I Get Around

June 2012 truly has been a month of shameless self-promotion. As if publishing a book and pushing it in everyone's face on Twitter, Facebook and wherever else anyone would have me wasn't enough, I only went and appeared on a couple of other websites too. I'm not too sure how this came about but I am grateful to Mel Menzies and Stu Noss for giving me the chance to hijack their websites and offer some thoughts on writing and publishing.

On Mel's website, I wrote an article entitled 'Could I really be an Author?' in which I discussed how Accidental Crime came about and how I sought to get it published and promoted. Mel is a successful author and the rest of her website is very much worth checking out.

Mel’s most recent novel, A Painful Post Mortem, explores the perennial parental lament: "Where did I go wrong?" in respect of a wayward child. All proceeds from the sales of the novel go to charities helping children (Care for the Family and Tearfund) and so I very much encourage you to support this worthy cause while getting your hands on a great summer read!

The other article I produced was for the Solqu Shorts website and this time I was claiming to know how writers should go about creating interesting characters. 

I'm not sure quite how qualified I am to offer such thoughts but I am thankful for the opportunity and I hope people find my ideas helpful.

I’ll probably stop popping up in various places at some stage but for now I hope you’ll forgive me for polluting the internet once more and may even go so far as to check out the articles. If nothing else, it gives you a chance to enjoy the rest of the websites…

Accidental Crime–the next chapter

Having been inspired by Jesus’ fasting in the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights, during the last month I have cast Jarrod and Dawn into the digital wilderness for a (considerably) less impressive 30 days and nights.

Perhaps you saw them? They appeared on alternate days, almost as if they were competing with each other for the limelight, and by the time the 30 days came to an end they were well and truly on course for a collision of Biblical proportions. Well, maybe not quite Biblical proportions but the word ‘collision’ would certainly be appropriate for what lies ahead…

I’d better be careful. That almost counts as a spoiler. And, having given you 30 whole chapters of Accidental Crime for nothing, the last thing I should be doing is going and giving away the best bits, right? You see, I’m afraid the 30 day sample is well and truly over and so your options for exploring the world of Jarrod and Dawn just that little bit more are narrowing by the hour.

30 chapters was quite a lot to give away really. Some novels don’t have anywhere near 30 chapters in total and so you might well be tempted to think that you’ve got to be pretty close to the end now. I mean, if we’re 30 chapters in, surely there’s only about two chapters to go, wrapping everything up? Yes, it would be nice to see how it finishes but we could just guess and make up our own, probably superior, ending rather than shelling out actual money for nothing more than a few dozen pages, if that.

If only. However, I am here today to tell you that if you are going with that theory then you are, I’m afraid, very wrong indeed. There are many more chapters to come and many more exciting things to be revealed. To be honest, the rest of the novel may even be slightly better than what you have already have. Actually, scrap that – the rest of the novel is significantly better than what has come before. So much better in fact that you might well ask why I didn’t just start it all from there and forget the first 30 chapters.

So, what do you do? How, given this new revelation, could you respond? Well, as far as I see it, you have 5 realistic options:

1) Write your own ending.

2) Imagine your own ending and enjoy thinking up alternatives while eating some toast.

3) Shrug your shoulders, say ‘meh’ and forget this whole month ever happened.

4) Go to Amazon and purchase the novel on Kindle to find out what happens.

5) Go to www.samlenton.co.uk and purchase a paperback of the novel so that you too can recreate this picture:

(Thumb not included – use your own)

Many thanks to everyone who supported the 30 day book promotion. We had almost 900 page-views in a month and probably only 600 of those were me…

If anyone chooses to go with options 4 or 5, I’d be excited to hear what you think of the rest of the novel. Any reviews are greatly appreciated!

Accidental Crime - 30

Jarrod

Jarrod was not used to running, particularly in suede shoes, and he felt overwhelmingly underprepared for sprinting through oncoming pedestrian traffic while every passing second brought him closer to the inevitable moment when a hand would land on his shoulder and the chase – and quite possibly his life – would be over.

He hadn’t yet dared look back. It was, perhaps, conceivable that the man’s lungs had been overworked from years of dedicated smoking and he had flagged at the first corner and was now hunched over, perhaps leaning one arm against a shop window, desperately trying to regain enough oxygen to continue walking, let alone running. Equally, it was possible that Jarrod had inadvertently angered the county’s most promising 200m runner in twenty years and that, despite his retirement from competitive racing, he was still a regular member of Green’s Gym and recently secured a new personal best on the running machines, reassuring him that he was as fit as he had ever been.

There was little time to think as he ricocheted off shopping bags and shoulders, barging his way unceremoniously down the surprisingly long street, but more than once he found himself wondering whether hurtling through the crowds actually made things worse than if he simply stopped and faced his fate. Didn’t his actions make it look as if he had meant to dislodge the mobile, that he was right to be considered guilty, that he had every reason to flee? Did innocent people run? More than that, did innocent people show little regard for the welfare of stuttering toddlers – at least two had found themselves swiftly swung out of the way by panicky mothers so far – and not even pause to say sorry when their knee had firmly collided with the jaw of an unsuspecting Labrador?

An alley-way appeared up ahead. If, by some miracle, he had established enough of a lead, he could, perhaps, disappear to the right in barely five seconds time and leave his pursuer flailing around in confusion, whilst he escaped through a conveniently-placed fire escape, taking him into the safety of the shop. In fact, now that he thought about it, why hadn’t he just gone into a shop by the main entrance, recruiting a helpful sales assistant to hide him while the man foolishly believed her insistence that she had ‘never seen him’?

The alley-way had appeared and there was little time left to consider what should have been done. Leaping and ducking under an oncoming umbrella, he tumbled into the narrow passageway, too late to change his mind.

His elbow scraped against the damp concrete as he fell, the lasting reminder of his heroism/cowardice – he was yet to decide which – guaranteed in scar-form, or at least an unsightly scab that he would savour scratching until he had pealed away every last flake of its protective coating. His jeans instantly became annoyingly wet, the coldness tingling his skin beneath, prompting his hands to frantically wipe and pat away at the material. He gazed around the scene of his intended escape as he raised himself to his feet. A few eyes had lingered on his tumbling body but were now passing out of sight as the wall blocked his view of their departing frames. They had, perhaps, briefly considered offering to help, their natural instinct prompting them to at least pause and look, if not actually intervene, but the swift movement of legs and heads redirected up and down the street suggested that few were concerned how Jarrod’s drama would play out. He was remarkably alone. In one leap he had detached himself from the bustle of the crowd and landed in the dampness of a narrow world he hoped offered a gateway to freedom from the impending danger that was surely only seconds away from revealing itself.

The walls that surrounded him seemed unimaginably tall, as the words ‘too high, you can’t get over it’ from a childhood song resounded between his ears. In truth, it was too high for any man to get over it and the expected ladder or outside stairs were distinctly absent from the view that stood before him. He had hoped, even in his most pessimistic moment just prior to the leap, that there would at least be one wall-scaling device that he could use to climb away from danger, trusting that the grip of his shoes would give him a slight advantage as his pursuer’s smooth, flat-bottomed soles left him slipping and sliding on every step. There would, of course, be a door that he could kick down or shoulder-barge – in all likelihood he wouldn’t even bother to check whether it was already unlocked – and he would then sprint past a flurry of confused faces, safe in the knowledge that he could lose his nemesis if he could find a door to the adjacent or parallel street, hail a passing cab and crouch beneath the window as the taxi driver pulled away at speed, Jarrod’s breathless instruction to ‘move, move, move’ ringing in his ears as he pursued an unspecified destination.

