Lost Property - Part 4

Jonas begins to empty the bag which is on the table behind Tom, who is now straining to look behind him to see what is being removed from it. One by one Jonas removes the items from the bag. A copy of the Manchester Evening News newspaper from two days ago. A black fibre ink pen. A large industrial staple handgun, and a device that looks like a small mobile phone. Jonas switches the device on and presses some of the numbered keys on the front of the unit. He places the unit on the table and it begins to beep. Slowly, one beep a second. After a while, the same beeping can be heard in the flat, but from where? Tom looks puzzled, frowning at the two men. The beeping in the flat is louder and beeps after the unit on the table. They are almost in sync. Where is it coming from? The two men look at each other and smile. Kamile looks at Tom and smiles

“Excellent Tom”, he booms loudly. “It looks like we have found the last prop for our story”.

Nodding to Jonas, who returns with a smile and slowly winks at Tom, he leaves the kitchen in the direction of the beeping. After what felt like a long time, Jonas returned to the kitchen with the item.

The black bag. Found in Tom’s wardrobe. Jonas opens the bag on the table. The beeping is now louder. He puts his hand into the bag and finds the box of new underwear with the broken seal, pulls it from the bag and shakes the contents onto the table. From the box falls the underwear wrapped around a small black device. Now the beeping device is screaming loud with a bright green flashing light. Tom stares frantically at the device as Jonas places it on the table next to the other unit.
The two devices are beeping one after the other, the flashing green light are bright. All three men stare at the devices on the table. Jonas presses a button on the flashing device. The beeping stops. The flashing stops. Tom stares in turn at the two men.

Jonas returns to the open bag found in Tom’s bedroom, this time with both hands and removes all of the clothing, spilling the items onto the kitchen floor. Deeper into the bag with both hands, to reveal the neatly wrapped money at the bottom. Leaving his hands in the bag, Jonas nods and smiles at his colleague.

“It’s good. All good”, Whispers Jonas.

“You left Manchester in such a hurry this morning Tom. Why Tom? What was the hurry?”

Before Tom could reply, Jonas snatches, from the table, and begins to unfold the copy of the Manchester Evening News newspaper and holds it in front of Tom’s face. Immediately the colour drains from Tom’s face and his right leg starts to rapidly bounce up and down and his breathing increases uncontrollably at what he’s looking at. He is looking at a grainy black and white photograph of himself on the front of the paper with a bold headline next to it.

“Police hunt for missing drug dealer”.

The subheading is pointed out by Jonas so that Tom can read it.

“Police are asking for information about the notorious and dangerous drug dealer Tom Drake who is wanted for questioning for the suspected torture and murder of two Lithuanian drug dealers.”

Kamile looks at Tom with distaste. He slaps his hand on the bag of money and with his other hand he strokes the hair on the back of Tom’s head. Gently caressing his sweat drenched hair, comforting him, trying to soothe Tom’s anxiety.

“You see Tom, these two countrymen of ours are members of a business that we have a very close association with, and they have offered us a reward to find you. And guess what? We’ve found you. You see, the money in this bag Tom is our reward for finding you. But for us to claim the money we have to prove that we have found you and that we have dealt with the situation in an appropriate manner that our partners will both understand and agree with. You didn’t think that you could get away with what you did, did you? Tom?”

A pool of Tom’s urine starts to spread across the floor under him. His breathing becomes sharp and quick as his whole body starts to shake. He tries to scream out but Jonas has already unwrapped 6 inches of the duck tape and slaps it hard across Tom’s mouth. Tom’s breathing becomes uncontrollable, liquid is oozing from both his nostrils and streaks across his sweating, agonised face. He shakes his head and tries to scream but the sounds are just muffled as the tape is holding his mouth tightly closed.

“There there now Tom. Please. Relax. Everything will be ok.” Says Kamile in a soothing tone. He wipes his wet hand, which was just moments ago stroking Tom’s head, on Tom’s wet shoulder.

“Calm down Tom. Calm. You need to be calm.”


10:30

Kamile takes a step back from Tom, spits on the floor and quickly leaves the kitchen and heads for Tom’s bedroom, within seconds he returns with a fresh white pillow. It’s soft, fresh and plump.
Quickly the pillow is placed over Tom’s face, Jonas grabs the ends of the pillow from Kamile from behind Tom with both hands and pulls it tight over Tom’s face. In one quick, silent move, Kamile pulls an FNX-45 pistol from his inside jacket pocket, points the gun at the centre of the pillow and releases 4 rounds into the pillow. A deep red stain starts to expand from the burn holes in the pillow.

Silence. Not a sound is heard. The smell of urine and cordite begins to fill the air.

