The woman I was destined to spend the rest of my life with refused to even acknowledge me when we first met. Seeing as I was pressing a gun against her forehead, screaming at her to fill the bag with money and not do anything stupid, this is hardly surprising.
I realise that I’m not painting myself in the most flattering light, so let me explain my side of the story. To do that, we need to rewind precisely twelve hours and twelve minutes to a time before my hitherto humdrum existence imploded and Jeannie entered my life.
It started at eleven p.m. in the dingy nightclub where my two best friends had conspired to dump me and my blind date. With a cheery wave they had departed, leaving me and the desperately single Kelli alone in the night. They meant well of course. Claire worried about me and I had to confess that being stuck in a dead-end job, single and becoming more so wasn’t where I’d planned to be at twenty-nine and three-quarters.
My original plan had involved travelling the world with nothing more than some clean underwear and a stack of blank notebooks, in the hope that the freedom of the road and the inspiration to be found upon it would conspire to unlock the novel that I knew lay within me.
Unfortunately a crippling case of papyrophobia and my parents’ concerns about how I’d keep contributing to my meagre pension pot finally convinced me to give up that fantasy and stick to a more prudent plan. A safer plan. A mind-numbing, excitement-free plan, which, while devoid of risk, also left my dreams unfulfilled and my hopes crushed.
Knowing my luck, I would probably drop dead the day before I was due to start drawing my pension anyway.
So, back to the date. After an hour and two drinks’ worth of stilted small talk, shouted over music neither of us liked, I retired to the bathroom to think. Decision time. It was clear that, if I wanted to, I could take Kelli home right now. But as always my conscience had its own opinion. Even without Claire’s admonishment to ‘be kind, she’s had a hard time’ it was obvious that Kelli needed more than a commitmentfree roll between the sheets. She needed someone special. Not me.
I decided to call it a night; it wasn’t fair to keep stringing her along. We’d exchange numbers, make empty promises about ringing each other later in the week and go our separate ways. She’d probably be as relieved as me. God I hated blind dates.
Mind made up, I re-entered the pounding energy of the club.
The first thing I saw as I crossed the dance floor, looking pathetic and lost, was Kelli. Immediately, my courage deserted me. I couldn’t do it. I had to hide. The gents was out – she’d probably come in – so in desperation I opened the door marked ‘Staff Only’ and ducked inside.
The three men wearing hoodies, seated around a battered table, looked up in surprise. The handguns on the table made me wish I’d taken my chances with Kelli.
Stepping back outside would be suicide: I’d seen them and they’d seen me.
‘You must be Skinner. I didn’t think you was coming.’ The biggest of the three inclined his shaven head towards me.
‘That’s right,’ I lied, instinctively.
He slid a gun across the table. ‘Don’t touch it without gloves.’ He gestured to the other two, younger men. ‘I was about to start explaining the job.’
And so there I found myself, in the back room of a nightclub, planning a jewellery heist and wondering exactly how this state of affairs fitted my life plan.
Eleven o’clock the following morning found me dressed in black in the back seat of a stolen Mondeo, the gun on my lap heavy, the balaclava hiding the perspiration pouring down my face.
Despite their initial misunderstanding regarding my identity, the gang was actually very professional and well organised. After a few hours terrified at being found out, I’d finally accepted that the real Skinner was unlikely to suddenly materialise and demand to know who the hell I was, and so found myself increasingly drawn into the situation.
Our leader, known only as Rex, ran a tight ship. We spent all night in the tiny backroom, undisturbed by revellers or bar staff. We’d kept our phones but surrendered the batteries. Trips to the bathroom were in pairs, and our only visitor was a pizza delivery at two a.m., paid for by a twenty shoved under the door, keep the change.
As Thursday night became Friday morning my hopes of escaping or calling the police slowly evaporated, and, despite my misgivings, I found myself more and more involved in the preparation of their crazy scheme.