There wasn’t even a door. Not high above, not on street level to the left or the right. Of all the alleyways he could have chosen, he had opted for the one that was well and truly a ‘dead end’. He had never considered the impact of those words before. Up until now they had been mere words, a well-known label for a road or path that doesn’t go anywhere, but now they had assumed a new, haunting significance. He had brought himself to his own end; this place would be his dead end, the place people laid flowers against the wall, perhaps accompanied by tear-stained cards letting him know that he was loved and would be missed. The local ‘paper would use it as a chance to step up the intensity of its ‘Let’s kill off murder’ campaign and scores of ex-classmates would be rounded up by journalists eager to discover whether he, like every other young victim, was an ‘amazing person’, ‘full of life’ and ‘a popular and extremely likeable young man’. Dawn would tell his parents that it was ‘all her fault’, that he had been a hero answering her call in her time of need and that she had never had a chance to tell him what he really meant to her. They, forgiving as always, would wrap their arms around her and tell her that ‘everything would be OK’, that she shouldn’t think such things, that no-one really knows why these things happen to us.

But Jarrod knew. Of course he knew. This had happened because he had brushed his hair in public. That was the message he needed plastering across the local papers: Brush your hair and you’ll be inviting a brush with death.

There was still time to return to the street, to the relative safety of other people. The crowd of onrushing legs, paws and wheels was barely ten feet away and it was always possible that his pursuer had long since rushed past and that this brief hideaway had served its purpose after all.

He stepped forwards, ready to return. As soon as he placed one leg in front of the other, the stockier legs of his enemy appeared before him, the full appearance of a hot-blooded pursuer framed by the skyline walls. The man’s head was turned in his direction. Frustrated mothers were wheeling their prams around his now-static frame, staring menacingly into his defiant eyes as they freed a finger to raise in his direction.

Jarrod’s feet refused to move as the man’s legs swung his intimidating frame round to approach the privacy of the specially selected alleyway.

How had an afternoon with Mansfield led to this? He had asked for nothing more that day than to feast on the short stories he had finally laid his fingers on, to escape into a world of secret selves, tea and cake and unexpected flurries of French. He wasn’t supposed to die like this. He didn’t expect a long life but he had anticipated reaching 42 at the very least. Who died at 22? He didn’t smoke, he didn’t bungee jump at the weekends, he didn’t even own a particularly sharp knife. He had surrounded himself with soft paperbacks, literary sandbags that would fend off all the dangers the world outside threw at him, but where had that left him? He knew nothing of fighting. Perhaps if he had actually read The Count of Monte Cristo instead of just assuming that he knew the storyline already he would have at least been equipped to engage in a sword-fight. Lawrence had shown little interest in fist-fighting, and naked wrestling – a scene he had found little reason to make mention of when Dawn had asked him how he was getting on with Women in Love – seemed an unlikely prospect. Besides, weren’t Birkin and Gerald wrestling to relieve stress and represent a kind of unity and bond between two men that was unlike that shared with women? There was very little to suggest that the alleyway was about to play host to such free-spirited exhibitionism and a conviction of public nudity was not the ideal way with which to round off his afternoon.

The man strode towards him, his chest expanding and contracting with speed, as a smile formed on his reddened face. Beyond the man’s shoulders, Jarrod saw pedestrians pass by without a glance in their direction. Nobody slowed down, nobody stopped to check if everything was all right, nobody prepared to grab the man from behind, pinning his arms to his back while Jarrod fled to safety. As pair after pair of feet shuffled past, hurrying to the nearest shop to indulge their need rather than pausing to take care of his, he could not help but feel a profound disappointment in those with whom he shared society, whatever that term might mean. If this wasn’t a time for people to stand by one another then when was?

Before long, Jarrod’s view of the world outside, in all its disappointment, was obscured by the overpowering presence of his pursuer standing before him. There was nowhere else to look.

As he refocused his eyes on the intensity of the man’s expression, a flash of light reflected off the knife that he was now clutching between the shaking fingers of his right hand, sending Jarrod recoiling and stalling mid-breath, as the weapon that would begin a cascade of mournful regrets and recollections shone brightly in the afternoon sun, its vicious potential revealed in the beauty of the glowing silver.

Jarrod tentatively padded his pocket, half-hoping he had somehow slipped in a knife of his own precisely in case such moments as this arose. Not that he would be prepared to use it if the time came; he had always maintained that a knife was to be used for spreading, not stabbing. All he had was a slightly-used tissue, which would surely be no match for the knife. Even an entirely clean tissue would struggle to put up much of a fight. He was embarrassingly underprepared.

And yet, his knife-bearing pursuer seemed almost too prepared, almost as if this whole thing was some sort of elaborate plan. Perhaps he had intentionally knocked his mobile against Jarrod’s hand, planted the other passenger in just the right seat to provide the fatal blow and was now bringing his plan to fulfilment by murdering an unsuspecting member of the public with a knife he had ordered especially off eBay only last week? Why else would he come prepared with a knife? Were the streets really full of people crying out for someone to rush to their rescue with a timely knife, ready to cut a kitten loose from a trap or slice the hog roast so that the people could eat, drink and be merry?

Jarrod was bursting with questions but the man had now grabbed his coat with his left hand and was dragging him closer, the knife tantalisingly hovering barely six inches from his seemingly-doomed stomach. Words, carefully chosen, would be his only defence.

‘Please. Please, don’t hurt me. It was an accident. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ he spluttered, the tone of his voice assuming a more feminine edge than usual.

‘Your wallet. Now!’ the man demanded, beads of sweat slaloming down his forehead with remarkable haste.

Jarrod’s thoughts turned to the 50p off Organic Tea voucher he would never get a chance to use, the time he would waste signing up for a replacement library card, and the trolley token he had found so useful. He recalled the advice Uncle Paul had passed on one day – ‘if you ever get mugged, just give them the wallet, don’t go and get yourself killed by trying to be a hero’ – but what had sounded so good in theory made little sense when faced with the prospect of losing your Nectar Card.

‘There’s nothing in it,’ he foolishly lied, his left hand quivering as he spoke, dampened slightly by the suicidal drops of sweat departing from his enemy’s face.

The tip of the knife pierced the skin beneath Jarrod’s chin. The message was clear: one more wrong move and his modelling career would be over before it had even begun.

‘OK. OK,’ he conceded, his left hand reaching slowly into his jacket pocket to extract the wallet. It was slightly disappointing, he felt, that the murder he had imagined had been reduced to a simple mugging; he’d be lucky if there was even a paragraph in the ‘paper about this, let alone a full-page article with accompanying obituary and ‘photo gallery.

The knife was lowered as he flicked open the leather buckle, as if to check that this really was a wallet, and the moment gave Jarrod the chance to assess the fear in the man’s eyes.

He was clearly in the position of power in their encounter and yet there was something pitiful about the anxiety he displayed and Jarrod found himself itching to ask whether this was his first time, whether he had the honour of being his debut victim.

He pocketed the wallet and returned the knife to its threatening position.

