The Palindrome Cult: A gripping, page-turning, crime suspense thriller, its fast pace takes you from London to New York, via Dubai and the Virgin Islands. (Hedge & Cole Book 1) Read online

  Antonio came rushing over when he saw him. He was still impressed with what Hedge had done for the boy that day, and the extra publicity for the cafe had been very welcome!

  ‘Hi Hedge, how are you doing today? If you’re after something light I can recommend my special ham and mozzarella Panini.’

  ‘I’m well thanks, and that sounds perfect,’ said Hedge, ‘and the usual pot of tea,’ he added.

  ‘No problem,’ said Antonio, and he headed back towards the kitchen.

  Hedge smiled to himself as he thought about his favourite drink. There were very few places in the world where you could request a drink of tea and not be quizzed for more information. In North America you would be asked if you wanted lemon tea, with ice, or something similar. In some other countries you may be offered different varieties of tea, sweetened or unsweetened. In England however, you simply requested tea. Everyone knew that meant a hot drink made from tea leaves, or as is more common these days, tea bags. This would normally be served with milk and sugar on the side.

  Antonio came back to the table. He was whistling to himself as he set down a pot of tea and a white, china tea cup. He left a bowl with some sugar sachets in the middle of the table. He knew better than to leave any milk. Hedge wasn’t all that keen on milk.

  Hedge picked up the teapot and filled his cup. He loved coming into this cafe. It was like a haven from work and he relaxed as soon as he arrived. He recognised some of the regular faces and nodded to several people around the room as they looked across in his direction.

  He stirred a little sugar into the tea before moving the sugar bowl across the table next to the salt and pepper. Neat and tidy, he thought to himself. He lifted the cup to his mouth and sipped at his drink. He looked around the room again at the other customers in the cafe and wondered what they might all be thinking about. They all looked fairly ‘ordinary’ he thought. He certainly felt ordinary himself. He guessed most people were.

  He lifted the teapot and refilled his cup. As he set the pot back down, he turned it so that the spout and the handle were in line with the way he sat facing. Tidy!

  Yes, ‘he was very ordinary’ he thought to himself. Maybe a few minor nuances, but otherwise he was a fairly straightforward character.

  Chapter Six

  Despite his nickname, Hedge was not a Hedge Fund Manager, nothing like it. Those guys were typically the smartest in the banking fraternity, or the luckiest, depending on who you asked. He had joined the City and Commonwealth Investment bank, or CCI as it was commonly known, at a very junior level, but had risen to his current role as a result of hard work and commitment. He enjoyed talking to customers rather than juggling figures, and he had a good relationship with most of them. He was often the first point of contact for many of the bank’s regular clients, passing them on to other specialist areas within the firm depending on their specific requirements.

  One particular area that the bank focused on was in the provision of offshore finance. Hedge knew little about this complicated part of what CCI offered. He was aware that many locations around the world have set themselves up as Offshore Financial Centres, or OFC’s. Some of the most well-known of these include Switzerland, The Cayman Islands, and Luxembourg. Hedge had contacts in all of these areas and many others. Offshore banking was often used by companies and individuals to raise finance from outside their own countries or, as is more commonly believed, to reduce tax liabilities in one’s own country.

  Other areas that CCI focused on included assisting wealthy private clients who wished to invest in UK and European businesses, and providing general banking services to overseas clients.

  Hedge found the work he did very enjoyable, and rewarding. He couldn’t imagine doing any other job. He was not yet a director of the business, but that was his long term goal. He felt that his parents, had they still been alive, would have been proud of him.

  Of course, due to all the publicity in the newspapers, everyone in the bank now knew who he was. In the first few weeks after saving the boy’s life, most of the other staff had wanted to talk to him about it. Hedge had been quite keen to do so initially, but then it became a little tiresome and so he tried to discourage any further conversation about it.

  His ability to find girlfriends had improved dramatically since that eventful day back in March. Some of the young ladies in the neighbourhood where he lived had approached him to chat when he was out in the evening with mates. Two of the girls in the office had become friendlier towards him also. One of these, Louise, who worked in the company’s currency exchange department, had even asked him out for a drink.

