you know, growing every day."_

"That's a bit of a worry considering they're both over eighteen now."

With a pinch of paranoia and sackful of guilt, Roger had run around the house locking all the doors, in case his wife returned home early; all the while battling with his conscience. The little devil on one shoulder, the angel on the other; hurling abuse at one another, until eventually the little red man lost the plot and leapt over Roger's head, landing a flying kick to the angel's nuts, followed by a pitchfork through the right wing.

Charley had logged out of her emails, which came as a strange relief for Roger's guiltometer. The first file he noticed on the desktop was an Excel worksheet entitled _Job Applications_. The pity returned as he double-clicked the file, but it was to be short-lived.

As he read through Charley's sterling efforts to find gainful employment, it soon became apparent that in all this time his wife had only applied for eleven jobs. That was one every two months.

Roger's confusion grew with each click of the mouse, as he checked the other spreadsheets, hoping he may have missed the main database, but no, there _were_ no others. He ran a search, but it just came back to the same eleven jobs. _Eleven fucking jobs!_ While he'd been working up to sixteen hours a day whoring his sorry arse all over the South of England. What the hell had she been doing?

Roger checked his watch: 15:34. Then he walked to the drawing room and stood in front of the drinks globe that he'd always hated so much, but put up with because it had been a wedding present from some tasteless relative of Charley's.

"It's too early for that," said the angel in a high-pitched voice.

"Don't listen to _him_ ," said the devil. "Get stuck in, Rodge. Looks like you're gonna need it, my old son."

Angel: "You haven't drunk for years. Don't start again now."

Devil: "Go for the brandy, Rodge. You know you want to."

Angel: "You know if you start, you won't stop until it's gone?"

Devil: "Don't listen to him, Rodge, he's just a big poof. Look he's even wearing a dress."

Angel: "Oi! You can't say that nowadays."

Devil: "What do you mean? I'm the devil, I can say what I like."

And so, as good and evil battled over political correctness and freedom of speech, Roger Montgomery poured his first goblet of brandy and returned to Charley's office, the bottle in tow.

Another file: _Voluntary Debt Arrangement_ , contained agreements and details of reduced payments to loan companies, credit cards, banks, and of course, the children's school. This was much more like the Charley of old. The well organised tables told a story of treading water, whilst the financial institutions stood on the shore with a lifebelt, never allowing you to get out of the sea, but pretending they cared and were there to help if you got into trouble. The truth was, he mused over his first mouthful of St. Remy, they didn't give a fuck if you drowned; because another mug would be along with the next tide.

But as Roger scrolled down, the figures typed in green began to turn orange, then red as the money ran out. The month before, a large green asterisk, bold and underlined, had been entered into the column detailing the mortgage payments, or lack of them. A footnote read _"Will pay arrears in full. Spoke to Mr Harris - said he will suspend penalties for two months."_

A sip of brandy.

The school column, too. A yellow asterisk this time. _"Mrs Kilsyth says I can add this term's arrears to the advance payment for next."_

A sip of brandy.

Barclays Bank: A red one. _"Overdraft extension refused. Nazi bastards! Will negotiate rate to pay it off."_

A sip of brandy.

Abbey National: Green. The Cotswolds. _"Will pay off remaining mortgage in January."_

A mouthful of brandy.

What the hell was going on? What was she up to? If Charley had a way of finding this amount of money in the next couple of months, it would've been nice of her to share the little secret.

Roger topped up his brandy goblet before resuming his search. He glanced over some more icons on the screen. A yellow folder: _Letters._ With a quizzical frown, he clicked on it.

Word documents. Fifty of them. He picked one randomly.

Terry_7.

My dearest Terry,

It was with a heavy heart I read this morning's newspaper. I do not know what that judge was thinking about when he handed down a nine-year sentence. I, myself, was in talks with both his honour and the prosecution for a four-year maximum if you changed your plea to guilty.

I can only sit in this soulless home and imagine you in that horrid prison, but fear not, my brave love, I will be awaiting your release as a child awaits Christmas Day.

I will write again soon. I promise.

All my love XXX,

C.

The brandy goblet trembled in Roger Montgomery's hand as he read that letter a second time, then again, and again.