‘Your phone. Now!’ he snarled, clearly buoyed by the success of his first demand. What exactly would he ask for if Jarrod continued to be so obliging? Perhaps now was the time to let him know that his jeans were only a tenner in the sale and his pants came in packs of 5 for £3, easily affordable and not likely to earn much of a profit? His shoes were worth slightly more, he’d give him that, but the chances of them being the same size seemed slim.

In terms of cost, losing his mobile was no disaster and, if Jarrod could only be given the time to explain that there was barely £1.50 left in credit, perhaps the man would consider it an unnecessary effort to pursue this further.

‘Fine. Here you are,’ he responded, transferring the ‘phone from his pocket to the man’s sweaty palm in one swift movement, not even noticing the arrival of a new message, before adding, ‘but that’s it OK. Please. I haven’t got anything else.’ He offered the greatest look of defiance he could muster, staring into the eyes before him with a conviction that he hardly believed possible in such a situation.

‘Now, turn around,’ he ordered, ‘and walk slowly towards the wall.’ Clearly overestimating Jarrod’s desire to gain instant retribution the moment he backed into the street to flee from the scene, the man nudged his arm until he could no longer see the glowing silver poised delicately behind his increasingly-unsteady fingers, his body fully turned to face the wall that had so disappointed him when he had first stepped foot in the alleyway. His legs strode forwards with robotic poise, his muscles stiffening as his eyes became blind to the whereabouts of the knife. There was something devastatingly unsettling about not being able to see the weapon that could cause him to fall in one foul swoop. Equally concerning was the prospect that he would realise he had shown his face in broad daylight and Jarrod’s photographic memory would have little difficulty identifying him in a parade. If King Lear had taught him anything – and he wasn’t entirely sure that it had – then it was that knives could be used to pluck out eyes and, although Gloucester’s experience in the play brought him profound insight and realisation, he had decided that blindness wasn’t for him and, if it came to it, he would pull out every single move he remembered from the Karate Kid films to fight his way out of this one.

Jarrod’s right foot landed in a puddle, splashing a few muddied droplets onto the previously-dry left. He sighed deeply. He wasn’t getting much out of this mugging at all.

The tip of the knife slowly circled his lower back, as if tracing the perimeter of his kidneys. It seemed quite a leap from his wallet and ‘phone but there always seemed to be quite a demand for transplants, so it didn’t seem as impossible as he would have hoped. The man lay his hand upon Jarrod’s left shoulder, the knife maintaining a steady poise while his fearful skin quivered in anticipation.

‘Nobody messes with Hilary. You got it?’ He squeezed Jarrod’s shoulder with a disturbing over-familiarity, before releasing his grip and sniffing forcibly, Gaveth-like, as he promised an end to the scene. ‘Now, I’m gonna walk away and you’re gonna wait right where you are, you hear me? You’re not gonna say anything. You’re not gonna do anything. You got it?’

The gruffness of his tone, which was undoubtedly seeking to conceal his anxiety, infuriated Jarrod almost as much as the name he had just revealed. One name had rendered the possibility of retelling the story of his terrifying mugging completely useless; there was, quite simply, no way he could bring himself to confess that he had been held at knife-point by a man named Hilary. Lying was being forced upon him. He would need to substitute in a more appropriate name – however he looked at it, Hilary just didn’t seem to fit – every time he recalled the story if he were to receive the required level of sympathy from those who would gather to hear him tell the tale of the day he withstood the might of the city’s most notorious armed bandit.

‘I said, you got it?’ he asked again, the volume increasing considerably as his desire to flee the scene as soon as possible noticeably grew.

‘Yes. Yes, sir,’ Jarrod responded, with all the exasperated panic of a pupil caught passing notes in class.

The knife released its pressure from his back, his organs sighing in relief as the man’s feet shuffled backwards before a rapid scraping noise indicated that he had swivelled and hurried away, the sound of high-paced walking resonating in Jarrod’s ears as he maintained his view of the slightly-irregular brickwork before him. Although there was little prospect of the man returning, he could not bring himself to trust that the danger had passed and remained stationary, counting the bricks before him and scanning the surface for the closest approximation to a middle-point that he could find. He padded his pockets, hopeful that somehow his possessions might have been slipped back in, as the man realised he had made a terrible mistake, but they were hauntingly empty and there was little denying that he was beginning to feel an anger that had deserted him when fear had seized its moment to shine. What troubled him was not the anger itself but his struggle to identify its source, to know for sure what it was that angered him.

He thought of Dawn tempting the speed cameras to find her guilty doing 32 mph as she raced into the city centre, expecting him to have his hands clasped round Nigel’s shirt, Hilary-like, as he bravely waited for her arrival. He thought of the patent office that never was, the Post Office masquerading as the central venue for their unfolding drama that afternoon, the alleyway that had proven so disappointing in his time of need. He thought of the bus that he so rarely took, the spit that lingered in his hair, the agonising need to run his fingers through it, the lack of patience he required to sit it out until the journey was over and he would be obstacle-free to brush away without fear. He thought of the ‘phone call he had answered, the toilet trip he had interrupted, the afternoon with Mansfield brutally ripped from his schedule. He had quit his job to be free from the demands of others, to give time to the reading and the writing that would finally give him the words he needed to make sense of the world as he saw it, and yet, as he stood staring down at his soiled suede shoes, he had found himself at the end of an alleyway counting the bricks on a wall while a man named Hilary rifled through his receipts while playing ‘Snake 2’ on the slightly-scratched screen of his second-hand mobile.

He turned around to face the world he knew he must return to but which now seemed to offer so little. Without a ‘phone available, the chances of keeping tabs on Dawn’s every movement seemed slim and the conversation he knew he must have with his bank seemed slightly more important than continuing the chase towards an invisible venue. There was something quite depressing about the fact that a random bank clerk – probably called Cheryl or Debbie – would be the first to hear of Hilary’s theft, that he would be forced to utter the words ‘I was mugged’ to a complete stranger who would probably take one quick look at him before concluding, ‘well, that is hardly surprising is it?’. There would probably be forms to fill in, questions to answer, signatures to sign, numbers to recite, passwords to fret over, while his eyes nervously watched the clock, wondering just how many diamond rings the man could purchase with every passing minute. Cheryl/Debbie would remind him, of course, that the beauty of chip and pin was that if he didn’t know Jarrod’s number then there was nothing he could do but this would do little to ease the fear of his next credit card bill listing twelve trips to Bermuda.

He rejoined the forward-thinking legs, paws and wheels that journeyed up the street, retracing the steps that he had taken only minutes earlier. Only, this time there would be no need for toddlers to fear, no reason for dogs to wince, as the steady pace of communal walking maintained the distances that would preserve the decorum of the pavement.

He glanced at his watch. Almost two o’clock.

There were still far too many hours left in the day.

---------

Check back tomorrow for the next chapter!

If you can’t wait to read the rest, the novel is available to buy here.

Many thanks to everyone for their support! If you enjoy the novel, please consider leaving a positive review on Amazon.

Accidental Crime - 29

Dawn

Dawn hated queuing. If queuing politely was a quintessentially English trait then that was proof enough that she had little sense of patriotism running through her blood. For every one of the thirteen minutes that she had sat stationary behind a Mazda MX-5 Dawn had devised a new plan for getting out of the line of traffic that was gifting Munch into the grateful hands of Nigel whose thief-like actions – there, she had said it – were surely only minutes away from ending her hopes for good.