Jonas allows the blood soaked pillow to drop to the floor and immediately picks up the newspaper. He arranges it on the table with Tom’s photograph at the front. He takes the large black felt pen and writes the word ‘GOTCHA’ across Tom’s grainy printed face on the newspaper.
Kamile is removing the industrial staple gun from the black bag. He checks that is it loaded and extends his hand out to Jonas, gesturing with his fingers for the newspaper. Placing the open newspaper across Tom’s chest, he neatly staples 6 staples into Tom’s chest to keep the paper in place. Jonas removed his mobile phone from his jacket pocket and began to take several pictures of the murderous scene from different angles. He then starts to send them to an eagerly waiting recipient somewhere in Eastern Europe. He waits anxiously for a reply. Minutes pass. His phone beeps. Jonas looks at the phone and smiles passing it to his colleague to see. The two men look one last time at the now dead man in the chair, then look at each other, and without saying a word, Jonas picks up the bag from the kitchen worktop found in Tom’s wardrobe, winks at his accomplice, and slapping him firmly on the back before they both make their way down the hallway and to the front door.

They stop dead in their track. No movement or words from either of the men.


11:00

Kamile opens the door, slowly.

Elena is standing on the doorstep and before any of the two men can say anything to her or each other, she reveals a gun. The same FNX-45 that the two men had used to extinguish Tom’s life just moments ago but this one is complete with a silencer. Without showing any emotion or uttering any words, she fires 4 shots quickly into Kamile’s chest. She steps into the hallway of the house and quickly closes the door behind her. As her first victim stumbles backwards down the hallway, his heavier weight falls into the path of Jonas who has now turned quickly in the other direction and frantically trying to make his escape via the kitchen. He’s unable to get traction on the wooden floor of the hallway. He doesn’t make it very far. Elena, with an unemotional and fixed stare on her escaping prey, steps over Kamile’s now lifeless body, and fires 6 shots in the direction of the now terrified and fleeing Jonas. 4 hit him in the back, the 5th in the back of his head, the 6th shot finds the top of the kitchen door frame sending shards of wood into the hallway.

He stumbles forward into the kitchen, past the oak table and the slumped dead body of Tom strapped to the chair. Jonas, with his life now ebbing away from him, falls face first and lands heavily on the front edge of the stone Belfast sink. He rebounds and falls on his back. Elena now standing over his blood-soaked body and with a smile, fires two more shots into his chest at such a close range his body leaves the floor arching upwards with each shot that she fires into him.

The sink tap slowly drips. A drop every second. Drip, drip. She looks around the kitchen. There is another sound almost in time with the dripping tap. Beep beep, soft and gentle. On the table is the small device that the two men brought with them. She smiles and walks over to the table. Picking up the device she looks at it and then at Tom.

“Sorry about spilling my coffee Tom,” she says in a breathy, mimicking tone. “So clumsy of me, dropping my phone too. But how were we going to find you? How was I going to find you? We all know who you are and what you did Tom. A good friend of yours told us everything before we killed him. Shame.”

She pauses. She squats down in front of Tom, looking up at him.

“A good thing you didn’t find the tracker in the underwear box in the bag, if you had then these guys wouldn’t have found you.” Again she pauses, staring hard at Tom’s open, bloody face.

“Good. At least you didn’t find the one that I put in your rucksack when I dropped my phone on the train this morning. Now that was a struggle.” She sighs.

She looks at her watch.
“Tom. It’s 11:15. Your train has just left. Good bye Tom.”


11:20

Calmly, Elena stands up and looks around, slowly and meticulously surveying the deadly scene in the kitchen. It stinks. It stinks of old urine and faeces that have come from pure human fear and terror. She leans forward and reads the newspaper stapled into his chest and smiles at what she reads. She moves her face closer to within inches of Tom’s face, tilting her head from side to side studying his disfigured face. She smiles.

She makes her way down the hallway, picks up the black bag from the floor next to Kamiles body, and slowly approaches the front door and stops. Silence. Just birdsong outside. Slowly she grabs the handle of the door and opens it. Slowly.

The sun is bright the birdsong louder as she steps out into the bright sunlight. She slowly closes the door behind her, waiting. She begins walking with confident strides towards her waiting car. As she approaches the gleaming dark blue car, she stops and looks back at the house. She looks up and down the quiet street. Nothing. Inside the car the good looking, and now smiling Lukas is waiting for her dressed in an open-collar, white shirt.

She opens the passenger door, cautiously looking around her once more before getting inside. The sun is bright and warm, and the street is still, with not a soul around. She carefully lowers herself into the car and sits on the plush black leather seat, carefully placing the black bag on her lap. They both look at each other and smile. Lukas leans over towards her, he stops and catches her eye momentarily before leaning further into her. They kiss. No words are exchanged between the two as they separate. Looking at the large START button on the dashboard, Lukas, with a long slender finger pushes it gently and starts the powerful engine of the large 7 series BMW. It roars briefly into life before settling down into a gentle hum. He turns to look at Elena one more time before turning his attention to the car satnav and begins to enter their new destination into the device.

Heathrow Airport Terminal 5.

THE END