‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘It’s in the safe. It’s got a time lock.’
‘Bollocks,’ he said. He waved the gun at me, making me back up against the wall. What happened next was not what I expected. He grabbed the computer keyboard and pulled it across the desk. Then he turned the monitor round so it was facing him. With the hand that wasn’t holding the gun, he did a few mouse clicks and then a bit of typing. I tried to edge out of his line of fire, but he wasn’t having any. ‘Fucking stand still,’ he grunted.
Then he turned the screen back to face me and this time I nearly crapped myself. It was a live camera feed from my livingroom. Margo and Darren were huddled together on the sofa, eyes wide. Opposite them, his back to the camera, was another big fucker with a shotgun. The picture was a bit fuzzy and wobbly, but there was no mistake about it. Along the bottom of the picture, the seconds ticked away.
‘My oppo’s only a phone call away. Now are you going to fill the fucking holdall?’ he demanded.
Well, I wasn’t going to argue, was I? Not with my wife and kid facing a shooter. So I went to the safe. It hasn’t got a time lock. Head Office wouldn’t spend that kind of money. We’re just told to say that to try and put off nutters like the big fucker who was facing me down in my own office. I was sweating so much my fingers were slipping off the keypad. But I managed it at the second go, and a shovelled the bags of cash into his bag as fast as I could.
‘Good boy,’ he said when I’d finished.
I thought it was all over then. How wrong can you get?
‘On your knees,’ he ordered me. I didn’t know what was going on. Part of me thought he was going to blow me away anyway. I was so fucking scared I could feel the tears in my eyes. I knew I was on the edge of losing it. Of begging him for my life. Only one thing stopped me. I just couldn’t believe he was going to kill me. I mean, I know it happens. I know people get topped during robberies. But surely only if they put up a fight? And surely only when the robber is out of control? But this guy was totally calm. He could afford to be – his oppo’s gun was still pointing straight at Margo and Darren.
So I fell to my knees.
Just thinking about what came next makes me retch. He dropped the gun to his side, at an angle so the barrel dug right into my gut. Then he unzipped his trousers and pulled out his cock. ‘Suck my dick,’ he said.
My head jerked back and I stared at him. I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. ‘You what?’
‘Suck my dick,’ he said again, thrusting his hips towards me. His half-hard cock dangled in front of my face. It was the sickest thing I’d ever heard. It wasn’t enough for this fucking pervert to terrorise my wife and kid and rob my safe. He wanted me to give him a blow job.
The gun jammed harder into me. ‘Just fucking do it,’ he said.
So I did.
He grabbed my hair and stopped me pulling back when I gagged. ‘That’s it. You know you want to,’ he said softly, like this was something normal. Which it wasn’t, not in any bloody sense.
It felt like it took a lifetime for him to come, but I suppose it was only a few minutes. When I felt his hot load hitting the back of my throat, I nearly bit his cock off in revulsion. But the gun in my chest and the thought of what might happen to Margo and Darren kept me inside the limits.
He stepped back, tucking himself away and zipping up. ‘I enjoyed that,’ he said.
I couldn’t lift my head up. I felt sick to my stomach. And not just from what I’d swallowed either.
‘Wait half an hour before you call the cops. We’ll be watching, and if there’s any funny business, your wife and kid get it. OK?’ I nodded. I couldn’t speak.
The last thing he did before he left was to help himself to the tape from the video surveillance system that is fed by the camera in my office. In a funny kind of way, I was almost relieved. I didn’t want to think about that tape being played in the police station. Or in a courtroom, if it ever came to it.
So I did what I was told. I gave it thirty-five minutes, to be on the safe side. The police arrived like greased lightning. I thought things would get more normal then. Like The Bill or something. But it was my night for being well in the wrong. Because that’s when things started to get seriously weird.