The cogs of his brain had disengaged. He knew he should be angry. No. He should be absolutely fucking livid, but something wouldn't let him. Maybe it was the twenty-three years of marriage, or their two beautiful children. He didn't know.

Each time he finished reading his wife's love letter to that prisoner, his eyes rested on the solitary letter C: Charley, remaining there for minutes as his lower eyelids filled with tears.

Maybe he was wrong? Perhaps that's why he wasn't reacting as any man would. Maybe these letters weren't from his wife. They could be evidential in some long forgotten case. Perhaps this Terry wasn't Terry Barnett but some other cad locked up for Her Majesty's pleasure. I mean, come on, Terry's a bloody common name, after all.

Terry_8

Dear Terry,

I must confess I have spent this past month crying. My whole existence seems pointless now. Having said that, my heart may be broken but my will is not. Therefore, I have devised a plan for our mutual benefit. This is not something I can commit to paper, so I shall tell you upon my next visit, a week on Thursday. I think not only will you like it, but you may also be able to advise me with regards to its execution.

Moving on. My husband and I remain ships passing in the night. From memory, we exchanged a mere fifteen words yesterday. He is too caught up in his busy schedule to even notice me these days. Constantly pleading exhaustion and resembling a man ten years his senior. I am counting down the days until you and I can be together again.

Remember, my love, if you need any legal advice, I am here for you.

For ever yours,

Charley XXX.

And so the letters went on: Gushing, scheming, denigrating. Her words forcing brandy down his throat. Her declarations of undying love tearing handfuls of pride from his soul, until he couldn't bring himself to read any more.

The phone rang several times as Roger sat trying to take it all in, but he didn't hear it. The postman came and went, the doorbell remaining unanswered.

Another brandy.

_That's where she is now_ , he thought. _It's Thursday. She's gone to see him. That's why she was agitated this morning._ _Oh, Jesus. The money. It was for real. She was part of this all along._

He cursed himself for having believed every word of her story, for defending her when journalists were camped on their doorstep day and night, for allowing himself to be taken for such an idiot.

Then panic crept in. A divorce. Charley was going to divorce him. Sell everything. Christ, they would hang him out to dry. She would present evidence of how much she'd contributed to the mortgages, bills, and children's education. Jesus, she'd been earning three times as much as him, and it was all there in black and white.

He was finished. She would represent herself in court, whereas he would either have to hire someone, or face the prospect of playing a bumbling fool in front of the judge. She would get the house. There was still enough equity in it to start afresh. He'd wanted to sell it when things began going downhill, to downsize, but she'd refused, saying she was too attached to the old place. And now he knew why.

They say there's a thin line between love and hate, and now, Roger Montgomery found himself standing over it, one foot either side.

He had to strike first. To gather enough evidence with which to launch his own divorce proceedings on the grounds of adultery. Okay, the man was in prison now, but she must have had plenty of contact with him beforehand. He would find the evidence.

Roger shivered at the disgusting thought, imagining them together in her chambers, Charley and Barnett. A 'do not enter' sign hanging crooked on the locked door.

His left foot rose up and hovered above the line.

Roger walked through to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and stood staring for a moment before realising he wasn't hungry. Even if he had been, his stomach wouldn't have allowed him to keep it down.

He drifted back to the hallway and bent down to his briefcase behind the front door. Opening it, he lifted out an external hard drive from the pocket beneath the lid.

Back in Charley's office, he drew the heavy velvet curtains before turning on her brass desk lamp, then sat down and opened her internet browser.

That's when Roger Montgomery felt the full force of his wife's plan.

History

Yesterday (empty)

Wednesday, November 5 (empty)

Tuesday, November 4 (empty)

Monday, November 3 (empty)

Sunday, November 2 (empty)

Saturday, November 1 (empty)

