The Runner

On the run after a robbery, with police breathing down his neck, the runner makes a snap decision that changes his life...


The worst place in the world to hide.


Blazing lights, a security camera on every pillar, rail police, but I had to get off that street fast, and there wasn’t much open at 3am.


The hue and cry was close behind. Like a flaming Dickens novel, and I was loving the buzz, to be honest. Jewellery heists are supposed to be some sort of dopamine nuke. 


I stepped out from the alley to, “There he is!” And looked around to see who they were talking to 


The first five times had been like picking up an order from Amazon lockers. Stroll up, punch in the code Werner gave me, fill the bags with the stuff in the photos, walk out.


But the guy at the storefront fifty metres down the street in a puffer jacket over pyjamas dropped his keys and pointed at me. The two bored coppers with him turned around, and I’d wasted a precious few seconds.


Hell knows what gave me away. An extra level of security? More likely a freak coincidence. Werner didn’t make mistakes. Whatever it was had put the forces of justice between me and my bike, so I embraced the zing and legged it the other way with a couple hundred grand’s worth of high-end diamond necklaces bouncing in the leather messenger bag on my hip. A deserted mall opened up on my left almost immediately, unexpected but handy. The waist high bollards I ducked through would hold up a patrol car pursuit, but otherwise the broad expanse of pavers was a bit of an issue because the department stores and cafes were locked up tight behind security blinds and I knew from long experience that the passages between stores led only to rear delivery access. That’s how I get in and out. It was two hundred well-lit metres to the next junction, boot clatter echoed off the walls behind me and cops yelled, “Stop!” 


So, the brightest lights of all at the Metro entrance were my only option.


I slowed to a nonchalant walk as I entered the station, adjusting my hoodie for maximum concealment. A big islander bursting out of a transport police uniform at the turnstiles was busy on his phone. I could jump the barrier and sprint, but why attract attention when I could go under the radar a little longer? I deliberately fumbled to get my student concession card from my pocket so I could tap the turnstile with my back to the rent-a-cop and realised I’d just recorded my identity against the hoodie guy from the jewellers navigating the ticket barrier. Panic burned my nerve ends for half a second. But faded to calm as quickly. I’d never had anything to do with the police. Country club kids don’t, but they do get their cards stolen by street scum from the projects and mine links to my home address out in the hills so I’ll have plenty of time to dump the hoodie I wear for burglary — ‘Me, Constable? I suppose he does have a similar build, but I don’t own any sweatshirts. I’m no skater-boy’. I’d make my college dorm before they got Dad out of bed to re-directed them. I was good. Breathing hard but composed, with no immediate roar of pursuit, I had a second to choose the airport line or the docks, which ran below the airport line tunnels, a much longer walk and an extra escalator. The airport line also had the stop nearest campus, making it the obvious choice. So I took the other route, keeping my heart rate down to the slap of my sneakers on the tunnel tiles, scanning the advertisements because this was all being monitored and recorded somewhere and suspicious characters ducked their heads. The hubbub finally rose above, the forces of the law berating the guard, I guessed as I reached the mezzanine above the platform with a second choice to make. Up line or down? The cruise terminal or the suburbs? The indicator board suggested the next train into town would arrive in two minutes. Five minutes for the up line, but there were benefits if I held my nerve. The underground public transit system offered a couple of handy interchanges on the edge of the central business district where I could confuse the pursuit by changing trains without crossing a turnstile, then leave the train out in the sticks when the line emerged above ground and duck over the fence without tagging off. 


A solid plan restored my confidence. I sat in a shadow on the platform with my legs crossed, nose wrinkled against a stale urine smell until the train arrived. I sauntered on, a man at ease. A couple of kids were entwined in the prime spot right under the camera at the far end of the third coach. A dangerous-looking dude had the opposite end behind the driver, so I selected a bench in the middle carriage where a dry twig of a man greeted me with a smile and a flick of the Father Christmas beard that made him look top heavy. I tossed my shoulders around, trying to look like the druggie at the driver’s end, but the old guy wasn’t to be denied.


“Good night for it, eh, mate?” he began.


The sort of thing my granddad would say. I had no idea what he meant. I buried my head under the flap of the messenger bag as if I was looking for my book. The jewellery store take glistened in reflected light. Werner would love it.


“What are the odds, eh?”


Another of Pop’s favourites. I gave the old feller the side eye. “Sorry? Do we know each other?”


