So it was down to me. The reason she had left was because they'd threatened to kill me. Sure, there were still some questions about our past I needed answering but there was one thing I wasn’t questioning. I knew then and there that I wasn’t going anywhere. I knew who had taken Emma and I wasn’t going to stop until she was safe, regardless of how scary they were. But I was going to beat them with my brains and a vast sum of money. I just needed to know what I was going to do. If they were watching me, I better put on a show.
*****
Thirty minutes later my bags were packed. I bunched a few of my favourite clothes in a suitcase, along with anything valuable I could carry. There wasn’t a lot. Looking at all my worldly possessions fitting into one small bag made me feel quite sad but I pressed on. I flicked on my laptop and began checking the flat for anything I might need whilst it loaded. Eventually I got on the Internet and booked a plane ticket to Mexico. One way. The flight left in three hours so I’d have to hurry.
I picked up my phone and called my mum, realising with a pang of regret that I hadn’t spoken to her in ages.
‘Hello?’ she questioned, even though my name was on her caller ID. I think she made it a question just to make me feel guilty, as if it had been so long since I last spoke to her that the name Tom doesn’t even ring a bell.
‘Hi Mum, it’s me.’
‘Oh Tom, how are you darling? You haven’t rung in ages,’ she digged. Not ‘we haven’t spoken in ages’ you see. She puts the blame on me. Sneaky.
The conversation went on like that. I told her I was going to go travelling to 'find myself' after everything. I wasn’t sure for how long or when I would be home. She was surprisingly good about it. I think deep down she'd been constantly worrying about me and probably thought it would do me good. I hung up, promising to call her often, and breathed a sigh of relief. The next phone call would be more enjoyable. I scrolled through my phonebook and selected Hamilton’s.
‘Hello, Hamilton’s Accounting,’ a polite voice from reception said. It sounded like Suzie but I couldn’t be sure. It had been a while since I had worked there consistently.
‘Hi there, it’s Tom. Is there someone high up and important that I could talk to immediately?’
‘Hi Tom,’ she laughed. It was Suzie. We'd always got on pretty well and she made me feel relaxed. ‘Sorry Love, they are all in a meeting. Even the team leaders. Can I take a message?’
‘Yeah you can actually. Have you got a pen?’
She paused for a second and then said, ‘Yes, go ahead.’
‘Right. Please write this down word for word, OK?’ I laughed, waiting for her to agree.
‘Dear Managers, CEO’s, Team Leaders and whoever else this concerns. As you know I have been dealing with some personal problems and will have to ask you to kindly...shove your job up your arse.’
There was a stunned silence but Suzie didn’t stop me, so I continued.
‘I would like to say it has been a pleasure working for you but...that would be bollocks. You know it. I know it. Nobody likes working there you miserable, bloated bag of shite (oh, please make sure that one is aimed at Jeff). Yours Sincerely, Tom Sharpe.’
I could hear Suzie stifling her laughter and by the sounds of it, she had shown it to the others.
‘Make sure they get it like that, word for word.’
‘OK Tom, I will,’ she replied, weeping with giggles.
‘Thanks Suzie, have a good life.’ I said and hung up. Wow. That felt good!
After that I was ready. I gathered all of my things (one small suitcase and my holdall full of money) and walked out of the flat, locking it behind, perhaps for the last time. I jogged down the stairs towards my hardest conversation. With a heavy heart I knocked on Sophie’s door.
‘Hey, I was wondering when you'd come down. Kettle’s on,’ she called, making her way to the kitchen and leaving the door open for me to come in.
‘Thanks, listen Sophie, I can’t stay long.’
‘Oh that sounds exciting,’ she replied, hoping for more adventure. Presently, she returned with two cups of tea.
‘So what was in the bag?’
I don’t know what made me do it but I lied to her. Perhaps it was easier. Maybe I wanted to get out without talking for ages but I think the truth was simple: I wanted to protect her. Telling her about the money would have got her further involved and she couldn’t know my real plans. It was best for everyone if I lied to her.
