A Brief Case

The little cream car crawled through the gloom, its headlamps the only artificial light for miles around. The moon watched dispassionately as the little machine narrowly avoided another hedgerow, another occulted ditch. Inside, the driver swore under her breath, wishing she'd left her sister's house earlier. The countryside, so familiar to her under the gentle sun of her childhood, had turned crooked and strange in the darkness.

Janey Collins fumed, peering over the steering wheel as she picked her way through the little back roads that would, if she persisted, lead her onto the main route back to Belfast. If she turned back now her sister would never let her live down the shame. A semester in and she was already a city girl, unable to set foot outside the Big Smoke without getting turned about.

She turned at an abandoned farmhouse, climbing onto a half laid route and praying her Mini Cooper wouldn't give out and tumble back down into the cow pasture below. In the black night, a scream. The car stalled. Janey pulled the handbrake, shoulders tensed. She squinted into the night – perhaps she'd only imagined the noise?

Janey fumbled for the keys in the shadow. Breathing slowly and deeply she tried to calm herself. The moon lit the farmland around her like a fairy tale picturebook, at once pastoral and uncanny. Gazing up at the sky, Janey didn't see where the man came from. His face was smeared with filth, dried blood and muck. He pressed against the driver's side window. Blood dripped from his eye. She released the handbrake.

Suddenly they were hurtling backwards. The car bounced and churned up mud. Then the man was gone, and the moon filled the windscreen. The car was upended in a ditch, and her head ached.

Farmers wake early, which Janey knew, though her awful night drive had obvious convinced her rescuer that she knew nothing about the countryside. He babbled on at her while she sat in the passenger seat of his grotty Fiat, two distressed sheep squeezed into the back. Her bag on her lap and a warm cup of tea from the farmer's thermos in her hands, she nodded along with the tone of his chat as she tried to recall anything about the bleeding man. Had he really been attacking her?

He took her back to his home, a cosy little place she'd passed without knowing the previous night. There, his wife called the AA while she changed in their bedroom. She changed into a fresh blue oxford button down, stuffing yesterday's crumpled shirt and the blazer she'd been wearing into her olive duffel bag. Her navy chinos were wrinkled and spotted with mud from the morning's awkward dismount, but she had no spares. She pulled on a cream cricket jumper and pulled her red hair into a rough ponytail, and made a face in the dresser mirror.

By the time she emerged the farmer's wife was off the phone. Her car would be towed to a nearby garage. Janey agreed it was as good an excuse as any to come visit her sister again in a few weeks, and accepted the farmer's offer of a lift into the village where she could get the bus.

“You've got to be more careful the next time you come driving up around here,” intoned the farmer as he drove her. “It's not good driving even in the clear day. There's potholes and slick mud and ice even when it's not so cold down in Belfast.”

She agreed with him, thanked him for the early morning rescue and thanked him again as she got out, waving goodbye to the sheep as she did so. As she turned to join the bus stop line, the farmer called out again.

“Missus, sorry, missus, I near forgot,” he waved a little black notebook out the window. “This must have fallen out of your car when you was getting out. Must be important for a student like yourself.” Janey took the proffered book. It wasn't hers, perhaps it belonged to the bleeding man. “Thank you.”

The Ulsterbus back into Belfast was bumpy and smelled of the minestrone soup her only fellow passenger somehow managed to guzzle without slopping over their coat and trousers. But she was too distracted to mind, nose burrowed in the little black notebook that the farmer had passed to her. The book appeared to belong to an American, Miles Henderson. It was densely filled with little squared capitals covering every inch of the plain paper, sometimes overwritten in red ink. A crushed violet bookmarked an entry with a Belfast address. Either the man from last night was Miles Henderson, or he'd stolen the book from him. That didn't sound like a good idea; Janey guessed from the style and content that Mr Henderson was a detective of some sort. He'd been pursuing a stolen briefcase containing $20,000, unmarked bills.

The briefcase, he wrote, was passed around various gangster types without being opened, becoming a sort of special barter item those in the know in his home city of Chicago trusted. The money wasn't to be spent; the money and the briefcase were an unitary object that greased the wheels of underground commerce. That is, until it was stolen by James Carson a University of Chicago doctoral student. A psychologist, he'd been interviewing members of organised crime groups when he'd gotten wind of the briefcase. A little research and he found its current owner, stole it and fled the country.

As the bus pulled into the Europa Buscentre, Janey slipped the book into her bag and considered the implications of Henderson's investigation. The briefcase was in Belfast, maybe even at the address marked by the violets. She opened up her phone and typed it in; it was in the university accommodation, the Elms village. She could walk there from the bus station, drop off her bag at her flat along the way. She shivered in a grey afternoon sunlight, and determined to grab her camel trench coat too, even if it felt a little on the nose.

It took her longer than she'd planned to ditch her bag; her flatmate Izzy had been full of gossip about a drunken weekend and excuses for the mess of their shared flat.

