***
After a few minutes, it looked likely that Richard was heading towards home. Mike allowed a few cars to overtake him and he sat back, keeping his speed steady. Mike remembered the route to the house well. Once off the carriageway and heading out to the suburbs, it was a straight run. A trip into suburbia. The further you go, the house prices increase faster than the number of leafy trees alongside them. The widths of the roads do the same.
He could distinctly remember visiting the street twice to scope things out, about two years before. It had been a fairly straightforward job. It was just him had done it, once he had the codes and layout from Vicky. There was no call for any help. He had known that the two men had a bit of a reputation, but it wasn’t really a concern at the time. There was never anything explicit about them in the press; just stories on blog sites and unregulated on-line media. It was more likely that they’d be spotted in The Tatler, or posing at a new restaurant opening, in a local paper. He certainly couldn’t have foreseen where things would lead. But should he have? He was feeling many things and guilt was certainly one of them. Maybe it was even guilt for doing the job in the first place. Vicky said that she’d never do another job again. Maybe he would think along the same lines. Then he thought, ‘fuck that.’
Mike stopped at the far end of the street, inconspicuously behind a few cars and a cypress. He wondered to himself if it was one of the streets that Van Morrison had pounded in his youth. Richard got out, lifted his bags and then leaned in the window to pass the driver a few notes. Then he disappeared from view. Mike scratched at his chin, blew out his cheeks. He rustled around in his pockets, then made himself up a rolly. He cracked the window and lit up. He savoured each draw, staring out of the window. There was nothing to see of interest anymore. Richard must have gone on inside. The street was very still, almost silent. He imagined what Richard would be doing right then. Switching off his alarm, hanging up his coat? Unpacking his case, maybe putting on the kettle?
Would he be racked with guilt about what he had done to Vicky?
Definitely not.
Switching of his alarm? Would the number be the same after a couple of years?
Richard tried to take a decision on what to do. Why had he even followed him? What did he think he was going to do? Bust in there? Threaten him? He couldn’t decide. Vicky was always the decisive one, when it came to tricky decisions. When he needed help deciding on something he would go to her. He was better at things once he knew what he was doing. Like when he had planned out a job, he could just work away. He didn’t like these unexpected scenarios. Almost getting caught a week ago had scared him more than he had let on to Vicky. He realised that sometimes he was sailing a little close to the wind. But he felt like he should be doing this; he should be doing ‘something’. But what?
He threw the smoke out of the window, then rolled another. It was a distraction. He reminded himself that he must either cut down or try the gum or something again. Once all this was dealt with. Every time he called round to see his Mum, he got another lecture about smoking. Yeah, he knew the risks. ‘Sure, isn’t everything a risk?’ But anyway, he knew he should. If only to stop his mum telling him he smelt like an old ashtray and that he would go the same, painful way as his Dad. He continued to smoke, enjoying it less, watching an occasional car coming past before turning out at the end. Over the next half hour, only one car pulled into any of the sweeping driveways. Nobody walked past either. Most must have been at work? Maybe this street didn’t even have any people who would exercise in the outdoors with the rest of the plebeians. They would surely have their own gym equipment or membership to an elite club.
Mike continued to feel an unsettling, indecisive, doubt creeping in. Perhaps he shouldn’t even be there at all. What if he made it all worse? He switched on the radio. Some local politician was defending why none of his party would speak or meet with any of the other parties. He shook his head and switched it off again. He punched the steering wheel.
“Right,” he said out loud and grabbed the door handle. He stepped out resolutely and locked the car. “Just going to have a look,” he asserted to himself.
Mike pushed his hands down into his pockets and started to walk up the road, slowly. He decided that might look suspicious and quickened his pace, looking ahead, with an occasional casting of his eyes towards Richard’s house beyond.
He felt conspicuous; he didn’t fit right for walking around here. But anger flooded through
