Jack of Hearts

me.

Chapter One

At 8:30 on a bleak Newcastle morning the first members of staff had begun to arrive at The National Bank, the bank that ‘Tries harder for you!’ if you believe their commercials. A black cab crawled to a stop in front; no one took any notice of the four figures huddled inside. They could have been normal businessmen dressed in expensive suits, there to negotiate a loan or corporate restructuring, maybe four colleagues sharing a taxi to work. The driver, if anyone had cared to take notice, perhaps gave the game away. A mask. Tony Blair driving a taxi.

Sandra Willard, a cashier who had been with the bank for thirteen years, entered the premises after going through the routine security checks. The gang of four would-be robbers wearing Disney cartoon masks burst out of the cab and charged through the doorway. The first thing Sandra felt was a dull thud in the back as they forced their way inside. She fell to the floor splayed out on all fours like Bambi on ice. Goofy grabbed Sandra by her long hair, put a gun to her head and frogmarched her to the locked secure area.

Suck it! he snarled at the girl between dirty, blackened and broken, cigarette-stained teeth. He pushed the barrel violently into her mouth, drawing a trickle of blood from the corner. Open the fucking door or she wears her teeth in the back of her head.

A colleague buckled under the pressure and pressed the door release button. The robbers rushed forward, much to the horror of the staff behind the protective screens. The thugs stormed behind the counter, knocking two cashiers to the floor in the process. Working at breakneck speed, they filled two rucksacks with the cash from the tills that had just been prepared for the working day.

Mickey, Donald Duck, Goofy and Pluto, characters every child loved, were not so lovable this morning. Mickey, Donald and Goofy were brandishing guns, Pluto had an American aluminium baseball bat.

And, as if to demonstrate their intent, Pluto set upon one of the male employees with his metal weapon. The helpless man hadn’t attempted any movement, nor had he defied any instructions. It was simply meant to frighten. It had the desired effect.

Pluto beat the man continuously as he pleaded and begged for mercy. Between blows he scurried like a cornered sewer rat under a large desk out of reach of the swinging bat. Pluto stood laughing as the man cowered under the desk sitting in an ever-growing pool of his own blood. By that time many of the female staff were crying, the secure area resembling a World War Two battleground.

Bob Heggie stepped off the train, tucking the paper under his arm. Ten minutes from now and he’d be at work. Just another day wasted away at the bank. He sighed, but the train covered the sound as it rumbled slowly out of the Central Station.

The twenty-minute ride from Monkseaton had been uneventful as usual. He’d spent the time reading yesterday’s evening paper. He bought it on his way home every evening, but usually worked on his laptop on the ride home trying desperately to lessen the workload that would inevitably build up as the working week progressed. He saved the paper for the trip to work in the morning trying, but generally failing, to find a good news story to brighten his start to the day. He scoured the pages. A mugging, a murder, rare in Newcastle, he thought, but nevertheless a murder. A jealous husband, a drunken night out and a razor sharp seven-inch kitchen knife. A young family without a mother. He searched the back sports pages for his beloved Newcastle United but a weekend defeat and more doom and gloom. He took the escalator up to ground level, ignoring the other passengers. At ground level, he tossed the paper into a bin and made for the exit where he found Old Tom, the newspaper seller.

Tom had the morning journal in his hand and the transaction was completed without a word. Tom figured by the vacant, distant look in Bob’s eyes that today Bob would prefer not to exchange pleasantries. Tom had another customer, an American youth, who was asking directions to the Student Union at the college. Bob wanted a word, so he decided to wait a bit.

The kid thanked Tom and left. Ah youth! Try as he might, Bob couldn’t remember his. It seemed like he’d been born straight into the rut that his life had become.

What can I do for you, Bob? Tom scratched what looked like a two-day beard. Bob had never seen Tom clean-shaven and that beard never seemed to grow. Old Tom was always the same: scruffy-looking coat, faded but clean jeans, shoes that had seen better days, silver hair, badly in need of a comb, just touching his shoulders.

