Consequence (17 page)

“Look at all the fat fucks,” Phillips said as he gouged on his double cheeseburger.

Richards nearly choked on his
Coke
in response to the outburst. Drops of the black sugary liquid dribbled down his chin.

“You’d think these people had never heard of exercise,” he continued.

“It wouldn’t kill them to get off their arses every now and then to do a little, would it?”

“Looking at the size of most of them, I’d say yes,” Richards said. “Put half of these people on a treadmill and they’d have a heart attack.”

Phillips shrugged his shoulders callously and took a long drink from his chocolate milkshake.

“Reckon we should get another few games for the PC?” Richards muttered. “We’ve got shit loads for all the fucking consoles, half of which we never play on. Yet we have a super powered gaming machine upstairs and the only game we have is Tetris.”

“We don’t need any more games. The less recreational activities available to us, the more work we’ll get done.”

“We’re criminals, playing a few games is hardly going to affect our income is it?”

“You know what I mean. We need to stop lying about the house getting pissed all the time and start stringing together another scam or two.”

More people rushed through the door as the queue to the counter grew. A woman in her mid-thirties walked passed Phillips and stood by Richards’s side, her eyes looking forward, her back to Phillips.

He stared at her in disbelief and mouthed the words ‘
look at the size of that
’ to Richards who had to stuff his hamburger into his mouth to suppress a laugh.

He eyed up her backside and winked at Richards, “Get yourself in there Mickey,” he mocked silently before moving his hands in the air to create a slapping motion, inches from her bulbous backside.

Pulling his fingers away he licked them and sighed in a mocking gesture of pleasure. “Hmm,” he said softly, “lard.”

54

“Maybe we should have had the windows on this thing tinted,” Roach offered as he and Morris stared out of the driver’s side window of the black BMW.

“Why?” Morris asked, his eyes scouring the playground beyond the iron fence.

“So they can’t see us looking at them,” Roach explained. “The kids’ll get suspicious of two men staring at them from a parked car.”

“But they won’t think twice about a black, tinted-out car parked alone by the side of their school?”

Roach mused over this. “Good point.”

A rattling bell rang through the area. A line of children streamed out of the school and swarmed into the playground, their merry voices colliding with their stomping feet to create a wall of noise which split through the previously silent street like a hot knife through butter.

“Dinner time,” Morris gleamed with a sadistic smile.

They both scanned the crowd of children as they separated into groups. Some disappeared around the back of the school, most stayed in plain sight.

“There she is,” Roach noted. “Near the climbing frame.”

Morris allowed his gaze to drift over a small concrete play area -- home to a set of swings, a climbing frame and many hopscotch patterns. Lisa Price, a small tennis ball in her hand, walked towards another young girl. They passed the play area and wandered away from the rest of the children, strolling closer to the poorly protected perimeter.

“Say when,” Roach said with one eye on Morris.

“Not yet.”

Lisa bounced the ball as she walked, thudding it off the hard ground and catching it in her right hand. As she and her friend neared the fence they broke apart; walking away from each other until a gap opened up between them. Then they began throwing the ball to each other.

Morris glanced around quickly. The children were happily playing in their own selected groups. No adults were present and the road was deserted.

“Come on,” he ushered.

The two men exited the car simultaneously.

55

Morris walked through the open gate with purpose. He smiled as he walked, trying not to break into a run despite a growing impatience.

As they entered the school playground and neared their target, both girls stopped and looked at the new visitors with confused expressions.

“Lisa Price?” Morris asked as politely as he could.

“Yes,” Lisa replied unsurely.

“Hey there sweetie, I’m a friend of your father. He’s sent me to come pick you up,” he said softly, bending down to meet her eye-line.

Lisa shot him an unsure stare; her friend was eyeing up James Roach with a look of indifference.

“I don’t know you,” Lisa told Morris sternly.

