Returning Home

Returning Home

Her hair fell in wavy copper curls, almost wiry in texture. A glorious halo of shining, deeply burnished copper, beautifully maintained and presented it fell gracefully to her shoulders, and looked as if she had only just left a very expensive West End Coiffure. It was this golden halo which had first gained Andy’s attention, as just like every other male who had entered the train, he had stared over at the girl with the stunning red hair before selecting a seat, in his case directly opposite her on the other side of the carriage.



Her eyebrows reflected the colour of her hair. The curly, wiry nature was gone, but it was clear that every single hair was placed exactly where its owner wanted it. The eyebrows themselves were perfectly shaped, an elegant and professionally manicured line started high up and swept down over each eye then ended with a slight downward tail. Sitting high above her eyes, the eyebrows were a work of art, but did tend to make her permanently look slightly surprised. Her eyes should have been a sparkling, deep green. A translucent green which would set off the poets, bringing images of Celtic heroines, Irish princesses and ancient lays of lost love. But instead they were dark and colourless, an impenetrable wall telling nothing of their owner and her thoughts. A contradiction to the beautiful, bright copper curls falling around her shoulders.



Her make-up was impeccable; her lips, perhaps a little thin, were accentuated by the slightly darker shade of her red lipstick, which made up for their thinness and made them look fuller and more promising. Her checks showed a slight amount of blusher, though nicely understated it gave her thin face additional shape. Black mascara made her eyelashes stand out and finished off a professional looking presentation, and again raised the possibility that her appearance had been professionally created.



She sat quietly in the carriage, pressed deeply against the side panels of the train as if trying not to be there at all. It was this which initially stirred Andy’s curiosity and made him begin to study her. Here she was, with face and hair which would make the whole world look up and take notice, but so obviously trying to become anonymous and invisible, just another nobody on the way out of London, tired and wanting to get home. Andy was bored, and perhaps a little lonely, a five day stay in a hotel on your own soon becomes tedious, never mind how good the food and drink, and after three continuous weeks of being away from Sunday to Friday he really needed some company. In an attempt to keep himself amused, and in a way which would not get him into any sort of trouble he had invented a little game. While sitting on his own, people watching, he would examine their habits and their appearance, and try and invent their lives from their actions and attitude. Hence in the Hotel in the last week he had dined with bank managers and spies, runaway housewives enjoying a night of passion with their local GP, teams of insurance brokers and accountants, management consultants, nurses, teachers, lecturers and quite a few lap dancers, strippers and nymphomaniacs. It was funny that the longer he spent away from home the more of these latter categories seemed to be present.



But she was different, somewhere between 25 and 35 she had an image which said sit up and look, but an attitude which said I’m not here, ignore me. Even her clothes didn’t fit with the shrinking violet attitude. Her longish black jacket was stylish and matched the tight black skirt well. Beneath the jacket was a white blouse with a fairly large frilly lace collar, sufficiently low cut to make men pay attention while not looking too tarty. He could just make out the lace pattern on her bra through her blouse, not unusual in any fashionable office worker, but definitely not the type of clothing worn by a woman who doesn’t want to be noticed. And yet she still sat pressed right into the corner of her seat, her eyes always looking downwards. Then he noticed something else which was odd. This was a commuter train, London St Pancras to Sheffield. Most of the passengers were regular travellers. Within thirty minutes of leaving London almost everybody fell into one of three categories; the largest section started to read, getting out a laptop or picking up a newspaper or book, the next category leaned their heads back and started to dose, and the smallest group were those lucky enough to be travelling with a friend or colleague and inevitably started to chat, passing their latest piece of gossip. But Copper Top did none of those things, just sat there looking down toward the rather tatty table in the centre of her section of four seats. Not talking and hardly moving, her only movement was to occasionally look out through the murky windows at the darkening English landscape.



He continued to take furtive glances over at her, and although he may have become unconscious for a few minutes, was sure she had not moved, looked up around the carriage or picked up anything to read all the way out of London. Then, about half way home, just North of Wellingborough, when he thought it safe to take longer glances, she looked up, straight into his eyes, and very quickly, before he could look away she gave an almost imperceptible wink with her right eye. He looked away, embarrassed at getting caught looking at her, then thought about the wink, did she really ? or was it just his imagination. He waited a few more seconds, then took another look, but now she was staring down at the table again and giving no indication of even knowing of his existence. But she did ? surely she did, could he be imagining this ?