The current plan was to mount the kerb, Grand Theft Auto-style, mowing down any pedestrians who dared stand in her way, gleefully honking her horn as the Corsa glided past all those who lacked the initiative and the courage to do what needed to be done.

As the clock ticked onto the seventeenth minute of the queuing – albeit with 10 feet of progress being made – it became clear that she too lacked the courage to risk everything on her kerb-mounting idea, as she remained rigidly behind the Mazda’s shapely figure, continually straining her neck muscles to look ahead to the source of the hold-up. The stuttering figure of an elderly lady walking a hyper-active Chihuahua made mowing a less appealing option than it had been when the shell-suit brigade had sauntered down the street a few minutes earlier, cupping their hands against their chests as if expecting every female driver to happily volunteer a free showing of their breasts. A few did offer their middle fingers and the brigade were more than happy to return the favour.

The next ten minutes brought steady progress, with Dawn clocking a high speed of 8 miles an hour, as the cause of the hold-up drew ever closer. As the Mazda pulled ahead during an unexpected surge in the queue, Dawn’s line of sight cleared to identify a Ford Mondeo lying half across the road, its front bumper kissing the base of a recently-installed street-light. An ambulance was parked on the kerb, the passenger-side overhanging the road sufficiently to make every approaching driver perform a rapid geometric assessment of their car and the nearest oncoming vehicle before taking the plunge and praying that there was just enough room to squeeze through. The Corsa was about five cars away from celebrating its narrowness but the opposing lane had become populated by two consecutive buses – what were the odds? – and there seemed little danger of either pausing to let such inferior vehicles as cars pass by.

The brief delay, which caused Dawn almost as much frustration as the lengthy wait before it, tempted her eyes to linger further on the source of the incident, scanning the scene in search of any clues as to what had happened. The driver, wearing an all-too-familiar suit, sat with his back to the traffic, a hunched figure of embarrassment, as a paramedic crouched before him, probably expressing her unhappiness at being called out during her lunch hour. One car decided to sneak through in between buses, the deafening horn of the second bus suggesting that the driver didn’t fully agree with the decision. Safely through, a quick flash of the hazard lights signalled the ambivalent thank you/sorry message that enabled the rest of the queue to return to normal breathing, each a car closer to being clear of the Mondeo.

As the Mazda crawled into position, ready to squeeze through, Dawn cast another look towards the Mondeo man. Her feet slipped off the pedals, stalling the car, as she watched him rise to his feet.

It was Nigel.

Oblivious to the blaring horns from the cars behind her as an unusually-large break in the oncoming traffic failed to be taken advantage of, Dawn sat open-mouthed, as the man who was supposed to be knocking on the door of the local patent office at that very moment ran towards her passenger door. Still barely able to comprehend what she was seeing, Dawn’s fingers acted independently to wind down the window so that Nigel’s despairing pleas – which had looked nothing short of a mad man’s ravings whilst silent to her ear – could be given the volume, and thereby the attention, he so frantically demanded.

‘Dawn! Dawn! I can’t believe it’s you! Please! Please pull over. I need your help. Urgently.’ He spoke as if every word surprised him, his breathlessness perfectly punctuating his pleas, compelling Dawn to act without any further explanation.

She reignited the engine and drove around the ambulance, narrowly missing an oncoming motorbike that had slightly misjudged just how far it could safely drift into the middle of the road, keeping in first gear throughout, the roar of the engine drowning out the obscenities drifting through the air from the obese Range Rover driver behind, who took every opportunity to turn his eyes away from the road and stare abusively in Dawn’s direction as she mounted the kerb. 

This wasn’t in the plan. Just how good was Munch that he would risk his life to get there first? Dawn sat still in her seat. She could speed away at any moment and the glory would be hers. She wouldn’t even need Jarrod’s help now. The office had been up in arms about the road-works caused by the new streetlights being put in but how good did they look now?

Whether intentionally or not, Dawn had now caused two car crashes – both saloon cars, she noted, as she once again relished her decision to buy a hatchback – and there was something rather disconcerting about the cliché that things always come in threes.

Nigel appeared at the window.

‘Oh, Dawn, you can’t believe how relieved I am to see you,’ he began, his words not quite matching the script she had anticipated. ‘Look, I really need your help. It’s an emergency.’

No-one thought more of Munch than her but surely ‘emergency’ was a little bit over the top?

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ she asked naively, demonstrating a level of detachment that would be important if he were to begin questioning why she was there too.

‘It’s my wife,’ he responded breathlessly, still appearing to be a little in shock from the crash.

‘Your wife?’ Dawn asked credulously. ‘What...what’s wrong with your wife?’

She didn’t see why she should be surprised by Nigel’s cover story. She had practically no experience of writing alibis and yet her email to Clarkson and been absolutely watertight.

‘She’s...she’s gone into labour,’ he stuttered, visibly shaking as he spoke the words. Dawn became aware that she was still sitting in her car, strapped in by the seat-belt as if she were about to leave him standing any moment. She unbuckled her belt and twisted her body round to face him fully. ‘I’m...I’m...I’m going to be a dad.’

She may have invented an illness but surely he couldn’t have invented a child?

‘Are you serious?’ she probed, half-convinced that the moment she stepped out of her car he would leap into the driver’s seat and hurtle down the road, his laughter fading into the distance as Dawn’s disconsolate figure leant against the ambulance doors. She pocketed her keys.

‘She called me half an hour ago. She’s five days overdue. I never...I mean, I just didn’t think-’ he broke off, wiping his hands over his face and looking around at what was left of the scene of the accident. ‘I’ve got to get there. Dawn, you’ve got to get me there.’ He began pacing back and forth, rubbing his hands together and mumbling to his wife to ‘hold on in there’, as if his whispered guidance would somehow be carried on the wind, across two miles of cityscape and through the window of St Margaret’s Hospital to the sweaty ear of the wife who curses his absence as the nurses tell her to ‘take it easy’, reassuring her that he will be there ‘any moment now’.

Dawn did not have the luxury of choosing her next move. Flinging open the passenger door and throwing himself into the seat next to her, Nigel compelled her to obey his every word.

‘Drive.’ He slammed the door shut, snapped the seat-belt into place and pointed to the road ahead, leaving Dawn with little choice but to nod and find her feet pressing down the pedals – her own seat-belt left unfastened – as she swerved back into the road, settling right behind the curvy rear of a Nissan Micra. In her mirror, Dawn saw the paramedic waving her arms in a bizarre act of amateur semaphore, beckoning them to return. She glanced across at Nigel’s sweating face. For all she knew, she was driving him to his death, taking him away from the life-saving treatment he needed after his collision. At least, she reasoned, they were heading to a hospital. If there was one place it was sensible to go when fleeing from a paramedic, it was a hospital.

‘I really appreciate this,’ he said, adjusting the window so that the air fanned his face. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done if I hadn’t made it.’

‘Well, we haven’t made it yet,’ Dawn responded, helpfully, before adding, ‘but I’ll get us there as quickly as I can. I promise.’

The words surprised Dawn as she heard herself speak. Whatever control she had over the patent office plan appeared to have evaporated and she had found herself embroiled in someone else’s drama.

‘I was on my way anyway,’ she added, remembering the importance of maintaining a consistent alibi.