“I know you don’t. We haven’t met before; I work in the same building as your daddy. I do all his dirty work, you know how lazy he is,” Morris smiled, trying to lighten the mood.

She still looked worried.

“Where is he?” she demanded.

Morris paused. He could tell he was dealing with a girl who’d had stories of dangerous strangers drummed into her skull, but he knew of one thing that would cast aside her firm shield.

“He’s in the hospital,” he announced calmly.

“What!” Lisa said, instantly shocked.

“It’s nothing serious darling.” He moved closer as she lowered her guard. “Your mummy is there with him. Your daddy asked me to come and get you and take you to him.”

Lisa was shocked; tears began to form in her eyes. She was too stricken to think or act as Morris wrapped his arm gently around her back and ushered her away.

“He’s going to be okay,” he said. “He just wants to see you.”

“OK,” Lisa agreed. “Are you sure he’s going to be okay?”

“Of course,” Morris assured as he walked her out of the school.

Roach remained. The other girl was by his side, her expression dampened more because of her vanishing playmate than the impending mortality of her friend’s father.

Roach offered his widest smile, knelt by her side and removed a small white envelope from his pocket.

“Hey there,” he said, keeping one eye on Morris who was getting closer to the car. “What’s your name?”

“Sarah,” the girl offered timidly.

“Are you a good friend of Lisa?”

She nodded shyly.

Roach watched as Morris shepherded Lisa into the back seat of the BMW.

“Can you do me a big favour Sarah?” he asked.

Again she nodded.

Roach, his hands snugly fitted into leather gloves, held out the envelope. “In here is a very important letter,” he declared. “I need you to go back into the school and hand it to one of your teachers. Do you think you can do that for me Sarah?”

“Which teacher?” the girl quizzed.

“Any of them, it doesn’t matter. But you
must
tell them how important it is. Do you understand?”

She nodded and he handed her the envelope. “If you could do that for me, Lisa and her father would appreciate it very much.”

The girl smiled. “Okay,” she beamed.

He watched her turn and jog away, heading towards the back of the school. As soon as she disappeared Roach walked briskly towards the BMW.

56

Jennifer Rose had worked at Lady Victoria’s School for Girls for twenty years; she was happy there. She was born to teach and she loved kids, teaching English to seven year old girls was perfect for her.

She had worked in other schools in her younger days but nothing compared to Lady Victoria’s. There the children had been tamed, at the public schools where she had taught previously it wasn’t unusual to be sworn at or have pencils, pens and other stationary thrown at you.

Things were a lot calmer at Lady Victoria’s. She had always expected that she would move around from place to place, job to job, in a continuous cycle of depressing work and low pay, but after a chance meeting with the headmistress of Lady Victoria’s she had been gifted the job of her dreams.

The children were polite, young and few in numbers, and the pay was high. It was still a teacher’s wage, which was far short of spectacular, but she
was
a teacher, and this was as good as it got.

She loved the school and loved the area. It was peaceful, quiet, and friendly and nothing horrible ever befell her during her two decade stay.

She smiled as Sarah Connolly raced up to her, her shoes clinking on the hallway surface.

“Don’t run!” Jennifer warned softly.

Sarah stopped running. She walked towards the teacher -- leaning against the door of her classroom drinking a cup of coffee -- with her merry face gleaming.

“I have an important letter for you Mrs Rose,” she declared politely as she handed her teacher a white envelope. “A man gave it to me in the playground.”

Jennifer smiled and took the envelope.

“After he took Lisa away,” Sarah continued.

Jennifer looked alarmed. She felt her heart skip a beat, “What do you mean?” she asked.

Sarah looked at her blankly, her eyes on the letter, “One of the men gave me that,” she said brightly. “He said it was important.”

Jennifer put the cup of coffee down on the floor and ripped open the white envelope. Inside was a single sheet of paper folded in half. She opened it up and read the large bold letters.

WE have Lisa Price.

YOU have the chance to get her back.

