To Catch A Storm (10 page)

One thing was for sure and that was she needed to be rid of Joseph’s phone. There was no reason to keep hold of it now. They might still not be at the hotel yet, so perhaps she could get out. But she was so tired. She put her head back to rest for a moment. ‘Come on Janet!’ She forced herself to get up and grab Joseph’s phone. There was a message from Carl.

U just sined your death warrent janet

She shouldn’t reply, but she couldn’t help herself.

Original Carl x

She peered around the door into the corridor. She could see no one there. She meandered down toward the lifts area. A porter’s trolley stood alone in the corridor. The porter was in the room and she heard a man telling a women they were going to miss their train if they were much longer. She sensed an opportunity and quickly opened a pocket up on a wheel-able suitcase, pushed Joseph’s phone deep into it, closed it back up and continued walking. She got to the lifts and did a loop and walked back to her room. She walked past the couple and the porter, their bags (and Joseph’s phone) now on their way to the lifts. Good riddance. The phone was charged, hopefully, the men would track it and follow it.

Shortly after Joseph’s phone started its journey on the 12:30 from Edinburgh Waverley station to London King’s Cross, followed by Carl and Jim, she’d sneaked out one of the hotel’s rear fire exits. Her very helpful concierge had ordered her a taxi and met her there. He protested but eventually accepted a thick wad of cash in an envelope as payment accepting the story that ‘some bad people were after her.’ The wad would cover her stay at the hotel and give the Concierge a very nice tip. She got back to her old hotel. Her plan now was to lay low. Super low for a good few days. She caught up with friends and family and let them know she was fine but was taking a short break from work. That was her story, but the reality was she did not plan to return to work. At least, not to her previous work. In fact, she wasn’t sure she could go back to her previous life at all.

. . .

The Glasgow hotel made several oversights in the discovery of Joseph Bainbridge’s body. The cleaner should have alerted the cleaning co-ordinator that the room had not been cleaned for several days. The duty manager was supposed to find out what was happening with the room, but after one call to the room phone and one to Joseph’s phone where a message was left, he forgot to make any further calls amidst a pile of other jobs and duties. All their systems failed. In the end, the hotel staff were alerted that there may be a problem by one of the window cleaners. He saw Joseph on the bed and, even from a distance, immediately knew there was a major problem.

The manager poked his head around the door and the smell hit him like a smack to the face. He swiftly retreated to the safety of the corridor where he immediately called 999 from his mobile phone.

Thirty minutes later, an ambulance crew decided they didn’t want to touch anything and that the police should be involved. Caution was the best approach now. Shortly after that, Inspector Casey arrived. He spoke with the manager on the way from reception to the room and on the basis of what he heard, he called in the crime scene team. If the guy had just been on his own and had died, then fair enough, these thing happen. But this guy wasn’t on his own, he’d been with a woman and now she was gone. It had foul play written in large print all over it.

With his handkerchief over his nose and mouth, he stood calmly in the corner of the room watching the crime scene officers do their work. They dusted for prints, photographed the room and the corpse and tagged e
vidence. So far, nothing much to go on. No phone. No car keys. No bag. Just a wallet and a suit.
He tried to take in the whole room and get a sense of what had happened. There were two empty and knocked over bottles of champagne, along with an empty bottle of red, evidence of cocaine use, there was a used condom floating in the toilet.

When Janet had fled the room, she had left a good looking corpse. Now, after a week of Joseph’s body consuming itself from the inside out, along with all the chemical processes and reactions that entailed; his body was a shade of sage green with purplish patches. His eyes bulged out of their sockets and his lips were parted by his tongue which protruded slightly. A reaction to the pressure increase in his diaphragm from a build up of gases. Where he previously had a flat and defined stomach, it now bloated to the point he looked several months pregnant.

Casey left the room for the corridor and closed the door behind him. “Tell me everything you know once more please.” He asked the manager. “The time they arrived. What they ate in your restaurant. How much they spent. What they ordered on room service. How much they tipped.”

“Okay. The problem here is that they checked in a week ago. So I’ll tell you what I know and if you have questions which I don’t have answers for, I’ll do my best to find answers.” Casey nodded understandably. “They arrived mid evening, around 8pm and ate in the restaurant. They had booked by telephone. Ate two courses and drank two full bottles of red wine. Mr Bainbridge was a very generous tipper from what my staff have told me.” He handed over a receipt for the restaurant bill. “Then after the meal, they booked into a room. That is the last dealing we had with them. With him.”

“So you just left them for a week? What about room service? Meals? Cleaners?”

The manager was bright red now. “Yes, there have been several breakdowns in our systems which we will be working to ensure don’t happen again.”

