My Name Is Not Jacob Ramsay (17 page)

Michael Thompson was also rebellious as well as undercover, and was known to secret authorities as Jacob Ramsay.

Michael and Rebecca opened the door to their hotel room in Prague. They were staying in The Golden Wheel, a fourteenth-century hotel on Mala Strana.

"I'm going to take a quick shower, do my hair and make-up and we'll go out to dinner," said Rebecca, kissing Michael as she flung her coat on the bed and headed for the bathroom.

Michael removed his overcoat and crawled onto the bed. He retrieved his small Paperchase notebook and the hotel pen and wrote what he and Rebecca had done that day. His scrawling handwriting told of him and Rebecca visiting Prague Zoo and how he saw 'the man with the spider tattoo again'. He had previously seen him on the plane a couple of days earlier. The little notebook contained many a scribble, with a mixture of peculiar sightings, restaurants visited and obscure diary entries.

Rebecca held Michael's hand tightly as they paced across the snow-covered Old Town Square in Prague, in the Czech Republic. Suddenly a man confronted them.

"Hey! Hi! You speak English? You want to come to my bar?" said the young Czech man.

"No thank you," replied Michael as he and Rebecca continued their walk, passing him.

"I can give you a two-for-one drink offer all night!" called out the man.

"I'd rather have a glass of red," replied Rebecca, quietly and cold-breathed to Michael, hurriedly, tightening her grasp upon his hand.

"It'd be bad free drinks, I bet anyway," Michael said to her.

"I can give you a free entry to our Jazz Room!" called out the man, louder than before, still optimistic that the couple would turn back around and follow him.

"The place we're going to is meant to have live music," stated Rebecca to Michael, quickening her pace.

"We have dancing midgets!" shouted the man.

Michael turned around, alarmed and somewhat intrigued by the Czech man's statement. He was then tugged forward by Rebecca, who frowned at him.

Within the restaurant of a hotel upon the square, five or six old-timer jazz musicians played their music in a corner as diners ate their meals overdone in garlic gravy.

Michael and Rebecca sat close to the music. They toasted one another with their glasses of warm Chilean red wine.

She smiled at him. "I can't believe you were actually tempted to go to that bar and see dancing midgets," she laughed, touching his smirking face.

"You have to admit, I think it would have been interesting," Michael said.

"Curiosity killed the cat," Rebecca smiled.

"Curiosity killed the midget."

"Maybe the midget killed the tourist in the cellar bar," said Rebecca, raising an eyebrow as she sipped her wine.

"This is extremely garlicky," remarked Michael, changing the subject.

"Mm, I know. Why do they do that? Is garlic their main export?" Rebecca asked.

"I thought it was prostitutes," Michael observed, tucking into his tender chicken breast.

Rebecca shot him a look, withholding a smirk and chewing her own breast of chicken.

"Did you write in your book today?" Rebecca asked, sipping her wine.

"Yeah. When you were in the shower."

"Did you say you saw the spider man again?"

"I did! What if he's following us?"

"You've seen him twice! Once on the plane and once at the zoo. People can do the same things on holiday, you know?"

"What if he owns a cellar bar with midgets as waiters and-" Michael stopped when Rebecca leaned in close and kissed him on the lips.

"Sshh. I love you. Eat your garlicky dinner."

"I love you, too," Michael said.

Michael drove past Greenwich Park, with Blackheath on his right-hand side as headed towards Charlton Village.

"Born to be wild!" he sang out, tapping the steering wheel. There wasn't even any music playing from the stereo. Perhaps the song had just finished. Either way, he was in a very happy mood.

Michael pulled his car into the school car park and switched off his engine.

In the kitchen, Michael and his colleagues, Paul, Helen, Catherine and Patricia, sat at a table.

Everyone was looking at Patricia, curiously.

Patricia proudly beamed. "I wanted to announce to you all together that I am officially seeing somebody."

Catherine jutted out her chin and fixed her tiny eyes on Patricia. "Is this really a topic suitable for breakfast conversation, Patricia? Is it really a conversation to be having in school, actually?" She stuck her chin out even further and nodded as she sought acknowledgement from the other members of staff, who she hoped would agree with her.

"I'm seeing Norman," Patricia stated.

"Who?" Paul said, with a frown.

"Norman? Police Officer Norman?" said Helen.

"But I had my eye on him," chirped Catherine. "You lucky dog."

"Yes, Norman Clarke, our Safer Schools Police Officer," replied Patricia. "Right."

Michael exchanged a look with Helen and Paul across the table.

Both had gritted teeth, trying to smile and show genuine happiness for Patricia.

Patricia released a sigh of relief and stood up. She towered over her colleagues.

"Okay. Done it. I'd prefer it if this information doesn't leave here." With that, she left the room.

"Well, if that's not a conflict of interest, I don't know what is," remarked Michael.

"I think that's an unfair thing to say, Michael. I find you quite mean," protested Catherine. She wiped a tear from her cheek and walked out the room.  