“I think we do. Yes. Sorry, I’ve confused you. It’s written all over your face. You have a highly expressive countenance.” He grimaced like that was a problem.


My problem was old farts starved of company, especially seeing as I wanted to avoid attention while I enjoyed a leisurely study of the exquisite craftsmanship that produced the diamond choker and only a fraction less valuable bracelets and rings I had lifted earlier. Have you ever carried a quarter of a million bucks worth? It’s crazy good. Anyway, I felt the least obtrusive approach was co-operation, and my dad brought me up to be polite, so I reluctantly buckled the bag and slid it onto the seat beside me. Under my palm, I wasn’t about to let it out of reach.


“We’re two of a kind,” my unsolicited critic said before I could think of a way to discourage further conversation.


“Yeah?”


He mugged a grin.


“I get it. We’re late-night travellers,” I said.


Whatever brought him to the milk run justified a tweedy sports jacket, slacks and brogues. Retired chic. His clothes were long past new, loose, as if he’d lost weight since he bought them, but he wasn’t homeless. He’d been to a reunion, I guessed, or a Freemason’s dinner. Masons are all geriatric.


“That too,” he said. “We’re fish out of water, you and I, caught where we shouldn’t be.”


A reasonable call. A feller his age should not travel alone on the subway after dark. I could handle myself, but if I came across to this old stick as innocent and vulnerable, well, I’d succeeded.


“Runners,” he said.  


I looked down at my trainers. A reflex.


He chuckled. “Refugees, I mean, no, that’s not the word.” He thought and found the one he wanted. “Fugitives. That’s what we are. Fugitives.”


I tightened my grip on the leather bag and checked that our fellow travellers weren’t listening. 


The old guy shook his head like a disappointed teacher. Gloating.


He’d jolted me into a dumb reaction. The close call at the jeweller’s must have got to me more than I realised. My fingers itched to show him what I’d done with my evening. Fugitives! He didn’t know the half of it. But I had no time for flamboyant gestures. I’d change trains in two more stops and he’d forget he ever saw me. But that patronising Father Christmas gaze didn’t waver. I had to say something and it couldn’t be about diamonds. He’d remember those and tell all his ancient mates at the old folks home. So, I made it about him.


“What are you running from, then?”


“Me?” He dropped his eyes. “I left my wife. Forty years we’ve been together. It weighs heavily, mate, I gotta tell you. I told her I was going to the pub and walked out. It’ll hurt. She’ll be livid, and I couldn’t face the reaction, see? It’s not fair after all this time, but I can’t do it anymore. I’ve had enough.”


No wonder he wanted to talk. Ouch! All I could think of to say was, “Bloody hell.”


He tutted, shook so hard his beard whipped back and further across his jacket, and said, “Look, I’m done. It’s you I’m worried about. You’re young. You’ve got time. Your life’s ahead of you.”


“I’m not married,” I said. The last thing I needed was a lecture on picking the right girl. I had to study the line maps and work out my next move. “I don’t even have a girlfriend.”


He leaned into my space.


“You never will if you carry on like this. What did you do tonight? What are you into? It’s something criminal, obviously, and you’re proud of it. I can see that on you. But here you are running for it.”


I leaned back as far as the subway bench would allow and spread my hands. “You’ve got it all wrong, Grandpa. Not me.”


His eyes slid to the leather bag, and my palm slapped down on it before I could stop myself. Damn it. I blustered: “Call the cops on me, then. Go on, make a fool of yourself!” I went for disgusted bravado, but it came out whiny and desperate.


His disappointed coach look returned. “No.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a few minutes, and I’ll talk some common sense into you. If I can do one good thing tonight, I will.”


I pulled my bag into my lap and made to rise.


“No, no. I will follow you and have this conversation in front of the lovers if I have to. Listen up and let’s see how close I am. I’m guessing you’ll do serious time when they catch you. Because they will. Ten years, I’d say. Is there violence? I don’t think so. No, you’re not that type, are you? And there’s no guilt on you. It’s a con, then. You’ve got the better of someone who deserves it, but whatever you got is in that bag, so an exchange is it? You’re not a drug dealer.”


“Look, old man. You may think—”


“Oh, no, I don’t think any more. I’m certain now. You got away this time and the high’s still on you. You smell of it. You got away and you feel invincible.” 