  Hedge wasn’t great with girls, he never had been. He didn’t feel very confident with them, especially if he didn’t know them very well. He noticed that women would often come and talk to him though – something several of his mates had commented on. His cousin even referred to him as a ‘Babe Magnet’, something Hedge would certainly not have thought was even close to being true.

  He had recently got to know Louise quite well though. They had been out on several dates and they had become quite close. She was a passionate young girl, as he found out after they had been to the cinema one evening. The film they had seen had been mildly erotic and Louise had been quiet as they walked back to his car, parked in a local multi storey car park.

  As they sat in the front seats ready to drive off, she leaned over to his side of the car, pulled his head towards her and started to kiss him. Her tongue was probing deep into his mouth and she was moaning quietly. Hedge responded enthusiastically. Then, without warning, she jumped over to his seat, sat astride him and continued to press her lips to his. He found this rather exciting, if not a little uncomfortable, so to ease the pressure on his back, he probed down the side of the seat with his hand and reclined the backrest a little.

  Meanwhile Louise’s fingers had been busy. She had her hands on his trousers, and was fumbling with the zipper of his jeans. Eventually she managed to extract his stiff penis from his underpants, and started to squeeze it gently. He was feeling hard and wet as she continued to rub and caress him. She lifted her skirt up to her waist and reached down to grab hold of the front of her panties. As she did so, she pulled the thin material to one side and allowed him to slide inside her. It was wonderful as he entered her, so hot and sensitive. She moved up and down on him slowly, rubbing her soft breasts gently into his face at the same time.

  Hedge was breathing very quickly now and she could sense that he was extremely turned on. She wanted to try something a little kinky with him, so she leaned over to her handbag on the passenger seat, and pulled out a handkerchief. She rolled it up and started to tie it round his eyes, knotting it at the back so that it acted as a blindfold.

  Once he realised what she was doing, he reacted instantly, shouting loudly whilst pulling the blindfold off, pushing her hands aside as he did so. His breathing had become suddenly quite erratic and he was screaming at her to get off him. He threw the handkerchief out of the partially open car window, and managed to push Louise over onto the passenger seat.

  ‘What the hell is the matter with you?’ she said. She looked a little shocked by his sudden extreme behaviour.

  Hedge had his eyes shut tight, and held his face in his hands. He was trying to control his breathing, but it wasn’t proving easy. He took a few deep breaths and then lifted his head up.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he managed to say between deep breaths.

  He was struggling to get his breathing back under control. His eyes were still shut, and his chest was rising and falling in rapid succession.

  ‘Just give me a minute. I’m sorry, I panicked. I get anxious ... about certain things ... you see’. He was still breathing heavily, but he had opened his eyes and was looking straight ahead. His skin had turned pale white and he looked a little unwell.

  Louise put her hand on his. ‘Oh dear, I didn’t mean to frighten you. Don’t worry. Lots of people don’t like being blindfolded.’

  ‘It’s not
that,’ he said, and tried to laugh but it came out stilted. ‘I hate handkerchiefs. They make me feel very anxious. They have done ever since I was at boarding school. Weird, I know, but I can’t seem to help it.’

  ‘Well, that does sound a bit strange,’ she said.

  He laughed. ‘If you think that’s funny, do you want to know what else unnerves me?’

  She smiled and nodded.

  ‘As well as handkerchiefs, I also get a bit sensitive about milk. I had some bad experiences at school which left me a bit spooked about some things,’ he said.

  She looked at him for a few seconds. He wasn’t sure if she was going to laugh, or just jump out of the car and run off. In the end she did neither. She moved back over to his side of the car, and sat astride him again. She then leaned down and kissed him gently on the lips. Her mouth was wet and warm, and he started to get aroused once more. She moved her hand down and pushed him back inside her. He soon forgot all about his panic attack. She moved her body slowly and deliberately up and down, while all the time his breathing was becoming faster.

  She leaned close to his ear and bit gently. ‘I love feeling you inside me,’ she whispered to him.

  Next she guided his mouth towards one of her nipples and he sucked on it gently at first, but then harder as she became more aroused. She started to moan softly and her movements on top of him became more urgent. He could no longer hold back and he pushed himself fully inside her as he reached his climax.

  As he sat back and tried to slow his breathing down, she continued to push herself against him rhythmically until she had completed her own orgasm.

  Hedge had found the whole experience with Louise highly arousing, but for various reasons they didn’t see much more of each other, and the relationship fizzled out over the next few weeks.