Last month

Friday, October 31

4:03 pm _Google Search – Symptoms of organ failure_

4:00 pm _Yahoo Answers – lethal dose of ethylene glycol_

3:51 pm _Google Search – Bitter tasting wine_

3:39 pm _Google Search – Bitter tasting curry_

3:30 pm _30 years jail for antifreeze poisoning - Telegraph_

3:26 pm _UK Poison Council - ethylene glycol_

3:21 pm _Wife admits poisoning husband on death bed_

3:18 pm _Google Search – Untraceable poisons_

3:15 pm _Answers.ask – Poison someone without trace_

3:12 pm _Google Search – 10 ways to poison a man_

Well, if nothing else, she was thorough. Roger scrolled through his wife's internet history, just a blur before his eyes. Months and months of websites and forums. Key phrases jumped out at him from the rolling screen. _The perfect crime. Pentonville Prison visiting information. Ambulance response times. Toxicology and biopsy reports._

He paused to open the same article Charley had read in numerous online newspapers: The wife who had poisoned her husband with antifreeze on their wedding anniversary. How she'd poured a tiny amount into his wine, and the same into the curry, to mask the bitter taste, and nothing had shown up during hospital tests.

Then Roger Montgomery was on his feet, running back through to the kitchen. Back to the fridge. He rived open the door: nothing. The freezer compartment: and there it was, hidden behind a couple of frozen pizzas and a bag of naan bread: his favourite chicken, yoghurt and almond curry. A meal he hadn't had for months. He cast his mind back as he glimpsed the bottle of merlot sitting on top of the fridge. The last time he'd eaten this particular dish was on his fortieth birthday.

Jesus Christ! She was planning a celebration: His fucking death.

He raced back to Charley's office and opened the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet, where they kept their personal documents, rifling through the hanging folders until he found the insurance policies: House – expired. Cars – expired. Cottage – expired. Life insurance – renewed. Roger Alexander Montgomery. Payable upon death - £420,000.

Another brandy. His body trembling. Both feet firmly over the line now. The hard drive being plugged into the laptop. _Download all history?_ Yes.

Flicking the pages of his mind: Her family's mental health problems, calling the police, going to Pentonville Prison to confront her, calling her sister, getting the hell out of there. What? What? What? What? What the fuck to do?

He lifted the cordless phone from Charley's desk and pressed number seven. A buzzing, then a telephone number being dialled. Ringing.

" _Rachel speaking."_

A pause as he tried to control his breathing. "Hi Rachel, it's Roger. Sorry to interrupt you, but I need to ask Charley something. I'm trying to find a piece of paperwork."

" _Charley? She's not here, Roger. Did she say she was coming over?"_

Think, damn it, think.

A rustle of the insurance policy next to the phone.

"Oh, shit, sorry. My mistake. Wrong Rachel," he said laying the paperwork on the keyboard. "I just checked her diary; she's gone to see Rachel _Patterson_ , for her monthly check up." A snort. "She left in such a rush this morning, I only caught the first name and assumed..."

The insurance papers slipped from the keyboard and fell to the ground.

" _Oh, don't worry. Hey, Roger, while I've got you on the phone. Piers has been talking about another round of golf if you're interested."_

He bent down to gather the papers from the floor. As he picked up the second sheet, he froze: Charlotte Mary Montgomery. Payable upon death - £1,475,000.

" _Roger? Are you still there?"_

"Yes. Yes, I'd love to. Tell Piers to give me a call next week. I'll drag Charley along as well. The fresh air will do her the world of good. Oh, shit, gotta go, someone's at the door."

" _Will do. Cheerio."_

"Bye."

Click.

_Almost one and half million quid_ , he thought, creaking down into Charley's leather desk chair, policy still in hand, staring at the vast figure before him.

After a few moments, he shook his head to wake himself up, to snap himself out of it; then poured another brandy.

That's when Roger Montgomery went back to square one, and began reading through the history of his wife's research. Much slower this time. _Much_ more interested.

Precisely five and a half hours later, Roger's mobile pinged. His wife had just left Rachel's house and would be back at 8:00pm, and could he please put the oven on. She had a nice surprise for him.

He dug out the car keys from the bowl on the hallstand, unlocked the front door and walked over to Charley's Mercedes. The indicators flashed and the alarm beeped as the doors unlocked. He checked the boot first, and there it was. Unopened. A plastic bottle of antifreeze. 4 fluid ounces, his wife had inadvertently told him. That's all that's required. Enough to kill a man. Half in his wine, half in his curry. Once ingested there's no going back: It'll enter the bloodstream immediately. After around thirty minutes he would think he'd drunk a little too much wine. Then the dizziness would start, followed by the slurred speech and headache. An early night would bring on the muscle spasms, hyperventilation, racing heart, and eventual paralysis. And all the while, his wife innocently watching late night television, 'unaware' of her husband's agony. By the time she made it to bed, that's if she didn't conveniently fall asleep in the lounge, kidney failure would have rendered him useless. Then, sleeping like a baby, Your Honour, his heart would stop.