The train lurched into a bend, twisting so the lovers and the dirtbag were both out of view for a moment, leaving me trapped in a tube fifty metres underground with a madman who could see into my soul. My lips had gone dry.


“How did it start? You’re a college kid. Nice clothes. Nice haircut. Nice family. Dodgy mates at the footy club, was it? The gym? A bloke in the pub offering recreational drugs and a bit of excitement? Ah, that’s it!”


No, but close enough that I’d given myself away again. I had to work out how I did that. I met Werner at a college social. God knows how he got in or why he picked me. I thought he’d sensed greatness in my effortless cool, but if I couldn’t hide my reactions to a daft old git trying to rationalise dumping his wife of forty years, I might have to revise that assessment. And he was still talking.


“It starts as a bit of harmless fun. A bit naughty. A little cash. Getting one over is wonderful, isn’t it? Makes you feel superior. A superman. It’s addictive. Until it’s not because next it’s, ‘that was good, mate. Try this, it’s even more fun and better money’. Then, ‘You were great again, a man of your talents will smash this’, and before you know it, you’re in over your head. Oh, I see what you’re thinking. ‘Not me. I know when to stop. I know the line. I’ll tell them no’. But they’ve got you, buddy. They know what you’ve done. They know who you’ve crossed and how you did it. You may be underwater already.” He rocked his head, assessing. “But I think you might still be able to walk away.”


What the hell did I say to that? I had the creeps so bad I hugged the diamonds to my chest like a safety blanket.


He stretched so far forward that the tendons on his neck stood out, and I thought he’d slip off his seat. “Do it! I mean it. You’re a good kid. Don’t throw your life away for a cheap thrill or to impress a girl. There’s nothing cool about being banged up for a ten stretch. What will you tell your mum when she finds out?”


Ha! He missed there. No mum. Just Dad. And my brother, Greg, who would be impressed. He thought I was a geek. Dad would die. He worked two jobs to put something aside for me and Greg to finish school. And Greg wouldn’t be impressed, no, he’d be shocked, and I wouldn’t want him to try what I’d done. He couldn’t handle jail, and he was an idiot. Greg would have no idea where the line was. A shark like Werner would chew him up and spit him out. If this fossil thought I was an innocent, he should see Greg. 


He stared at me. The old guy, not Greg, the skin crinkled around his eyes. What would he say next?


He didn’t have to say anything. Tendrils of anxiety crawled in my chest. What if I did get caught? It had been a near thing that night. If I’d taken a couple of minutes longer to find the trays in Werner’s photos, those cops would have been in the shop and I’d be in a paddy wagon wondering what I’d say to Dad and how he’d make bail.


Werner would want more. Father Christmas was right about that.


Bugger, I’d missed my change, but we were slowing for Butler Row. I could get off there and walk to Upton on the cross-town loop. Fifteen minutes. Ten if I pushed it. I could make it work. I got up, shouldered the bag. “Look, sorry, old feller. You’ve got this all wrong.”


I grabbed for a handhold as the train brakes rocked me off balance. The doors spat open, and all hell broke loose.


“Police! Don’t move!” 


A mob of them, half a dozen in black helmets and flak jackets, charged through both doors pointing machine guns at me. A weapons team. Jeezus! It was only jewellery! The lovers and the deadbeat scooted off the train like it were on fire. I didn’t blame them.


Dear God. I had been so close.


The armed police stepped aside for a shaven-headed, strutting smart ass in a trench coat.


“I told you I’d get you,” he said.


When? This wasn’t the guy at the jeweller’s.


“That beard wouldn’t fool anyone.”


Beard? What the hell?


Father Christmas stood up and straightened his sports coat. “Yes, you did.” 


“Twenty years. Three countries—”


“Don’t flatter yourself, Miller. I had to lay it out on a plate for you.”


The cop frowned.


“Who do you think phoned in the tip? I’m tired, Detective Inspector. Still an inspector, aren’t you? And I’m sick. Got the results this week. I’ll be dead in months. My Violet can’t deal with that on her own.” The old guy turned to me with a shrug. “Accessing services is just about impossible when you’re England’s most wanted prison escapee. This way, Vi, can go back and see the kids, relax for the first time in decades. I regret everything I did. It has been horrible on the run. A nightmare.” He turned back to the police. “So, you win, Miller.” Father Christmas, England’s most wanted, offered his wrists for cuffs with a final word over his shoulder to me. “I think this is your cue to scarper, son.”


Image by MEHRAX from Pixabay