I was wondering if you’d do me a favour. My ex-wife heard about this horror writer who did that book signing last week at Blackwell’s. She called and they apparently have some copies left over. If I give you a tenner, do you think you could pick one up for me? Debra was an avid reader, anything and everything from biographies to horror, crime fiction and romance. Bob envied her, envied her and despised her. The morning and evening newspapers were the extent of his reading, that and the endless amount of crap he had to wade through at the bank on a daily basis.

He tried to keep Debra sweet, anything she wanted really, ever since the separation. Bob was bitter, but bitterness didn’t get him days out with the kids. Debra controlled his visiting rights and could cancel planned days out and stopovers at the drop of a hat.

Sorry, Bob, she’d say, I’m not sending them over if you’re in that mood. And the telephone line would go dead. He’d ring back of course, but it was always engaged. Left off the hook or talking to her new man, Stephen, making new arrangements for a family day out. He liked Bob’s kids, Stephen did. Debra never stopped telling Bob how good he was to them. The children talked about him too and they could break Bob’s heart without realising.

Is he our new Daddy? Cameron asked one afternoon. Bob cried himself to sleep that night.

He’d learned to play the game with her, didn’t even ask about the new man in her life anymore, wasn’t that bothered now if the truth be told.

That’d be Jack Priest, Tom said bringing him back to reality. Nice young man, bought a couple of papers from me. Left a bloody tip both times. A bloody tip, Bob, can you believe it? Nobody tips Old Tom for a paper, it’s well known he’s a Yankee.

Bob laughed. Tom accepted Bob’s money.

I’ll have the book with your Evening Chronicle.

Thanks. Bob left and started the five-minute walk to the bank.

The thugs demanded access to the safe and Mickey Mouse took young Gloria Allen hostage. She had only been with the bank for two weeks. Now the robbers had two female hostages, both with a gun to their heads. The raid had been well planned and female hostages were singled out on purpose. The raiders were aware the poor girls were unlikely to try any heroics and, in addition, it made the raiders out to be more callous and ruthless, as if the beating of the man under the desk hadn’t already demonstrated this fact.

Mickey dragged Gloria to the front door, preventing anyone gaining access and also giving himself a good viewing platform to the street. The other robbers seemed to know exactly where to go. They were in the safe for only a couple of minutes and rushed out with full rucksacks.

It was at that point that the raid began to go wrong. A male manager, for some reason, tried to stand in Donald Duck’s way. It was a stupid thing to do. Pluto took on the role of the enforcer, a role he was beginning to enjoy, and quickly battered him to the floor. As he lay dazed, Goofy moved over to him; he wanted a piece of the action and hadn’t even thought about the consequences as he pointed the pistol at the man’s leg. He squeezed the trigger and with a loud crack and a wisp of smoke the round buried itself into the terrified man’s kneecap. Goofy smiled as blood and bone fragments flew around the small, enclosed area, while the wounded man cried out as realisation and pain hit him at the same time.

A young woman fainted and screams filled the banking hall.

Bastard, the man on the floor screamed in delayed shock.

Goofy turned back round and stood over the wounded man.

Don’t swear at me, Grandad! he said with a gruff, smoke-tuned voice. I know who my father is. He raised a foot and stamped on the man’s wounded knee.

You cunt! the wounded man shouted in defiance.

Oh, that was not smart! Goofy took a step back, aimed a heavy kick at the injured kneecap and let fly, sending blood shooting out of the hole in his trousers. The man lapsed into unconsciousness, nature’s way when the pain threshold is breached.

The rest of the gang scrambled towards the door leaving the carnage behind. Goofy figured it would be wise to take out a little insurance and dragged Sandra Willard by the ponytail towards the exit.

Bob stopped in front of Starbucks a couple of doors down from the bank. Every now and then he went in and spent too much for one of their specials. It was an extravagance, but it was much better than what they tried to pass off as coffee at work.