‘Not a lot to be honest. A note from her and some old things that meant a lot to both of us. Really personal stuff,’ I added hoping she wouldn't pry too much.
‘Oh. So what did the note say?’ she asked, trying to find out more. I felt really bad. She was one of the few people who knew everything. I had let her in so far, only to lie to her face.
‘It was wonderful. She told me she was in love with me and that she'd explain it all to me one day. She said she had to do something but that, when it was over, she 'd come back to me.’ This was partly true but, if Sophie had read the note she would know, how unlikely it was that those men would just let her go.
‘Wow, that’s great news Tom. So where are you going?’
I smiled at her, trying to convey the message ‘everything is going to be okay.’
‘Mexico,’ I stated, ignoring her look of sheer surprise. ‘Emma left me a ticket and told me to go there. She's going to meet me there. Maybe in a few weeks, maybe a few months. However long it takes.’
‘Mexico? And you have to go now?’ she asked sadly.
‘Yeah. It was a good thing we found it when we did, the ticket expires tomorrow! She must have thought I would have noticed the key straight away,’ I lied.
‘I'm going to miss you more than you'll ever know,’ she said with a tear rolling down her cheek.
‘Me too, Soph. I love you like family, you know that. You're wonderful and amazing. And I swear with all my heart that when this is over I'll come straight here and move back into that crappy flat above you!’ I laughed.
We hugged and eventually I managed to tear myself away from her. It was harder than I had thought. I just prayed Sophie would be fine. Tossing my things in the back of our car, I headed, with a sigh, to the airport.
*****
I arrived at the airport with just over an hour before the flight. I was running out of time. I parked the car, wondering if I was ever going to see it again and strode into the busy airport.
I kept hold of my money holdall but I checked in my bag of clothes after a short queue. I saw my suitcase disappear, ready to be loaded onto the plane. Looking at my watch, I could see I had about twenty minutes until boarding. I just hoped this worked.
I sat down on one of the most uncomfortable seats I have ever sat in and waited patiently. I considered buying a newspaper or a magazine for the wait but couldn’t be bothered. I held my holdall close to me at all times. That wasn’t going anywhere. Come on, where are you?
With just five minutes to go, I saw them. My three Russian friends. Right, so far so good; I love it when a plan comes together. I got up and moved around the room, heading to the shop for a brief minute before moving on again. They followed me all the way, maintaining a safe distance. Not too close, not too far away. They were clearly highly trained, or had perfected this over years of stalking. I stopped worrying about them and stuck to my task. As the check-in desk called us through for boarding I was there waiting; one of the first in the queue. I could see the thugs watching me queue. They were going to make sure I was on the plane. Fine then.
With one last glance at them, I handed my ticket over and walked down the corridor. When everyone had boarded, and the safety checks had been done, the plane raced down the runaway and jolted into the sky. I, of course, was not on it. I was in fact sitting in an investigation room being questioned as to why I had ‘fainted’ in the boarding corridor and why my black holdall was full of women’s magazines.
I knew as I checked in that the only convincing way
to make the Kozlovs believe I was no longer around was to board the plane. Except flying to Mexico and then turning around straight away seemed an awful waste of time. I also knew that if I took a black holdall full of cash to the airport it would be taken off me in seconds. So I had switched the contents in the car and filled it with some of Emma’s old magazines. I hoped that the Russians would be watching me carry the holdall inside and assume I still had the money, if they even knew about it. It was the scariest thing I have ever done leaving my newly found fortune in a car, in a crime hotspot, but I had no choice. The Russians would have seen me holding the bag tightly and getting on a plane. They would never assume I had switched it. I just looked like a typical coward fleeing the country.
That’s what I wanted them to believe.
Chapter Fifteen
‘I was looking for something a little more common.’
