Episode One: Leaving Home

The chill wind whipped up the raindrops and fired them like a billion tiny bullets at the windows of her apartment. They splattered into tiny, wet shrapnel against the panes, before chasing each other for cover on the windowsill and tumbling, helpless against the certainty of gravity, onto the asphalt below, gathering into ever-expanding puddles for safety in numbers against the cold.

But if anything, Verity Amihan Defensor did not mind. She liked the rain. At least, when she was not out in it. She was the Glasgow-born child of Filipino immigrants. She had been back to her ancestral home many times, but mostly when she’d been younger. Right now, it just seemed like too much of a chore.

The whistling winds in Scotland brought back disquieting memories of the vicious and heartless typhoons that criss-cross the Philippines every year.

But the rain? The comforting white noise of its many failed attempts to penetrate her apartment helped her to sleep better.

Which was just as well. The city of Glasgow is not renowned for its sunshine.

But that evening, sleep would elude her.

It had started well enough. A productive day in university lectures on the legalities of her trade. A satisfying meal, debating situational ethics versus the need to make money with her course mates in a restaurant with a generous student discount. Then a nice, quiet, drunk-free walk to her tenement apartment on the south side of the River Clyde.

Settling to sleep had not been a problem.

Now she was resting, slowing her breathing, cocooned in her duvet, waiting for the night to take her.

But right then, her mobile phone rang.

She picked it up from her bedside table, glanced quickly at the screen and was jolted alert. She accepted the call without turning on either her bedside lamp or her bedroom light. ‘Charley! What’s up? Where are you?’ The words machine-gunned from her mouth as if this was a life-or-death emergency.

‘Ver, he’s got me. He’s got me and I can’t escape.’ The tear-stained voice of a desperate woman moaned from the other side of the line.

‘Who has?’ Verity did not wait for an answer. ‘Who has you, Charley? It’s not...’

No response. Only the dull roar of a deepening storm, the slosh of road traffic and the regular clatter of what sounded like a passing train.

‘Charley, where are you? I’ll come and get you.’ Verity both offered and pleaded.

‘Oh, you can’t save me.’ Charley sobbed. ‘No-one can. It’s way past that now. There is only one way out.’

‘Charley! Where are you? I’m coming. Wait!’ Verity jumped out of bed, grabbed a pair of socks she had earlier discarded on the floor and put them on, while cradling her phone between her left shoulder and her ear. ‘Just tell me where you are.’

‘It’s too late, Ver. It’s too late.’ Charley sobbed. ‘It has to be like this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. You’ve been a good friend. But I can’t go on.’ She sniffed. ‘Maybe in the next life I’ll be free. Goodbye, Verity.’

‘No! Charley! No!’ Verity cried out.

She heard a scream. A deadly scream. And than a huge splash.

The call went dead.

Quick as a flash, she dialled 999. ‘Hi. I need an ambulance. And perhaps coastguard. I think...’ Verity quickly gathered herself. The thought was too awful to contemplate, but it had to be said. ‘I think my friend has fallen into the Clyde.’

It took Verity just a few frantic minutes to throw on some clothes and a waterproof jacket.

But it wasn’t enough.

She trotted down the stairs in her close and wrenched open the heavy outer door, before scampering desperately into the street. She pieced the clues together in her head. Traffic. Train. River.

There could only be one place.

The George V Bridge.

She whipped up her hood and bolted through the teaming rain along the side of the river, the wind whipping waves into white horses, and continually pounding her, as if to push her backwards.

But somehow she made it in one piece.

The bridge was full of traffic: travellers heading home; revellers heading into the city for a good time. She pushed the button on a traffic light. It took too long to change. Five seconds too long. She didn’t have the time to wait. So she took her chances. She bolted into the road, evading the determined trajectory of an impatient black cab driver, who slammed on his brakes and yelled Arabic invective at her.

She sprinted onto the bridge, before slowing her pace, scanning this way and that, seeking any sign of her friend.

Nothing. Anywhere.

Until a quick glance down into the rain-peppered deep spotted a dark shape floating on the waves. ‘Jacket! That’s her jacket!’ she yelled.

No-one heard her.

She had to save Charley. She had to.