“You'll like the one I picked up,” she said, “He's just as fancy as you.”

A hairy Scottish boy had lurked in the shade of Izzy's room, peering around the door to grumble “Hello” in a voice raw from cigarettes. She politely responded in kind before dipping into her room to change into grey wool suit trousers and grabbed her trench. Before leaving she stood still beside her desk, frowning, she pocketed the little sword shaped letter opener her grandmother had sent her for her birthday.

When she reached the Elms address, the evening was beginning the creep in, what little sunlight remained blocked by heavy clouds. Janey popped the collar of her trench coat against the cool air and approached the door. She wasn't sure now what her plan had been, but a breeze decided for her; the door that had merely been closed over creaked open. She slipped her right hand into her coat, gripping the letter opener as she crossed the threshold.

It was a normal student apartment. A little pokey, plenty messy and dirty. She crept into the first bedroom on her left – the door was open and she could see something bulky sitting on the inbuilt desk. The briefcase couldn't be this easy to find, could it? Too nervous to hit the light switch, Janey pulled a bundled hoodie from atop the bulk. Underneath, a laptop. She laughed, this was silly. Then, the wardrobe door split off its hinges and she whirled to see a figure – an older, heavyset man with a stringy beard and bulging eyes, a pipe in his right fist.

“You the girlfriend?” he asked in a drawling American voice. Janey eyed the pipe.

“Sure,” she said, “how do you know James?”

The man took a step closer.

“I... listen if James isn't here I'll just go. Obviously you and he have to talk,” Janey said, backing up.

“Nobody calls him James,” growled the American, raising the pipe, “I think you have my book.”

Miles Henderson moved faster than she expected. He swung the pipe with bearish awkwardness. It clipped her left shoulder and dropped her to the floor. She grunted and rolled. There wasn't much space, but she avoided his second strike. Janey pounced, her weight not enough to bowl him over. Still, he was off balance. Her letter opener nipped his forearm, scared his retaliatory swing off. She drove it into his thigh, and kicked him onto his back as he yelped in pain.

“Drop the pipe!” she shouted. Miles tossed it. “Where's the briefcase – and where's James?”

“I don't know. The little Scotch creep was gone when I got here,” he said.

Janey's eyed widened. She stepped up onto the bed to avoid Henderson, who was tugging at the letter opener in his thigh. “Fine. I'll be seeing you then.”

Outside the flat, she unlocked her phone and messaged Izzy:

Jay> ur boi still @ flat?

Izz> Yea babes that ok? Can kick him out if u want

Jay> no keep him there

Izz> ??? ok

Izz> y tho

Izz> J?

Yellow streetlights glowed above Janey as she ran past the teaching college towards the Stranmillis Road. The air felt heavy with rain, and as she reached the roundabout it began to pelt down. Lungs burning, she made her way up the hill and past the little church. She rounded the corner into Sandymount street, could see her flat. A black sedan pulled alongside her. Miles Henderson pointed a gun at her.

He walked her into the flat with the revolver at her back. Izzy and James were in the living room. A Spotify advert played before some folk music. Izzy's hangover playlist. Tears filled Janey's eyes as she mouthed “I'm sorry.”

“Where's the money Carboy?,” asked Henderson, his gun sweeping the room.

James turned pale, boneless, and gestured towards Izzy's room. “I'll get it for you.” Henderson laughed.

“You,” he jabbed Janey with the barrel of the revolver, “go pick it up for me.”

She nodded slowly, vision swimming as she stepped into the hallway. One, two steps. Five in total. Izzy's room was a mess. Purple shag rug and yellowing cream paint. The briefcase sat on Izzy's desk, sealed with a tamper proof strip of tape. She picked it up, stumbling back to the living room. Henderson looked up at her and grinned.

James saw a chance. He jumped to wrestle for Henderson's gun. Off balance, the bearish man splayed against the wall, popping off two shots into James' chest in the struggle. Izzy screamed. James crumpled, oozing blood. The briefcase in Janey's hand swung, smashing the assassin's elbow hard enough to make him drop the gun. Izzy grabbed it, kept it trained on him as the street filled with blue lights.

Adrenaline leaving her body, Janey felt her legs turn to water as the police entered the flat and cuffed Henderson. Amongst them, a familiar face. Face purpled with bruises, she recognised the bleeding man. He introduced himself as Special Agent Francis Hay.

“I hope it hasn't been broken,” he said, picking the briefcase off the floor and opening it on the kitchen counter. Inside, a microphone and computer parts. “We need this to wrap up a few loose ends.”

Janey stared. The briefcase was a mole.

They watched as James was taken away to the hospital. He might survive the night. Meanwhile, said Agent Hay, there was the finder's fee for the case.

“Come to the American embassy tomorrow morning,” he said, handing Janey his card, “we owe you $20,000.”