He sometimes took his lunch there, watching the students over each forkful of his favourite tuna melt pasta. Young eager kids about to step into the big wide wicked world of work. Tomorrow’s teachers, engineers or doctors and dentists, or, God help them, bankers. He needed the smiling faces to remind him that not everybody was as depressed as he’d become.

And he needed to be away from the bank when he immersed himself in his latest fantasy, courtesy of Google Earth, on his laptop. India, The Great Wall of China, The Himalayas, someday he’d be going to those places. Someday. But mostly he went online to check the ponies. Every day he checked the form. He doubted there was anybody in England who knew the ponies as well as he did. However, even though this wasn’t a forbidden passion, it wouldn’t do to be caught checking up on the horses at work. Not the sort of hobby a man in his position should have.

This morning, having spent his extra money on the book for Debra, he decided not to go in. He was a little late for work anyway.

He was about to continue his short trek toward the bank, when he caught his reflection in the coffee shop’s window. Damn! He had food or something on his chin. What was that? Egg yolk from breakfast? He wiped it off. Hadn’t Debra seen it when he had dropped the children off this morning; was she so caught up in whatever novel she’d been reading that she hadn’t noticed, or didn’t she care?

One thing was for certain, the other passengers on the train must have noticed. Old Tom must have seen it as well, but then he was far too polite to say something about it. What a dilemma it must have posed for him. Should he point out the yellow stuff on his customer’s chin, thus saving him embarrassment later on, or should he pretend he hadn’t seen it?

He wiped the yolk away, shook his head. He wondered if anybody at the bank would have said anything. He wondered if they’d have even noticed. The customers would have. John Mackenzie, the shit he worked for, he’d have noticed as well. But everybody else seemed to be caught up in the same kind of humdrum existence he’d been spinning around in for the last couple of years. Like him, they kept their heads down and did just enough to get through their day without losing their job.

He forced a smile at his window reflection. He wasn’t the best-looking man on God’s polluted planet, but he wasn’t the worst either. Still, much as he hated to admit it, he didn’t have the kind of looks the ladies went for. His mass of dark, slightly silver hair that refused to be regulated, combined with a nose that had been broken in a street brawl when he was fifteen, gave him a sort of an ageing, beat-up boxer appearance. Middle-age spread had set in and he had vowed on more than one occasion to do something about it.

That, and his cheap suit, made him almost look like a man on the skids, a man on a fast track to dung hill, not the under manager of a bank. When you saw Bob Heggie for the first time, banker wasn’t the first thought that flashed through their heads; not the tenth either, it didn’t even make the list.

Bob turned away from his reflected self and continued on, just a short way now. He cursed as he felt a few spots of rain. He felt like he should quicken his step, but it was only a drizzle and besides, he wasn’t in a hurry to get to work.

The rain started to come harder, but still he moved along at his leisurely pace. He shook the wet mop of hair out of his eyes. By the time he got to the bank it was raining ropes, as the French would say, had been for about a minute. He might have been able to get up those steps and into the bank before it started, but he’d spent that few extra minutes with Old Tom and now he was paying for it.

Lightning flashed in the distance, thunder roared. It was going to be a stormy morning. Bob sighed, gave a thought to Old Tom as he remembered their conversation, and wished that his day was over and that he was picking up that book for Debra from the paper seller. Wouldn’t it be great if he could just move eight hours into the future? Skip the working day altogether.

Someone hit the alarm as the gang fled the secure area and the loud ear-piercing sound turned their flight into panic. One of the raiders turned; his adrenalin high, at its peak, he panicked and fired four shots into the protective glass screen as the staff members hit the floor, seeking cover. The powers that be had never informed the staff that the glass was bullet-proof. The terrified staff screamed and whimpered on the bloodstained carpet, convinced they were about to die.

The rounds ricocheted off the glass, embedding themselves into ceilings and walls.

