Part 1: The Park Bench

I sat on the old, dampened bench, the rotting wood sagging slightly under my lean frame. I had the most advantageous view of the apartment block that resided mere meters from my bench. It was across the street. Well, to be honest, it wasn't much of a street, it would be generous if you could show enough grace to bestow such a title upon that rain-slick, potholed traffic hazard of a thing. I witnessed many a crash while I waited in the park, the worst of which, a man who had skidded on the wet road, and slammed into a lamp post. He pulled himself out of the torn and twisted wreck, holding his hand to his head. He was literally gushing blood from a deep cut on his skull, limping hopelessly all over the place, gushing his all onto the sidewalk. I'd been sitting on that bench for several months now, and my mentality was beginning on a downward spiral. I saw some terrible things whilst on that bench, and I simply stopped caring about a lot of things. My hair had become long, lank and greasy, my teeth blackened and decayed, my body unwashed, and my clothes left smelling rank, and worn in an unkempt fashion. My friends and family knew I was on a mission, but they'd be worried sick by now, but I just stopped caring about them, how would they comfort me here? How could they comfort me now? This was what I was reduced to, this... life of anonymity, and for what? Money? Respect? They mean nothing to me. But I sat on that bench, and waited. And I hated every minute of it. Every stinking minute of every stinking day, I sat with my eyes peeled, noting down every single person walking into the apartment building, and every single person coming out. At the end of every day, I would ball up on the bench, and try to mimic sleep through sheer willpower, but the biting cold kept me from that one thing that could help me escape from it all. I craved sleep like a drug, but nothing I did could give me even just one small release from the cycle. At the end of every day, I would fall into yet another bout of manic depression, as it was another day where my task was elongated. I had been waiting these months, for just one man, John Westacott.

From what I had learned from previous researches and investigations, Mr. Westacott wasn't all that abnormal. He had lived in the outskirts of the city, with his wife and daughter, working at Somerville Accountants, the business he had been with for fourteen years. His old friends and work colleagues seemed adamant that John was a good person, and that he couldn't have done what he reportedly did. I would smirk at their naivety and continue asking them questions, devoted to finding John's whereabouts, and determined to reveal the truth. After all, I had earned the respect of my superiors, and thus had been entrusted with the responsibility of this case. And after a few weeks poking my nose around, getting into the thick of it, I was confident I knew what I was doing, I had tracked him down to the building I was watching now. I had assembled a small team of men to help me to take John to the police station. I would have brought him in and questioned him, I would have done all it would take to get an answer from him, persuasion or intimidation, it didn't matter which. I would have yelled 'till my face turned blue and my voice was hoarse, I would have beat him to within an inch of his life, hell, I would have even played the "get out of jail free" card, if it were any use, but my superiors had a sudden change of heart.

Apparently, Mr. Westacott was a valuable source of information to us, he could lead us to other criminals, he could spill the secrets of the underworld, provided that he remains a free man, for the meantime, and provided that he knows nothing of the police investigations currently going on. So there I was, sitting on the bench, staring at the apartment building, watching and waiting for something. But he didn't go in, and he didn't come out, the back alley was another option that had run through my head a thousand times, but it was inexplicably absent of life and movement. Only the tenants of the apartments taking their rubbish out, and the city refuse truck taking the rubbish away. I looked at my watch, it was 12:15. Ray was late. He's never usually late. After the months that I've been out here in the park, this was the first time Ray had disappointed me. Every day since I started, Ray would show up in the park, drop off a brown paper bag containing food and drinks and other consumables. He'd also pass on news from my superiors. It'd usually be the same old thing; "sit tight, Dave, the boss needs you here." Sit tight? I've been sitting tight all throughout Autumn. It's now Winter, and I'm still waiting around. In fact, the only thing that's keeping me from giving up is the fact that I'd be target practice as soon as I get up to walk away. No excuses, just bang- dead- end of story, and to add insult to injury, these superiors of mine would fabricate a bullshit cause for my death, declare me guilty of treason, an enemy to the government, and they'll leave it at that. As much as I relayed messages back and forth through Ray, I got nowhere, no new information, no new plans or strategies, and a reminder that my superiors are firm believers in the "if you're not one of us, you're one of them" attitude, a reminder that was black and blue and swollen all over my skull from the last time I so much as thought about throwing in the towel.

I waited anxiously, checking my watch every 30 seconds or so, using the time in between to scan the street up and down, and scan the park for any signs of him or small, blue, environmentally friendly car. My watch read 12:30. Although I realized he wasn't coming after the first 5 minutes, I had nothing else to go on, so I kept on waiting, to my increased frustration.
"Where the bloody hell are you, Ray?" I said under my breath.
"He's gone out of town for a few days, he didn't mention it to you?" A man in a large beige coat stood behind me, a stranger, teasing me, taunting my ignorance. "Have you got the time?" he asked as if he were just another person passing me on the way to the café for a light luncheon. And he looked like it too, with the newspaper tucked beneath his arm, but he knew me. He knew more about me and what was going on around me than I did.
"How do you know Ray?" I asked, ignoring his request. I didn't want to waste time on small talk when I knew he had information I could use.
"You don't need to worry yourself with that. There are more important things going on, believe me, your messenger boy should be the last thing on your mind. The bottom line is, you've been screwed over, and there's no use sitting here and feeling sorry for yourself any longer. Here," he grabbed the newspaper from under his arm and handed it to me. "It's a little old, but I think you'll find page 21 quite interesting." And with that, he walked back through the park, leaving me at a loss for words.

