‘He bloody framed her. He made her an accessory to a murder. Then he fucking tortured her and tried to have her killed. Vicky. My Vicky. Fuck him!’
The words circled rapidly through his head, psyching himself up for whatever might happen.
‘But she’s not ‘My Vicky.’ She’s not anyone’s.’
It was an unusual relationship that they had, he knew that. He had loved her, she was everything he had wanted in a girl. That and more. But then her Dad had died, she was almost without any family and she pretty much cracked up. She had wanted to cool things off for a while and what could he have said? They hadn’t even been together that long at the time. He looked after her anyway and the relationship was put on hold. That’s what he had thought was happening. But then they just drifted and drifted. They had a new relationship. He didn’t want to pressure her and she never brought it up. They clicked into being good friends, almost as if they had never been together. Sometimes he wondered if she had actually forgotten. That’s the way it had stayed for a few years. Yes, he had seen a few girls since, but nobody special.
No one special like her.
As he came close to the house, he reduced his speed. He tried to appear casual, while looking at the place, to hide the feelings pulsing through him. The gates were open and there was a silver Mercedes and a green BMW parked in the drive. There was no sign of life. But then the house was huge and there could have been a ‘Playboy’ party inside and you wouldn’t have known it. He walked on to the end of the street, checked to see nobody was paying any attention, then turned on his heels to walk back the way he came. As he approached the house from the other direction, the door opened suddenly and Richard appeared. Mike cocked his head nonchalantly, watching Richard turn and deadbolt the door. He was holding a green shopping bag in his other hand. A deadlock – that was new. Mike passed by the drive, head down, as Richard beeped open the Mercedes and ducked inside. He walked on and was only a few feet from his car when the Merc raced by. Richard didn’t appear to take any notice of him. As the Merc haired off around the corner, Mike jumped in to his own car and revved the engine. He swung out in an arc through the wide road, racing off after him.
Mike saw that the Mercedes had been stopped by a red light, fifty metres up through a crossroads. Mike slowed and let a white Polo turn out in front of him. The lights changed and they all set off again. He took it steady, Richard wasn’t going particularly fast. Soon they were taking the back roads out through Holywood, Mike keeping a car or two behind. He was taking it steady, in control. If he would admit it – it was giving him quite the buzz. Richard signalled off to go through the exchange around Holywood and Mike did the same. Now there was no other car in-between them, so he kept his distance. They passed a big hardware store, then a Sainsbury’s -Mike’s eyes fixed on the back of Richard’s head. Richard continued on to the end of the road, the only location left was Ikea. Mike’s brow creased as he passed the huge blue and yellow logos on the side of the vast building, following Richard on into the underground car park.
‘What the fuck is he doing here?’ Mike thought to himself. Was Richard so dead inside, he was simply following an urge for some Scandinavian styled interior designs? Richard pulled into a space in a row close to the doors. Mike parked up a few rows behind. He switched the engine off and waited. The multi-storey was dimly lit. A few couples passed, all fully laden with flat packed furniture. A moment later and Richard emerged from his Mercedes. He beeped the car locked and strode out through the side of the multi-storey. Mike followed suit. It was quite busy, so he let a little distance fall between them again. They crossed a forecourt with kids screaming in the park on the right and parents with trolleys and trucks arguing outside it.
Richard was carrying the bag. Thirty seconds later and he was stepping through the revolving doors into the main store, with Mike ten paces behind. Richard crossed the entrance hall briskly. Mike came in, amidst a crowd, losing sight of his quarry for a moment. He looked up the sweeping staircase, expecting Richard to be ascending it – either to go to the restaurant or the marketplace. Mike checked about, hopping on tip toes back and forth, panicked for a moment. Then he saw him further down the hallway, just past the toilets. Mike made a beeline for him as Richard stopped suddenly at the lockers. There were twelve blue lockers on the wall that customers could store items in, while they shopped or ate. You just pop a coin in and it gives you a key. Mike slowed and passed by just as Richard dropped a coin into the slot, then stuffed the bag inside.
Mike had walked on a few more yards to the edge of takeaway food hall. He turned at the corner and watched Richard head out, back through the double doors.
He was torn.
‘Should I follow him’? he asked himself, literally dancing from foot to foot. He made up his mind. He needed to know what was inside that locker.
There were several difficulties. One obvious one was that Mike of course didn’t have a key. Another problem was the busy swarm of flat-pack lovers filing past. Mike crossed to the wall alongside where the lockers were mounted. He bent his leg, leaning a foot behind him on the wall and pretended to play on