Casey raised his eyebrows. They said everything that needed to be said about this.

“A cleaner saw the girl on the day after they checked in. She was attempting to clean the room but the woman asked her to come back another time. Apparently, she had a blackened eye and she acted strange.”

“Strange in what way.”

“Shifty and nervous. She first asked the cleaner to come back later and then she said no much, much later. My staff did not see her again after that.”

“CCTV?” Casey enquired expectantly.

“I have my duty manager going through it now and he will report to me shortly what footage we have. I’m sure we’ll have some of the pair of them passing through reception.”

“I’m especially interested in getting a face shot of the dead man’s companion.”

“Yes, of course. Anything else I can help with?”

“Not for now.” Casey dismissed him and returned to the dead man’s room. He would need to speak to the woman. There was no doubt. He okayed the coroner to take the body away for autopsy. He’d be glad to get the body out of the room. After the body had been zipped into a body bag and removed, Casey pushed the windows as wide as they’d go to allow some air into the room. The stench was distracting. The thing that struck him as being odd in this room was there was no bag or suitcase. They had checked in on the spur of the moment it seemed, but no bag at all seemed wrong.

“Sir.” A call came from the bathroom.

Casey walked to the door to see who was calling. It was Diane, the oldest woman on the team and the most experienced.

“This panel was loose on the side of the bath and I found this inside.” She held up a black gun with a pencil though the trigger.

Casey would spend the next two weeks on and off the investigation. He managed to get the CCTV into some local TV news and the stills of the woman into Scottish papers. Unfortunately, none of this made the national media. It infuriated him. This lack of interest south of the border was what held the investigation back to his mind. It was typical.

His commanding officer told him to bring the investigation to a conclusion, one way or another. And yet, something niggled at him about what he found in that room. Something was really wrong with it all. The fact that there was no bag. Who travels without a bag? Even just a small overnight bag. Or work bag. Something.

He filed his report. Secretly however, he vowed to keep the investigation going.

Two hundred and twelve days after

Janet was awoken by the sunlight streaming through the light cream curtains in her bedroom. Another sunny day. ‘You could never get too much sun’ was her first thought of the day. It was pleasantly warm and she had slept with just a sheet and a throw. She was in her new house. After renting for five months, it was good to be more settled.

Her place in London was now rented out. Furnished with her stuff. It felt pretty odd to have other people sitting on her sofa, sleeping in her bed and using her pots and pans but it had been the simplest way to do it.
Fleeing Edinburgh,
she had been worried they may still track her somehow, so she’d allowed herself just one day in London to tie up all her loose ends. She met an estate agent at her Clapham flat and gave them the keys. She handed the whole thing over to them and so far they’d done a pretty good job. It was rented out within 2 weeks and since then, she’d not heard a peep. Just seen the rent money going into her UK bank account each month minus their fees of 13%. Well worth it she thought.

She’d then booked a suite at the Mercer in Barcelona and called ahead to explain she would be expecting a large parcel. She wrapped the bag full of money in several layers of bubble wrap, then placed it in a cardboard box and repeated the process twice. She parcel taped all the edges and googled ‘courier a parcel London to Barcelona'.

She’d packed her large wheel-able suitcase (to the brim) and taken a taxi to St Pancras. A ticket to Perpignan was purchased and she took the next Eurostar via Paris. As she sped first class across France, she set about stamping out the digital footprints that would eventually lead the unwanted to her. She logged into Facebook on her iPad, went to her account settings and eventually after a little searching found the button - PERMANENTLY DELETE ACCOUNT and without much of a thought, she killed it. Dead. Yes she had photos and messages she’d have preferred to keep but she had to take steps now to make sure no one was able to trace where she was. She also deleted her Twitter account. She only had 41 tweets, so it wasn’t the end of the world. The twitter-sphere would not implode on itself with the lack of her content. There were also accounts on MySpace, LastFM and Pinterest (no pins). Her phone, which the gang had, was locked but with a little help from a tutorial she found on Google, she was able to figure out how to completely wipe all her information from the phone. She couldn’t resist sending a message just before she wiped it saying ‘bye bye boys’. She had no idea whether they would see it not, but still it felt good. She would have to get phone numbers for friends by emailing them. Just like the social media accounts she had which were barely used, she had more than two hundred contacts in her phone, but she probably only really wanted to contact a handful, twenty at most. It would be a pain, but she’d get their details back. She’d got to the point where she had people in her contacts who she didn’t really know. Possibly business contacts or friends or acquaintances who’s details she had swapped on drunken nights out.