‘What’s that?’ he asked, barely listening.

‘The hospital,’ she said, as if not wholly convinced it was a real place, ‘I was heading there anyway. It’s my grandfather. He’s pretty ill.’

Maybe he was. It sounded believable.

‘Oh. Oh, I see. I...I thought you looked a bit flustered back there. You poor thing.’ He briefly laid a hand on her left thigh before retracting it. Neither seemed to know what was appropriate anymore.

‘It’s OK,’ she replied, ‘I’ve known it was just a matter of time. It’s just that now it’s come it’s hard, you know. You never prepare yourself for these things, do you?’

Even her tear ducts seemed poise to participate in the unfolding lie.

‘Can I ask what’s wrong?’ he probed, before adding, ‘oh, take a left here, it’s a shortcut’, as the car swung down the narrow side-street without indicating.

The simplest response, the response that would pause the lie before it spiralled into unchartered territory, was to say ‘no, you can’t’, perhaps even permitting a few tears to trickle down her ever-reddening cheeks to suggest that the topic was too difficult to discuss any further. Unfortunately for Dawn, the fake illness mustered no emotional response and she found herself rifling through a list of possibilities before flip-flopping between cancer and heart disease. Cancer she at least knew something about – and could probably name about 7 different types if a question came up in a pub quiz – but it did lead to a number of awkward questions regarding treatment and lifespan, which she didn’t feel fully equipped to answer. Heart disease, on the other hand, was more of an unknown quantity, but there was nothing wrong with not knowing the technical terms was there? She would gamble on it not being Nigel’s specialist topic on Mastermind.

‘Um, it’s...it’s heart disease actually,’ she stuttered, impressed at the wobble in her throat that she managed to bring out of nowhere at the last moment, coupled with the watery eyes and sweaty palms. Having often felt so let down by her body, she was stunned at its complicity in her time of need.

‘Heart disease?’ he asked, elongating each syllable as if assessing its validity. ‘Wow. That’s pretty nasty.’

She turned to him to give him one of those ‘yes it is but I’m pulling through’ smiles, before making a right turn up the hill that led to the hospital car park. She supposed there was no getting around parking now. A ‘pay as you leave’ system would be OK but if she was forced to decide on the length of her stay on entrance then this was going to be costly; a quick thirty-minute pop-in to check on her dying grandfather wouldn’t look good.

‘So...do you know what you’re having?’ she asked, keen to redirect the focus onto the forthcoming baby.

‘No...no, not yet,’ he responded, evidently growing in agitation, as he worked his way through the fingernails of his right hand, ‘but hopefully a boy. Yeah, I’d really like a boy.’

Nigel Junior. Dressed in matching suit and matching receding hairline. Always carrying a clipboard. She shook the thought out of her head, swinging the car round the mini-roundabout before a sharp left took them into the hospital complex and towards the car park.

‘It’ll be all right,’ she commented, aiming for the most reassuring tone she could muster as he bounced, shuffled, shook and sniffed in a perpetual cycle of excitable restlessness. ‘We got here pretty quickly. She’ll be fine.’

She noticed that her hand had settled on his right thigh, mirroring his own sympathetic touch minutes earlier, but he seemed to be sensually numb, his eyes fixed on the windows of the building to his left, clearly wondering behind which his wife was bringing their son, his son, into the world.

Her right foot slammed on the brakes, preventing the third crash of the day by the smallest of margins, as the distraction of her wandering hand almost guided the Corsa into the ticket barrier. Nigel’s forehead thudded against the sun visor but there was no reaction as Dawn realigned the car and headed forwards to park. Sweat continued to pour down his twice-concussed head – thankfully not mingled with blood from the latest impact – and Dawn could detect little more than senseless mutterings as she swung into the nearest bay.

‘We’re here,’ she half-shouted, not wholly convinced that Nigel was actually conscious. His eyes remained open, sweat continued to trickle down his brow and onto his ever-dampening trousers, but there was no movement in his previously-frantic frame. She retried the thigh-touching, observing a slight twitch in his foot as her hand made contact.

‘I can’t do this,’ he said at last, Dawn retrieving her hand, ‘I can’t...I can’t be a father.’

This was not the time, the place or even the person. Ever since she had ripped off the head of her doll aged six, Dawn had insisted that she could never be a parent and, if she were honest, she couldn’t exactly see Nigel changing nappies at 3 in the morning either.

‘You’ll be fine,’ she lied, ‘everyone gets worried about it. No-one thinks they can do it but they all do in the end, don’t they?’

It was her mother’s argument when the issue had re-appeared four months earlier when Aunty Fiona had broached the topic of Dawn’s love-life. She hadn’t agreed with it then and she didn’t agree with it now.

‘No...no, it’s not that,’ he spluttered, tears mingling with the sweat, ‘I...I’ve always wanted a child.’

‘Then what’s the problem? Go in there and become a dad. Your wife needs you.’

What should have happened next was Nigel declaring ‘you’re right’ before flinging open the car door, sprinting across the car park, leaping up the stairs and bursting into the maternity unit asking every passing nurse ‘where’s my wife?’ before being pointed towards a smiling woman clutching a newborn boy. That was what the moment demanded, what the both of them knew must happen, but Nigel didn’t even shift in his seat, his belt remaining buckled. Perhaps it was the hours of waiting that he just couldn’t handle? If the baby had popped out in thirty minutes – a Heineken advert from a few years back had made it clear that this was perfectly possible – then the beautiful scene would be ready, but she could tell from the look in his eyes that he knew what really awaited him inside, his face now contorting to replicate something similar to the look his wife would give when crushing his hand at the point of greatest pain.

‘I’ve...I’ve...I’ve been having an affair.’

He slowly turned his head towards her as if expecting support and reassurance, someone to tell him that it was OK, that everyone did it, that his wife wouldn’t mind as long as he went up in there now and became the husband she needed him to be while she gave birth to their child.

Dawn stared back. So, he was a thief and an adulterer. Why didn’t he just go the whole hog and murder her right there and then?

‘Are you serious?’ was the response she finally offered, not convinced that anyone in their right mind would joke about such a thing at a time like this but Nigel had hit his head rather hard and so she couldn’t be entirely sure.

‘I didn’t mean for it to happen. It’s only been the last two months. It’s been a...mistake. A stupid, stupid mistake. But how am I supposed to go and look her in the eye now? How am I supposed to hold my baby in my arms and tell them I’ll love them forever when I haven’t lasted five years with my wife?’

He buried his head in his hands and returned to the perpetual cycle of agitation that he had been so keen on earlier.

‘You don’t love your wife?’ she asked, fully aware that she was as out of her depth as a toddler trying to swim the ocean.

‘Of course I do,’ he insisted, ‘but what sort of man does that to the woman he loves? What sort of man does that to his child?’

She reasoned it probably wouldn’t be helpful to answer his question with the words that had now appeared in her head but something had to be said, if only to get him out of the car.

‘Look. What you’ve done wasn’t right, of course it wasn’t, but you’ve got a duty to your wife and you need to go in there and be the husband she needs you to be. Make it a fresh start. Tell her if you want but whatever you do, don’t run away from this. You’ll regret it, she’ll hate you and your child will never forgive you. Believe me, you’ve got to go in there. You can do this.’

‘You really think?’

He turned to her, tears in his eyes, desperate for the assurance he needed.