I sat on that bench, paper in hand, still unclear of what was going on. It took a while for my brain to process the information. Where had Ray gone? Who was that man? And what's so important on page 21? I had been skimming through newspapers for a while now, reading the headlines, browsing the rest, assuming all importance was in bold black letters accompanied with a photo which together took up more than half of the front page. I checked the date on the paper, October 24th, 1989, a Tuesday edition of The Morning Express. The headline was nothing unusual, a report on the property damage of a storm that hit several nights before. I rifled through the pages until I reached page 21, and quickly scanned the page for a clue as to what might be so interesting. It only took a moment before the name jumped out at me; John Westacott. It was displayed above his photograph. I read the lines below the photo, the four small lines of text in the narrow column. My throat turned to ice as I read and re-read those lines; "Born August 12th 1964, Died October 19th 1989. May you join your loving wife and daughter in heaven." Dead... John Westacott was dead. I had wasted my time waiting out here for nothing, and worse than that, Ray, and the others, they lied to me. They stabbed me in the back, an ice cold blade running through my heart. Fuck you, Ray, I trusted you.

I sat still, staring right through the paper, lost in a stupor. I felt cold, I felt empty inside, a cocoon that once contained life, but had become just an abandoned shell. I was so angry, and as much as I knew that as soon as I left the bench there would be no turning back, I didn't care. I'm not sure that I had anything to turn back to anyway, just the charred remains of a bridge that once lead to a life I now despise. And so I folded the newspaper, and stashed it in my backpack along with some blankets and the minimal amount of cash I had received from Ray in my last sustenance pack. My hobo pack. I got to my feet and hoisted the bag onto my shoulders, and I walked across the road to the building that suddenly looked so empty and uninteresting, yet I walked up the three steps to the front door. I pushed the door open, and stepped into the foyer area. There was a small list on the wall, with a list of names engraved upon it. Where apartment 6 was, there was just a scrawled marker name, John Westacott.

I took the stairs to the fourth floor, and walked along the corridor to apartment 6. I was about to knock on the door when I noticed that it stood ajar. I took a few steps closer to the door. I could hear a man in the apartment, talking on the phone. Could it be...? As soon as I thought it, I was doubting myself. Either the paper was an elaborate hoax, or John Westacott was on the other side of that door right now. I held my breath as I reached forward and pushed the door gently open. The man wasn't Mr. Westacott.
"I've got to go, someone's just arrived. I'll call you back, Phil" the said, and hung the phone up on the receiver. "Ah, you must be here for John's things then. Andy called a moment ago and told me you'd be coming. He's organized for the furniture to be removed tomorrow morning, and he didn't have a lot of possessions, mostly clothes, TV, CD player, computer, you know, the usual stuff. You're right to take all this lot now?" According to the tag on his shirt, his name was Blake.
"Yeah, sure. I've uh, I've got my car parked out the back. I'll just take these few boxes and things and I'll be on my way." I wasn't too sure what I was doing, but I thought the best scenario would be to just haul all this junk into the skip out the back, maybe come back for a few of the boxes when I could go home and get my car.
"Do you want a hand at all?" Blake asked. He bent down to reach for a box.
"No. Thanks, it's fine. I'll be fine." I picked up the box he was reaching for and walked out the door.
I made my way outside, to a very run down outdoor dining area. A knee-high brick wall separated the small courtyard from the narrow alleyway. On the far side of the alley was the skip bin I was looking for. It must have been blue one time long ago, but the weather had faded the colour almost to a bone-white, the paint had flaked, and there seemed to be more rust than rubbish on the thing. I placed the box in the bin and turned to walk away when an unexpected low rumbling noise emanated from the box.

I pulled the box back out of the bin and unfolded the lid. In the box there was a couple of office files, an alarm clock, a few burned Cd's and right at the bottom was the source of the rumbling noise, a small mobile phone. It was still vibrating, so I pulled it out of the box and answered the call. I was intrigued as to who might be trying to call the phone of a dead man.
"Hello, who is this?" I asked, at a loss of what to expect in response.
"Hi, is that Dave- David Bradshaw?"
"Yes, but how did you-"
"I was the man in the park. Look, there's no time to be messing around, I'll be at the apartment in 10 minutes with my car. I want all of the gear in the Westacott apartment out in the alley by the time I get there so we can just load it all up and go." And then the phone became silent.
I closed the box again, and, should the man try and call again, I put the phone in my pocket and headed back into the apartment to fetch the other boxes. I had made the conclusion that I should act on his word, since he's given me reason to believe him where the only others I thought I could trust had let me down. I went back and forth emptying the possessions from the apartment, and I was bringing out the last item, an old, small, box-shaped TV, when the car pulled up next to my pile of boxes in the alley.
The man got out of his car and said "Toss it. What do we want with his TV? It's useless, just throw it in the skip there."
I did as instructed, as he loaded the boxes into the boot of his car, TV landing in the bin on a pile of garbage with a satisfying thud.
"What now?" I asked.
He pulled the boot down and said "Get in."
Prior to this I would have never been so careless and trusting, but the police would likely be looking for me by now and I had nowhere else to turn. Besides, this guy had information about John Westacott, and he looked like he was willing to help me, and share this information. So, without a second thought, I sat in the passenger seat, and took one last glance at the bench that had been my home for the past months, and I couldn't be more content to leave the place, although I envisioned that my departure would be under much less trivial circumstances.