The Replacement Phenomenon

  The other man was probably just behind the first. Jake kicked the door hard, noticing that it hit something which stopped it from closing, most likely the second intruder. He kicked it again with all of his weight behind it, and heard a thud just before it stubbornly reached the door frame and fully closed. The key was still in the door, so Jake turned it, locking the person out.

  He suddenly remembered something from yesterday. They had guns. He dived to his right from behind the door just as he heard the sound of a bullet being fired. A second later Jake felt a searing pain in the calf muscle of his left leg. He looked down to see a tear in his trousers, and blood coming from the back of his leg. As he lifted his trouser leg up, he saw that the bullet which was fired had barely grazed the back of his calf muscle. He looked at the front door, which now had a perfectly round hole in it. Looking backwards towards the stairs, he saw a bullet lodged in the second step from the bottom

  What were the chances? One bullet fired, and one injury. The movies were littered with people who could take on tens and hundreds of bad guys, all armed with machine guns, whilst they themselves only had a pistol. Odds stacked against such people, but they managed to escape with little more than scruffy hair and possibly a small cut on their cheek. He always wondered why the bad guys were always such a terrible shot. Surely an evil boss would spare the time or the expense to get his henchmen shooting lessons.

  Anyway, he was side-tracked again. How could his mind wander now? What was wrong with him? He couldn't even concentrate on the events of the moment when he was being shot at!

  Jake searched the pockets of the unconscious man until he found his gun in the inside jacket pocket. He felt tempted to take the suit. The man was almost his height, and it was much better than his one. He grinned at that, and then set about getting rid of the other guy. He'd never fired a gun before in his life, so he didn't much like his odds in a shoot-out. He went back to the unconscious man and searched the rest of the pockets to see what else he could find. Two spare clips for the gun, a small flick knife, and a wallet. Here was a man who was well armed, and not too concerned about giving away his identity if captured.

  Jake grabbed one of the fold-out metal chairs they had stored in a cupboard under the stairs, along with a large amount of string, duct tape, and whatever else he could find that he could use to tie this man up. He lifted the man onto the chair with great difficulty. He was heavier than he looked.

  The man outside the house started shouting. He sounded muffled through the thick walls but Jake could just about make out what he was saying. “Mr Hingham! Well done for springing our trap and catching my colleague.” Jake taped the other man's legs together, and then he taped them to the metal chair.

  “We have an interesting situation now. I have a quota to meet, either with or without my friend.”

  Jake continued to tape the man to the chair, using almost an entire roll of tape.

  “The neighbours can hear this now, Jake. They're involved. But guess what? One of them was already! You see that empty house over the road from you?” The house in question had been up for sale for the past three months. The previous owners had to move quickly, but didn't have time to sell before they did. That's how they had been watching him and his family. Someone had been watching them from the house exactly opposite theirs.

  Jake pulled up another metal chair and sat opposite the man he had tied up in his home. Blood was dripping from his mouth. Hopefully Amy would understand when it came time to clean the carpet. He'd knocked out or loosened probably half of the guy's teeth. He may have even broken his jaw.

  He looked through the guy's wallet. He wanted to know who he was about to talk to when he woke up. He found a driving license. The picture matched that of the man sitting opposite Jake, a younger looking Boris Stedgaard. The name was probably of German origin. Not a name one would usually associate with a contract killer. He started to wonder what kind of name he might associate with a serial killer. That was something he could think about at a later time.

  Jake moved through the house quickly, turning off all of the lights. He didn't want the man outside to know where in the house he was. He went upstairs and had a look outside the bay doors. He could see the back half of the car in his driveway. He edged towards the balcony until he could see the whole car. Boris's colleague was not by the car. He was probably still by the front door. The shouting had stopped for the moment. Jake needed to find out where he was hiding, and why he'd gone so quiet all of a sudden.

  He moved quietly back down the stairs. “Boris wants me to say hi!” he shouted. “If he could talk he would say not to get too lonely without him.”

  “Oh, come on Jake. Don't let your last words be sarcasm!” came the reply. He was still by the front door. Jake hurried upstairs with a new idea. The balcony was directly above the front door. If he could find something heavy, and if he was lucky enough, he could drop it over the edge onto the man below.

  As Jake searched the rooms for something heavy that he could still lift over the balcony, he decided that he was sick of thinking of the man outside as “the man.” He thought he would give him a name. “How about the name Bill?” he whispered to himself, smirking. “Boris and Bill, the contract killers.” How cute, he thought.

  He looked across his bedroom and noticed the solid wood bedside cabinet. He could lift that. He took out the three drawers and dragged it along the floor towards the balcony in the hallway. He quietly opened the doors, and lifted the drawers, ready to plunge it down on top of 'Bill' below.

  Just as Jake lifted the heavy object above his head, he heard something. The phone was ringing. He peered over the edge of the balcony to see the man move to the window as he tried to look through the glass to see what was going on. He lowered the drawers a little. “Why does that always happen when you're in the middle of something!” he whispered in frustration. Eventually the ringing stopped and Bill moved to his former position just in front of the door, inspecting it as if he was considering trying to kick the door in. Jake gave one last heave and sent the unit flying over the edge. A worried cry came from below, just before he heard the sound of wood breaking into hundreds of pieces on a concrete step. Jake dared to look over the edge to satisfy his curiosity. A perfect hit.

