After the Escape

4. Lance - Making Arrangements

Lance’s eyelids were heavy and felt gritty with tiredness. He wasn’t sure how many hours he had been staring at his computer screen, but the words on it had stopped making sense to him a little while ago.

One of the others in the office had found a loophole in the UK firearms laws that would allow Perin to be legally armed on Maritime Authority Property under his licence as a private security officer. Lance could not believe how lucky his brother was to have been caught at the port and not outside of it, although there was still the matter of him shooting someone, which would be investigated regardless of whether the weapon used was being held legally or not.

“May as well go and get some sleep,” said Johno, interrupting his pointless staring. “Security are handling it now, we have given them all the info we can.”

“Alright.” Said Lance, knowing that his boss was right and that there was no point rendering himself completely useless with exhaustion. “I’ll see you tonight. Please give me a call if anything else comes up…”

“Sure.” Johno watched him shut down his computer and get up from his seat.

Lance said goodbye to a couple of the others on his way out, getting to the corridor just as his phone started to ring. Glancing at the number displayed, he let out a sigh; it was his mother.

“Hi mum,” he said, answering the call.

“Lance, what is going on? Where is your brother?” His mother’s voice was shrill and the last thing he wanted was to have to speak to her and try and calm her down, but knew that the only way he was going to get rid of her was to do just that.

“Lance has been arrested.” He told his mother calmly. “It appears that he shot someone in the pursuit of his wife.”

“What!? Why would he do that?! I knew that girl was no good… and him refusing to command her!” His mother was going off on one, which was typical of her in any difficult situation.

“We don’t know yet. Asher is sorting it out; all we have done is search for information.” Secretly, Lance agreed; if his brother had just commanded Rowan in the first place this wouldn’t have happened, but he wasn’t going to open that can of worms with his mother whilst he was exhausted and fed up.

“Are they going to bring him home?” she demanded to know, like Lance was somehow privy to this information.

“I don’t know mum.” He replied. “As soon as I hear any more I’ll let you know. Until then, we just have to wait.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know, as long as it takes I guess.” Lance was tired, and wanted his bed.

“What do we do until then?” her questions were becoming circular, and Lance had no energy left to deal with it.

“We just have to wait. I’ll talk to you soon.” Without waiting for a reply, he hung up and shoved his phone back into his pocket for the brief walk back to his apartment. Once home, he quickly stripped off his clothes and got into bed, quickly succumbing to oblivion.

He woke a little while later after taking the edge off his exhaustion, feeling thirsty and hungry and more than a little bit grumpy. Glancing at his watch he realised that it was about 2 in the afternoon, far too early for him to be getting up, but he did anyway. He padded through to the kitchen in his boxers, first gulping down a glass of water before clicking the kettle on for a cup of tea and pouring himself a bowl of cereal.

He was feeling a little more human once he finished his food, and was heading towards the shower when his phone started ringing. Practically leaping across the room he snatched it up, noting that it was an unknown number as he answered it.

“Hello, Lance?” Lance felt a wave of relief at hearing his brother’s voice; he was ok.

“Perin!” he exclaimed. ““What’s going on? Mum and Dad are freaking out, Asher has been charging around barking orders at everyone and we have all been researching gun licencing laws. Please tell me you didn’t shoot someone?!” Great, now Lance was sounding just like their mother!

                “I did.” Perin replied, making Lance want to moan with misery.

                “What’s happening now? Are they letting you go?” He asked, hoping that he was calling to get them to come and collect him or something.

                “Not yet. I’m being charged with manslaughter, and they are considering bail.”

                “s**t! But if you go to prison, what will you do about…” Lance’s mind was working quickly; If he went to prison it would be disastrous, there would be no way to get blood without other people knowing. It could expose them all, never mind get his brother killed.

                “I don’t know yet.” His brother’s voice was calm, but Lance knew him well enough to know that he was pretty worried about that too. “Listen, I need you to do something for me.”

                “Alright, what?” Lance asked; he would do whatever he could to help Perin.

                “I need you to go to my apartment and gather some clothes and stuff for Rowan, and some money. I know you won’t be able to access my account, but I’ll pay you back as soon as possible.”

                “What?” Lance interjected. His brother’s life was potentially in danger and he was busy worrying about that treacherous snake! “What are you worrying about her for? She made it very clear when she got you into this mess how she felt about you!”

                “No, she didn’t. And even if that was true, it doesn’t matter. She is my responsibility, and she is currently out in the world with nothing and no money, and I can’t have that. I need you to call and meet her, and make sure she is ok.”

                There was silence for a couple of beats whilst Lance tried to formulate a response that wasn’t telling his brother that he was a fool and that his so-called wife deserved everything she got.

                “You are far too good to her. I doubt she would be thinking about you if the situations were reversed. Seemed like she couldn’t get away quick enough, even though you were risking your life to save others at the time!” Lance finally managed to mutter petulantly.

                “Will you do it?” demanded Perin, not taking any notice of what Lance had just said.

                “Yes, alright.” Replied Lance, grudgingly taking down the phone number on which to contact her. If it helped his brother, then he would contact her but he certainly wouldn’t be helping her out with anything except the bare minimum his brother set out.   

