Consequence (28 page)

“I know you must feel angry and frustrated by what’s happened,” Brown said, reading Howard’s thoughts. “But you must understand that we have full control of the situation now. This is not Hollywood Mr Price, despite your anger you need to stand back and let the professionals take control.”

Howard laughed.

“I must get going now,” Brown said, standing up. “We will be sure to keep you informed. Keep an eye on your television Mr Price, the nine o clock news will be running the story and showing the photographs to the country; after that it will be a media circus, all news channels will have access to the story.”

Howard nodded and watched the detective leave the room.

He looked at the clock. In less than an hour and a half the story would be unleashed upon the nation.

With a bitter smile he drained the rest of the whiskey and let the empty bottle fall to the floor.

92

“Maybe we got away with it,” Phillips suggested.

“It can’t be that easy,” Richards disagreed.

They had decided that alcohol would help them think the situation through and had been knocking back cans of beer between bouts of contemplation and idle stares directed at the money,

“Something like this would be on the news by now though,” Richards said, making an argument against his own statement. “Surely.”

“You’re right,” Phillips agreed. “It’s been like four hours since we took the cash. It would have taken Price minutes to get in touch with the police and it would take them less than an hour to track down the bus driver, plot our route, and drag our arses to jail.”

Richards nodded. The drink had taken most of his worries away, “Maybe it wasn’t a kidnapping after all,” he said in hope. “Like you said: the police would have been at the scene if it was. They would have chased the bus and stopped it.”

“I think,” Phillips paused to burp. “I think we’ve gotten away with this. Maybe the money was for drugs or some other dodgy shit. Maybe the reason he was calling for his daughter was because he was so fucking whacked out of his head.”

“Or he could have killed her,” Richards offered, a statement his sober self would deem completely irrational. “Or was paying to have her killed, the money could have been for a hitter who he hired to kill his daughter and wife. He might have been having an affair on the side; she found out, he didn’t want to lose face, so he had her killed.”

“The daughter could have gotten in the way,” Phillips offered. “Maybe he only wanted to have his wife killed and the reason he was so distraught was because his daughter was caught in the crossfire.” The drunken reasoning had stretched beyond the ridiculous but they hadn’t noticed.

They both settled back into their chairs with smiles on their faces, happy that they had relieved the majority of their tension. They had been watching the news channels all day and had seen nothing regarding Howard Price or a bag full of money.

Phillips finished his drink and placed the empty can on the floor. Richards did the same and when he looked up he saw his friend smiling at him.

“What?”

“We have no more drink.”

“Haven’t you got any stashed anywhere?”

“Nope, or at least not that I know of,” Phillips said, pondering. “We should head to the pub.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?”

“Why not? We’ve established that we’ll be safe, along with the money, so why not go and celebrate? We can hit the pubs and clubs like we were going to do before all of this started. We have something to celebrate now don’t we?”

Richards smiled, “I guess so.”

“All right then,” Phillips grinned, rising. “Take a few notes from the stash, I’ll get my coat and the car keys.”

“You’ve been drinking, you shouldn’t drive.”

“Good point. You drive.”

Richards nodded and took the keys, “Wait,” he said, pausing in the centre of the room. “I’ve been drinking too.”

“Ah.”

“Taxi?” Richards offered.

“We could walk. It isn’t cold and the pub isn’t that far away.”

Richards agreed, “The pub is close to the nightclub as well,” he added. “And by then we should be so pissed that the walking won’t bother us.”

“That’s the spirit!” Phillips removed his coat from the back of the chair as Richards rummaged underneath the sofa and found a small stash of twenty pound notes. “Take more than that,” Phillips urged. “Stick it all in your wallet and wave the fucker around like you own the place. That way we might be able to get you laid.”

93

“What time is it?” Richards asked, raising his voice over the sound of the television in the bar.

“There’s a clock behind you.”

“Nearly nine already,” Richards said, slurring his voice.

