Liz sat in the car playing with the backed up phone. She’d given up trying to find anything hidden, and had spent her time playing Angry Birds. Sebastian had clearly been a busy man – he seemed to have stopped playing after four levels. Well, she figured, they had a big multi-national whatever-their-company-did to run.
What exactly did the Pohler’s do?
It was raining hard outside, and it thumped on the roof of the car as it sat on the street, a still, black metal sculpture hiding in the streetlight. It was still warm inside despite the engine being off and the diver sat in the front, patient and still like a guard at Buckingham Palace. Where did they find these lackeys? She wanted lackeys like that.
Sandra had been inside for ten minutes so far. She’d told Liz to give her half an hour, and she hadn’t heard anything then call the cops. She didn’t trust Richard, who’d asked – well, demanded - to see her immediately. Calling the cops made sense because it would alert somebody, even if it did get swept under the carpet in the end. And it was all they had to go on. They’d be foolish to trust anyone else right now, there seemed to be a lot of lying going on. Sandra had got quite a surprise when they’d pulled up outside the apartment building. Why Richard wanted to meet in 304 was very strange, and it made her nervous.
“If I’m not back in ten minutes, call the cops. No, make it twenty. Forty. Thirty. Shit, I don’t know.”
They’d settled on thirty, and decided she’d text via the phone Sebastian had given her if anything went wrong, or even she even felt slightly scared. It was primed and ready to go. All she had to do was get the phone out of her pocket, unlock it, and hit send. Nothing was ever simple.
After deciding on when to panic, Sandra had opened the door and ran through the rain to the entrance to the converted warehouse. The driver hadn’t offered to open the door, get her an umbrella, anything. He’d just stopped the car, turned his head ever so slightly and said ‘304’. Liz was convinced he was an android, and she couldn’t see his body not because it was obscured by the seat, but because it wasn’t really there. At some point she decided to try and sneak a look. Just to prove it.
Inside the building (unlike the outside) it was quite well lit, and Sandra could see every drip she left on the floor. She’d been in the rain a total of thirty seconds and still managed to get soaked. It wasn’t cold, it was just very wet. She knocked on the door of 304, hoping for at least a towel. Richard answered almost immediately, said nothing just stood aside and let her in.
Her feet crunched on debris on the floor. There had been some cleaning, but most of the mess had just been shoved aside. The apartment was still a mess, only instead of being spread out everywhere it was piled like landfill. She assumed they were sorting piles, when they were looking for the phone she’d taken. There was only one light on, in the kitchen, and a lamp that had been righted on the side wall. She hadn’t noticed on her last visit but most of the lights had been smashed as well. Were they searching or were they venting, she wondered.
There was one large bare patch in the room. It was the patch where she had found Sebastian.
She turned away and picked up a towel from a nearby pile, and wringed her hair into it, then dried the back of her neck.
“It’s raining”, she said, stating the bloody obvious. Richard didn’t care.
“Both my sons died in this apartment”, he said. “One of them in the bathroom. The other one in here.”
This was weird.
“I know”, she said. “I found them.”
“I know you did”, he said. “As you state so matter of factly. You see, that’s the thing Sandra. Do you know why I hired you to find out who did it?”
He was being emotional. At least a little emotional. It was hard to tell. But it was odd behaviour and it put her on edge.
“I don’t know Richard. I have no idea.”
“Because you’re cold, Sandra. It’s because you’re a cold and calculating person. You don’t have a lot of emotion in you and you work things out instead. In another life you could have been a sociopath.”
She really didn’t like where this was going.
“You’re not exactly the crying man over there”, she replied, confused and irritated by this. “I’d say you’re the coldest bastard I’ve ever met.”
“No. Not cold. Restrained. There’s a big, big difference. I learnt when I was young that my emotions will give away what I’m really feeling, and I learnt to restrain them.” He walked closer to Sandra, eyeing her closely. “I think you don’t actually have anything to restrain.”
