Caution

Charles Hare, city stockbroker, slotted his high performance sports car into his driveway with practised precision. At 28 Hare was one of the fastest rising traders for Robben & Pilger, an established dinosaur of an English trading company with offices the world over. This was due to not only an insatiable appetite for work and a bottomless pit of knowledge of world markets but also good fortune. He had started early when, having been accepted for two days work experience aged seventeen, a Russian translator failed to appear for a crucial engagement with representatives from Yukos oil company.
“Can anyone here speak bloody Russian?” boomed the intimidating figure of Giles Robben with an air of impatience and faint exasperation. Hare, whose mother was Russian and had spoken in English and Russian to all three of her children, hesitated disbelievingly and paused uncharacteristically before filling the silence.
“I do”, he offered nervously. An hour and a half later Hare burst triumphant clasped in by the huge bear-like arm of the Chairman Giles Robben. “Bloody brilliant, Hare. How the hell do you know so much about the Soviet break up?”
He returned the day after finishing his A-levels and was told he needn’t wait for the results. Though it was of little surprise to anyone when three A stars in Maths, Economics, and Russian breezed through the door.
A decade later his once ruddy complexion had turned pallid after long days and longer nights of artificial lights and an increasing cocaine habit. Lack of exercise had turned the former rower into a softer, flabbier version while his eyes had dimmed, tinged with a red circle acquired from shady nightclubs and even shadier deals.
Hare splashed the shaving foam from his face revealing a bead of blood that swelled and snaked its way down his cheek. He cursed and splashed again with more water before smacking them fresh with heady aftershave. Inhaling deeply his thoughts turned to Christina, conjuring up an image of the beautiful Brazilian PR girl tossing her hair with a radiant smile. They had met at an art exhibition opening in Pimlico where it had seemed that the art was of little significance compared to the free champagne and late arrivals.
Hare spotted her alone seemingly beguiled by a windswept beachscape with a rich, golden-red sun dissolving into the sea.
“Thinking of home?” He ventured. She laughed and threw her sun drenched hair back revealing a deep olive tan which enhanced her glistening white teeth and sparkling green eyes.
“I like this one; the rest are awful.” She said definitively. The Latin accent captured him instantly and he laughed back thinking how direct people sounded when speaking English as their second language. He had to agree, however, as he looked round scanning the largely bland and somewhat depressingly nihilistic offerings. They proceeded to critically assassinate each painting in turn with increasing mirth until a stiff group of waistcoats and frocks shot awkward and shocked glances at them to which they descended into uncontrollable laughter.
“ I don’t think they like us. Want to go for a drink”, he asked, hoping he hadn’t rushed it.


“Sure, let me tell my friends.”


Six weeks later and he was finally getting her out of London to stay the weekend at his red brick townhouse outside Basingstoke complete with crunchy gravel and guarding lion adorned pillars. Charles Hare ,”The Bachelor” to his friends and serial one night stander had fallen in love and with it was becoming mildly obsessive. He found himself jealous of Christina's friends whose boisterous yet easy nature had started to irritate him. Their almost insatiable appetite for dancing and drinking lethal tequila, mint and ice concoctions, the name of which he never managed to catch, was losing appeal (or perhaps he just couldn’t keep up). If he was being honest he knew that it was the lack of control that exasperated and tantalised him. Six weeks and he still hadn’t slept with her. But she had agreed to come alone, away from the city and half of its South American population.
Hare snapped back as his eyes glimpsed at his watch lying on the bed. “Shit!” Christina’s train was due to arrive at 7.48 and it was already half past. The station was ten miles away. He quickly finished dressing and turned the muted television off. The toothy, blonde weather reporter disappeared. He flew down the stairs, grabbed his keys and jacket and ran out of the door only to be met by an icy wind and the first signs of snow. As he slammed the door behind him his mobile phone, lying abandoned on the kitchen table, started its ascending array of electronic tones.
Hare turned out on to the road inevitably to find an aged lorry in front of him. Banging his fist on the steering wheel he cursed himself for zoning off in the shower. He couldn’t be late, he thought, not on a night like this; and it was a Friday night, with the usual assortment of lager -fuelled mayhem even in a small place like Didcott. At the roundabout he leapt round the lorry and lurched forward as the turbo kicked in. 7.40 taunted the green neon clock. Nine minutes later Hare rounded the last corner before entering Didcott. Obligingly, he dropped to 40 mph as he sailed passed the lurking yellow box. The camera snapped into life and like a spider held another victim fast in its visual web. However, this freeze frame would capture an image of more than a simple speeding violation, as the police would later find.
A group of suited after-work revellers came laughing out of the pub next to the station and immediately crossed the road. Hare swerved and glanced angrily at the offending pedestrians and as he turned to correct nothing happened. As the temperature dropped the falling snow, which had now turned to rain, had immediately frozen causing a deadly patch of black ice. The car fell into a dreamlike skid silently careering towards the outer wall of the train station. Hare’s horrified face turned to terror as he realised he hadn’t put his seatbelt on. The car hit the pavement still doing thirty miles an hour, raised up and hit the wall. The air bag exploded a split second after impact, but not before Hare’s unrestrained body had surged forward smashing into the steering wheel before being jerked back by the oncoming bag. The group from the pub turned and ran cautiously back to the smoking wreck with its crumpled nose buried into the surprisingly intact wall.
Others emerged from the pub stunned, with their hands to their mouths, whilst a chubby, denimed man hurriedly dialled for an ambulance. Hare’s body was hunched forward, his head resting on the airbag, which was of little blessing as he had broken his neck. A blood stained broken windscreen revealed where his head had smashed the glass into a myriad of frozen cracks. But what couldn’t be seen was the internal haemorrhaging in his chest as a result of his unrestrained body being hurled into the steering wheel. Feeling nothing Hare enjoyed a brief, surreally lucid moment of consciousness. This lasted just long enough for him to register that the post trauma hush had been broken by the nasal, crackling sound of the tannoy.
“The 19.48 from London arriving at platform 2 will be approximately 15 minutes late due to bad weather. Southern Rail apologise for this ……”. Charles Hare opened his eyes sharply, acknowledging this last thought to be processed by his dying brain, before they closed in final resignation.