Chapter 1

It's hard to know where to start, so I'll begin with myself; I'm Tom Brewster. Thirty-five years old, now; six foot two, brown hair beginning to recede, trimmed beard, glasses. I got my nursing degree at twenty-one and spent a couple of years each in general medicine and psychiatry. Actually, I loved the work. The only thing about the actual nursing I could never enjoy was dealing with sputum. Piss? Shit? Blood? Deep gashes? No problem. But sputum ... let's not go there, okay? What really got me down was a combination of two irritations. The first was bureaucracy – policies, procedures, paperwork, health and safety, all the things that get in the way of doing the job. The second was underfunding, with short staffing, low pay and stress from being unable to properly do the work I was being paid for.

Anyway, I left and went into work as a drug rep. That lasted a couple of years, but I was a lousy salesman. I had an unfortunate tendency to be truthful. The company didn't fight my resignation; in fact, I suspect I got it in just before I was 'let go'.

A friend ('Ton-up' Tony) offered a job in his motorbike business. I'd played about with classic bikes, mostly Nortons, for years, ever since I was old enough to ride one. He knew I was a fair amateur mechanic and knew the contents of his Norton spares shelves as well or better than he did. It didn't pay all that well, but I didn't need much anyway.

Somewhere in there my parents died in a car-crash. I don't know what they were doing in the Fens. The inquest found that Dad lost control on a patch of ice, the car left the road and ended up in one of the deep channels that drain the area, so they were drowned when they couldn't get out before they were overcome by the cold.

Which brings us to my only other close relative, my sister Ellen. Sis is a couple of years older than me, four inches shorter, slim, with long, glossy hair the same shade of brown as mine. But there the resemblance ends. She is something of a nerd, and has built a business designing and maintaining websites. We'd never been particularly close, but the loss of our parents meant we only had each other and we made the effort to keep in touch.

Girlfriends came and went. Giselle, the last, left after I found her making out with some other guy at a Halloween party.

Similarly, Ellen never seemed to hang on to a boyfriend (or vice-versa) for more than a few months. The last ... what was his name? Ernesto? Something like that ... was emotionally abusive and when it began to become physical, she decided enough was enough and told him to get out. Of course, he wouldn't leave her alone, even after she changed her phone number. In the course of a call to her 'little brother' she told me she was becoming more than a little frightened.

"Well, why don't you come and live here?" I asked. "You can do your cyber-magic here quite as well as there, can't you?"

"Oh ... but..." She was silent and I listened to a faint hiss on the line. "Won't that ... I mean ... I don't want to ... cramp your style."

"Hey, Sis, don't worry about that. If there is a problem, we can think of something different. You never bought that flat, did you?"

"No."

"There you go. Come here – you can have the attic room. If you're prepared to pay the subscription, I can get fibre-optic laid on. It's available on this street. You probably wouldn't be satisfied with my present broadband service. Give notice on your flat. You don't have a car, do you?"

"No."

"Well, I'll hire or borrow a van and fetch you here as soon as you're ready."

"I could come today. Don't worry about your internet. I can manage for a week or so on a slow connection."

I looked at my watch. "Nine-thirty. Assuming I can get a car or van, I can be on my way in an hour, maybe. With you ... about twelve?"

"Oh, Tom..." I distinctly heard a sniffle. The sound of nose-blowing, then, "Thanks, Bro. Yes. I'd love to move in with you."

It took a bit more than an hour. Online I found a Transit van for hire, not too far away. It being Saturday morning, I had to have it for the weekend, but it wouldn't break the bank. Getting there on the bus to pick it up took an hour, then I had to fill the tank, so it was more like one than twelve when I got to Derby. To say that Ellen was pleased to see me was a bit like saying 'water is wet', or 'snow is cold'.

I tapped on the door, which opened cautiously on a chain. Then after it closed and there was a faint sound of the chain being unhooked, she flung the door open and leapt into my arms. I staggered back at the impact. It was almost hard to breathe as she squeezed my chest. I was ... embarrassingly ... aware of the pressure of her body on mine, the scent of her hair, and gently detached her before she felt my burgeoning erection. This was my sister, for God's sake – I had no business getting a hard-on for my sister.