Just north of Leicester Andy started to rouse himself, beginning to think of the car journey after he got back to the station and decided to check his pockets for change for the car park. He quickly counted his change and made sure he had the correct coins to fit the ticket dispenser. While checking his coins he noticed an odd foreign coin, around the same size as a fifty pence piece it had an extra side, and bore a male head wearing a crown on one side. The reverse seemed to just have a wreath and some script that he couldn’t read. As he examined it he realised it was much larger than any current British coins and much heavier. It seemed crudely made, with only a slight amount of a flowing script to identify its origin. He wondered how he’d been stupid enough to accept the coin without realising it obviously wasn’t valid currency and wondered whether it originated in some Eastern European theme park. Still, it had the feel of something fairly old, so he decided to keep it and have a better look at home. In the light of the carriage he could make out few details clearly, but he did know it would not fit into the machine in the station car park, and he slipped it into his shirt pocket meaning to have a closer look once he got home.



Annoyed at being short changed in London yet again he thought back to where it had come from and remembered buying a coffee from a booth at St Pancras just before he boarded the train. He remembered the girls behind the cash till speaking very little English and after pronouncing “coffee, white” in as many different ways as he could think of was annoyed to realise he had to say “Latte” to be understood, after which he’d been too annoyed to check his change properly. Then he remembered Copper Top being there too, standing at the other end of the counter with her hand out as if waiting for change. He couldn’t remember her speaking, but he remembered the hair and the lacy bra.



He looked up and saw her stand, “nice figure” he thought automatically checking her out, then realised they were pulling into Derby station, his destination, and he better get a move on. He pulled his coat down from the overhead shelf, put it on then reached up for his laptop case. Copper was already walking down the train toward the door carrying a smart looking black plastic attaché case, and displaying slightly swaying hips which once again definitely didn’t say, “Please ignore me”. He approached her from the rear. As they neared the door she turned and pulled on a large package that had been left in the luggage area near the door. The package was wrapped in brown paper, but had a large cardboard handle sticking out of the top. She grabbed it and pulled. As it left the luggage shelf it made a swift drop toward the floor, indicating its weight, then became stuck in the automatic doors leaving the carriage.



Feeling like a knight in shining armour offering to kill a dragon, he leaned forward and said “could I help you with that” and held out a hand. “Oh thank you very much, that would be nice,” she said in a voice which seemed slightly too used to receiving such offers, and allowed him to take the package. He stumbled through the doors and out onto the station platform. “Are you going to the car park” he asked, “I can carry it that far if you like”. “Oh that would be great” she said and started off in that direction.



They took a short cut through to the car park, reducing the distance by about half, but using some alleyways which were unlit, and being a little behind the other passengers, quiet deserted. He began to stride a little way ahead of her, and while remarking how she should be careful using this route when on her own, he turned to make sure he had not left her behind. As he turned the attaché case hit him in the throat. He toppled backwards, gasping for breath. Too surprised to even think of dropping her package, he landed, gasping on the floor. She sprang on him, smashing the case down onto his head, which in turn hit the floor with a bone crunching thud. A third savage blow cut deep into his brows, sending blood into his eyes and smashing the bridge of his nose.



As the blood seeped into his eyes he saw her tear the box from his chest, rip it open and remove something dark and of indistinguishable shape. His head was thumping and he could hear his own pulse beating in his ears. Blood was bubbling on his lips and pouring out from the back of his head as he looked up at her in complete shock and tried to mumble. She turned back and stared down at him through those dark black eyes. He just saw a blur as she raised her foot and brought it down with all of her might into his groin. The stiletto heel dug deep into his testicles. “I’ve told you bastards to leave me alone”, she whispered at him as she leaned over forcing her entire weight down on her foot, then twisted it from side to side. She watched him writhe under the pressure of her foot. Then as he began to loose consciousness she reached down into the jacket pocket containing his change. His last memory was of her removing all of his change before he drifted off into unconsciousness. She started to walk away, then a couple of steps later she stopped, turned and returned to his limp body. She reached into his inside pocket and removed his wallet. She examined the contents, removed one of his business cards and counted his cash.



She read the card “Andy Stott, Operations Manager, sorry, never heard of you” she said looking down at him. His body spasmed, nerves flinching and reacting to the terrible pain racing through his body and she kicked him once more. She took half of the £100 in his wallet, then carefully wiped the wallet on his jacket and replaced it in the pocket she had found it. She looked down at the limp body, tapped him with her foot, and on gaining no response, strode off to the car park.