"What the bloody hell is she crying for?" asked Paul.

"What are you thinking, Helen?" Michael looked at his boss, who seemed a million miles away. 

"I'm thinking lots of things. I'm thinking it's not only too soon for Patricia to be seeing someone, especially as she's still undergoing bereavement counselling, but that the someone who is seeing her is our Safer Schools Police Officer. You're right, Mike, it's a conflict of interest. Let me think on this one for a bit. It might not be anything to worry about, but gut feeling is telling me otherwise."

Helen wasn't too keen on Norman. She had tried to have him replaced by another officer. Someone who wasn't so easily swayed. Someone whom the children both respected as a force of law and were comfortable being around.

Norman was neither. 

Michael walked along with two cups of tea. He stopped in the doorway to Helen's room as she looked up from her desk and her computer screen.

"Thanks, Mike," she said, as he placed one cup on her mouse mat.

"Everything ok?" he asked, seeing her frown at the monitor.

"Just looking at flights for Thailand."

"What do you think about Patricia then?" asked Michael.

"Hmm, I think it's a match made in ego land." Helen turned on her chair to face Michael. She sipped her tea and tightened her mouth as she looked at him.

"It could be dodgy."

"How do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, he's not exactly John McClane or Inspector Morse, is he?" Michael said.

Helen chuckled. "No. No, he's not."

"He wants to prove himself. Loves the fact that some staff members think he's quite powerful. He's all about status."

"As is Patricia."

"As nice as she is," Michael said.

"Exactly. Which is why we all have to keep her in check every now and again," Helen continued. She frowned at Michael's face which was scrunched up, looking pained. "What's the matter?" she asked.

"I don't know. It's just a feeling, really. A hunch, intuition, I don't know, I just sense danger," he replied.

"You think Patricia's dangerous?"

"Not intentionally, no, but irrational and misguided. That's what makes her dangerous, but hey, it's extremely early days."

"Yes, we should be happy for her that she's found love, despite it being far too soon," said Helen.

"I love our cynicism," Michael smiled.

"Let's hope it's just that."

Paul stood outside his room in the corridor and rang the brass hand bell. The sound echoed through the corridor. Paul looked at Michael at the other end of it and saluted him, accompanying it with a smile. "Halfway through the day, sir."

"Not halfway close enough, Mr J," Michael said, as several children spilled out from another class.

Sinatra Umbundo stepped into the corridor from a set of double doors. He was late. The first face he saw was Paul's.

"Late again, Sinatra. Everything okay?" asked Paul.

"Whatever, man," Sinatra replied, scowling and glancing up the corridor to see Michael. 

Their eyes locked. Sinatra's expression was full of hurt.

"Stay away from me, snake." Sinatra stared at Michael as he passed Paul and went into his classroom.

In the classroom, Paul stepped half in and half out. He saw Sinatra slouched on a comfortable soft chair, checking his Blackberry messenger. "Wrong class, Sinatra. No maths today. You've got art."

"I'm done with that shit," Sinatra said, firmly.

"Bit grumpy today, sir. Woke up on the wrong side?" Paul enquired, keeping the door open with his body.

"My whole life is the wrong side," Sinatra answered.

"Okay. Well, c'mon, into art. It's nice and calm in there."

"I don't do calm. Fuck calm."

"No swearing, sir, and off the phone," Paul sighed.

"This is bullshit. It's fucked up," Sinatra grumbled as he pushed himself up from the chair and walked towards the door. 

The art room had a host of pupils' work pinned to the walls. A few pupils were sitting around one big table in the centre of the room. A mixed bunch.

The white, violent schizophrenic

Lee Mace sat at the table, simply sketching a tag on an A3-sized piece of cartridge paper.

Anna, the quiet Russian girl, pretty and always clean and fresh, sat opposite Lee Mace. She wrapped some wool around a circular cardboard disc, occasionally tutting as she glanced up at the boy opposite her.

Olga, the outspoken, punky Polish girl sat next to Anna. Her beehive hairdo was firmly fixed with hairspray and her dark eye make-up was as much a stand-out feature as were the bright pink lacy knickers poking out at the top of her black Juicy Couture tracksuit bottoms. She, too, was wrapping wool, green wool, around a circular cardboard disc.

Abdul Rah-Maan, the kind, pleasant Afghan, sat next to Lee Mace, cutting out a circle from a square of cardboard. 

Michael held up a woollen pom-pom that had been made using two cardboard circular discs and different coloured wool. It had sticky plastic eyes attached to it and a sort of monster appearance. A character.

"So, this is what we're aiming for." Michael looked up to see Sinatra in the doorway.

Paul was behind him. "We've come to join you, sir." Paul sat at the table and exchanged a look with Michael.

"Sure, no problem. Okay, Sinatra, you'll find on the table in front of you a piece of cardboard with a couple of shapes drawn on it. Circles. Cut the circles out, with the hole in the middle, and then I'll show you what to do after that," Michael instructed.

