Shift. Chapter One: Ellie

Chapter One

Ellie

Ellie liked to think of herself as an open-minded, non-judgemental kind of girl. Not the sort to make assumptions about people, or to fix them with pejorative labels. But looking around at the motley collection of people sitting at the beer garden table she realised that she just couldn't help herself. Every single one of them was a fully paid up member of the sad stereotype club.

There was Vicky. A nice enough woman in faded denim and huge hooped earrings, but with almost negative levels of charisma and charm. She was almost pathetically grateful for any attention that anyone paid to her and tried so hard to fit in Ellie had to constantly repress the desire to slap her. She didn't really seem all that interested in the paranormal, but was just tagging along with her waste of space boyfriend.

Mike was in his late thirties, a little older than Vicky, with thinning hair tied into a ponytail that always seemed to be just on the edge of greasy. He sat, one elbow on the weathered grey wood of the table, one hand resting proprietarily on Vicky's thigh. He was, as always, pontificating about the latest UFO sightings and alien abduction conspiracy theories in his loud nasal tones as she twirled her pale blonde hair in what she presumably thought was a coquettish manner.

And then there was Brian. She'd known Brian since University. They'd met during fresher's week when they both signed up for the "Unexplained Society". Somebody had once told her that you spent fresher's week making friends you'd spend the rest of your time at Uni trying to get rid of. That was certainly true of Brian - he was like a bloody limpet!

It wasn't that she didn't like him - he was a really nice guy. Generous to a fault, always willing to drop everything and dash off to help a friend in need, always quick with a kind word or a shoulder to cry on. It was just that he was so, so, devoted. She'd known him less than a month before, one drunken night after  an "UnSoc" meeting he had declared his undying love for her, insisting in rather florid terms that his heart was chained to hers with "links of gold that could never tarnish".

She'd rebuffed him as kindly as she could - he was after all a nice guy, however far from being her type he might have been - and they had never spoken of it again. She'd tried to create a bit of distance between them, but somehow he just never seemed to go away. He was never actually creepy, but he would often look at her for a little too long, or stand a little too close, his repressed desire so obvious he might as well have had a big neon sign above his head flashing "Desperate for a Shag" in ten foot letters.

But then, what did that make her?

A twenty seven year old graduate with a dead end job which bore no relation to her degree, a string of unsuccessful relationships behind her - and it wasn't even a long string - sitting in a beer garden with three other losers discussing whether the US government was using alien technology to create the next generation of military vehicles. She wasn't interested in the conversation, she was just there because she had nowhere else to go on a Friday night and nobody else to go there with.

Ellie was, she reflected, no different than Vicky. Except Vicky wouldn't be spending her night sleeping alone in a slightly damp flat above an Indian Takeaway. 

So. Who was the real loser?

She swigged down the last of her beer, and noticed Brian was staring again. Sighing inwardly she rose from the beer garden bench and made her excuses. She just didn't have the energy to deal with any more of Mike's bullshit conspiracy theories or Brian's pathetically hungry stares.  Declining his offer to walk her home and turning up the collar of her jacket against the chill of the late spring evening she gave Vicky a little finger wave and headed for the gate that led from the beer garden onto the street, Mike's reedy voice following her as she headed home.

-oOo-

The man in the bowler hat watched as the young woman exited the pub's garden and headed off down the road. He wasn't hiding exactly, but dressed all in black and standing beneath the shadow of a huge old oak tree he wasn't immediately obvious either. 

He grinned at the the whining self important monotone of one of the young woman's recent drinking companions drifting across the garden. "Oh yes, it's obvious - the government knows all about it. The Yanks are testing alien technology here because the Russians are paying too much attention to Area 51! That's what these UFO sightings are all about..."

The man in the bowler hat tuned out the imbecilic droning and focussed on the retreating shape of the young woman as she moved from street lamp to street lamp, pool of light to pool of light in the gathering dusk. Why did these monkeys insist on believing their governments were hiding things from them? Especially when at the same time they also believed their rulers to be a bunch of incompetents who couldn't be trusted to run a bath. Still, it made his job a hell of a lot easier.

Well, it had back when he'd had a job...

Shaking his head at the wilful stupidity of humankind, the man in the bowler hat eased out from beneath the canopy of the old oak tree and silently began to follow the young woman.

-oOo-

It was a nice night - the darkening sky was mostly clear and the scent of opportunistic barbecues teased at her nostrils. The evening chirruping of songbirds blended with distant shouts of kids playing whatever the hell kind of games kids played these days and the gentle whoosh of traffic on the main road a couple of streets away. 

Ellie rounded the corner  into her street, breathing in deeply to catch the spiced curry smell she had come to associate with home. Her flat was above the Bengal Spice take-away and she always enjoyed the way the aromas of Bengali cooking drifted out to meet her. She was rummaging in her bag wondering if she could afford to nip in and pick up some Sabji when she realised that she was being followed.