Charley Montgomery looked physically shocked as she stepped into the kitchen, her senses hit with the smell of simmering curry and baking naan bread, seeing her dutiful husband in front of the stove, wearing a blue and white-striped apron, stirring the contents of an orange Le Crueset saucepan.

A bottle of merlot stood breathing on the neatly laid kitchen table. An empty wine glass at one end, a goblet of brandy at the other.

"How's your sister?" asked Roger, without taking his eyes off the stove. "Okay?"

"She's fine...Roger? Why are you cooking that? It was going to be a surprise."

"Oh, it's no bother. Go and do what you have to do. It'll be ready in two ticks."

As her footsteps disappeared upstairs, Roger had an overwhelming urge to taste this gorgeous smelling dish before him, but suddenly remembered. Maybe he should have made them separately? One for her, one for him. But that would've been ridiculous; she'd have twigged straight away.

A door closing. Returning footsteps. Then a pair of arms wrapping around his waist. "Smells beautiful," she said, giving him a kiss on the shoulder. "How was _your_ day?"

"Uneventful. Was Piers there?"

"Em, yeah. He was pottering about in the garden, though, so I didn't see much of him."

"In this weather?" asked Roger.

"I think he was in the shed."

"He didn't mention a round of golf, did he?"

"No. Should he have?"

"Not particularly, but it's been a while. Thought it might be nice to catch up. I might give him a ring after dinner."

He felt the arms stiffen around his waist, then unlock themselves and retreat. He could see her reflection in the stainless steel cooker hood. A nervous smile on her lips, like someone with a guilty secret.

"Why don't you let me finish that?" she offered. "You go and have a seat."

The tapping of a spoon on cast iron. Then the clatter of two plates being pulled from the draining rack.

"Too late. It's done," he said, turning to face her. "Go and pour yourself a wine while I dish up."

Roger watched her pull out the chair and sit down at her end of the table. The same place she'd sat for countless years. "Are you alright, Charley?" he asked, as she filled her glass. "You look...I don't know. Strange?"

That anxious smile returned to her lips. "I'll tell you after dinner, darling."

Roger placed his wife's meal in front of her, then carried his to the far end of the table and sat down himself.

"Bon appetite!" she said.

But Roger couldn't return the toast. All he could think about was her damn lies, visits to that drug-dealing bastard in prison, and her plan. Her plan to get rid of him. Well, _he_ was about to have the last fucking laugh.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" he asked, watching her blow on a forkful of chicken.

"It can wait, darling."

"But I'd like to hear it now," he said as nicely as possible. No need to start an argument and have her storm off from the table.

"Aren't you eating?" she asked. "I thought it was your favourite?"

"It's too hot; besides, I had a bit of an upset stomach this afternoon." A generous slug of brandy. A forced smile. "So? Are you going to tell me or not."

"I'm starving," she said as the first mouthful disappeared from the fork. "Hmm," she hummed with pleasure. "Just melts in the mouth. Those almonds are a little more bitter than I remember, though," she said, before washing it down with a healthy dose of merlot, "but cooked to absolute perfection, my dear."

It was funny; peculiar, not ha-ha, to be watching his wife on her deathbed. Thirty minutes and counting. He wondered how Terry Barnett would react when he found out.

Then the strangest thing happened. Roger was well aware of the old adage about one's life flashing before one's eyes as they faced imminent death, and this was something similar. He could see the children as babies in their high chairs. He and a much younger Charley were spoon-feeding one apiece. Then a birthday cake appeared with a single candle, two tiny puffs of breath, aided by Mum and Dad, transformed it into a Christmas cake. All the while, his eyes remaining fixed on his wife, fervently tucking into her toxic curry. Roger felt frozen in time as everything went on around him. The children became a blur, growing within seconds; their primary school uniforms rapidly morphing into boarding school garb, and then they were gone. He watched Charley refill her wine glass, and then they were celebrating her passing the bar exam. Rachel and Piers appeared for an instant with a bottle of bubbly. Then, suddenly, Charley's plate was empty. The knife and fork lying neatly together in the centre.

