The Laptop Bag

Jay was running away again, his legs burning and neck straining from constantly checking behind him. He had been running away a lot over the past two years but the frequency had increased even more this week.

It really hadn’t been a very special bag, no different from the hundreds of others that he’d lifted since he was kicked out of home. It had sat there, a generic black laptop case, nestled under the seat in the train behind some bright red high heels. He hadn’t seen the wearer of the heels apart from shiny, dark brown hair peaking around the headrest. Jay had calmly leant down as the train shudderingly arrived at East Croydon station and picked up the bag, keeping pace with the grey swathes of commuters. He did notice that the bag was lighter than expected so lost hope in getting £100 from Amir for a laptop.

As he had ascended through the station, reached the turn styles, and the familiar waft of fast food scents drifted over the forecourt, he heard a yell. Jay had good crowd cover in the piles of people pushing into the barriers – whoever said the Brits were good at queuing had never been to London in rush hour – but the crowd was fast dispersing on the other side. He had chanced a glance at the source of the yell, aware that it could be someone else who was being shouted at. However, he found himself making eye contact with a large man whose eyes then slid to the laptop bag casually slung over Jay’s shoulder.

Right.

Jay had run, darting down the side street past the bins and ended up on the main road where the buses lined up. Mercifully, there was a bus at the stop about to close its doors and he had leapt onboard, slumping into the seat next to the back doors in case he needed to move again. Three triangle torsoed men, all in grey suits and suffering from an excess of neck, tumbled out of the side street where Jay had been moments earlier, looking around frantically. Jay had slouched further into his seat and pulled his hat down as the bus ambled away.

Jay’s great escape was reminiscent of Indiana Jones, although his hat had remained firmly on his head the whole time. Once he was safe and the bus was meandering through various suburb streets, he took a chance to check the contents of his boon.

That was when everything changed.

They had just kept coming for him. Every time he found somewhere that seemed safe, he would last a few hours and then see the familiar hulking figures approach. They didn’t bother to hide - perhaps because their stature made that rather difficult - but pursued him with Terminator consistency. However this was Jay’s home town and he had years of good hideouts after snatching a bag so he would find the next safe space with a good vantage point, check the contents of the bag, and wait for them to come and for their dance to continue.

There were only two items in the bag. The first was a black leather notebook, soft to the touch, with lined paper full of small pictures in black ink. Jay head read it cover to cover, trying to work out what on earth the strange, circular symbols meant. To his untrained eye, it didn’t look like Arabic scrawl or the symbols from Chinese or Japanese but he was basing that logic on translations in takeaway menus. It did look like writing but no writing he had ever seen. The other item in the laptop bag was far less subtle. It was a wad of cash, secured by a rubber band, of twenty thousand dollars. When Jay had first found the money while still on the bus, he had sworn loudly and dropped the bag. A few curious eyes had looked his way but this was London after all, so they soon flicked back to their phones, papers, or out of the fogged up windows, leaving Jay to ponder why twenty thousand dollars were in London in the first place.

Jay looked around his latest bolt hole, it was an underpass beneath a massive intersection in South Croydon. The concrete walls were covered in graffiti, there were small leaks dropping from above, and it smelt distinctly of piss, but it had five exits and was well lit. It was grim enough that people tended to opt for the traffic lights above ground rather than venture below. This would have to do. He had only been there for half an hour when he heard heavy shuffling from one of the entrances.

“The map shows through here,” came a female voice, and Jay relaxed until he saw the large shadows accompanying a smaller one. He leapt up, grabbing the bag but they had rounded the corner before he had escaped from view.

“Wait, look at me!” commanded the woman and Jay looked back and stopped moving.

She was barely five foot and slim, Jay supposed that she must be pretty, but mostly noticed how neat she was from the perfectly poker straight hair, to pressed black dress, down to those pristine red shoes. It was the most distinctive thing about her. That, and what she held in her hands.

It was a gun. A black gun pointing directly at him. Jay was so surprised that it felt like he had detached from his body, with only a rogue part of his brain still working which thought How did she get a permit for that?

“Kneel,” the woman instructed and Jay did, dimly noting pain and a sloshing sound as his knees slammed into the concrete floor through a puddle. The three men leered in the background, identical smirks on their faces. Jay supposed that he should beg for his life or cry out in case anyone could hear over the traffic and came to his aid but the only thing his body was capable of was to slowly lower his face towards his knees. He was just so very tired.

He heard a metallic click and closed his eyes tight, unable to bring himself to look at the instrument of his fate. There was a horrible pause and silence, save from the ragged breaths from Jay. Then the black laptop bag landed next to him with a thump.

“Remember this,” the woman said. Jay opened his eyes quickly enough to see her pristine red shoes turn and slowly walk away. Jay waited, cowering in the mud filled puddle, for at least a minute after the click of her footsteps the weighted shuffle of the other men had faded. He looked sideways at the black laptop bag which had caused all his problems and gasped when he saw the wad of money resting on top. All of it. The only thing she had taken was the book.

Remember this she had said and Jay would. He was glad to be alive, the thumping in his chest served as proof of that fact. He intended to do better, the money would set him up for a year at least. It was relief, overwhelming ecstatic relief, that washed over him in waves but there was something else. A question lurking in that rogue part of his brain that was out of step with the rest of him.

What on earth was in that book?