Writing for Fun
March 2019
Fear has a Reason Part 2 - Gerry Miller
The photos of the board revealed seven pictures of all middle aged men suited and booted, two of whom she recognised. But only one was making her toes curl and her flesh crawl. As she heard Jamie’s key in the lock she started logging off the computer but passing out fell to the floor.
As Jamie opened the door he heard the crash, rushed to her side; should he call 999 as he saw her on the floor blood pouring from her head? Glancing up at the computer he saw that his worst nightmare had happened, the Mr. Fix It logo remained on the screen; he read her files, research and carefully written notes. He had been warned but had taken no notice of what his father and brother had advised. Jamie had a clarity and coldness about him; neither he nor the company were to be wasting money, nor was the company going to stop trafficking the European girls, three or four at a time and a lucrative business with a quick financial turnaround. From the second he saw Julie, or Christina as was her birth name, he knew she would belong to him and him alone. The freedom that her amnesia gave him was an added bonus, she was cooperative and compliant. She knew only what he had constructed for her; the job from a subsidiary company was a god send and gave Julie some fake reassurance.
He glanced down at the floor; the blood was congealing on the raffia matting, bending down he rolled her up and picking up the bundle went out to her car and placed her in the boot. Driving out towards the golf course he pulled into his father’s pig farm. Phoning his dad was the hardest thing about this for James, his father and brother would be gloating over their being right and James wrong. Still he had two years of love and freedom and as he had always said, ‘Easy Come Easy Go.’ Another delivery or two and he would choose another wife, perhaps from Rumania next time. He drove up to the pig sheds and carried Julie up into the pig food troughs. Turning on the machine and, giving Julie a last kiss on the head, he placed her and the matting on the conveyor belt and watched them both disappear. The machinery was turned off and Jamie headed back home.
Although the matting had saved the floor, Jamie bleached it and then waxed it; he changed the layout of the room, remembering to polish out the corner of the desk and removing the hard drive from the computer. All of Julie’s clothing he packed into black bags and loaded them into her car. Suddenly remembering her passport and her paper files he picked them up with his keys and drove away. Throughout the night he drove through several small towns leaving a black sack in various charity shop doorways. The final stop was at a nature reserve and walking down to the river he slid the computer into the fast running water. Taking a circuitous walk back to the car he set a small fire and burned all of the papers. Kicking the ashes around ensuring the passport was gone; he turned up his collar and returned to the car. He mused to himself, ‘Tonight could have been worse, at least it is a nice dry starry night.’
When Jamie woke up in the morning he phoned his brother to arrange disposal of the car through a breakers yard who would crush it with no questions asked. By ten o’clock the car was history; Jamie arrived a little late in the office. A short period of celibacy would do him no harm.