Did she need to change her name? She seemed to recall telling Charlie what her name was. Definitely her first name, she wasn’t sure about her surname. Would that be normal to tell someone you were having a drink with what your full name was? Probably not. Janet was not a very common name among women her age. That was not a good thing. What else did they know that they could use to track her? Profession. She had said roughly what she did for a living although, based on what she usually told people, she would not have mentioned her employer. Charlie knew she lived in London. What else? Did she mention her age? Probably. She seemed to know how old Charlie was, so it figured they had discussed her age and it wasn’t something she was concerned about, so why would she not tell him. That was quite a bit to go on, but so long as she didn’t blast her whereabouts to all and sundry online, she would more than likely be ok. She’d worked out she was putting 1,300 miles between them. As well as the whole of France. Surely that had to be enough.

From Perpignan, she’d taken a cab to Coulliere. This was pretty much the last town on the French Riviera before reaching the Spanish border. The plan had been to go all the way through to
Barcelona
, but it was just too much in one go. Ten or so hours on trains. Plus the Edinburgh to London journey with a short stop over. It had been better than a plane (she hated flying), but the whole point was you could jump on and off trains.

Coulliere just looked so beautiful. It was the first time she’d seen the sea on this journey and it seemed so incredibly blue and welcoming. The terracotta tiled roofs glowed in the late afternoon sun and the tiny town seemed so comforting. The taxi driver had taken her to what he said was the best hotel. In Coulliere, she was able to relax for a night or so and get over her ordeals that had happened in Glasgow and Edinburgh. She researched apartments to rent in Barcelona. She considered staying in Coulliere but it didn’t give her the camouflage she required. With Barcelona, she would have the madness that is Barcelona going on all around her.

By the time she arrived in Barcelona by taxi, she had three apartments to view. She viewed all three apartments and took the last one. A fourth storey apartment in the Gothic Quarter or Barri Gòtic as the locals called it. Two small bedrooms, a large grand bathroom which was inexplicably the largest room in the apartment, a kitchen, slash dining area and a compact but bright living room. The living room had double doors which opened to a small balcony overlooking Via Laietana. A busy street where there was usually a lot of noise most of the day and night. Car horns. Screeching tyres. Men and women shrieking at one another. Consumed with the heat. She loved it. Very... Spanish.

It was the way it was furnished which made the apartment though. Antique pieces mixed and matched with contemporary furniture. A strange mixture of reproduction Spanish art from Valasquez to Dali via Goya, Miro and Prado.

Far too much bull fighting paraphernalia dotted about the apartment but hey this was Catalan Spain. They loved it here. A brightly decorated bull fighting spear stood up in one corner of her bedroom which appeared to have dried blood on the white fluffy decorated stem. Was it bull blood or man blood she wondered. It was hooked on the spear end. This hook was probably how it stayed attached to the bull she thought but wasn’t sure. Her opinion was that it was a barbaric way of entertaining people. It creeped her out as did all the other bull fighting ornaments, paintings and photos - usually of proud looking bull fighters just dodging huge bulls whilst dressed as if for a lead role in a ballet. She quite liked it when the bull got his man but she decided that was probably best kept to herself around here.

Right on time, the Hotel Mercer called letting her know her parcel was awaiting her. She had to get rid of all this cash into a bank security box as soon as possible. As much as she’d grown used to having this lump of pure cash around her without any security, it just didn’t make any sense to keep it in her apartment.

After finding the Spanish for security deposit box (caja de seguridad) and asking around at one or two banks, she found a small bank that had exactly what she needed. She created an account and was made aware of the costs for the box which would be taken by direct debit. The bank was in a beautiful old building not far from her flat. The next day, she took half the cash in and asked for access to her box. She was shown upstairs by a young lady who introduced herself as Sandra. Sandra made no small talk at all. This was not
that
type of a bank. It was a bank of discretion. They wanted to know nothing of your personal life. The safety deposit boxes were on the fourth floor. Sandra showed her into one of several similar looking rooms. She pulled out Janet’s security box which was quite large and unlocked it but did not open it. She explained that once she was finished, she just needed to ring the bell by the door and Sandra would come back to get her. Sandra spoke very good English. Once Janet was alone, she opened the box lid and unzipped her bag. She took her time counting the money. She was fairly sure she’d got about half the cash, certainly in weight. She carefully counted two of the bundles of notes. Each bundle contained two hundred twenty pound notes. All brand new, making up four thousand per bundle and there were three hundred and four bundles in this bag. According the calculator on her phone, this was

£1,216,000
.

