Chapter One

 A crash filled the kitchen as Fiona dropped her favourite mug on to the tiled floor, the pieces flying in several directions as she put her hand to her face and gasped. The picture wrapped around the outside was of her and Malcolm during their African safari, a holiday they’d enjoyed immensely but would never see again as they’d spent so long paying it back. She mourned briefly for the loss of her crockery before realising that the tile it had fallen on remained intact. With that, relief swept through her as she considered that there would be no need for an expensive repair at least.

“What was that? Are you alright?” Malcolm asked without looking up from his newspaper, ruffling his greying black curls with his spare hand. He imagined his wife stood with one leg up, shying away from the impact while holding her freshly pressed apron away from the possibility of a spill. Had the mug struck her foot, they may have been leaving the house for another trip to the local casualty unit yet, fortunately for him, it had found its way to another part of the floor.

Fiona ignored her husband’s forced enquiry, choosing instead to put all her energy into clearing the mess. She opened the cupboard which held the dustpan and swept the floor, tying up her flowing, blonde hair halfway through to keep it away from the mess in front of her. Finishing up, Fiona heard Malcolm spray his paper with coffee in a way that would have been comical had it been in a sitcom on TV and not across her brand new, designer tablecloth. Not enough time had passed for her to start a fresh conversation and so she was forced to answer him crossly before making her own enquiry. “I’m fine, thank you for coming to my aid. What on Earth has gotten into you?”

Malcolm kept his stare directed towards the paper as he wiped his mouth and cursed his reaction. He’d barely reached page five yet realised he’d have to finish the rest of it through a wet, brown filter. “Have you seen this?” he asked, trying to forget the inconvenience of his situation. “They’re planning on building a red light district here, in the UK…in London!”

Fiona knew all about the plans and, as far as she was concerned, it was old news. Not only had the local council gone past the initial planning stage, the government had re-written parts of the law to make other unauthorised districts completely illegal yet keep this new, state-controlled area well within the revised legislation. Internally she sighed, unsurprised at Malcolm’s lack of knowledge though annoyed that the conversation had been brought up once again, albeit this time at home rather than with her group of friends.

“Well? Aren’t you outraged?” he asked, unable to believe that his wife didn’t seemingly share his views.

Although it was the truth, Fiona knew she had to pretend she was at least opposed to the idea. “It’s awful, all those poor girls having a dedicated place to take their clients. It must be so degrading”. Fiona had looked into the new legislation and was pleased to see that powerful people were willing to act on the exploitation of women while allowing those who wanted to work in the industry to do so. However, Malcolm had always been tightly set in his views and Fiona knew she would never sway his opinion.

Malcolm sat upright in his chair and pushed the paper away from his lap to stop the dripping beverage from staining his clothes any further. The liquid was already keeping his brown and beige cardigan clinging to his body. “I’m going to write to the council about this, nobody asked me if I wanted a whore mall on my doorstep. Whatever next? A walk-in heroin diner? A naked…” he stalled as he tried to top the idea of a restaurant with narcotics on tap, realising through his rage that he was unable to do so. “…rock concert?”

Fiona wanted to sigh and shrug or at least tell him that she was bored of having the conversation yet again with another uninformed party. She imagined herself turning to him and telling him that it was none of their business, that the location of the proposal was as far from their doorstep as they could get and that it had worked in other countries as her best friend, Wendy, had suggested. However, she knew that any contrary opinion would shatter his ego and either send him into a ridiculous tantrum or induce over-sensitivity and lead him to stick out his bottom lip. The way he was reacting suggested the former and Fiona was in no mood to listen to another rant. “I think it’s been on the cards for a while”, was all she could say as a compromise in the hope he would find another article to calm him down instead.

“Well, nobody spoke to me about it and I’ve lived in this city for twenty years”, he returned, again without looking up from the page. “It says here that it’s the brainchild of Stewart Callaghan. I wonder if I could find his details…” Malcolm’s mind was working overtime as he considered how far he was willing to go. He’d written many a stern letter to newspapers and magazines regarding various issues, but he’d never tackled one head on. He even considered that it might be an opportunity to really get involved and make a name for himself as the saviour of his district, perhaps even of London itself.

Fiona rolled her eyes and returned to the dishes, the last of her mug remains finally cleared away. The time was meant to be theirs, a full day with no commitments where they could either explore unchartered areas or find somewhere just to hide away, yet that seemed to be forgotten as Malcolm’s new crusade came charging in. She thought about what else she had to do, any chores that had been put off or projects that needed a finishing touch before realising that a full day without Malcolm meant the house to herself and a chance to relax without having to process his opinions throughout the course of the day. This sent a wave of excitement through her, though to avoid any suspicion she didn’t increase her engagement with her husband and simply nodded and answered as she had before.

“I’m going to get my coat”, he said abruptly, shuffling his paper to line the pages up neatly before folding it under his arm and making his way straight to the front door. He had considered asking his wife to accompany him before visualising a tense meeting that would be no place for her, the chance of boiling tempers being too much for such a delicate soul. Malcolm kicked off his slippers and grabbed his coat, feeding his feet into his shoes and arms into the sleeves simultaneously. He was on a mission and Fiona could only imagine the earful that Stewart Callaghan was going to get when he met the red-faced man leaving the house in front of her.

The bus stop was fewer than fifty steps from the house and Malcolm arrived with plenty of time to spare before the next giant, red vehicle pulled up in front of him. He made his way towards the middle, spying a young man just in front of him who was playing around with a phone and a pair of earphones. Malcolm had seen many of his type on the bus making unnecessary noise and was never afraid to speak up for the other passengers, considering that their peace was as much a right as the young man’s right to make noise.

His potential meeting with the councillor was starting to make him tense and he watched the youth intently as the bus pulled away, trying to judge how loudly he’d need to talk to make sure he could be heard in case of a disruption. The youth’s fingers were moving along the cable all the time, looping it around and stroking the side of it for no apparent reason. Malcolm should have looked away at that point, but instead he tried to determine what the young man was doing and decided that he was simply trying to annoy the other passengers since it was certainly annoying him. Without warning he stood up and shouted towards the front, “Stop playing around with your phone. There are other people on this bus, have some consideration for them!”

A woman with two children was sitting between the two of them on the other side of the bus, trying to give equal attention to her toddler and the baby in the pram. The toddler was starting to get fussy and bored with their time spent travelling and had begun whining, though not loud enough for other passengers to hear at that point. When Malcolm shouted, the three of them looked up and the mother opened her eyes widely, trying to determine if the yelling gentleman was a threat to her safety or not. She’d seen plenty of unkempt, older men with bottles of alcohol shouting for no reason and in no particular direction, yet she’d never seen a man of Malcolm’s style deliver such a disdainful outburst towards a seemingly innocent party.

The young lad also looked towards Malcolm with surprise, figuring that he’d been speaking to someone else on the near empty vehicle. When he realised that he was the subject of the shouting, he frowned and shot an angry look to suggest that he wasn’t going to be spoken to in that manner. Malcolm quickly realised that he’d picked a fight with an unknown quantity and may have encouraged a target with a weapon, backing down as soon as the thought struck him. He nodded towards the young man with a stern look on his face to show that he was serious but sat down and looked out of the window at the soonest opportunity.

The woman took her children off the bus at the next stop, figuring that either Malcolm was unhinged or the youth would retaliate, neither of which she was willing to be a witness to. Fortunately, the situation died down as quickly as it started yet Malcolm found himself alone with the youth and the bus driver for another four, very awkward, stops.