They’d sent a crew round to the house to check the robbers had kept their word and released Margo and Darren. They radioed back sounding pretty baffled. Turned out Margo was watching the telly and Darren was in his room playing computer games. According to them, that’s what they’d been doing all evening. Apart from when Margo had been on the phone to her mate Cheryl. Which had been more or less exactly when I’d supposedly been watching them being held hostage.
That’s when the cops started giving me some very fucking funny looks. The boss, a DI Golightly, definitely wasn’t living up to his name. ‘So how did chummy get in?’ he demanded. ‘There’s no sign of forced entry at the back. And even though they were all eyes down inside the hall, I doubt they would have missed a six foot gunman walking through from the foyer.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It should all have been locked up. The last person out would have been Liz Kirby. She called the session before the last one.’
By that time, they had the CCTV tapes of the car park. You could see the robber emerge from the shadows on the edge of the car park and walk up to the door. You couldn’t see the gun, just the holdall. He opened the door without a moment’s hesitation. So that fucking doozy Liz had left it unlocked.
‘Looks like he walked straight in,’ Golightly said. ‘That was lucky for him, wasn’t it?’
‘I told you. It should have been locked. Look, I’m the victim here.’
He looked me up and down. ‘So you say,’ he said, sounding like he didn’t believe a word of it. Then he wound the tape further back so we could see Liz leaving. And bugger me if she didn’t turn round and lock the door behind her. ‘How do you explain that?’ he said.
All I could do was shrug helplessly.
He kept the digs and insinuations up for a while. He obviously thought there was a chance I was in it up to my eyeballs. But there was fuck all proof so he had to let me go in the end. It was gone four in the morning by the time I got home. Margo was well pissed off. Apparently half the crescent had been glued to their windows after the flashing blue lights had alerted them that there was something more interesting than Big Brother going on outside their own front doors. ‘I was black affronted,’ Margo kept repeating. ‘My family’s never had the police at their door.’ Like mine were a bunch of hardened criminals.
I didn’t sleep much. Every time I got near to dropping off, I got flashbacks of that sick bastard’s cock. I’ve never so much as touched another man’s dick, not even when I was a kid. I almost wished I’d let the sad sack of shite shoot me.
DICKSON
Everything I am, I owe to my mam. She taught me that I was as good as anybody else, that there was nothing I couldn’t do if I wanted to. She also taught me the meaning of solidarity. Kick one, and we all limp. They should have that on the signs that tell drivers they’re entering our town, right below the name of that Westphalian town we’re twinned with.
So when she told me and my da what that prize prick Keith Corbett had planned for her and the other women at the Roxette, I was livid. And I was determined to do whatever I could to stop it happening. My mam and da have endured too bloody much already; they deserve not to have the rug pulled out from under them one more time.
After we’d had our tea, Da and I went down to the club. But I only stayed long enough to do some basic research. I had other fish to fry. I got on the mobile and arranged to meet up with Liz’s daughters, Lauren and Shayla. Like me, they found a way out of the poverty trap that has our town between its teeth. They were always into computers, even at school. They both went to college and got qualifications in IT and now they run thei
r own computer consultancy up in Newcastle. I had the germ of an idea, and I knew they’d help me make it a reality.
We met up in a nice little country pub over by Bishop Auckland. I told them what Corbett had in mind, and they were as angry as me. And when I laid out the bare bones of my plan, they were on board before I was half a dozen sentences into it. Right from the off, they were on side, coming up with their own ideas for making it even stronger and more foolproof.
It was Shayla who came up with the idea of getting Corbett to suck me off. At first, I was revolted. I thought it was grotesque. Over the top. Too cruel. I’ll be honest. I’ve swung both ways in my time. Working in theatre and telly, there’s plenty of opportunities to explore the wilder shores of experience. But having a bit of fun with somebody you fancy is a far cry from letting some sleaze like Corbett anywhere near your tackle.
‘I’d never be able to get it up,’ I protested.
They both laughed. ‘You’re a bloke,’ Lauren said dismissively. ‘And you’re an actor. Just imagine he’s Jennifer Aniston.’
‘Or Brad Pitt,’ Shayla giggled.