                “Thanks.” Replied Perin, sounding a little less panicked already. What on earth had this woman done to inspire such loyalty from him Lance wondered, and why hadn’t he realised that she didn’t deserve it with what she had done. They could all be exposed because of her and it seemed like Perin just didn’t care!  

                Lance paced his room angrily for a couple of minutes, before deciding to get in the shower before he called her. It would be foolish to speak to her feeling the way he did; they would likely argue and then she may not give him any information to take back to Perin to show that he had done what he had promised. 

                Once he had stood underneath the showerhead for a few minutes and let the hot water pound the tension from his shoulders and neck he felt more ready to speak to his brother’s errant wife. He was thinking about what he might he say as he towelled off and got dressed in some comfy tracksuit bottoms and a battered old t-shirt.

                Retrieving the paper that he had written the phone number that his brother had given him on, he took a deep breath and dialled the number. Just get the information and hang up, he told himself. No point in telling her his opinion of what she had done; she obviously didn’t care anyway, and him having a go wouldn’t make any difference.

                After a couple of rings, the call was answered;

                “Hello New Dawn. How can I help?” the woman on the other end sounded cheerful and efficient, and was definitely not Rowan.

                “Hello.” He said, wondering if she had given them a dummy number. “Is Rowan there please?”

                “Just a moment…” the woman muted the call, leaving Lance to sit in silence on the other end. After a minute or so he was considering hanging up; no doubt Rowan had thought giving his brother a fake number would be a good final kick when he was down.

                “Perin?!” came a slightly breathless voice on the line. Surprised that it was genuine after all, he took a moment to say,

                “Err, no.”

                “Who’s this?” she asked, sounding a lot more wary than she had a moment ago.

                “It’s Lance.” He told her.

                “Lance? How did you get this number?” she demanded, like it was suspicious that he would call.

                “Perin gave it to me.” He didn’t know quite what the issue was. She had taken the time to leave this number for Perin to call, which was surprising in itself, but now she was pissed off about someone calling her on it?

                “Have you spoken to him? How is he? Are they letting him go?” She was doing a great job of sounding concerned about Perin’s welfare. She was obviously a better actress that Lance had given her credit for!

                “He called me.” Lance told her. “Asked me to get some stuff together for you. They are charging him with manslaughter.” He didn’t add the rest of the sentence in his head ‘all because of you!’

                “Manslaughter! But they can’t! He was just trying to help, he didn’t kill anyone!” She seemed genuinely shocked, but Lance still didn’t trust that her reactions were real.

                “Actually he did.” Lance told her flippantly. “He shot the guy who took you.”

There was a pause for a moment, like she was processing what he had just said.

“What are we going to do Lance? He can’t go to prison…” So she did understand the gravity of the situation, he realised.

“Well, I’m trying to do what he asked me to do, which is make sure you’re OK. Where are you?” He was fed up with talking to her now; he couldn’t read people well at the best of times let alone when they were a known liar and he was speaking to them over the phone.

“I can’t tell you. I’m in refuge and I’m not allowed to say where.” How convenient, thought Lance sarcastically.

“Then you’ll need to meet me somewhere else. What area are you in?” He was going to do what his brother had asked him to; perhaps then Perin would stop worrying about her and think about himself for once!

“I can meet you at St Mary’s church.” She said hesitantly.

“Alright. When?” he didn’t know where the church was but had little doubt that he could find it online.

“I don’t know, when is good for you?” So now she was going to be cooperative?

“Tomorrow at 4pm.” He decided. That would give him enough time to get some cash out and sort out some stuff to take to her. Plus it would mean that he wouldn’t be conspicuously absent from anything he usually did, which he deemed wise at least until they knew what was going to happen to Perin.

“Ok, I’ll see you then.” She replied. “Thanks for calling me…” but he pressed the end call button before she could finish. He didn’t need any false pleasantries; she had shown her true colours when she betrayed his brother’s trust.  

Feeling tense and annoyed, he made himself a coffee and glanced up at the clock on his kitchen wall. It was far too early to go to work, yet too late to go back to bed. Instead, he stretched out on the sofa with his mug browsing TV channels until he found a crime drama that he had seen before and didn’t need too much attention paid to follow the story.

Eventually it got to a reasonable time to leave his apartment, so he got dressed for work and headed out trying to put aside his worries in order to actually do something useful at work that evening. He was pleased to find that there wasn’t much going on in the office after the fire and Perin’s crisis, and could just run some routine checks on the security systems to make sure they were doing their job.

On the way back home after his shift he stopped off at Perin’s apartment to get Rowan’s stuff. He had been given a key years ago, but it still felt odd entering Perin’s home without him being there. Going through to the bedroom, he looked in the wardrobe to find something to pack some clothes in, pleased when he found a large holdall.

He packed fairly indiscriminately; if it was feminine it went in the bag. In fact, he managed to fit nearly everything in the holdall which pleased him, as it meant that he shouldn’t have to do this again. This task accomplished, he looked around the apartment making sure everything was turned off except the fridge which he grabbed the milk out of to use back at his; no sense in it going to waste!

Back home, he checked his money clip wondering if he had enough cash to give her. He had about £600 which was a couple of weeks’ worth of money for him and decided to swing by a cash point on the way to meet Rowan the following day. He knew Perin would pay him back at some point, and again he thought the more he gave her now the less likely it was that he would have to go and see her again.