He was about a hundred yards behind her, walking close to the raggedy hawthorne hedge that ran along the pavement. The deepening shadows made him hard to see - he was dressed entirely in black - but he was definitely there. She quickened her pace and tried to convince herself that she was just being paranoid. But why would somebody who wasn't up to no good walk so close to a hawthorne hedge when they didn't need to? Those things were damn prickly.  And she was the only other  person in the street.

Trying to look unconcerned she withdrew her hand from her bag, keys gripped firmly in her fist. The black clad man was getting closer now and the door to her flat was down a narrow alley. She pursed her lips and decided that unless you were Buffy the Vampire Slayer deliberately entering a dark alley while pursued by a strange man would be less than bright. 

Time for a curry after all then.

-oOo-

The man in the bowler hat watched as the young woman disappeared into the brightly lit takeaway. 

"Bollocks." He muttered under his breath. He didn't like letting her out of his sight, but she'd be safe enough in there - and how long could it possibly take to order a curry? He sat down on a shadowy bollard and settled down to wait.

-oOo-

The interior of the Bengal Spice was bright, brownish and filled with the aromas of hot oil and hotter spices. A large illuminated menu adorned one wall, showing slightly faded photos of the various dishes available. Ellie strode in, the bell above the door dinging cheerfully and was greeted by the smiling face of the woman behind the counter.

"Ah, Ellie! Good evening! How are you? Come for a bit of proper food?"

Ellie smiled. "Hi Mrs Chatterjee. I'd love a Chicken Shabji, but actually I was wondering if I could use the kitchen stairs up to my flat?"

Mrs Chatterjee's hazel eyes twinkled with amusement and her chubby face creased into a smile. "Did you forget your keys again? How many times do I tell you - always put them right back in your bag then you never lose them!" She bustled towards the counter and lifted the flap that separated the customers from the kitchen.

Ellie waved her keys. "No, got the keys Mrs C, just a bit of man trouble."

Mrs Chatterjee's smiled widened into a conspiratorial grin. "Come now Ellie, you live here nearly a year - I see who goes to your flat. You're not in so good a position to play hard to get you know..."

Ellie's smile faded. "Mrs C, there's somebody following me - I don't know him. It may be nothing, but, well, you know." A wave of the hand indicated that she'd rather be safe than sorry. Mrs Chatterjee's face hardened and her voice became clipped and businesslike. She motioned Ellie through the counter flap.

"Come through. I'll take a look for you."

Mrs Chatterjee squeezed past Ellie and peered through the window into the night. In the shadows beyond the nearest street light she could dimly make out the silhouette of a man perched on one of the bollards at the end of the little parade of shops that was home to the Bengal Spice. "He's still there Śiśu* and you're right, he's a strange one. Who still wears a bowler hat?"

-oOo-

The man in the bowler hat shifted his position. The rough coldness of the concrete was making his backside uncomfortably numb. "If I end up with piles I'm definitely finding a new line of work" he muttered to himself. He reached into a waistcoat pocket and pulled out a small mobile 'phone sized device and gazed at it for a second, a blend of concern and irritation on his face.

"Bloody hell. That's all I need."

He rose from the bollard and strode quickly to the take away's door, pocketing the device on the way. He could see through the glass shop front that the young woman wasn't in there anymore and he cursed his complacency. Why had he just assumed she wouldn't notice him? Why hadn't he had the wit to realise that being followed by an unknown man in black might make a woman nervous?

The bell clanged merrily as he rushed into the shop, but there was no welcome on the face of the pudgy woman on the other side of the counter.

"You leave now," she scowled, "or I call my son."

The man in the bowler hat held out his hands in placating gesture. "You don't understand, I'm here to..."

"SAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!" 

The woman's yell was surely enough to wake the very dead, but what it actually summoned was a six and a half foot slab of muscle with a neatly trimmed beard and black shoulder length hair. "Ma?" His voice was deep and seemed to resonate malice.

Mrs Chatterjee motioned at the man in the bowler hat. "Samar, this," she paused "gentleman" has been making a nuisance of himself and pestering women. I would like him to leave."

Samar stepped through the counter, and the man in the bowler hat took a step back. "Please," his voice was smooth, but tinged with just a little desperation, "I need to speak to the woman who just came in..."

A big meaty hand propelled him towards the door. The man in the bowler hat wondered for a fraction of a second whether his assailant would even bother to open the thing before hurling him through it, but the scream of terror from upstairs froze everyone before he got a chance to find out.

"Aw, shite!" With a deft roll of the shoulder the man in the bowler hat dodged free of Samar's grip, vaulted over the counter top and ran in search of stairs. He knew even before he'd reached the still closed door of the upstairs flat that when he kicked it in he'd find it empty.

"Too late!" he muttered to himself.

By the time Samar and his mother reached the splintered remains of what had once been the door of Ellie's flat, the man in the bowler hat was gone too.

*Bengali - "Child".