Falling (2 page)

Both are surprisingly fragrant.
If I’m not mistaken gorilla number one is wearing L’Eeau D’Issey Pour Homme by
Issey Miyake. A favourite of mine. Gorilla number two is more a Lynx man. Even
their breath has a fresh tinge. Nice to know I’m being murdered by hygienic
people.

None of this helps with the key
question that has bounced round my head since leaving the toilet in such a
rush. Why? Who the hell would want to murder a fifty four year old accountant
with a life that would bore a saint?

Why go to the bother of killing a
man who, if asked politely, would clearly apologise for whatever it was he had
done and point out that it couldn’t have been him in the first place as he had
never really knowingly done anything to warrant execution.

Alternatively this could be a new
form of impulse killing akin to ‘drive-by shooting,’ only this is called
‘walk-by throwing.’ It could be a new craze that I have missed. Unless it was
widely reported on Radio 2 there is a good chance I don’t know about it.
Individuals being thrown from high points all across the UK. Happy chucking not
happy slapping.

Gorilla number two is now holding
a phone in my direction. Filming it for ‘You Tube’ no doubt. Well maybe in
death I’ll achieve a level of fame that was denied me in life.

‘Hope it was
worth it you thievin’ prick.’

That was gorilla number two
demonstrating his range of vocabulary. The comment was aimed at me. Me who once
lifted a Mars Bar from the corner shop when I was in S3. Me a boy that crapped
himself for a month after the incident - expecting the police to descend at any
moment. It was two years before I had the guts to go in to the shop again and
even then I felt that the shopkeeper was staring at a neon sign above my head
saying ‘Him - it’s him. The Mars Bar Boy’.

‘Thievin’ prick?’

Give me a break - even my tax
return has to be the most honest in history and I should know - after all my
speciality is tax. I’m never off the bloody hotline when it comes to my own
dealings. So much so that last year I received an irate call from the call
centre supervisor asking me to come in for a chat as I was causing some
distress to the staff with the frequency of my calls.

‘Thievin’ prick’
? When,
how? Who from? I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

Did I?

I’ll be dead soon but it would
have been nice to know what the gorilla is referring to. Who I stole from? What
I stole? Why I stole? If I stole?

The wind is getting up, trying to
push me back towards the men in grey. Not hard enough to make any difference to
my fate but it’s cool on my face, drying the sweat. Pleasant almost. It’s
ruffling gorilla number two’s hair and if I’m not mistaken there is more than a
hint of a toupee about the way his hair is moving around. He half turns away
from me to let the wind sweep over him from the back, protecting his wig from
the next big gust. I feel like shouting out
‘Hey wiggy!’
- but I don’t -
my screaming is getting in the way.

He keeps filming. At least I
assume he is filming - either that or he is focussing on a particularly
important text. I hope not. I hope he hasn’t placed my demise below his
girlfriend’s request to pop into Tesco for some milk on the way home.

I’m falling.

Chapter 3

A gorilla gets
suspicious.

The accountant is on his way -
job done. A few seconds to check he hits the concrete below and then home.
Another day - another dollar.

I never intended to become a
criminal. Not really. Not deep down. I intended to be a lazy. That was my real
aim in life. Work shy - that’s what my mum called me. She called me a lot worse
than that over the years but you get the drift. At first I’d cut school, hang
around the shops, noising up the locals. Occasionally getting pulled by the
police. No big deal. A slap on the wrist and ‘don’t do it again.’ Of course it
escalated. I remember the detail. Hard to forget given the outcome.

Craig Bradley, a friend of mine
from primary school had a brother who was into some serious shit. Drugs,
knives, porn, gambling, booze - he had the full set as far as I was concerned.
He lived in a flat with three other guys, having been flung out by his mother
the day he hit sixteen.

Craig’s brother was a bit of an
anti-hero to the gang I hung around with. When he was in the right mood he let
us peruse his extensive collection of video art. A real eye opener for a
thirteen year old. If he was in a very good mood he would chip in a few cans of
lager and a packet of Embassy No 1. If he was in a shit mood he would slap you
round the back of the head and demand cash with menaces.