‘I really think.’

Lying had become remarkably easy.

Silence reigned, as Nigel looked around the car park for inspiration, before suddenly turning to face her and shouting, ‘your grandfather!’

‘What?’ she asked, confused, ‘what about him?’

‘I’ve been such a fool.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your grandfather. Every second that passes you’re missing your chance to see him. I’m keeping you from him. I’m ruining this for you. I’m...I’m so sorry. We’ve got to go. Now!’

And with that he was out of the car, running around to the driver’s side to open the door and usher Dawn towards the hospital entrance. She found herself stepping into a jog, as Nigel picked up pace, as the fake illness once again provided the impetus for her next move. She would lose him at the reception, she reasoned, insisting he went on ahead to find his wife while she looked for the right ward.

Nothing, not even the unlocked car neglectfully left behind in the sudden rush, would ruin this for her now. Once free of Nigel she would contact Jarrod and tell him the chase was off. She would get back in the car and head home with almost four hours of the working day to spare, perhaps catching a few episodes of Cash in the Attic while eating a Munch.

Jarrod would be relieved. She could tell he hadn’t been entirely convinced that the adventure was worthwhile but she had to give him credit for being involved, even if he was probably slowly sauntering into town, hands in pockets, pausing at every second hand bookshop on his way, ‘just in case’ a bargain was to be had. She had, she reflected, simply called him up, said she needed him, and he had responded; the power was thrilling! His submission, his willing acceptance to do as she asked, whilst expected at the time was unlike anything anyone had done for her before. She had asked him to put a stop to Nigel, whatever it took, and he had been willing to –

She paused, Nigel jogging on ahead while the stationary figure of Dawn lingered dangerously close to the taxi rank. She re-saw Nigel’s car resting half-way across the lane of the road, its front bumper receiving the sturdy frame of the streetlight. She saw the ambulance, the line of traffic, the near-misses. He had promised that he would help, that he would put a stop to Nigel. Was it possible, was it even conceivable that he would take such a risk, that he would do whatever it took to bring down the man she had portrayed as an enemy who must be defeated?

‘Dawn! Dawn, come on!’ Nigel shouted, taking a few steps back to beckon her to follow. She obeyed, silently, her thoughts turned to the housemate she knew so little about, the man who spent so much time alone, thinking, imagining, fantasising. What had he done? What was he capable of? If the crash had nothing to do with him then what about any other Nigels he might come across? What would he do to them?

She staggered forwards, the reception desk catching her falling figure, as the colour drained from her face. Nigel eased her to her feet, his words lost in the haze.

She didn’t know what to think. At 5am that morning she hadn’t expected the day to bring two car crashes, a terminally-ill grandfather, a trip to the hospital and the revelation of Nigel’s affair – anything seemed possible. And yet, she knew, of course she knew, that the crash was a freak accident, that Jarrod wouldn’t have been, couldn’t have been, anywhere near the scene. The world was full of coincidences, wasn’t it? She longed for someone to share the thought, to offer a reassuring word, but who could she trust with such madness? She barely trusted herself.

She took a seat next to an elderly lady clutching her handbag tightly between her fingers, three of which had plasters wrapped around the tips, and took a deep breath as Nigel squatted before her. The lady clutched her bag tighter, clearly convinced that this was all part of the plan to steal her hand-cream and tissues, and sniffed forcibly, kick-starting a flurry of sniffs and sneezes to circulate, Mexican-wave-style, around the cramped waiting room. Dawn looked up into Nigel’s comforting eyes, their wordless exchange prompting the over-polite receptionist to lean over the desk to ask if they were OK, smiling condescendingly as Nigel nodded back.

‘I need to go and see my child,’ he whispered, licking his lips as if re-tasting the words that had seemed so unbearable before.

‘Go,’ she whispered back, ‘you’ll be fine...just...just be strong for her.’

He stroked his hand across his mouth and chin before nodding in agreement and rising to his feet.

‘And what about you? Who’ll be here to keep you strong?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ she insisted. ‘Really. Just go. I want to hear all about it tomorrow!’

He smiled a smile she hadn’t seen before, a smile that strove to conceal as much as it dared to reveal, and turned swiftly down the corridor, his hand sweeping through his sweaty hair.

She gazed at the living dead before her, some barely clinging on to the chair, let alone the breath rapidly escaping their overworked lungs. This was no place for someone with a more than healthy granddad. Far from dying of heart disease, Granddad Bobby still completed a thirty-minute round trip to the shops every morning on his 1960s bicycle and put her cousin Tom to shame last month when he defeated him in record time in a game of swing ball in her uncle’s garden. He would have looked as out of place in the waiting room as a turtle at a pie eating contest. And yet, Dawn knew, of course she knew, that any day now there would be nothing fake about his condition, no need for a watertight alibi. The truth would be watertight in itself and the truth would say that Bobby’s time was up, that the bicycle would rust away in the garage next to the swing ball set that Tom doesn’t feel like using anymore. And she would be here, perhaps seated where she is now, waiting for news, waiting for the words that would transform the worlds of so many people. The receptionist would squat, Nigel-like, before her, perhaps take her hand in hers and tell her that she could go in and say goodbye, that there were a few minutes left and that she should use them to let him know that she loved him and would never forget him. Her thoughts, unlike now, would not be on the car she had left unlocked, the office she had run out of midway through the day, the flat-mate she had connected with as never before. No-one else would matter, no-one else would control her movements, no-one else would demand sympathy and words of support from her in her time of need.

She sighed and looked at the hands before her. She would, perhaps, give Bobby a call when she got home, just to check he was OK, that no misplaced fantasies had somehow affected the reality she had been so sure of only hours earlier.

She walked slowly out of the hospital, puffing out her chest as she passed the taxi rank, and fumbled around in her pocket for her keys. A 1960s bicycle was propped up against a black metal bar, the front wheel slightly askew, and the rider – a tweed-jacket-wearing-40-something-year-old – was battling to pass the lock through the bars, whilst clutching his helmet in his left hand. He stopped to meet Dawn’s eyes across the line of taxis between them and nodded his head towards her, as though acknowledging an acquaintance, before returning to the lock. She smiled and walked on, her fingers expertly looping around the keys she was pleasantly surprised to discover lodged securely in her right trouser pocket, feeling the first drop of rain of the afternoon moments before reaching the shelter of the hospital car park.

---------

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Accidental Crime - 28

Jarrod

It came as little surprise, to Jarrod, that there was a knot in his shoelaces. Fresh from a poor untying effort the previous evening, the knot provided a timely reminder of why it was rarely a good idea to leave problems until later, as his clumsy fingers frantically picked away while every passing second increased Nigel’s advantage.

Having failed to locate a nearby patent office – the latest research indicated possible bases in Wales and London – Jarrod doubted that Nigel was in fact steaming ahead to end Dawn’s dreams for good but he had made a promise that he would assist her in the chase and therefore he would do everything in his power to save the day, whatever that might actually mean. As the clock ticked by, his powers didn’t seem to even stretch to untying a knot, but at least, he felt, the tension was growing, the drama increasing, and it would make overcoming Nigel’s threat all the more impressive once he had overcome this minor inconvenience.