‘I think even Olivier might have had problems with that,’ I sighed, knowing I was outgunned and outnumbered. It was clear to me that now I’d brought them aboard, the two women were going to figure out a battle plan in which I was to be the foot soldier, the cannon fodder and the SAS, all rolled into one.
The first – and the most difficult – thing we had to do was to plant a fibre-optic camera in Corbett’s lounge. We tossed around various ideas, all of which were both complicated and risky. Finally, Lauren hit on the answer. ‘His lad’s about twelve, thirteen, isn’t he?’ she asked.
I nodded. ‘So I heard down the club.’
‘That’s sorted then,’ she said. ‘I can get hold of some games that are at the beta-testing stage. We can knock up a letter telling Darren he’s been chosen to test the games. Offer him a fee. Then I pick my moment, roll up at the house before he gets home. She’s bound to invite me in and make me a cup of tea. I’ll find somewhere to plant the camera and we’re rolling.’
And that’s exactly how it played out. Lauren got into the house, and while Margo Corbett was off making her a brew, she stuck the camera in the middle of a dried flower arrangement. Perfect.
The next phase was the most frustrating. We had to wait till we had the right set of pictures to make the scam work. For three nights, we filmed Corbett’s living-room, biting our nails, wondering how long it would take for mother and son to sit down together and watch something with enough dramatic tension. We cracked it on the Monday night, when Channel Five was showing a horror movie. Darren and Margo sat next to each other, huddling closer as the climaxes piled up.
Then it was Shayla’s turn. She spent the rest of Monday night and most of Tuesday putting together the short digital film that we would use to make sure Corbett did what he was told. Lauren had already filmed me against a blue background waving around the replica sawnoff shotgun we’d used as a prop last series. It hadn’t been hard to liberate it from the props store. They’re incredibly sloppy, those guys. Shayla cut the images in so it looked like I was standing in the Corbett’s living-room threatening his nearest and dearest. I have to say, the end result was impressive and, more importantly, convincing.
Now we were ready. We chose Wednesday night to strike. Lauren had managed to get hold of her mam’s keys and copied the one for the Roxette’s back door. While the last session of the evening was in full swing, she’d slipped out and unlocked the door so I could walk straight in.
It all went better than I feared. You’d have thought Corbett was working from the same script, the way he caved in and did what he was told. And in spite of my fears, the girls had been right. My body didn’t betray us.
I made my getaway without a problem and drove straight to Newcastle. Shayla got to work on the video, transferring it to digital, doing the edit and transferring it back to VHS tape again. I packed the money into a box and addressed it to Children in Need, ready to go in the post in the morning, then settled down to wait for Shayla.
The finished video was a masterpiece. We’d all been in Tyson Herbert’s office for a drink at one time or another, so we knew where the video camera was. I’d been careful to keep my body between the camera and the gun for as much time as possible, which meant Shayla had been able to incorporate quite a lot of the original video. We had footage of Corbett packing the money into the holdall. Even better, we had the full blow job on tape without a single frame that showed the gun.
The final challenge was to deliver the video to Corbett without either the police or his wife knowing about it. In the end, we went for something we’d done on a stupid TV spy series I’d had a small part in a couple of years previously. We waited till he’d set off in the car, heading down the A1 towards our town. I followed him at a discreet distance then I called him on his mobile.
‘Hello, Keith. This is your friend from last night.’
‘You fucking cunt.’
‘That’s no way to speak to a man whose dick you’ve had in your mouth,’ I said, going as menacing as I could manage. ‘Listen to me. Three point four miles past the next exit, there’s a lay-by. Pull over and take a look in the rubbish bin. You’ll find something there that might interest you.’ I cut the call and dialled Lauren. ‘He’s on his way,’ I told her.
‘OK, I’ll make the drop.’
I came off the dual carriageway at the exit before the lay-by. I waited three minutes, then got back on the road. When I passed the lay-by, Corbett was standing by the bin, the padded envelope in his hand.