Screeching to a halt we piled out of the car in a tight, practised formation. Our intelligence was spot on; 11:09 Friday morning and the shop was empty, the safe open and the two unarmed Securicor guards collecting the week’s takings quickly overwhelmed. Even the dustbin lorries had finished clearing the street. The driver of the Securicor van would already be calling the police, but we had at least four minutes until they arrived.
Our duties were clear: Rex covered the manager as he shakily emptied display cabinets into a bin bag; Crow-bar trained his gun on the two guards cowering, hands tied, on the floor; T-bag stood guard, and I grabbed the sales assistant, Jeannie, and frogmarched her to the open safe, demanding she fill a bag and not do anything stupid.
Three minutes and we were done. As I reached to take the bulging bag a shot rang out. The manager slumped to the floor. Without pausing, Rex turned to one of the guards, placed his gun under the chin strap of the man’s helmet and pulled the trigger again, before dispatching the man’s colleague in the same manner.
Crow-bar opened his mouth in protest. This hadn’t been part of the plan. Rex shot him between the eyes.
Planned or not, I knew what came next. Grabbing Jeannie’s arm I shoved her in the direction of the back office. ‘Run!’ I hissed.
We’d barely made it through the doorway before another bullet punched a hole in the plasterboard. Racing through the staff area we crashed through the fire door into the yard outside. It took both of us to block the exit with an overflowing wheelie bin from the restaurant next door.
‘Do you have a car?’
She nodded and we sprinted to her Mini, parked in an adjacent street. Under my direction, she steered us towards the river, finally parking out of sight, under the road bridge at the mouth of the estuary. Beside us, swollen brown waters raced out to sea.
‘You saved my life. Why?’ Her voice was surprisingly steady.
Weariness swept over me, and, before I knew it, I found myself telling her all about the terrible situation I’d found myself in and how it was all one big mistake.
‘What will you do?’
I shrugged; I was an accessory to murder now, not just some fool who’d stumbled into a robbery.
‘I guess I’ll wrap the gun in these clothes and chuck it in the river. It’ll be halfway out to sea in ten minutes. Then I’ll just walk away and hope for the best. Nobody alive has seen my face, except for Rex, and I doubt he’ll say anything.”
She shook her head. ‘They’ll never stop looking for you.’ She paused. ‘I have a better idea. Hand yourself in. Come clean. You saved my life, I’ll vouch for you. Give me the gun to show everyone you’re sincere. You’ll be a hero.’
I weighed up the options. What choice did I really have? A life on the run, always looking over my shoulder, scared that either the police or Rex would one day find me? Or the chance to get my old life, such as it was, back.
And maybe she was right. Maybe I would be a hero. If not to the world, then at least to her. Up close I couldn’t help noticing that she was rather pretty. I glanced down at her left hand: no rings.
I handed over the gun.
Turning it around, she pressed it against my temple. ‘You stupid bastard. Rex and I have had this planned for months. Two million quid, dead easy. Then you come bumbling in.’
I felt numb as she ordered me out of the car, pausing only to stuff the black bag in a litterbin, before making me climb up onto the railings. Below me the waters surged. There was a huge boom, an almighty kick in the back and I was falling…
So why am I here, three weeks later, pen in hand, notebook on knee, watching the sun go down over the Indian Ocean? And what about spending the rest of my life with Jeannie? Well as far as she’s concerned I did. My life ended on that pier, my body washed out to sea.
And I very nearly was dead too. The multicoloured bruise in the centre of my back reminds me that not even Kevlar is perfect at close range. Fortunately, the cold water revived me and I hauled myself out of the river about half a mile downstream.
According to the news, Jeannie was abandoned unharmed by her kidnapper – whose description bore no resemblance to me – who then made off with the money.
I can only imagine her fury when she returned to the bin and found it had been emptied. The following day I texted my friends that I was quitting my job to become a writer and flew out of Heathrow with a one-way ticket and enough spending money to keep me in clean underwear and notebooks for as long as it took.
As for that novel … well what do you think so far?