His eyes fell on the white trainers precariously balanced on the shoe rack. Knotless and ready, they begged him to be substituted in, one even sliding off the rack onto the carpet beneath as if to offer an unmistakable hint that they were prepared for action. He reached a hand across before replacing it on the rack above; he could just imagine being turned away from the patent office (running with the assumption that one appeared out of nowhere) because of wearing trainers, being forced to confess to Dawn that, yes, he did get there first and, yes, he did see Nigel but, no, he didn’t manage to stop him because he was wearing the wrong shoes.

The knot finally came free, the liberation of the lace bringing greater-than-usual joy. The distraction had given him time to question afresh his acceptance of the challenge set before him, as ten minutes of surfing had merely reinforced his initial reticence, the sheer lack of reason and logic in the plan reminding him why he had been so dismissive at first. There was no patent office, not anywhere within reach anyway, and no quick way of laying his hands on Nigel’s identity. Yet, here he was, tightly tying the laces of his suede shoes and gathering money for a bus journey towards an unknown destination. He was slinging on his jacket, despite the warmth of the day, and pocketing his wallet, along with the mobile that he would use to make desperate-sounding breathless calls to Dawn as he wandered the streets. He was striding confidently down the street outside their house, as if heading in the same direction he took every day of his life, hands in his pockets to imply casualness, so as not to attract unwanted attention from intrigued passers-by. Twisting his body away from a yapping dog, he was impressed at his balance as he sidled away, regaining his composure as the bus stop approached. He was clutching his mobile through the pocket of his jacket and padding his hand against his breast pocket to check his wallet hadn’t leapt to its death moments earlier. Within two minutes he was looking up at the bus driver and handing him an extortionate amount of money, using the vague phrase ‘city centre’ to indicate his destination, before taking a seat eight rows back next to a man with a nervous twitch who sporadically looks down at the bag clutched between his fingers, half-expecting it to have been snatched by one of the many criminals boarding the bus. Within half an hour he had departed Mansfield’s living room and found himself surrounded by the Neapolitan flavours of the city he apparently shared with such people, heading towards the city centre to heroically intervene as Dawn’s future happiness – or her mood that evening at least – hung in the balance. And all because he answered the ‘phone rather than putting his needs first.

Don’t blabber, care for your bladder.

He afforded himself a smile. It was like the anti-advert to BT’s campaign from years back where dads across the country were encouraged to talk to their daughters by a growling Bob Hoskins. He had always thought he detected awkwardness in the faces of fathers forced to engage in conversation, the actors no doubt unconsciously expressing their view that they would much rather have headed to the bathroom than find themselves having to fake an interest in topics they knew nothing about. He’d made one slip, allowing himself to imagine that maybe, just maybe, the call would be about his future success, and now here he was on a bus of all things, having spent an unbelievable £3.20 on a return ticket, ready to do whatever was necessary to save his house-mate’s career.

What the hell was Munch anyway? He hadn’t even thought to ask. Had the knot not proved so problematic, perhaps he could have Googled that too? In fact, didn’t he used to eat yoghurt called Munch Bunch years ago? Had Dawn simply got rid of the Bunch? Was this what he was spending £3.20 on?

Jarrod crossed his arms and let out a deep sigh. To his left an over-dressed pensioner rested her hand on the over-sized bag that would prevent anyone taking a seat next to her. Even the tattoos emblazoned on the vested man approaching the seat failed to convince her to move her bag, his argument consisting largely, no entirely, of a stare and a point, which was quickly rebuffed with a sharp shake of a head nestling beneath a furry blue beret.

Two seats behind him sat a teenage boy who seemed to be keen on drum-dominated music, the tinny rhythms blasting through his earphones in almost hypnotic regularity, whilst the occasional half a second of silence indicated that the track had changed.

To his left, one row ahead on the other-side of the gangway, a book was clutched between the youthful fingers of a blonde, spectacled girl in her mid-teens, her soft skin tantalisingly concealing the important information gracing the cover. Every time she went to turn a page, Jarrod would almost catch a glimpse of the front cover, each time perhaps acquiring an extra letter with which to construct possible words, the limited knowledge causing him to shuffle uneasily in his seat, wondering whether it would be inappropriate to walk over and ask to see the book, just to put his mind at rest.

At the front, just boarding the bus, was a woman called Carol or Karen – it was hard to be sure amongst the ruffle of over-filled plastic bags – who seemed to know everyone. She threw her shopping onto the luggage table, just missing a toddler’s head as the 99p store logo swept past his eyes, and shuffled herself into a seat, her left thigh overhanging the edge and creating an undoubted fire-hazard should the other passengers need to make a hasty exit.

‘Oh, hello Jean,’ she called out, apparently without a megaphone clutched between her chocolate-stained fingers, leaning across to ruffle the hair of the toddler she had only moments earlier been so neglectful of. ‘Is this your youngest then? Oh, he’s a darling, in’t he? In’t you, boy?’ she insisted, re-ruffling his hair so that it took him almost a minute to restore order once Carol/Karen had moved on to her next victim.

‘Doreen!’ she screeched, a lady four rows behind her raising her Boots bag in a gesture of recognition. ‘How’s yer Kevin?’

‘Oh, not bad, not bad,’ Doreen answered, turning to look out the window as soon as the words had exited her lips.

‘I bet he is!’ she cackled, nudging the poor man sitting to her right, who had noticeably huddled closer to the side of the bus after retrieving the trapped corner of his coat from beneath her bulging frame.

Her eyes soon shifted to a well-suited gentleman clutching a briefcase who sat three rows back to her left, as Jarrod saw her scrutinise him from head to foot, clearly wondering what he was doing amongst such company. Jarrod had wondered the same the moment he had seen him take his seat, his eyes furtively looking from side to side, as if he were afraid of being spotted, before turning his attention to his Blackberry and pretending to be indulged in some highly important business. As each new passenger passed by, you could see him lowering his eyes, his head bowing lower to conceal his identity, no doubt preparing to blame his presence on a ‘lack of good taxis’ or an ‘unexpected MOT’ should anyone pluck up the courage to question his appearance.

Sitting directly in front of Jarrod was a woman who looked faintly familiar or, at least, the back of her head did. There was something highly irritating about the angles the bus seating plan established, as nothing short of a full lean-round, with all its potential for falling to the floor or tumbling head-first into the lap of the passengers in front, would bring a sufficiently clear view to ascertain whether or not the hair belonged to someone he would immediately recognise if only she offered him a glimpse of her face. Occasionally, she would turn her head slightly to the side, providing a better view of an ear, perhaps even the curvature of a cheek, but it would take a far greater movement to finally lay the mystery to rest.

Sat two rows ahead of the mystery woman were a couple – at least, their shared affinity for tattoos implied such a relationship – who seemed to be engaged in a sporadic, and remarkably public, argument. Key details were thoughtlessly omitted and heavy pronoun use made it difficult to determine just who it was that had acted wrongfully. The man appeared to be getting more frustrated but whether or not that was because he was losing wasn’t clear. What was clear was that Carol/Karen had been listening intently ever since she boarded and was now turning around to offer her thoughts on how they could best sort the situation out. Shared laughter, pointing, nods and ‘oh dears’ – decorated with an array of fruitful language – made it clear that Carol/Karen was a far more effective counsellor than Jarrod had initially given her credit for.