I sped past, then called him again a few minutes later. ‘These are the edited highlights,’ I told him. ‘I’ll call you in an hour when you’ve had a chance to check it out.’
He wasn’t any happier when I made the call. ‘You bastard,’ he exploded. ‘You total fucking bastard. You’ve made it look like we were in it together.’
‘So we are, Keith,’ I said calmly. ‘You do something for me, and I won’t send copies of the tape to the cops and your wife.’
‘You blackmailing piece of shit,’ he shouted.
‘I’ll take that as a yes, shall I?’
NOREEN
You could have knocked me down with a feather. I didn’t know what to expect when I turned up that Thursday for work, but it wasn’t what happened. I knew about the robbery by then – the whole town was agog. I thought the Cobra would be pretty shaken up, but I didn’t expect a complete personality change.
Before I’d even got my coat off, he was in the staff-room, all smiles and gritted teeth. ‘Noreen,’ he said. ‘A word, please?’
‘How are you feeling, Mr Corbett?’ I asked. ‘That must have been a terrible experience.’
He looked away, almost as if he was ashamed. ‘I don’t want to discuss it.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Noreen, I might have been a bit hasty the other day. I’ve come to realise how much of the atmosphere at the Roxette depends on you and the girls.’
I couldn’t believe my ears. I couldn’t think of a single word to say. I just stood there with my mouth open.
‘So, if you’d be willing to stay on, I’d like to offer you your job back.’
‘What about the other girls? Liz and Jackie and Julie?’ I couldn’t have accepted if they weren’t in the deal.
He nodded, although it looked as if the movement gave him pain. ‘All four of you. Full reinstatement.’
‘That’s very generous of you,’ I managed to say. Though what I really wanted was to ask him if he’d taken a blow to the head during the robbery.
He grimaced, his tight little face closed as a pithead. ‘And if you still want to do the Children in Need night, we could make it next Friday,’ he added, each word sounding like it was choked out of him.
‘Thank you,’ I said. I took a quick look
out of the window to see if there were any pigs flying past, but no. Whatever had happened inside the Cobra’s head, the rest of the world seemed to be going on as normal.
And he was as good as his word. I don’t know what changed his mind, but the four calling birds are back behind the balls at the Roxette. I still can’t quite believe it, but as our Dickson reminded me, I’ve always said there’s good in everybody. Sometimes, you just have to dig deep to find it.
The Consolation Blonde
Awards are meaningless, right? They’re always political, they’re forgotten two days later and they always go to the wrong book, right? Well, that’s what we all say when the prize goes somewhere else. Of course, it’s a different story when it’s our turn to stand at the podium and thank our agents, our partners and our pets. Then, naturally enough, it’s an honor and a thrill.
That’s what I was hoping I’d be doing that October night in New York. I had been nominated for Best Novel in the Speculative Fiction category of the US Book Awards, the national literary prizes that carry not only prestige but also a fifty thousand dollar check for the winners. Termagant Fire, the concluding novel in my King’s Infidel trilogy, had broken all records for a fantasy novel. More weeks in the New York Times bestseller list than King, Grisham and Cornwell put together. And the reviews had been breathtaking, referring to Termagant Fire as ‘the first novel since Tolkien to make fantasy respectable’. Fans and booksellers alike had voted it their book of the year. Serious literary critics had examined the parallels between my fantasy universe and America in the defining epoch of the Sixties. Now all I was waiting for was the imprimatur of the judges in the nation’s foremost literary prize.
Not that I was taking it for granted. I know how fickle judges can be, how much they hate being told what to think by the rest of the world. I understood only too well that the succes d’estime the book had enjoyed could be the very factor that would snatch my moment of glory from my grasp. I had already given myself a stiff talking-to in my hotel bathroom mirror, reminding myself of the dangers of hubris. I needed to keep my feet on the ground, and maybe failing to win the golden prize would be the best thing that could happen to me. At least it would be one less thing to have to live up to with the next book.