The estate agent had arrived on time wearing a tight, ill-fitting suit, tie slightly askew, brown pointy shoes and hair, spikey with ‘product’. Jack took an instant dislike to him and regretted agreeing to the meeting. He should have cancelled it as he had far more important matters on his mind than the sale of his £3m house. He had checked Siobhán’s phone on the hour, every hour and there had been no new messages. The new phone’s position was still flashing in Watford but that was no more or less than he expected. Charlie had hassled him only three times about her own transaction, but otherwise Monday had been spent pacing the floor, surfing the internet for clues and eating out of packets and tins. But now it was ten o’clock on Tuesday and his phone was ringing.
“I think we should put it on the market at two and three quarter million,” said Clive Hudson after a long-winded introduction about how the house was wonderful, how his firm was the best in the business and how the property market was very difficult at present. Getting a word in edgeways was a challenge and during one particularly long sentence where the obsequious Clive managed to speak for three minutes without drawing breath, Jack finally got bored.
“Do it.” If he thought that would end the conversation, he was mistaken; it simply precipitated another verbal onslaught. “Clive. Just do it will you?” he said again. “Send me whatever papers you want me to sign.” He needed a clean sheet; he needed to start somewhere else, somewhere new and he already felt liberated having reached the decision. Maybe, as Barry had said, he wasn’t thinking straight, but somehow, he felt a clarity of purpose. Only time would tell if he was misguided, and it had all been one big mistake.
He’d been on the phone for an hour and needed coffee. He flicked onto Find My as he headed for the kitchen. The icon was still flashing and had moved position, although only by a mile or so. He’d already decided what he would do once he knew the package had been despatched but was suddenly overcome by doubt and confusion. It was quickly dispelled. If it had arrived at its destination already, then she may have opened it, seen his video message and made a decision of her own. He grabbed his jacket and car keys and raced out of the house, spinning tyres on the gravel as he gunned the Range Rover out of the village.
He headed back to Watford, continually checking his phone which he’d mounted on the windscreen but the icon hadn’t moved any further and by the time he got there an hour later it all made sense. The Royal Mail sorting office was on the same industrial estate as the mail forwarding service and that was as far as the package had travelled. It would either leave in a postman’s bag the next day or on another van at some point later today or tomorrow. All he could do was wait.
Against his better judgment, he bought some junk food from a drive-thru, filling the Range Rover’s sumptuous cabin with the stench of cooking oil and industrial chemicals. He was hungry and only fully regretted his decision once he’d finished.
By five o’clock, he’d watched a hundred red vans leave the Royal Mail compound, but the icon was stationary, and he began to have doubts all over again. Twenty minutes later, the icon twitched, and as yet another red van passed by, nudged the icon that indicated his own position. He started the Range Rover and followed.
The van moved slowly, and he kept a discreet distance, but he wasn’t too worried about losing sight as he continued to track its progress on the phone. He had no idea how large an area the sorting office covered but he figured wherever the package was going it was likely to be some distance away. He became ever more convinced when the van reached the M1 and headed south at maximum speed. By the time they left the motorway, he’d guessed what was going to happen, but when it pulled into the delivery entrance of Euston Station, his fears were confirmed. It was going by train.
***
The tyres skidded to a halt in the drive, and he rushed inside, threw some clothes and toiletries into a soft bag and changed into a fresh shirt. He grabbed a jacket and scarf and tossed the bundle into the boot. He fired up the Range Rover and repeated his wheel spinning stunt on the gravel. It had taken him almost three hours to get back to Milton in the early evening and although he had watched the icon feverishly, it remained stuck at Euston Station. He knew for certain it would move at some point and that it had to be north, so he took a chance and headed for the M40.
Sure enough, at nine forty-five the icon moved north out of London and although its progress appeared to be painfully slow, it passed Watford a mere twenty minutes later, ten hours after it had started its journey there. The train was barrelling along and if it didn’t stop soon, it would overtake him within half an hour. He gradually eased up his speed, ever vigilant for cameras and police cars and had to concentrate to keep below 100mph, but the big machine ate up the miles effortlessly and by ten-fifteen, he’d reached the outskirts of Birmingham. He decided to head east on the M42 and pick up the M6 in case the icon kept moving but it stopped at Birmingham International, and he pulled into a motorway service station to wait.
He suddenly needed to pee, so he ran indoors and found the gents, holding the phone above the urinal while he checked it, soon realising he might be causing some consternation and quickly stuffed it into his pocket. “Sorry,” he said to a tattooed truck driver standing next to him, deciding against offering any sort of explanation.
He grabbed some water and a sandwich from a shop and sprinted back to the car. It was moving again, north of Birmingham. Where the hell…?
The motorway traffic was heavy. All four lanes were full and he stop-started several times, having to work hard to contain his frustration. The package was on the move but soon stopped again, this time at Wolverhampton. In no time it was on moving again and he was struggling to keep up. The distance between them got bigger and by the time the train got to Crewe he was an hour behind. There was nothing he could do but watch, but the traffic eased north of Stafford and he was able to put his foot down again.
By midnight he had already suffered two brief blackouts where only his drooping head had woken him, and he realised it would take more than coffee to keep him going. He could only guess where the train was going, but felt sure that wherever that was, it would arrive in the middle of the night. The package itself would have to be unloaded, taken to another sorting office and, assuming it had gone first class, would reach its ultimate destination at around midday tomorrow. He reluctantly decided to call it a day and checked into a budget hotel at a motorway service station. He would pick up the chase first thing in the morning.
***
At the same time Jack Fleming was checking into his hotel a lone figure stepped into the cold night air and onto the deserted street, leaving behind the sound of shouting, singing and general drunken revelry coming from inside Mulligan’s Bar, Derry’s favourite late-night pub. She pulled the collar of her coat up around her neck and tucked hands in her pockets. She had only a five-minute walk to her flat and her mind was still buzzing from the combined effects of the music, the craic and several drinks with friends over a couple of hours. She smiled to herself. It had been another good night out in Derry.
She was so pre-occupied with her thoughts that she didn’t hear or react to the car coming up the street behind her, the click of a car door, nor the sound of the man in the balaclava walk casually up behind, shoot her in the head once and then twice more as she lay on the ground.