To my relief, the money was still in the car when I got there. It had taken me over an hour to get out of the investigation room at the airport. I had been accused of everything from terrorism to cross-dressing (due to the women’s magazines). But eventually having found no evidence and after me pointing out that cross-dressing wasn’t illegal, they had to let me go. I headed straight back to my car, desperately fighting the urge to run and pulled out the sack of money. I felt much better after that. Right, so if everything had gone well enough, the Kozlovs thought I was out of the picture. That gave me the element of surprise at the very least. I still didn’t know where she was or how to get there but as long as I was careful they wouldn’t see me coming.
I knew that I could never go back to the flat. They might be keeping an eye on it, in case of my return. It was time to spend some of that money. First, I needed to find a place to stay: a base for my actions. I didn’t want to spend lots of the money and figured it was best to find somewhere a little inconspicuous. The problem was, in London, finding somewhere cheap was not easy. I wanted it close to where I knew but not so close that I might bump into the Kozlovs or Sophie. Eventually, after some serious consideration, I found a small apartment in a more central location than my old one. It was nice enough (for those of you that like stains and insects) and it was cheap. The landlord didn’t seem to care about organisation or maintaining anything but that suited me fine. I paid him up front for a month and took the keys from him. I was a little scared that I was going to get stabbed leaving the apartment but I put that to one side and ran whenever I had to leave. I had a place to stay. Now I needed a new car.
The car was the only way I thought the Kozlovs may find me and that needed to change. I resisted the temptation to walk straight into an Aston Martin garage and drive away in a DBS and instead found a horrible, third-hand car dealership. The car I drove there in was very old now and let’s just say the years hadn’t been kind. I accepted I wouldn’t get a lot for it. At first the salesman tried to push some expensive new motor that was only partially dented (a rarity for their products) but I refused.
‘I’m looking for something a little more common,’ I said truthfully, realising how middle-class that last sentence made me sound.
I found an old Ford Focus in the lot that looked pretty battered. Perfect. It had no price on it but when I asked one of the sales assistants, they asked for two grand. I laughed and offered them a thousand pounds cash plus my car for it and after the traditional salesman bollocks, they accepted it. Half an hour later I was driving away in my new Ford (I use the word ‘new’ loosely).
Although the car was a good start I was still concerned about it. On the way back to my new flat I saw a rundown garage called ‘Pimp My Car, Van or Motorbike’. Catchy. That could work. I pulled in and was greeted by an enormously fat man. He seemed to be wondering if I had pulled into the wrong place. As I got out of the car, I could see how impressive the garage actually was. It had appeared pretty poor from the outside. There were the obvious spaces for cars which had the usual smell of motor oil and B.O, but then the rest of the walls were covered with the largest range of car equipment I had ever seen. There were wheels of all sizes, the most incredibly expensive stereo systems and sub-woofers and plenty of things I knew nothing about.
‘Can I help you?’ asked the enormous whale of a man. It would have been hard to find an overall that would have fitted him but he hadn’t even attempted to locate one. He had used brute force to drag the trousers over his expansive behind and had clearly given up trying to wrap it round his torso. He had instead draped a vest over himself which was probably once white but was now a filthy grey.
‘Yeah. How much to kit out the whole car? I’m talking tinted windows, sub-woofer, lights underneath, the whole business,’ I said pathetically. What was going on? I was talking in some ridiculous tone like I knew what I was talking about. I didn’t.
‘Well, that depends. If you want the top end stuff it’s going to cost you. For the very best, you’re looking at three grand.’
‘OK, I’ll give you five grand cash if you get it done by the end of the day,’ I said matter-of-factly.
The blue-whale looked confused at first but knew a good deal when he heard one.
‘Done!’ he replied quickly. ‘What things do you want?’
‘You choose. Surprise me. But I want the windows dark, like a limo, OK?’
‘You got it boss.’
I pulled out a wad of notes and counted some out.
‘There’s two and a half grand there. I’ll give you the rest when it’s done?’