“We best get going. Get into the clubs as they open. We don’t want to get lumbered near the back next to a sweaty teenager high on drugs and wanting to hug everyone. If we get in early enough we can get a seat near the bar,” Phillips explained, draining the last of his pint.

Michael Richards nodded, he too drank the remainder of his drink.

The pub was beginning to fill. The occupants had more than doubled since they had entered. Most of the drinkers were young teenagers readying themselves for a night out; some were old men who had been in the pub most of the day.

The pub only had one main room and despite its size it was quickly becoming claustrophobic.

All eyes seemed to be on a large television above the bar, it aired a football match: Arsenal were playing some obscure side in the Champions League.

As the two friends rose and walked towards the toilets at the far end of the pub, the noise from the television diminished as the channel cut to a news broadcast.

The way to the grotty toilets was through three heavy wooden doors and a long corridor. As they found their way to the urinals, filled with cigarette buds and other rubbish, the noise from the bar faded to a background hush.

“Fucking hell,” Phillips spat. “Look at this,” he ushered Richards’s view to his urinal. Richards leaned across and looked inside to see a used condom floating around inside a small pool of water.

“That’s fucking disturbing,” Phillips muttered, strafing to the next urinal.

“You’ve never fucked in a pub toilet?” Richards questioned with his eyebrows raised.

“Of course I have,” Phillips said unzipping his pants. “A few times, but those places were the fucking dog’s bollocks compared to this shit hole. “Look!” he gestured towards the floor.

Richards found himself looking at a streak of faeces along the side of the far wall. “OK,” he agreed. “That is pretty sick. Looks like they don’t employ cleaners.”

“It’s a family business but the family consists of an alcoholic mother, a five year old child and a greasy fucking old man.”

“How do you know?” Richards asked. “You seem to know everybody. We, or at least I, haven’t even been in this pub before.”

“Neither have I,” Phillips confessed. “But I slept with the owner a few months back. She was doing the rounds at the clubs. She mentioned she owned a pub an’ all that; I just didn’t take much of it in at the time. If I’d have known I wouldn’t have come here.”

Richards laughed and zipped up his pants. “Is that why she stopped you for a chat when you were getting the drinks in?”

“Yes,” Phillips answered in disgust. “She said she was waiting to see me again, wondering when I was going to stop by and all that shit. Then she dragged me into a conversation about her son and her father. I had to tell her I was busy and promised I’d phone her later.”

They left the toilets and walked back through the long corridor. The noise from the television had been drowned out as the volume from the customers increased.

“Have you got her number?” Richards asked as they reached the door.

“Fuck knows”, Phillips said putting his hand on the door. “But I certainly aint fucking ringing her.”

As they pushed open the door and re-entered the pub, the volume decreased. People who had been standing near the toilet door watched the two men enter and shushed their conversations.

As Phillips and Richards made their way to the front door the noise levels decreased further until only the noise of the television interrupted the heavily populated pub; neither of them noticed the change in their surroundings and they strode out of the pub, oblivious to the ominous silence behind them.

“So you fucked a single parent then left her?”

“I didn’t know she was a parent at the time. Hell, I didn’t even know her name.”

Inside the pub one of the men ended a call on his mobile phone and stuffed it back into his pocket. All the customers turned his way.

“The police should have them in ten minutes,” he said. “I told them which direction they were headed.”

A younger man by the front door turned to the speaker, “D’you really think it was them?”

“It certainly looked like them.” He looked around the pub at the sea of faces. “Right?” he asked for confirmation.

The people in the pub nodded and spoke in turn. Soon the volume was turned up to its maximum again as the drinkers talked excitedly amongst themselves.

94

“Five minutes you said,” Richards mumbled as he and Phillips strode down a pavement, sided by a line of shops; some derelict, some shut for the night.

“It was a guess. Like I said, I aint been to that pub before, how was I to know how far away from the nightclubs it was?”

“If you didn’t know you shouldn’t have guessed.”