She ran as fast as her soaking legs could carry her to the other side of the bridge and scampered down to the water’s edge. She hastily began to remove her jacket. Within seconds she was soaked through.

Just as she was about to run into the waters, someone tapped her on the shoulders.

‘Not worth it, darlin’.’ The warm sound of a soothing Caribbean male voice, husky with years, advised her. She turned around. A kindly but sombre elderly gentleman, smartly suited and booted, but clothed defensively against the weather, looked deep into her glassy eyes. ‘If she wanted to go, she gonna go. Nothing you can do now will save her.’

Verity’s bottom lip quivered like jelly on a fault line.

‘You need to let her go. No point be riskin’ the living for the already dead. Police be comin’ anyway. They got divers. They find her.’

‘But that will be too late.’ Verity argued, as tears raced the raindrops down her cheeks.

‘Darlin’, when she do the jumpin’, it already too late.’ the man told her.

Verity’s body shook with sorrow and frustration and pain. Tears coursed from her eyes like the river where her friend now rested.

The man had seen enough. He reached out his arms and held her tightly. ‘I got the feelin’ this is what you be needin’ right now. But don’t you be suin’ me later.’ he told her.

‘I won’t. I promise.’ Verity sobbed, shivering in the icy rain. His hold was warm. Her body was so cold.

And reality so much colder.

The next day, she stood helplessly on the bridge, sipping a coffee, watching as police divers plunged into the river, still pock-marked with rain, to discover her friend's remains.

But they found nothing. Nothing except her jacket, her phone, her passport and her clutch bag.

No body.

Charley – Charlotte Chapman – her best friend from school – was gone.

Presumed dead by the Court of Session after seven years.

Not long after, Verity awoke with a start. She was awash with sweat. He face was streaked with riverbeds of tears. Her straight, shoulder-length hair was matted and tangled.

She turned over and gazed at her alarm clock. ’00:35’ it read. The exact time when Charley had called.

She slumped back helplessly into her pillow.

It would be a long, long night.

Six AM came all too slowly and sleeplessly. She had a breakfast meeting with her boss. She had to at least have a semblance of being in control by then.

She stumbled out of bed, showered quickly, did her best to tease out the tangles in her jet black but burnt orange tipped shoulder-length hair, slipped on some half-decent clothes in a hurry, bolted from her apartment to the car park behind it, jumped on the back of her motorbike and weaved her way through the heaving masses commuting to their work.

Every time the red light stopped her from moving forward, every time she had to stop to avoid hitting a straying pedestrian (this was Glasgow after all), every time she had to give way at a junction, she heard those nagging voices of her parents echoing around her black helmet protected brain:

‘Why do you have to study journalism? You got great exam results. You should be a doctor. Or a lawyer.’

‘There’s no money in journalism. It’s not a steady job. And it’s dangerous.’

‘Why do you have to dress in black? Are you a hooligan? Did someone die?’

‘Why do you have to ride a motorbike? You’ll kill yourself one day.’

‘What have you done to your hair? Did you sit too close to a barbecue?’

‘Why don’t you like this boy? His parents are rich.’

‘What about this boy? Isn’t he handsome?’

‘What about Koreans? You could date a Korean. Koreans are handsome.’

‘Why aren’t you coming to our church? What’s wrong with our church?’

‘Why do you have to move out? What’s wrong with staying here? You can’t look after yourself! I mean, look at you! Just... Just look at you!’

She shook her head to rid herself of those negative thoughts.

She had to believe in herself today.

Even if her parents didn’t.

Seven-thirty and she was seated in a downtown greasy spoon café, waiting on a traditional British assault to her arteries to be delivered on a barely clean plate by a waitress who hadn’t yet fed her morning addiction to caffeine. Across from her sat the middle-aged, balding, mildly overweight, but smartly dressed form of her boss: Doug Brodie – Editor-In-Chief of the Morning Edition.

‘You’ve not slept well.’ He told her directly, while shovelling a fork full of fried egg into his mouth.

Verity nodded at the waitress, who had just slid a plate of assorted fried foods, still floating on a lake of grease, in front of her. ‘No. I haven’t.’ She agreed.

‘Taking pills for it?’ Doug asked her, with at least a passing semblance of care.

‘Nah. Drugs aren’t my way.’ Verity replied.