The man at the door cursed his mate and released Gloria before sprinting out into the street. The other raiders followed suit, running quickly out of the bank. An innocent customer, in the wrong place at the wrong time, was pistol-whipped to the floor. Releasing Sandra, Goofy ran past him. He got to the door where Gloria had frozen in fear; she stood rooted to the spot. Sandra dusted herself down, thankful that her ordeal at least seemed to be over. She reached out and went to place a comforting arm around Gloria. She took a small step sideways, unaware that she was about to bump into Goofy. They collided violently and the three of them spilled to the floor. Gloria cried out in panic as she came face to face with the cartoon mask. Goofy panicked too. He fired two shots in no particular direction. The first round rooted itself into the thick plaster ceiling with a dull thud and an explosion of white cloudy powder cascaded downwards. The second bullet entered the young nineteen-year-old below the chin, exiting through the top of her skull.

Air hissed from the hole just above her trachea, and a contorted vacant smile gradually materialized on her face as the inevitable conclusion sunk in. A deep red claret pool oozed onto the floor, and the chalky powder from the ceiling settled on her face. Goofy stared in shock at his first murder. The corpse had turned into a ghostly apparition. Sandra screamed hysterically as her hand slid into the sticky, warm liquid.

Goofy froze for an instance. Then, regaining his composure, he grabbed Sandra by the arm, as he heard the shouting from his partners in crime. He struggled to his feet and lunged towards Sandra, throwing his free arm brutally around her neck. He dragged her towards the door as she struggled for breath through clenched teeth, her feet clawing at the ground like a tormented ballerina.

It started to come down even harder as Bob approached the bank. Had he been going anywhere else, he would have dashed through the rain in a mad run for shelter. But he was going to work and he’d just as soon arrive drenched as not. So he shuffled along, in spite of the downpour, head down, left arm stiff as a pipe, anchored by a briefcase that felt as if it were stuffed with bricks instead of paperwork. He looked up for an instant at the doorways to Martins, the bank where he worked, and The National, the bank next door. He took the first step. God he hated this job, his boss, his life. One step, two, three, he climbed, eyes on the wet concrete. At the top he started towards his bank when he heard an explosion from next door.

What - ! His exclamation was cut short as a man wearing a Mickey Mouse mask burst out of The National. He was carrying a gun; at the sight of it a sickly feeling came over Bob, as it dawned on him what was happening.

The mouse took on a comical appearance, but this was no comic strip, and if Bob hadn’t seen the gun in the mouse’s right hand, he might have thought the explosion he’d heard a few seconds ago was thunder. But he did see the gun, some kind of big automatic. And he saw the mouse’s trembling hands. Had he just shot someone inside the bank? This was a raid, they were robbing the bank, these odd-looking characters in suits.

Out of the way! Mickey roared.

Bob jumped back, not about to argue with the thug brandishing a gun.

Mickey was nervous; Bob was just a little too close for comfort. He turned and took a half step backwards, pointed the gun straight at Bob’s heart and for a flash of a second that seemed like a lifetime, the two men stared at each other. Even through the rain, Bob registered the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, behind that mask. Frightened, blue eyes. Unforgettable. The man was terrified, and all of a sudden Bob realised he was not.

For an instant he almost wished the man would pull the trigger and put him out of his misery. Just put him down the way you did a dying dog, because that’s what he felt like, a mortally wounded animal. Life had boarded the train and gone, and left Bob Heggie at the station without a ticket.

The rain, Bob said, it’s not good for the suit. As soon as he’d uttered the words, he knew it had been a stupid thing to say.

What? Now it was Mickey’s turn to be surprised.

Bob grinned, didn’t know why he was so calm in the face of such danger.

And Mickey’s hand started shaking. He was going to pull the trigger. Quicker than a wink of God’s eye, it was all going to be over and Bob would learn the answer to life’s ultimate question.

Get it over with, Bob, beyond caring, spat out the words.

You stupid mother-

Fuck, fuck, fuck! his partner in crime screamed as he burst out through The National’s front door, colliding with Mickey, just as the mouse fingered the trigger. He wore a Donald Duck mask. The scene was becoming stranger by the minute and others, all with cartoon masks, were fleeing, sprinting away from the bank doorway and the screams from inside: loud screams, panic stricken screams and then, a deathly silence.

