The most frightening thing is – I have a bad feeling our paths will cross again.
Chapter Five
DAVE
To the outside world, Dave appears to be a successful local businessman. However, in truth he’s a Jekyll and Hyde character, and things are not as they would appear.
He’s not a tall man, but the fruits of good living have expanded his waistline to forty inches and a weight of around seventeen stone. His doctor has told him this is likely to be the cause of his high blood pressure.
His public image depicts an upstanding member of the local business community who has spent years building up the three businesses which provide him with a luxurious lifestyle.
He has a permanent tan and wears an eighteen-carat-gold Rolex Day-Date 36 watch on his left wrist. He loves to wear crisp white shirts, dark coloured suits and a pair of Churchill shoes, size eight. He’s a season ticket holder for his football club, a member of the local golf club and enjoys luxury cruises. He’s a bit of a horse-racing fanatic and has a share in several racehorses.
The private side is much darker.
Look deeper and you’ll notice menace buried deep in his tiny black eyes. The inside jacket pocket of his smart suit conceals a switchblade knife purchased in Spain and smuggled into the UK. His two large chunky gold rings have seen action, and many times these have ended up embedded in someone’s face.
Today, Dave has been in a truly foul mood. As he relaxes on the plane, he thinks it all through.
To start with, the lady who cleans his house twice a week called in sick and he hates the place not being spotless. It also meant she wouldn’t be there to take in the parcel he was expecting, so he would need to wait in for the delivery man.
Dave’s never been what you would call computer savvy. He’s never bothered to learn about computers because he thinks things can be traced too easily and he certainly doesn’t want to record all the details of his illegal activities on a computer. However, he thought going online to order a special gift for his mother’s birthday would be all right. She’s going to be eighty in three days’ time and he wanted to buy something special for her. The website he’d visited also offered to gift wrap the item – part of the reason he ordered it from them in the first place.
Dave had hoped to spend a few hours with her today before leaving for his fortnight’s holiday, but his package had failed to arrive by three pm. He tried to contact the company, despite taking nearly an hour to find their phone number, but when he did finally manage to get through to someone they told him he’d filled out the wrong delivery date on the website and it wasn’t due to arrive until the following week.
Today of all days, this is not what he needed.
Finally, he had to drive into Trentbridge town centre and spend time walking around the shops until he found an alternative gift. Unfortunately, the department store where he purchased the replacement present for his mum didn’t offer a gift wrap service so he had to visit the convenience store to buy wrapping paper, take it home and waste more time wrapping it.
He loves his old mum. It’s not her fault that right now he’s in a rage. He had to rush to deliver the present to her in the luxury nursing home he’s paying a fortune for and then ignore the speed limit to get to the airport in time to catch this late night flight to Murcia airport in Spain, the closest to his luxury villa in La Manga.
Dave thinks back to the incident with the tramp who got in his way and tripped him up in the convenience store when he was buying the wrapping paper and his Lotto ticket. That really didn’t help his high blood pressure.
Cursing and swearing as he stomped away from the convenience store, he was still trying to brush the dirt off his smart trousers. Even now, he was sure he could still smell that filthy tramp or the ‘human piece of crap’ as he called him.
The day’s unplanned events meant that Dave only managed to spend half an hour with his mum. He’d make it up to her when he got back. They’d go out for a nice meal.
He’d invited her to come to Spain but she preferred to stay home. At her age, air travel is a lot of upheaval for just a two-week holiday.
Dave now sighs in relief. In spite of everything he made it to the airport just in time to catch this flight.
Yes, two weeks in the sun will definitely put things right.
Chapter Six
JAMES
When I first became homeless, I started off using hostels, but they should be called ‘hostiles’ as the volatile nature of the residents can make them more dangerous than the outside world. Some house some real scumbags who would gladly knife you for a few quid.
Most of the ‘guests’ are dependent on drugs or strong alcohol and although the staff do their best to check everyone coming in, they aren’t cunning enough to foil the addicts and alcoholics. Believe me, if a drug addict wants to get his stash into the hostel there’s nothing that’s going to stop him.
In the circles of the homeless, legal highs are in common use. Spice is the one favoured by many. It blocks out everything. And I do mean everything.
After trying the hostels, I progressed – if that’s the right word – to sleeping in shop doorways. However, you soon learn your lessons, especially on Friday and Saturday nights after the bars and clubs close. You get the drunken louts who think nothing of urinating on you, simply for the fun