‘Noted.’ Doug slurped from a huge mug of hot, steaming coffee. ‘I read your article.’

‘Good. Any thoughts?’

‘Can’t publish it.’

Verity slumped back in shock and opened her mouth as if to argue, but Doug held up his hand to silence her.

‘Can’t publish it yet. Not enough evidence. They’ll have us on a plate if we do that again. But it is very well written. One of the best I’ve read.’ He told her.

‘But...’

‘You get the evidence, I’ll publish it.’ He told her. ‘Hey, I’ll make it the front page and promote it on all our social media channels. Even serialise it. But not now. Not without evidence.’

‘I’ll get it.’ Verity tried to reassure him.

‘Yeah, you can do that. But if you do, I’d have to fire you. Right away.’ He told her. ‘No choice. So give it some thought.’

An hour later, after Verity and Doug had deliberately made their separate ways to work to avoid office tittle-tattle and innuendo, Verity rose from her desk, sauntered over to Doug’s office and rapped on his frosted glass door.

‘Enter!’ he barked.

She walked slowly but deliberately past his personal assistant, nodding in the direction of her scrupulously made-up face and grey-tinged hair as she did so, and entered through the door into Doug’s inner sanctum.

‘I’ve thought about it, and I’ll do it.’ She announced.

‘I did warn you.’ Doug half-heartedly discouraged her.

‘You did. I’m doing it anyway.’ She informed him.

‘Good girl. Now we have to make this look good.’ He told her. He cleared his throat. Then yelled. ‘Listen, hen! Your obsession with that idiotic influencer has gone too far. He had nothing to do with your pal’s death. It was suicide. She topped herself. Plain and simple. Go after them and you’re out. Got it?’

Her face turned beetroot red. Her frame was almost a half of the size of his, but this had to be convincing. She shook with fear and emotion, but thundered, ‘Charlotte Chapman was in their clutches for years. For years, Doug. And then she chucks herself into the Clyde? Don’t you see the link? You must be blind if you don’t!’ ‘Too far?’ she whispered to Doug.

‘Not far enough.’ He whispered back, before yelling. ‘You are forbidden from going anywhere near them. They are untouchable. You hear me? Do not defy my order!’

‘Ah, bite me!’ Verity snapped. ‘Charlotte deserves justice. She’s going to get it from me. And no washed-up hack is going to stop me.’

‘Better, but almost too far.’ Doug whispered, before growling loudly, ‘Leave this office and you are gone!’

‘Goodbye, then!’ Verity waved her hand at him, turned on her flat shoes and stormed out of the office.

‘Jane, do it!’ Doug snapped at his PA.

Verity grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair and stomped out of the building – and Doug sent a security officer after her to make sure of it. He stood watching as Verity stormed out to the car park, straddled her motorbike, slapped her helmet onto her head and roared off.

‘She’s gone, sir.’ He confirmed to his boss.

‘Good. Good. Thanks, John.’ Doug replied in his ear.

Verity wove through the traffic on the Broomielaw, grinning inside as she did so, turned right over the George V Bridge without giving it a second thought – for the first time ever – and made a beeline for her apartment.

‘Charley, don’t worry. I'm going to get the person who did this to you. And they're gonna pay.’ She muttered to herself as she turned down her street.

Within minutes, her bike was safely stowed away in her apartment’s parking lot, she’d grabbed a brown leather duffel bag and a small rucksack with a laptop inside and was getting into a white Dacia taxi.

‘Airport, yeah?’ the bearded sub-continental taxi driver asked her.

‘Airport.’ Verity confirmed.

She took out her phone and sent a text. ‘Thanks, boss. It’s good to be free.’

The reply was not slow in coming. ‘No problem, Verity. Just remember: if you get them, we get the rights.’

‘And I get reimbursed. My flight wasn’t cheap.’ Verity texted back, with a wink.

‘Only when you’re an employee.’ came the reply.

Verity chuckled. He was such a joker.

Within three hours she’d be on the Emirates flight to Dubai and then, after a short layover, to Cebu. In twenty-four hours or so, she’d be in the Philippines.

In around forty-eight hours, she’d be home. In her other home.

For the first time in a long time.

The thought did not give her comfort.