Читать книгу Ride or Die - Khurrum Rahman - Страница 20

Sophia Hunt’s alarm buzzed at 4.30 a.m., just as she was in the middle of a Beverly Hills shopping spree, a snobby shop assistant was questioning her means of payment, a-la Pretty Woman. But unlike Julia Roberts, she didn’t have to rely on a smug-faced Richard Gere to come to her rescue. She hated that bit. Always had. It wasn’t the fairy tale that she was looking for. This was different. A man and woman on equal footing, neither reliant on the other. A business deal, if a little crooked, but like her mum always used to say, usually as she slipped a trinket or two into her apron, Robin Hood was a national treasure, if it’s good enough for him… It wasn’t her best advice, but it wasn’t her worst.

Sophia lifted the duvet and her feet left the warmth of her single bed and found the laminate floor, cold enough to send a walking-over-her-grave shiver through her bed socks. She snaked her hand under the duvet and located the fake Gucci cardigan that she had slept beside, so that it stayed warm. She shrugged it on and wrapped it tight around her as she took in the day in front of her.

There’s crime and then there’s crime, from petty to full-on evil, and all the degrees inbetween. A couple of nights ago, Sophia had popped into Londis. She paid for the tiger bread roll, but pocketed the cheese spread. Nobody got hurt. It was a victimless crime. But what she was planning to do, wasn’t. But was it evil? Sophia didn’t think so. If all went to plan – and how could it not? – then nobody would get hurt, and the victim would be compensated through insurance. Everyone’s a winner. Okay, maybe not a winner, but, Sophia shrugged to herself, nobody loses.

Tonight, after her part was complete, she would have to face the police. She accepted that. It why Samuel Carter would be paying her so handsomely. The cops weren’t a problem; her story would be straight. They’d believe her because, even though nobody recognised it, Sophia Hunt was a damn good actress and this would be her breakthrough role, one that changed everything.

Sophia picked up the pay-as-you-go handset from the cabinet and slid it into the side pocket of her cardigan. That was her only concern. That phone, those conversations, the secrets between her and Samuel Carter. It was the link that could see her swap her one-bed flat for a one-bed jail cell. Regardless of Samuel’s somewhat casual attitude about the phone being unregistered, she would dispose of it as safely and securely as she deemed necessary.

Sophia got to her feet. The day had begun, and it was promising to be a long one. To help combat the cold, she pulled a pair of baggy jeans over her thin pyjamas and slipped on her navy blue coat, and matching bobble hat and gloves. At nearly five in the morning, armed with some burnt buttered toast, she walked ten minutes in the quiet and still darkness of the bitterly cold early morning, and made her way through Brentford Docks. Above her the rich slept soundly, the way only the rich can.

She arrived at the edge of the River Thames and leaned against the metal railing, her teeth chattering as the cold seeped from the slick, cold metal railing, through her gloves to her fingers. She faced the dirty grey, unimpressive river and shook her head as she wondered why people would pay hundreds of thousands for this crappy view? If she had that kind of money, would she? Absolutely, she decided.

Using her teeth, she pulled off her gloves and noticed her hands shaking. From the cold or from the nerves, she wasn’t sure, but it reminded her of her dear old Nana’s last years. She blew hot air onto her hands and rubbed them together hard and fast, before flexing her fingers and feeling the blood circulate. She removed the pay-as-you-go handset from her pocket and wedged a fingernail into the clip and released the battery. With a quick look over her shoulders, she lobbed the battery as high and far as she could, and lost sight of it before it had become part of the great river. She peeled out the sim card and lobbed the handset in another direction, again losing sight of it before it went under. Would it go under, or would the waves carry it until it flows into the North Sea, on the way to France or Germany or even Norway? Sophia impressed herself. Maybe some things had seeped in at school whilst she was scrawling her stage name – Simply Sophia – in pink and gold felt-tip all over her exercise book.

The last piece, the sim card, Sophia placed between her teeth and clenched down. She bent it back and forth until it weakened and snapped clean in half. Sophia placed both parts of the sim card on the palm of her hand and flicked one, and then the other, in two different directions, into the River Thames.