28th January 2019Charlie uncurled, peering from her sleeping bag properly taking in the ft’s new minimalist look. She’d angrily stomped round the empty space st night when she’d arrived back a few days early and realised Jess was gone, and with her most of the furniture. This morning she had the chance to fully absorb the fact that, rather more pressingly, Charlie’s clothes, the appliances, all the food and her computer were also gone. Staring vaguely at the space where there had until recently been a cheap computer desk she contempted her options: try and find Jess, or disappear, herself, quietly.
Restart life again somewhere else.
Charlie felt like she was barely there anyway. Currently, despite paying for everything around the ft it all existed in Jess’ name. It had been simpler not to switch everything over since they kept pnning to move. So of the options, leaving seemed like the easiest, albeit least practical, idea.
Rain battered the windows, streaking through the grime and crawling around the edges of the rotten frames. Charlie stuck a hand out of the sleeping bag and, after some exploratory waves followed with her torso. Leaving the sleeping bag behind was probably an error of omission given everything else was gone. She peered at the sky through the window and decided that it was a day for bike maintenance, a bit of quiet swearing at the motorcycle should help get her head straight. Without warning the thought slid into her head. Did Jess take the bike? She’d buggered off with everything else… Charlie paused for a moment and took a breath. No. No, Charlie’d paid for the lockup and Jess had never been there. And Charlie'd taken the only set of keys with her when she left a few days back. The odds were Jess didn’t even know where it was.
So then, breakfast at Suzi’s, since there wasn’t anything to eat here, check in at work, and if she could spare the time, pop out and grab the bike. She could get it up on the stand and upset Noah with her mechanical incompetence. Noah’d usually drop whatever company-owner task she was doing to come save Charlie from her ineptitude and she might actually fix one of the thing’s many faults. One of the bonuses of being friends with the boss.
Getting dressed was made much easier by the fact the only clothes left were the ones she’d been wearing when she got home. Grabbing her bike gear and pausing to pull her bck hair back into a harsh ponytail she jogged from the ft and down the stairs. The cold spray of rain as she opened the doors to the block caused her to momentarily pause. She leant against the door frame. Standing there picking at the scabbed paint she watched as a couple of police cars and a van pulled up outside. Not Border Force here to hassle the immigrants again then, she thought. When that group of turds rocked up she’d normally text Suzi just to be sure that anyone who needed to could be spirited away if possible.
Oddly the cops were just hanging out, though. Not getting ready, just sitting and from what she could see, staring bnkly out of the windows. It was like they didn’t even know each other. Living in Camby House meant she knew most of the local force by sight and not a single one of them seemed to be here. A small part of her hind-brain told her leaving now might be a very, very good pn.
Just in case, she slid the hair tie from her ponytail, letting the hair fall across her face. Attempting nonchance, she slipped out into the rain. The scrubby patch of cracked concrete complete with some desultory bent bits of rusty metal, or ‘community py park’ as the sign cimed, stood between her and Suzi’s Café. Thankfully, as she slow-jogged across it, head slightly ducked to hide from the rain, she seemed to attract no attention.
“Coffee, Charlie?”
“Yeah, please... Hey Suze, what’s up with that?” She waved in the general direction of the window.
“Dunno, ‘s odd.” She looked thoughtful, and her ck of knowledge was as worrying as the general weirdness. Charlie mumbled her thanks as she picked up the well worn mug and her breakfast. She dropped into a chair next to the steamed up windows, giving a cursory wipe she peered through the rain just in time to see the arrival of the unmarked bck van and its two anonymous looking occupants. Fascinated, she watched as a brown haired man and woman stepped out of the vehicle, dressed in disconcertingly nice suits. With a curt nod from the woman, the police rapidly disappeared into the building. Charlie settled back to eat her sausage sandwich, intrigued to see the outcome. Suddenly the lights flickered on in her ft.
“Shit!” she excimed before feeling everyone’s eyes turn to her. “Uh, the, err, coffee’s very hot?” she tried by way of expnation, waving vaguely at her cup. A collective shrug embraced her audience as they went back to eating. Grateful to no longer be the centre of attention, Charlie looked back at the ft and watched in dismay as officers appeared at the window, occasionally examining the very few items left behind after Jess’s evacuation.
She should leave.
She absolutely should leave.
She absolutely should leave right now.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away, didn’t even seem to be able to move. Her limbs felt like lead. It didn’t feel like she could get any air at all - the damp warmth of the cafe suddenly suffocating. Her entire body seemed to have gone numb. She wasn’t sure how long it took – it could have been minutes or hours – but eventually through the haze of condensation she watched what looked like it was a fairly loud argument. The woman wearing a pin bck coat definitely seemed angry with the man with brown hair.
Suzie appeared behind her, watching as Jess’s few left-behind possessions were carried out to the waiting vans. Leaning in, she whispered “Your ft?” her expression making it clear this wasn’t really a question.
“Uh, yeah.” She swallowed down the giant lump that had appeared in her throat. “Dunno why they’re here, though.”
“Mhm. You know when we close,” Suzi whispered quietly, “If you need, y’know.” before pcing a gentle arm around her and squeezing.
Charlie looked at her thoughtfully. “Thanks Suze,” she mumbled. The weak smile on Charlie’s face tried to hide her fear. As Suzi wandered off, Charlie stared morosely at her cup, picking at the fking electric blue logo while she desperately attempted to devise a course of action.
In the absence of a better pn, she decided that maybe she should actually check the office. Quickly dialling the number she was met by her own automated phone-tree which meant that Noah wasn’t in yet. Shit, she should warn Noah. Ringing her led to her voicemail. God damn it, she’s probably already on her way in on the bike. She could be riding into anything. The only option was for Charlie to go herself, to warn her friend, and to find out if the office’d been raided too.
She desperately hoped that if they were going to raid the office, they’d got that done early and had left.
She rapidly swigged the dregs of her coffee, dropped change on the table and made her way back out into the rain. Her brain screamed incoherently at her as she endeavoured to disappear into the background. Quietly passing as far away from the nondescript bck van as she could manage. Her face intermittently illuminated by the harsh blue strobes of the marked cars, she pulled her phone from her pocket and tried to inconspicuously snap pictures as she walked. Snippets of conversation told her that the suspect had probably disappeared during the couple of days before but there were signs someone had been there that morning. Mentally she thanked her incredibly nosey neighbour for providing that information.
Perhaps this was some ridiculous mistake, she thought. A case of mistaken identity.
Although given Jess’ evacuation of the ft it didn’t seem like it. She wondered if Jess’d assumed the raid would happen before Charlie got back, or if she just actually didn’t give a shit about her. That seemed like a possibility after that st row. Or had Jess been taken? The thought pced leaden weights in her stomach.
She rounded the corner and hungrily drew in air for what felt like the first time in days. The unpleasant aroma of the rubbish bins mixed with wet air dragged her back to some kind of normality. Usually she relished the walk to work, but today was different. Each passer-by seemed to be watching her, reporting back and then melting into a crowd of endless spies. She slipped onto a back route, down ratty old alleys and cutting through disused paths, eventually getting just close enough to the final corner to see Noah pulling open the door and flicking on the pointless neon ‘open’ sign. No one except folks that worked there ever came to the office, but Noah said she’d found it at the back of the arches when she’d first rented the pce, was amazed to find it worked, and saw it as a sign. A sign that was a sign, she’d said, then ughed that real ugh that gave away her upbringing.
It all looked so normal.
Charlie hung back in the alleyway waiting for the lights and sirens. Straining to hear, she stood watching and waiting. The rain soaked through her leather jacket and she gradually started to shiver.