“Sorry mother,” Phillips laughed. “Anyway, you said you’d be too pissed to care about walking by this stage.”

“Well, I aint,” Richards moaned. “And I need a drink.”

“We’ll be there soon.”

Richards shot his friend an intimidating sneer.

“--
ish
” Phillips corrected, “Soon-
ish
.”

“What is--” Richards began to moan again but his words were strangled by the sound of roaring police sirens.

The noise came from nowhere, a fact that Richards casually pointed out to his friend.

“They probably had the sirens off for a while. They don’t turn them on as soon as they leave the station you know,” Phillips explained. “Maybe they’re near the crime scene and want to go unnoticed.”

“You call that unnoticed?” Richards said, his voice barely audible over the screaming of numerous sirens.

“They have to turn them on eventually don’t they? Let the civilians know and what not. The suspects won’t be able to escape by now you see.”

Richards nodded and they both watched as four police cars screamed around the corner further down the dark, empty road. The cars were closely followed by two large vans. They grimaced at the sounds of the deafening sirens which pierced the thin night air.

The red and blue lights flickered with epileptic mania and littered the horizon with disco tech quality; bringing bright light onto the dull street.

“Someone’s in trouble,” Phillips smiled. “Probably some druggie at the club, no doubt--” his words lodged in his throat and he froze.

The cars skidded to a screaming halt in front of them. Two officers jumped out from each vehicle and took cover behind their doors, aiming handguns at the pair.

Behind them the doors of the vans swung open and eight heavily armoured officers swarmed out, all cradling submachine guns. Prepared for war, they stood in formation in front of the vans.

“Stop. Right. There!” one of the officers screamed, his gun aimed at the two men.

Michael Richards and Johnny Phillips looked at each other simultaneously and spoke concurrently: “Shit!”

Howard Price was empty, lonely and unsure what to do with himself. His wife was still fast asleep upstairs, he didn’t want to disturb her and even if she
was
awake he doubted he would be able to speak to her. His world had been ripped apart; nothing seemed real, right or normal anymore.

The alcohol had done little to drown his sorrows, and it hadn’t knocked him out or killed his memories like he’d hoped. Everywhere he looked he saw Lisa. He saw her by the television, watching her cartoons in the morning before school; he saw her on the sofa, wrapped up in his arms, begging him to let her stay up late; on the floor he saw her, and him, playing board or card games; he saw her on the dining room table and in the kitchen.

He even saw her when he closed his eyes.

Standing up, feeling surprisingly mobile, he grabbed his coat and left the house, not bothering to lock the front door, but taking care not to slam it.

The cold air helped him. It ran through his body and his head, it also seemed to force the alcohol into action. He could feel the warming sensation he had expected to feel.

Standing in the doorway he thought about his daughters killers. Every time the thought crept into his head it was closely followed by anger. The more he thought about them, about hurting them, the less he thought about Lisa -- anger seemed to push despair away.

He pulled out his car keys and headed for his Mercedes.

95

The two conmen were frozen in place, their feet firmly gripping the concrete. They watched a screaming firework show: blues and reds interchanging and flashing gloriously, almost blinding them from the human horrors that stood in front of the electronic fireworks, pointing guns directly at them.

Their ears were pounding with the sound of their own blood, blood they could feel pulsing unnaturally through their veins at supersonic speed.

They turned and looked at each other. The shouts from the police were increasing; demands were being issued, they were being told to put their hands above their heads and kneel on the floor.

Neither of them moved.

Phillips -- closest to the road -- looked past Richards. An alleyway, darkened by night, stretched as far as his eyes could penetrate; he nodded towards at Richards to indicate this, and his friend returned the gesture.

The officer began shouting again, “I will not repeat myself, put your--” he paused as the two suspects fled down the alleyway.

They ran as fast as their feet could take them, noticing how quickly the fear had sobered them up. They skipped over empty packets of crisps, beer bottles and carrier bags of waste as they sped through the dark alleyway.