His name was Darg and life around
him was always a bit of an adventure into the unknown. That adventure hit a new
high point one Saturday night.

Darg was in an ace mood. Drug
induced - but I was too naive enough to know that at the time. It was closing
in on midnight and we should have been tucked up in home but Darg’s generosity
had fuelled us with a constant stream of drink, fags and porn and we were in
seventh heaven. When the doorbell rang and a crowd of Darg’s friends piled into
the flat we were left to our own devices as they retired to the bedroom.

Twenty minutes later, just as the
woman on the tape was trying to accommodate three men at once, the front door
crashed to the floor and half a dozen of our finest men in blue stormed the
place. We froze at the sight but Darg’s friends came out fighting.

The battle lasted for ten minutes
before back up in the form of six more police and two police dogs swung the
advantage. Next thing we know we are slung in the back of a paddy wagon and
whisked off to the local police station.

It goes without saying that when
my mum turned up to bail me out I wasn’t flavour of the moment. Only Darg’s
insistence with the police that we had nothing to do with the drugs got us out
of there. My mum didn’t believe this - not for a second. From that day forward
her attempts to put me on the straight and narrow pushed me the other way. There
is nothing like teenage rebellion and sheer stupidity to set someone on a
criminal path.

I left home on my sixteenth
birthday. Getting a job was low down on my list of things to do and I needed
other ways to earn some cash. It didn’t take long before I fell in with the
type of people who had all sorts of opportunities for a young and willing man.
Especially one with few scruples and a desire to obtain a bit more of the
folding stuff.

I realised from the outset that I
was never destined to be a criminal mastermind. I became a drone and this
suited me. But I quickly learned three rules that have served me well: always
have a plan B up your sleeve; never have any illusions over your
indispensability; and stash enough cash to keep you liquid through the lean
times.

So I muscled up, learned my craft
and buckled down to a life that relied on my brawn, a bit of my brain and long
stretches of boredom.

At forty four I’m past my prime
in the thug stakes - it needs day to day energy to be a real pro in my line and
that went a long time ago. But I’m respected enough to be trusted with some
decent jobs and my tan is testament to three regular holidays in the sun a year
and a deposit on a flat near Malaga. Today is just another dollar towards my
retirement fund and the little prick that we are throwing off the roof is worth
three grand in my back pocket. Jim, my colleague, is on a third of that, but to
be honest I doubt Jim knows enough maths to figure out he is getting stuffed.

I have no idea why the little
prick is going for a Mikey. So named after Mikey MacDonald who - high on some
designer drug - went base jumping off the Wallace Monument in Stirling without
a parachute.

I don’t care either. It’s not
good practice to get into dialogue with the vic. In the same way farmers don’t
give their beasts names, I bestow the same courtesy on the vics - that way I
don’t see them as people - just pay-packets that scream.

‘Hope it was worth it you
thievin’ prick.’

I hear Jim shout it and it dawns
on me that my intellectually challenged colleague is off on one or, more
worryingly, knows something that I don’t. The former I can deal with, the
latter I can’t. As I said I have no idea why the vic is earthbound.

Jim takes a swim in the deep end
of insanity on a regular basis. He is not my favourite partner on these jobs
but he is cheap, strong as the proverbial and doesn’t seem to baulk at any
instruction you give him. He does, however, lose the plot more often than
Coronation Street, drinks like a guppy in the Sahara and is given to breaking
down in tears at the most inopportune moments.

‘Hope it was worth it you
thievin’ prick.’

Not a good sign. What does Jim
know that I don’t? Jim’s standing in my world is low and information is the
currency that keeps you higher up the food chain. As a result he should know
sweet fuck all about this deal.

In simple terms him knowing
something and me not knowing might signal a little change in our relative
statuses. Not a good thing. Not a good thing at all.