He paused. She didn’t know what to say.
“Oh, you get angry. I’ve seen that”, he continued. “Anger isn’t an emotion Sandra it’s a survival instinct, it’s aggression. It’s rarely about emotion and more about self defence.”
“Bullshit. People hold stuff back and get angry all the time.”
“Not because they’re holding it back. It’s because they don’t know what to do. It’s not their emotion that’s making them angry, it’s not knowing what to do about it. It’s confusion.”
“What is this about Richard? What. The fuck. Do you want.”
He smiled. It was cold and restrained.
“I need to ask you a question.” He took her look of nothing to be granting permission. “Did you kill my son?”
She blinked. That was why she was here. Seriously? She looked at him, confused. Her eyebrows frowned and she looked away from him like he was an idiot.
“What? Really? That’s it? No. No of course not. I thought you know that. Jesus.”
He grabbed her arms and held them.
“No acting Sandra. None of these composed responses, no more stupid faces, or sarcasm, or swearing. Just keep a straight face and look me in the eye.”
She tried to shake herself free but for an old man he had a hell of a grip.
“Fuck, Jesus, let me go god dammit.”
He held her arms tighter and shook her, trying to get her to stop wriggling.
“Look me in the eyes.”
“What the fuck do you want? How the hell do you want me to act here?”
“LOOK ME IN THE FUCKING EYES”, he shouted.
She stopped. She went limp. She realised she wasn’t looking at him; and that it would be an effort to do so. Slowly, she tilted her head up. She saw his tie. His pocked chin. Skinny triangular nose. And then his eyes. And she could see, deep within those eyes, a lifetime of grief, of happiness, an entire television series of emotional flashbacks forced away and kept hidden from the world. And she pitied him. She pitied him terribly, and pitied herself. She wondered what it would be like to have something like that to restrain. She spoke.
“I didn’t kill your sons. I didn’t kill Richard. And I definitely didn’t kill Sebastian.”
She saw something in there – and then it was gone. He blinked and let her go. She felt nothing as he stepped backwards.
“Is that why you wanted to see me?” she asked.
“No, actually. But it was something I needed to be sure of before I helped you.”
“Helped me?”
He took a deep breath, and suddenly his composure was back. It was well versed, but it also seemed like a massive effort.
“Listen to me very carefully. You’ve somehow become involved with some very bad people Sandra. And you have something they want.”
“Something they want? But they have it. They got it off me earlier tonight.”
“Whatever it is, they don’t have it. Trust me, it wasn’t what they wanted. They are after you and your friend. It’s not safe for you anymore.”
“How do you know this?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.
“Because I do Sandra, it’s my business to know these things.” He went to say more but his phone beeped. He took it out of his pocket and checked the message. He looked at her, panicked. “You have to get out. It’s not safe for you in here.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Just get out Sandra. Get out now.”
She made a move for the door when his phone beeped again.
“Not that way. It’s not safe. You’ll have to hide on the balcony.” He ushered her towards the door.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Trust me when I say there’s no time. You and your friend, the driver has something for you, take it and leave the city, there’s nothing to keep you here”, he said as he shoved her out the door. She didn’t hear anything else he said, as the rain was still bucketing down loudly. He shut the door and turned and walked away, and as he was doing so she saw the front door to the apartment open, and two men stuffed into suits walked in, and the man they’d seen at her house. She took a deep breath, and stepped backwards, deeper into the rain towards the edge of the balcony but away form the glow of the window.
One of the men went to the lamp and turned it off, so the only light inside was from the kitchen. Richard seemed to be standing firm and still, but still talking to the man from her house. He looked at Richard’s sleeve, and then looked directly at the balcony. He turned to Richard, and talked animatedly and pointed to exactly where Sandra was standing.
She looked around. There was nowhere to hide. She turned back and saw him striding deliberately and rapidly towards the balcony door. As the rain pelted down, she realised that she was trapped.
There was going to be no getaway this time, because there was no where to get away to.
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