"Are you okay, darling?" she asked. "You haven't touched your food."

He smiled at her as he would a child. The guilt had crept in. In fact, if truth be told, the guilt had smashed through the front door in a gigantic fucking tank, but all Roger could think about was her deceit, her infidelity, and that bribe she'd taken from Terry Barnett, that brought their whole world crashing down.

Charley pushed her empty plate towards the centre of the table and rested her elbows in its vacant spot, then let out the loudest sigh. "There's something I have to tell you, Roger, but you must promise you won't be mad."

He paused for a second before replying.

"I think I may already know what you're about to tell me," he said, glancing across at the wall clock. "But since you've broached the subject, I'll hear you out."

"Don't be silly..." She frowned at the wine glass. "Bloody hell, that's strong stuff. It's hit me already."

"You were saying?"

That nervous smile again. "You have to promise you won't be mad."

"I don't have time to be mad with you, Charley."

"Well, you know I told you I've been going to see Rachel."

"Yes."

"Well, it was a lie..." she said, rubbing her forehead. "Christ, I think I'm getting a migraine."

"You'd best be quick then."

"Where was I?"

"Your sister."

"Yes, that's it. Well, it was a lie, Roger. I was visiting a man. In London."

"Anyone I know?" he asked wearily.

She looked taken aback; confused. "Is that all you can say? Aren't you even a little bit jealous?"

"Of _him?_ _Please_ , give me some credit."

"But you don't even know him."

"Correction! I've never _met_ him, but I know all about him. I've seen the letters, Charley."

"You can't have. I kept them in my briefcase so you wouldn't."

"I know everything. I know you've been working on it for almost two years when you were supposed be looking for a job."

He could see her sweating. Blinking. Looking confused.

"I don't understand what you're saying, Roger. How can that be? I kept everything hidden. You can't possibly know anything about this."

Her chair scraped back as Roger jumped to his feet, the skin on his neck taut with rage, banging his fists down on the table. _"TERRY FUCKING BARNETT!"_

Then she was on _her_ feet. Unsteady. "Roger, are you drunk? What's _he_ got to do with anything? I'm talking about Christian Davis."

"Who the _fuck_ is Christian Davis?"

"My agent. That's where I've been all day. He finally got me a deal."

"A deal? For what? A bottle of fucking cyanide?"

"No, for my book."

She looked on the verge of tears.

Roger Montgomery stopped dead. Then he slowly sank back down into his chair.

"I didn't want to tell you about it in case I got your hopes up and everything fell through, but we signed a deal with Hopgrove Publishing today."

Stunned. "A deal?"

"They loved it, Roger. They've signed me up to write four more legal thrillers. Wait till you read it, darling. It's based on what happened with that creep Barnett and the dodgy money. But in _my_ novel the barrister has been involved with him from day one. She keeps in touch with him in prison, writing these soppy bloody letters, but at least Christian liked them, and then the bitch goes on to poison her husband with antifreeze. There's still a lot of work to be done before publishing, and they want me to adjust the ending, but in the long run I'm going to earn far more than I ever could as a barrister."

Roger watched his wife take the folded cheque from her pocket and slide it down the table. He leaned forward and picked it up. Parted it with trembling fingers, glancing at the wall clock as he did so. A little over three hundred thousand pounds. A little under ten minutes. "That must have taken a lot of research," he said in a whisper.

"Like you wouldn't believe, darling." She was crying now. Tears of happiness. Tears of relief. "But it's going to be worth every penny. We'll be back on our feet in no time." Their eyes met; possibly for the last time. "I love you, Roger Montgomery. You know that, don't you? You grumpy old bugger."

He just nodded and smiled. "I know, dear. I never doubted you for a moment."

He slid his empty glass down the table towards his wife. "You wouldn't mind if I shared some of your wine, would you?"

And with that, Roger Montgomery took his first mouthful of chicken curry.

The End

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