  Whoever had hired these men did not go searching for the brightest or sharpest tools in the box. One peered around a vacant doorway, and the other stood underneath the obvious danger of a balcony, expecting Jake to give up and throw the door open. Maybe he just didn't want to upset the neighbours with more shouting and gunfire than was absolutely necessary.

  It was obvious that the man now underneath the bedside cabinet pieces was no longer moving. Jake had another man to tie up.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Amy hung up the phone. Jake had been gone for ten minutes and was not answering the phone at home. It was only a two or three minute drive to their house from Lynn's home. She was growing more and more concerned as she imagined what Jake might be up to.

  She started to suspect there was something more to what he said earlier than he revealed to her. It was more than a bad feeling or a bad dream. What had he gotten involved in? She shook her head in response to her own thoughts. Maybe she was just paranoid. Knowing what Jake was like, someone from work probably called with some dilemma. He wasn’t any less polite with phone conversations than he was with face-to-face discussions. She needed to have a serious conversation with her husband about his tolerance of others. At some point he would need to stand up for himself.

  “We'll have to eat without him. You know what he’s like. The food will be stale by the time he gets back,” Lynn said, bringing Amy out of her apparent daze.

  “I understand. Who knows what he's up to?” she replied. “Maybe he forgot something else on his way back?” She smiled. That was probably more like it. Her husband was many things. He could be charming, funny, caring, and more often than not, intelligent. But considering all of that, he could be completely absent minded someti
mes.

  The four of them sat at the table, with one seat still empty, and ate the prepared sandwiches, leaving a selected few for Jake on his return. Lynn talked about her adventures over the past two weeks or so since they'd dropped by, but Amy was not really listening. Her attention was mostly fixed on the unusual cat-shaped clock on the wall, and its swaying tail moving back and forth as a pendulum. Where was Jake, and what was he doing?

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  The other hired goon didn't have a wallet in any of his pockets. He seemed like the slightly more sensible of the two, and clearly didn't want to be identified if he was caught. Jake thought he'd still refer to him as Bill, regardless of what his real name might be. Whatever his name was, he was tied up even better than Boris had been. If either of those two got out of their seats, they were better escape artists than they were hit-men.

  Jake was searching through their silver Mercedes. The front seats and the glove compartment held nothing unusual. The back of the car was empty. Maybe the boot held the answers he was looking for. There wasn't much there either. No insurance documents, no drivers licence, not even a shred of paper explaining their assignment or giving directions.

  Jake could not prove that they were supposed to be there. Then he remembered the brief conversation with Bill when he was outside the house and still awake. He knew the family names. In fact, on their first approach Boris called out his wife's name. This was no mistake. He needed to find out why they were hunting his family.

  After searching the car he found only what could be seen from anywhere around it - the license plate number. He could get something from this. He'd need the help of one of the policemen when they eventually arrived. What was taking them so long? It had been half an hour since he had made the call. Maybe they'd thought it was a hoax. Maybe they were all currently on call elsewhere and didn't see a potential shooting as being that big a deal. He didn't know why they weren't there, he just knew they should be.

  He smirked as he thought of a bunch of overweight guys in police uniforms that used to fit them, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts. Years of TV shows set a stereotype that police forces around the world must now find hard to shift.

  Jake walked slowly back to the house, closed the door, and turned to face the hired goons in the lounge. They were still tied down as they were when he left them, but Boris was moving slightly, and groaning. Jake noticed more blood on Boris than there was before. His mouth was still bleeding. That shouldn't have surprised him. Being hit on the underside of his jaw probably did more than just hurt him. It was more than likely that Boris had a jaw broken in at least one place as well as a gummed mouth. Jake imagined Boris awake and spitting teeth at him.

  The carpet was no longer the light blue it had been an hour ago. It was mostly covered with dark red patches, with the occasional piece of broken glass or wood. Jake's left calf muscle felt sore with every step he took. He'd washed the graze and treated it with antiseptic cream and had bandaged that portion of his leg. It would take a few days for the pain to go away, but he preferred the pain to the alternative. He could have been caught by the bullet full on, possibly ruining his leg. If the goon had shot further up the door then Jake might even have been killed in the attack. He couldn't bear to think about that.

  He stood by the door to the kitchen, looking for things that might help his guests to talk. He needed information. Who were they? Who were they working for? What would happen if they didn't return? He turned around to see Boris staring at him with a look which combined hate and fear on his face.

  “Sleep well?” Jake couldn't help but be sarcastic.

  “When I get out of this chair you'll be lucky to get off with just broken teeth.” The reply was slurred.

  “So Boris, I can see you don't like me much. I completely understand why. If you can tell me who you work for I'll leave you alone until the police arrive.” He said nothing. He knew extracting information from them would be difficult, and he was not exactly trained in torture techniques. He failed dismally in attempts to get the truth out of his two sons, let alone two strangers involved in criminal activity.