"I don't understand," said Anna.

"What? What don't you understand?" Paul mimicked her accent.

Anna smiled, trying hard to disguise it. She adored Paul and had great affection and admiration for him. She saw him as a father or even grandfather figure. Her own grandparents were back in Russia. She and her mother had fled a violent set of relationships in Moscow. Anna had witnessed severe domestic violence. Attacks on her mother by a dangerous, alcoholic father, who had once stabbed himself in front of her and beaten her beloved grandfather at the airport after chasing Anna and her mother all the way there.

The grandfather had driven them both there to catch their plane to London, when her biological father found out. In a drunken rage, he drove through the night and cast his angry eyes upon Anna and her mother, walking through to the gate, being waved at by her grandfather.

Anna had turned to wave back, only to see her father running towards him. Her eyes widened with shock and pain glazed over them when she saw her father punch her grandfather on the back of his head, striking him down to the ground.

Her father, wild as they came, stared at Anna, not taking his eyes off her as he sent a hard, swift kick to her grandfather beneath his feet.

Anna saw the grey-haired man in a heap as she was dragged round a corner by her mother. The last image of her grandfather. The last memory of home.

Paul had a couple of girls of his own. He was a quiet, caring, humble, kind, sensitive and an incredibly fun-loving man.

"I don't understand what pom-pom is," frowned Anna.

"Pom-pom. You are pom-pom," replied Paul in an Eastern European accent. 

"Nyet," she said in Russian. "You are a pom-pom," Anna continued, pointing to a pile of coloured wool upon the table.

"Oi, mate, Abdul. D'you know the Taliban? D'you wanna join them?" said Lee Mace, randomly whispering loud enough for Paul and Michael to hear.

Both looked up to give him a disapproving stare as he glanced up to see if he had been heard.

"Taliban? I join Taliban? No. Taliban are very bad. I know Taliban. I know they are bad," Abdul replied in his broken English.

"What's everyone doing this weekend then?" Michael asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah, what does everyone like to do?" Paul joined in.

"Weed. Smoking weed," confessed Lee Mace.

"Films. I will watch films. Harry Potter," replied Anna.

"I will be sleeping! My God, I have to get some sleep. Probably buy some make-up, see some friends, maybe a boy! Oh, don't! I am so excited for the weekend. Can I leave now, sir?" gushed Olga, excitedly.

"I'll probably be banged up. Right, sir?" Sinatra said, with a glare at Michael, who tilted his head, confused, but somewhat suspicious and a little concerned.

"Actually, I think I have to deal with my boyfriend. Well, he thinks he's my boyfriend. Bloody Albanian men," sighed Olga.

Anna rolled her eyes.

"Albania? You seeing someone from Albania?" asked Sinatra.

"Yeah! I am actually," smiled Olga.

"Is he in OTR?" Sinatra enquired, curiously.

OTR stood for On the Run. It was a gang formed around 2002 in the borough of Bromley, south-east London. The gang started various street battles with other Albanians, brandishing their weapons consisting of guns and knives and showing their tattoos off on the internet. Tired of killing and causing severe injury to one another, the OTR was said to have split, with other members and loyal, younger, highly impressionable Albanians forming their own gangs under the OTR umbrella, with names such as Real Albanian Gangsters and ASA Albanians spanning from north-west London to Greenwich. Their role wasn't to fight their fellow countryman, but to 'clean house' by claiming the streets of other gangs. As the majority of their members were older than your average gang member, they'd drive around in their cars packing automatic weapons, entering other boroughs, namely Greenwich, and 'sort out' other gangs. All the gangs were extremely dangerous, each with their unpredictable, unstable, volatile members. However, OTR was considered to be one of the worst out there.

"I like to wrestle. Wrestle fight. Fighting," said Abdul, motioning a wrestling action with a smile and recollecting a stirring memory of back home.

"Fucking Talibanna," muttered Lee Mace.

During break-time, the staff team assembled in a hall. Catherine stood watching a couple of kids playing table tennis, while Paul and Michael kept an eye on the rest sitting at a table, checking their mobile phones.

One dealt out some playing cards for a game of Black Jack.

A dinner lady, preparing for lunch, arranged tables and chairs.

Michael noticed Abdul in a corner of the hall, practically facing the wall. He looked upset.

Michael gestured to Paul. "Is he okay?" 

"Dunno. He seemed all right in your class. Well done for covering that, by the way. Not just an oily rag, eh?"

"What, like you?" Michael teased.

"Eh, I'm just a rag. I'm not lucky enough to have any oil," smirked Paul, patting Michael on the back.

The two had a great working relationship. A surrogate work father for Michael and the son Paul never had. If only Michael enjoyed sport, like Paul did, he'd be perfect. They were practically inseparable at break-times. Playful banter was mixed easily and smoothly with serious work and home issues. Through rain or shine, windy or uncomfortably hot summer days, Paul and Michael were usually the only members of the staff team to be found outside.