He looked at the poster in the dingy car park. ‘Say no to drugs’ it said. It had been put up after a stint of muggings by crack addicts had taken place in the area. Ian would be a damn sight better off if he had a drug addiction – with Ian’s problem he had lost a lot more money in a lot less time. A hundred on the dogs, then a grand on the horses, followed by ten thousand pounds worth of useless high-risk shares. It escalated quickly and beyond anything he had imagined. That’s the problem when you can’t admit you have a problem, you stop controlling it, it starts controlling you.
‘Shit,’ he muttered as he struggled with the box, trying to reach inside his jacket for the keys to his Aston. He dropped the box on the floor, its contents spilling out into a puddle, and he scooped it all back in again and unlocked the car door. Wedging the box in the passenger foot well and throwing his jacket on top to obscure it, he started the car and pulled away, checking constantly in the rear view mirror, making sure no one had seen him. It was lunch time, they wouldn’t realise for a while and by then it would be too late. He drove out of the city to the safety of his converted barn house nestled in the bosom of the rolling Devonshire hills.
He felt a pang of regret as he drove towards the house – not for the money, he had taken it and he had spent it, he didn’t regret that; part of him was a little relieved that it was all coming to an end, too. The regret he felt was for his wife, Debbie, they had lovingly restored the barn together, before all the money, before the job even, before everything. Debbie had been out shopping when her card for their joint account was declined, so she rang the bank to check why only to find the account was not only empty but in arrears. She had spoken to Ian about it and he had lied to her face, saying there must have been some mistake. The next day he put the money back, not his money, someone else’s money. It had satisfied Debbie enough to not look into the matter any further, until a few months later when she accidentally opened some of Ian’s post, talking about the re-mortgage agreement and how he was behind on the repayments and the house would be forfeit if he did not stump up the cash. She called the bank to find that he had borrowed everything against the house, their house, their home. A little more delving saw that their holiday home in the south of France was also gone, sold.
He pulled into the drive and saw the dining room furniture piled up in a bonfire heap on the lawn where Debbie had left it. She had taken everything else but left the table, the table that had been with them through thick and thin, the large piece of reclaimed oak that had been crafted to their specifications, now axed into pieces on their lawn, just kindling.
He looked behind him, feeling eyes on him, even though he knew that no one had followed him he felt his paranoia taking on a new extreme. He had been looking over his shoulder for a very long time now, his adrenaline was really pumping. He wondered what would happen to him when they eventually caught up to him. Now that Debbie was gone he was pretty sure no one would give a shit what happened to him, or maybe they would all line up to stick the knife in when they realised he had lost everything. He looked up at the magnificent house that he still adored and wondered how he had managed to screw everything up so royally. He was clever, right? Looking round at the land he owned, he realised that that would be taken too. The plantation would go, as would the small manmade forest that backed on to the field behind their property, which he and Debbie had bought for their dogs, dogs that she also took. If he hadn’t lost everything she would be getting half of the house, half of the land. She could have it all for all he cared, it didn’t mean anything without her. He hated to go inside the house now, even to sleep; it was cold and lonely, not just empty but hollow. Plus Debbie had taken all the beds.
He unloaded the box from the car and walked over to the large pile of hand-finished wood on his lawn that felt to him like a symbol of what he had become, once respected, now worthless. He looked at the dishevelled garden and thought of Debbie again as he poured liquid paraffin on to the debris. He would damage the lawn, the lawn that was a shadow of its former self, when she had left so had all the care, so had all the love. He tossed a match and watched the fire sweep through the years of memories that the table held. He remembered sitting at the table when they had no other furniture, discussing the house, how they were going to make it a home and the life they hoped to lead together. The flames licked higher and higher against the backdrop of the pale blue sky, the blue seeming dull in comparison to the intense orange flame of the bonfire, waves of heat pulsed from it into the ether.
Ian opened the box he’d brought with him and thumbed through the paperwork briefly, checking he had all the correct files. When he was sure, he threw the whole box on top of the flames, watching the fire engulf the box and its contents, immediately feeling his anxiety disappear. Even shredded documents could be reconstructed these days and with the amount of money he owed he was sure they would go to the effort of doing just that, yes, they would be thorough in their investigations. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the backup flash drive – his financial advisor had recommended he never keep anything ‘hot’ on his work hard drive, better to keep it separate. He never explained what he meant by ‘hot’ but considering his line of work Ian thought it was safe to assume that he was talking about financial irregularities and not hardcore pornography, although those rules can apply to both scenarios.
‘Hello.’
Ian turned around to see a tall man leaning on the front gate. He was all in black with a hood pulled over his head, obscuring his face a little. He wasn’t an auditor, that was for sure.
‘What do you want?’
‘You’ve got two minutes.’ The man stood up straight and checked his watch. ‘A hundred and eighteen seconds.’
‘Two minutes until what? Who the fuck are you?’
‘A hundred and twelve, a hundred and eleven.’
Ian was confused, then he looked down at the man’s right hand and saw the crossbow.
‘Are you fucking crazy?’
‘A hundred and seven.’ The man raised the crossbow and pointed it squarely at Ian’s head, Ian’s face dropped when he saw the weapon in a little more detail – there was a five-pointed tip on the arrows – he had seen this before; for the first time he really looked at the man’s face.
‘You?’
‘A hundred and one.’
Ian didn’t need to be told again, he ran, he wasn’t a slim man, but he did go to the gym regularly and he was fitter than most men his age, so he was confident he could run fast enough, at least fast enough to make it to the woods where the trees might provide him with some kind of cover. He didn’t want to look back, didn’t want to see how close his pursuer was.
He climbed over the stocks into the densely wooded area, he knew the advantage was his inside the plantation, he knew all the potholes and burrows, all the nooks and crannies. Daring to check behind him, he saw the black figure walking through the field, in no hurry, just a solid march. Ian smiled to himself as he ran forward; he had enough time to use the path for a while before ducking into the more rough terrain. He made it about a hundred yards when he heard a snap, then a pain unlike anything he had ever known tore through him, he fell hard on the ground and screamed in agony. He looked at his legs and saw the large iron hunting trap clamped around his calf. Blood pouring from the wound, bone and sinew protruding, he sat up and tugged at the device, the silhouette of the man climbing the wooden stocks to get over the locked gate in his peripheral vision. He opened the trap just enough to slide his leg out, shrieking as the teeth dragged