  Jake stood up from the seat stationed opposite Boris and Bill and headed for the kitchen. He opened the first cupboards he came to. Inside he found ketchup, vinegar, salt, pepper, chocolate sauce, and lemon juice. He knew it was mean, but he could help himself. He picked up the small plastic lemon shaped container and walked triumphantly back to Boris.

  Jake opened the container and held it by Boris's mouth. “I don't really know how painful this will be, but I'm hoping it won't be soothing.” He still looked defiant. “Who are you working for?” No answer. “Why did you come for my family?” There was still no answers forthcoming.

  Jake squeezed the container, throwing lemon juice into the cut and bleeding mouth of the hostage. Boris's yell proved to Jake that this might just work. He knew he couldn't injure them any more now without the police assuming he'd used unreasonable force, but he could make their existing injuries hurt more. “I don't even know who we're working for.” came the slurred shout from Boris. “We only got a place to pick up the money when it was done.” He didn't speak with a German accent. He sounded more like he had grown up in Birmingham.

  “Good enough. Where was that?”

  “It doesn't matter. He'll know we've failed. He won't be there now.”

  “Is that all you have? No more information than that?” Jake asked.

  “What do you expect - a name, address and telephone number? I'm not Directory Enquiries. They only tell us what we need to know to get the job done.”

  Jake saw flashes of red and blue and heard a siren. They'd arrived. “You weren't even supposed to be here.” Boris spat at Jake, with what seemed a lot like a tooth hitting his jacket.

  It was time to see what the police could figure out.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  The two police officers weren't the stereotypical policemen that Jake had imagined earlier in the evening. One was old, tall, black, and heavily built, and the other was a fairly plain looking but thin woman in her mid-thirties. Neither of them looked as if they'd been eating doughnuts all day. In fact, neither of them looked like they'd ever eaten a doughnut. The police here in the Durham Constabulary obviously kept in good shape as far as he could tell. Of course, that opinion was now based on only four police officers. He hadn't associated with any others in this town before this night, other than another two young slim police officers he'd encountered on his yesterday. He had no reason to speak to them previously.

  They could give him some insight into what was going on, but not much more than he had already figured out. Several murders had happened in the local community over the past week. They knew someone was orchestrating the attacks, but they did not know who (or at least they weren't telling Jake). They kept telling him that they had several leads, but needed time to investigate them before they could comment.

  Whilst the woman was explaining the situation to Jake, someone called for her on her walkie-talkie. They knew who the vehicle belonged to. Jake didn't hear everything the guy on the other end said, but he did hear the words "stolen yesterday" in there somewhere. The policewoman, patting her pockets with the palms of her hands, discovered she'd left her notebook behind. “Do you have a notepad and a pen, sir?” She asked. Jake obliged and she wrote on the top of his telephone message pad, tore off the top sheet, and handed it back with the pen with a thank you.

  Within minutes of the message coming through the police were leaving with the men Jake had apprehended, minus the chairs they had been taped to. They'd told Jake that they would return to sort out the crime scene in the morning, and that in the meantime he shouldn't stay at the house. That was different to the previous day where the crime had happened in front of the house, and forensic scientists were there and gone in a matter of minutes. This time the crime scene was spread throughout the property and a forensic team didn't class apprehension of two criminals in the same category as a triple homicide.

/>   He responded the officers by telling them it was not his intention to stay in the house tonight anyway, then before he knew it they were gone. He apologised to the Robinsons for abandoning his car in front of their house and was soon on his way back to his sister's house.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Jake sat in his sister's house with his family. He held a piece of paper from his phone notepad in his hand and was staring at it whilst talking to them. It was the sheet underneath the one the police wrote on. He'd shaded over it with a pencil and could make out most of what was written on it. The writing looked like “178 Avenham Square”. Maybe he'd figure out what happened by visiting the house next week. For now, he wouldn't let two hurt legs get in the way of a weekend away with his family. He was relieved the day was finally over, at the second time of asking. With the scars, bruises, injuries and flesh wounds he had suffered, he clearly was not built for an ordeal such as this. The day was over and life could return to normal.

 

  CHAPTER 4

  Thursday 29th January, 7:30am

  Jake awoke very confused, as he had done yesterday. He opened his eyes to see the ceiling of his bedroom once again. For the second day in a row his world had changed substantially overnight and he had not woken up in the same circumstances in which he'd gone to bed. He went to bed in a hotel, but he woke up in his own bed to the sound of his alarm.

  He looked at the glowing digits of his alarm clock. Not only did he definitely not set his alarm clock last night, but he definitely did not go to bed in the same building, or even the same town or county as the alarm clock. He went to bed in a hotel in Teesside. He woke up in Darlington again.

  He looked around the room after flicking the light on. He glanced at his daily flip calendar. It read 29th January. That wasn't even yesterday, it was the day before. Maybe some unusual twist in time had somehow resulted in him not setting his calendar to the right date on retiring to bed. What day was it? Was it really the day before yesterday? If so, then why had he gone back another day?