Chapter 10

Oliver took his new mobile phone out of it's packaging and turned it the basic device on, waiting for the manufacturers logo to disappear. He glanced around his almost desolate surroundings, he could see the train station in the distance along with the hotel where he had stayed the night and the main road that passed it and waited for the phone to boot up.

He glanced at his piece of paper and typed the Merseyside number into his phone, waiting for it to ring. "Hi," he said with a sniff when a cheerful woman answered. "I'd like to talk to Inspector Richard Williamson."

"May I ask what is it about. We have a media team, and we have a..."

"I am Oliver Prutton," he said, almost hyperventilating. "He is leading an investigation to try and find me. I want to talk to him."

"Oh," she muttered. "I'll see what I can do."

Oliver rocked back and forth on his bench, watching the horizon. He had paid cash for his phone and done all his research at an Internet Cafe; he was untraceable he thought, but still knew he might need to make a quick escape.

A police car turned off the main road and Oliver tensed only for it to pull up at the tiny station and stop. "Hello?" A male voice answered and Oliver was shaken to the present.

"Hi," he said. "Inspector Richard Williamson."

"Yes, I believe you have some information about Oliver Prutton."

Oliver sighed. "Yes, it is Oliver Prutton. You are chasing me."

The Inspector snorted. "In the interests of fairness I should tell you that this call is being recorded and will be used as evidence against you."

Oliver's heart was beating furiously and he felt butterflies in his stomach. "OK. Well if I give myself up, hand everything I have in, do I get to go free?"

The Inspector gave a whistle. "So how do I know this is for real?"

Oliver sniffed. "Cos you would have searched my drawer in the Double Glazing," he told him. "And on top was a half eaten pack of Rolos and a pack of cereal bars."

Oliver heard some papers being ruffled and then the Inspector spoke again. "This isn't like in the movies," he told him. "You don't get to ring up and barter. You committed robbery; you aren't going to walk away with a caution."

Oliver's face dropped and he groaned. "But I didn't want to. I was forced into it," he wailed. "I told them no."

"But you went and did it, right?"

"Yeah, but it was Jamie and his bloody ex."

"Emma Wallis?"

"That's her, I didn't want to but they forced me, said it was easy."

"You give yourself up and we can have a nice chat down here and tell me all about it," the Inspector soothed and Oliver grunted.

"No. I want one of those immunity thingies. I give you everything I took from my share. I got a statue and a third of the money. I ain't got much of the jewellery, Emma took that, but I don't want to go to jail."

The Inspector hummed. "What money?"

"What you mean, what money? That's what you want, right? We had away eight hundred grand. I got over a quarter of a million between my feet in a bag here. It weighs a load, now do we have a deal?" The Inspector didn't answer and Oliver asked again impatiently. "I want to know, if I give you everything, do I get to go free? And I got lots of info on Doszak, like about him shooting someone, and where his girls come in for his brothel. I want protection and change of identity as well."

"No kid, no can do. But it will look favourably when it comes to court if you have given yourself up. We will say you helped and cooperated admirably and assisted us," the Inspector said automatically, his mind whirring.

Oliver snorted, shouted "bollocks" down the phone and threw his new Pay-as-you-go mobile into the grass. He had to get out of Edinburgh and ran down the road to catch the train just pulling into the small station.

There was only person he knew in Scotland, and she was studying to be a vet in Aberdeen. He wondered what the lovely Victoria Hambleton would make of him arriving with a quarter a million in used notes, a valuable statue in his backpack and a mountain-load of problems; he was about to find out?

"Davey," shouted the blue-eyed young man. "How ya keeping."

"Alright, Jamie. I see ya been pulling old statues now. Ya were post offices not art."

Jamie smiled and jumped down from the wall in the tiny back garden Dave Richards lived in. "I can do owt, me."

"Ya can get caught."

"I ain't been caught. But I need a passport."

The teenager squirmed. "Well that could be."

"Fucking piece of cake you said in the nick. Come on, I know you got contacts, and I got the cash to pay ya."

Dave took a deep breath. "I might be able to sort sommat awt," he said with a jaunty tone. "But I need two days."

"How much?"

"Five grand?"

"Five grand," Jamie cried out and then lowered his voice. "Five grand for a passport?"

"Don't ya want it to get ya out of this shithole. If ya want it ta fool the plod ya need to stump up cash."

Jamie threw a bundle of cash at his old cell-mate and watched as Dave lit his cigarette and took a puff of it. "Ma kicked off when I light up in da 'ouse," he said, by way of an explanation and Jamie looked around.

"Can I kip on ya sofa."

"Ya better kip in me room," Dave replied. "Ma will turn ya in if she sees ya."

Jamie snorted but crept up to the small bedroom Dave called his own and then settled down on the floor, removing a strangely stained sock with tips of his fingers. Dave was happy to "rent" Jamie his floor for the bargain price of £200 a night and for this he was given breakfast, dinner and free rein of the house while Dave's Mum was out working.

Dave had helpfully provided Jamie with a half-a-dozen grooming products to help him change his appearance so he had very short blonde hair, a small goatee beard and thinner eyebrows for his passport photo which got the anxious robber asking questions as to when the magical booklet would arrive.