You should, under NO circumstances, phone the police, we do not like to be
fucked around and we wouldn’t think twice about cutting her into little pieces and mailing each severed part back to you. If you want to get her back you need to comply with our demands.

This is a kidnapping. That much we can assume you have gathered already.

You are just a teacher. You are the intermediary in this game.

Go to the Price house and show them this letter. Tell no one else, for the moment the girl’s life is in your hands.

Tell Howard he can contact us on the number provided below.

Jennifer Rose felt physically sick. She could see young Sarah speaking to her with a look of confusion across her innocent face but she couldn’t hear her words. She felt light headed and dizzy.

Her world turned black and she passed out on the cold hard floor.

57

“Jammy twat,” Phillips blurted.

Michael Richards looked away from the rows of amusing greeting cards in front of him and turned to Johnny Phillips who was standing behind him holding a business magazine.

“Look at this fucker,” Phillips beckoned.

Richards peered over his friend’s shoulder to glance at the open magazine in his hands.

He was reading a small article on a financial spread in the magazine. The headline stated
‘SightSys Declares Record Profits’
in prominent bold lettering.

“This Howard Price guy,” Phillips said as Richards began reading the article. “He owns a huge software company which made a fucking fortune last year. It says his father left him the company on his deathbed even though he didn’t get on with him when he was alive.” He shook his head, “What a jammy fucking freeloader.”

“Haven’t you heard of him before?” Richards asked, taking his eyes away from the article.

“No. Have you?”

“Sure, he’s a local. Haven’t seen him or met him but apparently he lives in a big house a few miles away.”

“How do you know?”

“There are not many multi-millionaires living around here Johnny,” Richards said bluntly. “This guy is in the news all the time. He runs one of the biggest companies for miles around for fuck’s sake, and he makes a fortune doing it.”

“No shit.”

Richards frowned and walked back to the card-rack to glance over the greetings cards.

“People like him piss me off,” Phillips continued from behind Richards.

“Why would that be?”

“Because they’re lucky. People like us have to graft hard for the money we make. This bastard has it handed to him.”

“It isn’t easy running a big company,” Richards noted as he moved out of the way of a man who also wanted to glance over the vast array of cards.

“Of course it is. He was given the bloody thing; it was already running when he took over. He just needed to keep the same people on the payroll and wait for the cheques to come in.”

Richards accidentally knocked into the man in front of him. He apologised and tapped him on the shoulder in a gesture of goodwill as he left the card-rack and wandered behind Phillips.

“He didn’t do that though,” Richards said as he watched the man look over the cards in disappointment and then leave the shop. “He expanded. He inherited a big business and made it huge. That sort of thing takes more than skill, it takes--”

“Money,” Phillips cut in. “That’s what it takes, and thanks to daddy, he had plenty of it.”

Richards shook his head. He stuck his right hand inside his trouser pocket, clasping his fingers around the leather wallet he had just pick pocketed. In the other pocket, with his left hand, he proudly traced his fingers over two thinner wallets.

Phillips put the magazine back on the shelf and looked at Richards with a questionable gaze. Richards nodded.

“Come on then,” he muttered. “We might as well head back to the pub.”

They briskly strolled through the shops and walkways, passed under the underpass where they had not long since robbed a wannabe busker of his morning monies, and headed back to the Vauxhall.

Inside the car they immediately emptied their pockets.

Richards pulled out two purses from his jacket; one was fake leather the other one was a thick material with a tartan design. He also removed a gold watch, a gold wedding band and three wallets from his trouser pockets. He laid all the items on his lap.

Phillips looked at them, impressed. “How did you get the watch and the ring?” he asked.

“You remember the dodgy market stall dealer who I haggled with to sell us the fake Rolex?”

“That’s it? But I thought you threw that in the bin.”

“I did. This is
his
watch. It isn’t a Rolex, but it’s gold, worth five hundred quid at least. I snatched it when we shuck hands to confirm the deal for the fake watch.”