So there’d be roughly two and a half million across both bags minus the bits she’d spent which didn’t amount to very much. Just wait until she’d had a real shopping spree. No, Jesus this wasn’t a joke. Two point five million pounds was a really scary amount, but there was no going back at this point. She had pissed off the people who wanted this cash quite royally now. She’d made her (very expensive) bed and now she’d have to lay in it. The next day, she took the Gucci bag in with the other half of the cash. Again she was shown to the room, this time by Marcos. Again, he explained the routine for calling him back and with that, he left her to her privacy. She couldn’t be bothered to do counting again. What did ten or even a hundred thousand matter at this point. She knew roughly what the contents came to. Once she had all the cash out and into the security box, she closed the lid. The bag lay empty apart from one or two notes lying about in the bottom loose. She scooped them up and stuck them into her handbag. It was time to stick this incriminating bag into a bin. She stuck her hand in and found the base was open on one side. It was the hard piece across the bottom of the bag which gave it shape and solidity. There was something under it. An envelope. Beautifully handwritten across were the words Mr J. Nicholson. Was that Joseph? Had to be really she guessed. She placed it into the bottom of her handbag along with one bundle of notes and then zipped up the Gucci bag. She wanted to get out of the room and back home. As soon as she was out of the bank, the Gucci bag was dropped at the nearest charity shop. Once home, she read the letter.

Dearest J,

I do apologise that I couldn’t come to meet you personally recently, but you know how discreet we need to be in our line of business. Once things die down a little, I would like you to help me with a little project around the Sea of Galilee.

An acquaintance of a friend of a friend has recently acquired a piece and needs some help with transportation logistics from some calm, Still Waters and I know you are well versed in such matters. If you could help, that would be Nice. You have my details when you are ready to get in touch.

With Best Regards, MPW

What the hell was all that about? Talk about cryptic. She was sure it was meant for Joseph, who would not be reading it anytime soon. It may have made perfect sense to him, but she doubted it. There seemed to be a code in it, but if there was, it was not making itself clear to her. Did Galilee still exist? She thought that might be an old biblical name. There were other things in there which were capitalised which seemed to stand out. Still Waters and Nice should not be capitalised. Unless they were names of things. Or places. She read it again. Sea of Galilee and calmer, Still Waters. Hmm. So the project was that MPW wanted to get something from the Sea of Galilee to Still Waters and that would be Nice. She decided she’d let this percolate for a little while. She was a clever girl she reminded herself and she would crack this one way or another.

During five months renting in the heart of Barcelona, she enjoyed not working. She took Spanish classes. She had taken Spanish at school, enjoyed speaking Spanish whenever she was in Spain and it came back to her quickly. Her new life was simpler than before, less complicated and stress free. It was a life where she didn’t draw attention to herself. She blended in to her surroundings and the people around her. She visited the safety deposit box weekly and squirrelled away about a tenth of the cash into other bank accounts. She was buying a house and couldn’t very well turn up with a bag of cash. Plus it made sense to ‘diversify her investment’.

Over the course of the next few months, Janet travelled. She did her tour of the Americas. Planes, trains and automobiles. Starting off flying to Vancouver, through Amsterdam with Royal Dutch. A week of exploring Vancouver and spending time with her favourite long lost aunt before setting off toward Los Angeles via Seattle, San Francisco, San Jose and Las Vegas. She travelled business class or first class wherever she went for no other reason than because she could now. When you had the money, why would you not travel with table service. She mainly took the train with one stint on a Greyhound between San Francisco and Las Vegas but decided the train was a much preferable means of getting around. The Greyhound didn’t turn out to be as romantic as the song America would have her believe. She was in no rush and took her time to explore as she went. She took photos but didn’t put anything online as she had nowhere to put them. She would get them printed once she got home. And put them in an album. Just like people used to do. Her life was analogue now. She stayed for a month in LA soaking up the atmosphere, the culture, and the just plain out-there weirdness of the place. LA split opinions. You loved it or loathed it. Janet fell into the love camp. She mainly enjoyed the showy craziness. She had stints at the Four Seasons and the Bel-Air hotels before renting a one bed apartment near Santa Monica. Didn’t have a sea view, but was just a five minute walk to the beach.

She had sat next to a red-head called Tess on the train from Las Vegas to LA. They exchanged email addresses and Janet got a mail from her a few days into her LA stint. She really didn’t think she would do. Tess was 27, from Sydney and a free spirit. She’d been traveling for the last eleven months and had no plans to stop traveling and head home anytime soon. Janet was drawn to the adventurous aura that surrounded Tess. Tess was drawn to Janet’s hedonism. They hung out together occasionally meeting in The Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset Boulevard, drinking Mai Tais and Frozen Mojitos and going to gigs at the Viper Room and the Bootleg Theatre.