He grabbed it, almost in disbelief, and we agreed on a time for me to return. I left the garage and walked around the streets until I found a tube station. There was still plenty more shopping to be done. I was exhausted already. How do women do this most weekends? What made it worse was that I had to carry a bag around with twenty thousand pounds in it and guard it with my life. I had hidden the rest of the money painstakingly in my new home before I had left. I had managed to find a loose enough floorboard in the lounge and after an eternity of pulling I freed it enough to fit my holdall underneath it. I didn’t want to imagine what manner of creatures would be crawling over it but it should hopefully be safe. It had better be.
*****
The next thing to think about was communication. My phone could have been tracked and I was so worried the Kozlovs might have the technology to trace me that I had ditched it. I had spent a minute jotting down the numbers I needed and then dumped it in a hedge when leaving the airport. If they could trace it, they might just believe I dropped it in my hurry. I would be needing a phone and now they could have no way of tracing it. I decided that I might as well get the best one possible.
I convinced myself that I'd bought the latest iPhone for a purpose. I could use the internet whenever I wanted to access useful information... or something like that. The truth was I had never had money and I was loving having it. Emma wanted me to be happy and for this brief sneeze of time, the iPhone made me very happy. I hadn’t taken a contract out; I'd simply bought the handset and topped it up with fifty pounds credit. That should last me a while. Right, what else was on the list?
I had a new flat, a new car and a new phone. There were two things left to change. Number one: my clothes. It showed both greed and incredible foresight on my behalf, but I decided to get a very expensive new wardrobe. I had some idea that owning expensive suits would help me with my future plans, but I think deep down I just wanted to know what it felt like to wear designer clothes. No more Matalan for me.
The clothes shopping experience was exhausting. I headed to Oxford Street and put myself entirely at the disposal of a gay sales assistant called Stephen. I knew his name was Stephen as it was embossed on his chest and as he strutted towards me, he peacocked his chest out so far ahead of him that his name badge reached me several minutes before the rest of his body.
I must have been a dream to Stephen as I had money to burn and was willing for him to dress me like a Ken doll (not literally, I am capable of dressing myself). He sold me this line about the
modern man only needing sixteen expensive items to have a complete wardrobe but it didn’t seem to hold true as he insisted on me buying well over thirty things. I had designer jeans and suits that cost more than my new car had. I had very little change from ten thousand pounds as I left the store, but I was certain nobody would recognise me. So far, so good. I decided against taking all the clothes with me and agreed to pick them up later, once I had my car back.
That just left one thing to be changed: Me. I could never pull the clothes off convincingly with the beard I was cultivating and my hair was no longer in any style. It had gotten relatively long and the fringe was hanging well over my eyes, causing me to sweep it off my face constantly. Looking at my new (expensive) watch I still had well over an hour until I could collect the car. Time for a haircut.
In the end I didn’t get a haircut, I got a complete styling experience. That’s what Louis, my styling artist, had said. I am pretty sure Louis and Stephen bat for the same team and I am grateful to both of them for making me somewhat fashionable.
Louis almost passed out when he saw the condition my hair was in. Something about split-ends or something. I explained to him that I had been under a lot of stress at work and he forgave me. I was a little more wary of allowing Louis free reign over my hair as I didn’t want to end up looking like Jedward (again. Don’t ask!). He flicked through some magazines for me and eventually we agreed on something short and smart. I hoped I might resemble Matt Damon as Jason Bourne or Brad Pitt without his 90’s curtains but I was bitterly disappointed. Not with the haircut - Louis had done a good job - but with the fact my face hadn’t changed and I was still without a six-pack. I had never been in a place where they give you a shave as well, but Louis did. I had heard of it in old fashioned barbers but not up-market places like this. Truth be told, I’m not sure whether they do offer it, or whether Louis couldn’t bear the thought of me leaving looking so groomed on the top of my face and so unkempt on the bottom.