And why is Jim videoing the
bloody thing on his phone. Was he told to do that? If so by whom? I took the
instruction on the hit from ‘the Voice’. Who the vic was. What was required. I
was given the choice who to work with. How would Jim know any background?

I’m the nervous sort and the
thought that Jim might be taking a step up in the world I live in, at my
expense, has no upside at all.

Jim knows something. Jim knows
nothing. Jim is on the inside on this. Jim is off on Planet Jim.

‘Hope it was worth it you
thievin’ prick.’

‘Hope it was worth it you
thievin’ prick.’

‘Hope it was worth it you
thievin’ prick.’

I come to the conclusion.

Jim knows something!

Chapter 4

George cleans up
.

The moon was bright last night. A
silver fireball in a coal cellar sky. No city lights to dull the sky. No orange
tinge to mask the stars. Ice cold. No wind. Air as fresh as a slap in the face.
Ground firm. Chilled. Bird song rare. The occasional rustle from the forest and
the distant sound of a truck on the road below. Other than that my heartbeat,
my breathing and silence. A gold dust moment in life. Dark water below.
Hilltops above.

A real gold dust moment.

I shake the thought from my head
and look down at the mop in my hand, the bucket by my feet and the pool of
vomit - dried vomit. The faint smell of alcohol still lingers and it will only
get stronger once I introduce the vomit to mop and water. This is the third
pool this morning (two dried and one wet). So much for a ‘quiet’ office party.

On top of the vomit we have, in
order of treatment by yours truly, the following:

§
 
Three blocked toilets - two blocked by
excessive toilet paper, one by a cushion from the sofa in reception.

§
 
One smashed window - lower left panel on
the Managing Director’s office door.

§
 
One busted tap in the ladies – it leaked
all night and has caved in the roof on the floor below.

§
 
Unknown quantities of glassware, bottles,
cans and plastic cups strewn across the entire floor.

§
 
Suspicious burn marks on the blinds on
the south side of the main floor.

§
 
Door off its hinges in the medical room.

§
 
Three used condoms - all in the old
smoking room.

§
 
Six jackets, three handbags, a wallet and
a company logoed golf umbrella left behind.

The office is empty. It will stay
that way. A day off for the revellers was part of the deal from the senior
management as the company seems to be on a roll at the moment.

The MD, Simon Malmon, popped in
earlier but he was hardly in a fit state to assess the damage and anyway he
seemed more intent in retrieving something from his desk than talking to me. I
wonder what was so precious that he drove in from his luxurious pad in the
country with a killer hangover - and he was clearly hungover - the wet pool of
vomit is his.

I need a break. I’m fairly sure
by the time I knock off this afternoon that the damage list will run to three
or four pages. The factor for the building will love this and I’ll get the
grief. He’ll send in the troops to fix what I can’t and then send in the bill.
The bill will be suitably marked up and I will get it in the neck from Simon.

‘George, George, George (always
three times with him). I have a fucking bill for the day after our little
party. Plumbers George, electricians George, glaziers George, specialist
cleaners George. Maybe our factor isn’t aware that you exist. What the fuck do
we pay you for? Do you know what a maintenance man is supposed to do? Isn’t he
supposed to fix things? Eh? So why didn’t you do your fucking job?’

Every time we have to get someone
from outside to do some work, I get it in the neck. To give you an idea of how
weird this can get, Simon once asked me if I knew anything about minor surgery.
No joke - straight up. Amanda, her of too short skirts and too fat legs for the
too short skirts, impaled her arm on a coat hook. Before sending for an
ambulance Simon had pulled her arm off the hook, wrapped it up in a bandage and
asked me if I knew how to sew up a wound? That is a perfect example of what I
have to deal with on this floor.

Compared to this floor the rest
of the building is a walk in the park but I swear this floor exists in another
dimension. Last year they held what could only be described as an impromptu
indoor tennis tournament using a cricket ball and two baseball bats and took out
eight, count them, eight windows.