He would, he was sure, have fared a little better had he not been distracted by a debate on the back row concerning who Damien fancied. From the sounds of it, Abbie was the best bet, although you couldn’t be too sure about Charlotte, and Kerrie remained worth a shot. Damien, naturally, deemed it inappropriate to confess to anything, especially not with people like Jarrod listening in, and repeatedly made it clear that he wanted the conversation to stop, his phrasing propelling the bus scene into the realm of a 15 certificate, whilst the lack of variety in his vocabulary disappointed Jarrod immensely.

Directly to his left, a boy who had delivered a series of celebratory fist-pumps as he marched down the bus in recognition of his achievement at having secured a child’s ticket (60% the cost of a full adult ticket), was discovering, most likely not for the first time, all of the ring-tone options his mobile offered. Strangely, he found it essential to test each tone on the highest possible volume setting, whilst taking an ungainly amount of time over each option, somehow imagining, it seemed, that a cackling monkey – what were Nokia thinking? – would any moment segue into a piece of Beethoven, or Eminem at least. He finally settled, or so it seemed, on the default Nokia tone, putting the mobile back in his pocket before pulling it out less than thirty seconds later to check for texts.

It was the mobile phone user that boarded the bus at the sixth stop since Jarrod took his seat that caused him the greatest agitation, as he slid into the seat directly behind and proceeded to make a series of calls to numerous people called ‘Mate’, apparently fascinated to discover their immediate whereabouts, before reminding them to ‘get some in for tonight’. As the man’s spittle settled on Jarrod’s newly-washed hair, his volume steadily increased as he explained to his inquisitive absent friend that he was ‘on the bus, yeah, the bus, the bus, I said the bus’, before pausing and asking ‘can you hear me? Oh right, yeah, I think I lost you for a moment. I said I’m on the bus. The bus! Yeah, the bus, yeah. That’s right, mate. The bus.’

If secret intelligence services really did listen in to people’s calls then this would surely give them reason enough to shut up shop now and head home for the day.

‘Are you going to get some?’ the man continued. ‘Yeah? Well, just get some, mate. I can’t do it for you, can I? I’m on the bus.’

Jarrod longed to shake his head in despair – and to shake off the spittle he could feel clinging to his hair – but he had found himself sitting in the one seat that made such a response impossible. He could, perhaps, seek to explain the shake if forced to by pulling out his own mobile and claiming that he had just read a message that had disappointed him greatly.

He became increasingly aware of the spittle, desperate to restore dry order to the hair he had briefly admired once more in the mirror before leaving the house twenty minutes earlier. He could hardly save the day with another man’s saliva in his hair.

The man behind him began to laugh loudly – presumably into the ‘phone – and Jarrod seized his chance. Running his fingers from the forehead to the crown, he paused briefly before sweeping down the back and smoothing down the slightly-dampened hair with a second swipe of his right hand.

What Jarrod hadn’t accounted for was the man’s laughter causing him to rock forwards in his seat at the exact moment that his hand swept rapidly down the back of his head. As if attempting to sabotage the man’s plans, Jarrod’s hand had knocked the mobile out of his hand, sending it flying into the gangway and skidding towards the front of the bus as gravity cruelly carried it away from the man’s despairing reach, the driver accelerating down the city’s steepest hill. Jarrod found his neck muscles stiffening, as the man’s rapid intake of breath signalled his sudden realisation at what was happening. The approaching bus stop was encouraging a few of the passengers to get to their feet in anticipation and it was then that Jarrod noticed a character he had given little attention to before.

Rising to his feet – seemingly in slow motion – was a tall man with long-dark hair running down the back of a full-length leather jacket. As Jarrod’s eyes returned to the floor of the bus he saw for the first time that the man was wearing heavy-duty boots, boots which were now shuffling away from their seated position and beginning to step into the gangway. Jarrod was sure that everyone must be seeing what he was seeing but there was no time to check their eyes – the man behind him barely had time to enunciate the ‘n’ of his screaming ‘No!’ when a crunching sound sent a reverberating hush around the bus. The tall man lifted his left boot, his head bowed low, before bringing it forwards again and continuing to stride past the driver and out onto the street. Jarrod’s eyes remained on his stony figure as he walked back past the length of the bus, his face displaying little recognition of what his feet had just done, before returning to the mangled mobile that was attracting the attention of every eagle-eyed passenger.

It was Carol/Karen’s outburst of ‘well, would you look at that?’ that finally broke the silence – the comical applause Jarrod had hoped for never did materialise – but it was the sound of the man behind him panting and cursing that rang loudest in Jarrod’s ear, particularly as at least some of the words seemed to be directed at him. A hand landed on his shoulder and Jarrod knew that this was it. Killed for brushing his hair. It was no way to go.

The bus doors were still ajar but everyone who planned to leave had shuffled away and it was only the steady flow of traffic that was preventing the driver from pulling away and continuing the journey. Jarrod pushed his hands against the seat and propelled himself forwards, half-skipping, half-sprinting down the bus, not looking back to see if he was being followed, and hurled himself through the doors, Indiana-Jones style, just before they shut. This time there was applause, as the toddler clapped his hands together frantically, giggling and pointing from the window at Jarrod’s crumbled heap, along with the elderly couple he had inadvertently collided with upon his unscheduled exit from the bus.

It disappointed Jarrod greatly that his first thought upon getting to his feet was not concern for those he had felled but rather irritation that, after all that, this wasn’t his stop. As a more proactively helpful member of society eased the couple to their feet, Jarrod came to his senses and muttered a string of apologies and explanations that seemed to do little to wipe the look of horror and disgust off their faces. Thankfully, the fall had been cushioned by a tartan shopping trolley and Jarrod was pretty sure that the man’s limp could be explained by his walking stick and had nothing whatsoever to do with being pushed to the ground by a man leaping from a departing bus.

He smoothed his clothes down, as if to suggest that he had complete control over the stuntman-like tumble he had taken, and looked up at the street sign ahead. Slightly-limping, he strode forwards as quickly as he could in the vague direction of the city centre, his mind punishing him by pointing out that he would now be the enemy in the story that elderly couple would tell their grandchildren later that evening, reminding him that he would forever more be needing to watch his back while walking these streets, never knowing when vengeance might come. It was, in fact, a crushing blow to his determination to be a hero that afternoon and, as he casually jay-walked while others stood waiting for the green man to signal their safe crossing, he realised that it would take some effort to become the saviour Dawn had expected him to be.

His mobile vibrated.

How’s it going? Stuck in traffic L  Any sign of Nigel? Dx

He may have destroyed a man’s mobile, leapt off the bus three stops early and knocked an elderly couple to the ground, but Jarrod had achieved an ‘x’ from Dawn.

He paused where he was and considered his reply, his sudden stationary figure causing a stressed mother to swerve dangerously past him with her pram, whilst all he could think about was the way in which he should end the text. Forget the details, forget the information. What mattered was, was this the moment, was this the time, to join Dawn in her use of the ‘x’?

About 300 yards ahead he saw a man hurtling down the street, fists clenched, barging aside any who dared stand in his way.

‘You!’ he screamed in Jarrod’s direction, pointing his finger before returning it to the fist and increasing his speed.

Jarrod had forgotten how little distance there was between the stops. Clearly the past minute hadn’t proven long enough for the man to forgive and forget Jarrod’s assistance in the murder of his mobile.

This was no time for considering the pros and cons of adding an ‘x’ after his name. This was a time to run.

He knew he should have worn the white trainers.

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