Jesus, Bob said, but he didn’t hear the words. The blast had been so loud that his ears seemed to be on fire. The bullet implanted itself in the red brick wall above the door of the bank.

C’mon, move it! the duck shouted, loud enough for Bob to hear despite the ringing in his ears. Donald was holding a shotgun and his mask was askew, threatening to come off. Sweat rolled down his neck, he was trembling. He pushed the mouse away from Bob, towards the steps leading down to the street. He was angry, any idiot could see that, and Bob was no idiot.

Now get going! He gave Mickey a second shove and both of them took off at a run towards a black taxi waiting outside, engine running.

Arrrgh, Bob heard Mickey scream as he stumbled halfway down the steps, crashing to the ground, cutting his head on the ridge of a step. But his adrenalin must have been kicking into overdrive, because he was up in a flash, chasing after the squawking, cursing duck.

Acting on instinct, Bob started toward The National, to see what had happened, but he’d taken less than a step when the door burst open again. Goofy this time. Jesus, Bob thought, how many of them are there? He had a gun too. He also had his arm snaked around a young girl’s neck, dragging the unwilling woman in his wake. Hostage or cover? was Bob’s first thought as Goofy released her with a shove.

Sandra stumbled, fought to stay on her feet, and instinctively grabbed onto Goofy’s gun hand to stop herself falling.

Leggo! Goofy screamed, as he desperately tried to jerk his arm away. Sandra hung on and screamed as she hit the concrete, oblivious to his words.

Stupid bitch, let go. Goofy pointed the pistol at her head. Then she saw the gun inches from her face. She let go, but it was too late, the gunman’s adrenalin had hit a new high; he’d already made the decision to shoot.

No, Sandra whimpered, clawing at the gun desperately.

No, Bob muttered. He was going to shoot. That was as clear to Bob as the bottled water he guzzled all day long. He was going to shoot this young woman in cold blood.

No! Bob shouted, bringing his briefcase up as cover as he jumped between Sandra and the gunman.

Something smacked into the briefcase, slamming him towards the ground as a searing pain lashed across his left side.

Shit! Bob hit the ground with a thud. The pain was wicked; the curse didn’t take a bit of it away. He looked towards the cartoon characters as they disappeared into the black cab. They started to blur and Bob struggled to focus on them. As the car screeched away the window wound down and Goofy’s head appeared. He looked at Bob, gave him the finger, and Bob wondered why he hadn’t heard the bastard’s shot. He looked into the pretty eyes of a concerned, grateful woman, then his world started to spin out of control.

Chapter Two

Two Weeks Earlier

Bob woke to The Verve playing on the alarm radio, Richard Ashcroft singing I’m a lucky man, and he smiled at the irony of the lyrics. He stayed still, moving only his eyelids, as the song played. He fluttered a few fingers as he listened to the disc jockey’s chitchat and gags. He didn’t hear the dreary news on the hour, but paid attention when the weatherwoman said it was going to be a filthy, muggy day, with more of the same for the rest of the week.

He groaned gently and got out of his lonely bed, pulled on a sweatshirt and some Levi’s and stumbled down the stairs. Then he was out of the door with Hamish and Cassius for his usual early morning walk. The normal route was planned with military precision to enable the boxer dogs to complete their morning formalities, and leaving him just enough time to catch the morning train. Seven minutes at the breakfast table, then thirty minutes to shower and change.

The children usually stopped over on a Wednesday evening; that meant an earlier walk for the dogs and more than seven minutes at the table. It was one of the few highlights of Bob’s week. The children’s day would be discussed in detail as well as the forthcoming weekend, the swimming and of course the football, but never the bank. The children knew better than to mention Dad’s dreaded place of work. The dogs would finish their breakfast and settle in for the long sleep ahead as Bob would disappear upstairs to shower. Then he’d reluctantly pull on a shirt and tie and set off on the five-minute drive to the children’s new home.

After that it would take an hour by car, foot and train to Newcastle, where he would spend the day in the confines of a small office in the bank he had worked