"Let's get your stuff in the van," I suggested.

It didn't take long. She'd already packed up her computers and clothes; books were in a couple of boxes.

"I thought you'd have more than this," I commented.

"Nah. Never needed it."

I thought of the shelves and shelves of books, the Hi-Fi with racks of LPs and CDs ... the knives, baking tins, all the paraphernalia that goes with actually cooking rather than reheating ready-meals or delivered Chinese, Indian meals or Pizza. Perhaps the stork muddled us up when he delivered us? Why was my sister the techno-nerd while I was the nurse? (Okay – I'm a biker now, but even so, how many bikers do you know who prefer Mozart to Eric Clapton?)

So we loaded her stuff in the Transit. Even though it was a short wheel-base model, the boxes barely covered half the floor without stacking them. We climbed into the cab and I found the ignition switch with the key. Ellen hesitated, then slid across to sit in the centre seat before snapping her seat belt on.

She looked at me. "Is this okay?"

"Sure! Why not? It's not as though I can see anything in the mirror anyway. Why they fit them in vans like this I don't know."

"Um ... Tom ... I ... thanks for this. I didn't know what to do."

"No problem, Sis. It'll be nice having you close. Are you hungry? It's..." I peered at my watch, "after two o'clock."

"Not really. I'd just like to get away from here."

"Let's go then. I'll just ignore the growling from my empty tummy."

"Oh, Tom. Are you really hungry? We can stop for something if you need..."

I laughed, "Not that badly. We can stop at Dobbies when we get to junction 30. They have some nice coffee and pretty good food. It's just off the motorway."

"Okay."

Driving a van is pretty boring. Even on a motorbike, I look around at the other traffic and it's interesting how often one can recognise a car that overtook a few miles previously, or vice versa. I thought it was odd that in the Transit, rocketing along at between sixty and seventy, when almost everyone else was well over the seventy mph limit, that there was a black Audi TT keeping pace with us. Not always at the same distance, but never far away, either. It was the sort of car I'd expect to be doing ninety in the outside lane. I told myself not to stereotype.

It was only when I took the slip road off at junction thirty and the Audi followed, that it began to dawn on me what was going on. I didn't say anything to Ellen, though. We found a place to park not too far from the entrance to Dobbies and went in to find the cafeteria. A plate of chicken Korma and rice, coffee and fruit juice for each of us, and Ellen was quite relaxed, while I was just trying to appear so.

"Hey, Sis, there's something I need to deal with. You going to the loo?"

"Yeah?"

"Take your time. I'll meet you back at the van, okay?"

It was the work of moments to collect my tyre-pressure gauge and remove the little cap with its valve tool, to loosen the valves in both the nearside tyres of the Audi. He was obviously a bit tight-fisted as he hadn't gone for the run-flat option. Which meant that when Ellen appeared, finally, and we drove off, our tail didn't follow. I calmed my conscience by telling myself that if I was wrong and, unlikely as it was, the driver of the Audi was innocent, no lasting harm was done.

I didn't take the direct route home, even so. I turned right instead of left, drove into Clowne then left onto the Mansfield Road. That, in due course, got me onto the A57 Worksop Road, though I turned left for Sheffield, rather than right for Worksop.

In the process, Ellen, unsurprisingly, wanted to know why I was going so far out of my way.

"Who do you know who drives a black Audi TT?" I asked in response.

She paled. "Eduardo."

Okay, so I got the name wrong.

"Well, I think I've stopped him following us, anyway. When we get you settled, you'd better get a restraining order, because it's not going to be so hard for him to find you."

She didn't seem too pleased about that.

Anyway, we got home about six. Unloading took a little longer than loading. Here I probably need to describe my Victorian terraced house. A terrace, as the name implies, is a row of houses with no gaps between. Every so often, there's a tunnel though, giving access to the rear, usually for two houses each side, meaning two house owners or tenants have to pass through someone else's back garden. In the case of mine and my neighbour, there is a door opening into the passageway, inside which one is faced by a steep staircase ahead, and a door on each side, one to the sitting room, the other to the dining room, through which is the kitchen and the back door. Upstairs, there is a bedroom each side and a narrow landing leading to the bathroom and another door, which opens onto the attic stairs.