"Later," Dave said confidently the following morning when Jamie asked about the passport for the fourth time. "I pick up later." Jamie felt his bag, it had remained at the top of Dave's wardrobe since he had arrived and he went up to check on it, when he heard shouting from downstairs.

He glanced out of the window in Dave's bedroom and saw a heavy-set man on the doorstep. It was either the Police or Jaroslav and it meant he either lost his liberty, or lost his life. Jamie grabbed the bag and darted into the bathroom, opening the window wide, and locking the bathroom door as quietly as he could.

He glanced out, the coast was clear and he dropped down onto the roof of the extension and then into the small garden.

The two heavies, obviously sent from Jaroslav, saw him through the lounge window immediately and Jamie jumped over the gate and into the alleyway behind, sprinting down it and slipping the backpack over his shoulders. His felt his stomach lurch, he knew he was seconds away from a wrong move and being in deep trouble, and had no idea where he was going.

The alleyway gave way to a small road and he darted between two houses, looking behind him. The younger of the two heavies was chasing him and Jamie just sprinted, knocking over an old lady that the man jumped over.

Two cars had to swerve as Jamie emerged into the road of the High Street and then ran down it. The henchman seemed oblivious to the sounds of the horns, irritated at the two men who ran towards the centre of the inner city shopping street.

Jamie jumped over a car and tried to disappear down the back streets but he turned to see the tall man still thirty yards behind him. Jamie could feel his lungs burning, he wasn't use to physical exercise on this scale but knew he could not stop; he would die if he did.

His legs felt like ton weights but Jamie sprinted back up to the main street, and saw his salvation – an Underground station that was busy and ran across the road, nearly being hit by a bus as he did, and jumped over the unmanned ticket barrier.

Jamie nearly fell down the escalators, pushing people out of his way to cries of annoyance as he tried to get onto the platform. He didn't care what train he caught as long as he caught one. With as much effort as he could muster, he sprinted onto the Southbound platform and gave a relieved sigh as he saw a train approach.

Jamie jogged down to the other end of the platform to where a small crowd were sat on the bench; he knew Jaroslav's friend would be arriving shortly and didn't want him to know what train he was on. Instead, he stood behind the group as they embarked and watched as the doors closed and the train started to move. The tired Paul got onto the platform, looked in the nearest carriages and Jamie resisted the urge to wave; it would do him no harm at all for the man to not know what train he was on.

Jamie sat back panting, his eyes closed when the train entered the tunnel; he had escaped.

Jamie was still panting and out of breath when he disembarked four stops later; he had no passport, nowhere to stay and if Jaroslav had traced him to the Capital then the Police wouldn't be that far behind. He sat down in the park opposite the train station and thought, he still had the statue and the money. Feeling hungry, he opened his bag to get a twenty pound note to get dinner, and pulled out the previous evening's edition of the Evening Standard, helpfully cut up into banknote-shaped pieces of paper.

"Fucking cunt," Jamie exclaimed that caused a female jogger to stare at him as she ran passed. "I'll fuckin' kill him," Jamie promised no-one and started striding towards the station once again. Ian would be a dead man.

Emma smiled as she sat back in the small hotel room; the Midlands was quiet and she had not put as much distance as she had wanted between herself and Staffordshire but she had done so quietly, sneaking aboard a couple of local trains and then stealing some hiking gear from an outdoor warehouse. She longed to catch a long-distance train but the experience with Gareth had shaken her, and she wanted to quietly blend in and make her way down the country.

She still had a rather sizeable problem in that she had no passport and no escape but it would do her no harm at all to keep moving but to not panic. With her matching navy hat, fleece and walking trousers, along with her walking boots she fitted in perfectly when she came to stay at a small hikers' hotel not far from the village train station. She had thought about walking the two hundred or so miles to the coast until people were no longer looking for them but the two miles from the station up the hilly road soon changed her mind. She would try and hitch a lift or steal a car to get her as far South as she could.

Emma checked into the hotel, paying in cash and went up to her room, watching the press conference where her photo was shown; they were no longer the main news item, but they were still on the news. She looked in the mirror; she didn't look much like the picture with her hat on as it hid most of her flowing hair. Her lips were not as puffed up and her eyes were a lot more tired and weary from the photograph taken over two years ago that was being displayed on the news networks.

Emma's stomach rumbled and she set her loot underneath the table in the room, and went downstairs to the dining room; it was crowded but her little table was in the bay window and asked the busy waitress for a simple burger and chips. She got some looks from the diners as she squeezed past them and felt self-conscious; had they recognised her from the television? Her picture was in the newspapers and many of the residents were reading them and she had just had her mugshot on television.

Emma picked up a newspaper from the window sill and started reading it. She was annoyed when the report had incorrectly guessed her age (she was not that old) and described her as a "known criminal"; she had not been convicted of a crime in her adult life. She sat and thought for a minute, keeping the paper up high so that she could not be seen.

There was no way she would ever see that story retracted and if she was ever in court, the assertion that she was a known criminal would be in the back of the minds of the jury. She would be guilty before she had had a trial and that was unfair. She might technically be guilty but she should be tried in a court of a law, not in the court of the Daily Mail.