  As things got back to normal, Hedge began to reflect again on how ordinary his life seemed to be. The incident in the cafe had been an exception, but the memory of that was starting to fade now. He recalled that ever since he had been a young boy, he had always believed that there was going to be some special purpose to his life. It always felt like there was something waiting to happen to him just around the corner. He guessed that most people probably felt that. Or did they? He wasn’t sure. He had certainly believed that he was ‘here’ for a greater reason. He felt like he thought about this too much, so he made a conscious effort to just get on with things, and in his own words, stop ‘over-thinking’ everything.

  It was around July, at the height of summer, that the fuss surrounding him had finally died down. He had been focusing on his work and he was involved in several major projects for large multinational businesses. Life seemed to be getting back to normal.

  It was almost six o’clock one Friday evening when two officers of the Metropolitan Police Fraud Squad arrived at the company’s offices. Hedge was walking out of the main front entrance when he was stopped by one of the officers.

  ‘Excuse me sir, but is your name Tom Millar?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Well you can accompany us please. We have a warrant for your arrest,’ said the police officer.

  Chapter Seven

  Hedge stood in silence as the sentence was read out to him. He had been given a nine month jail term. The judge asked him if he had anything further to say to the court, but he shook his head and said nothing. He was silent because he was in shock. His barrister had informed him that he would probably just get a warning, and that he would be a free man in time for dinner that evening.

  He couldn’t believe that this was happening to him. It wasn’t even a real crime in his view. They called it ‘insider trading’, but there was no violence involved and nobody actually got hurt. The only positive thing about it, so his barrister had explained, was that he would get to serve his sentence in an ‘open’ prison. These typically were institutions with a more relaxed environment, where low risk inmates were sent. They didn’t have barbed wire fences or other high security systems. They relied on the prisoners being well behaved and doing as they were told. Nevertheless, Hedge was still astonished. He thought he would be on his way home, not spending his first night locked up.

  He had been suspended from his job around three months ago after the police were called in to investigate a potential fraud issue. Hedge had been at the centre of the inquiry and he had been quite frank and honest with the police from the outset.

  ‘Had he been part of the project team looking at investment finance for a certain large corporation?’

  ‘Yes he had.’

  ‘Was he aware that this particular company was about to make an offer to take over another large business, also based in the city of London?

  ‘Yes he was.’

  ‘Had he mentioned this to a certain acquaintance of his at the gym where he was a member?’

  ‘Yes he had.’

  ‘Was he aware that this particular person was a significant investor in the London Stock Exchange?’

  ‘Yes he was.’

  ‘Did he realise that he was passing on confidential information to this person that would enable him to obtain an advantage over other investors in the market.’

  ‘No, he hadn’t realised this.’

  The result of the above questioning led the police to charge Hedge with the crime of ‘insider trading’. Although he had not realised the implications of what he had done, ignorance was not regarded as an excuse. The court had subsequently found him guilty of the offence. It was a turbulent time for the City of London’s financial industry and several high profile frauds had recently come to light. The judge was keen to make an example of anyone coming before him charged with financial irregularities. Hedge was one such person.

  During the court proceedings, his barrister had drawn the judge’s attention to the event in the Cafe Roma involving his client earlier that year. The judge had listened intently to the story, but in the end it had not made any difference to the sentence.

  That day back in the cafe seemed a long time ago to Hedge, as he was led to the waiting police van. Half an hour after hearing his sentence, he was making the short journey to Saltmarsh open prison, situated in the Essex countryside, just ten miles outside London.

  There were two other prisoners in the vehicle with him and he glanced at them as the van sped along. The first one was a young man who looked like he could still have been a teenager. He stared constancy at the floor of the van and Hedge thought he could see tears running from his face. He tried to wipe his eyes but was thwarted by the handcuffs that, like his fellow passengers, held his wrists fixed to the metal bench that they were sitting on.

  His second fellow passenger was older, much older, and he had no left ear. It looked like it had been sliced clean off, and the resulting wound had healed some time ago. He glanced across at Hedge and smiled an eerie, creepy smile that sent shivers down his spine. As he watched, the old man poked his tongue out at him and then burst out laughing. From where he sat, Hedge thought he could smell stale urine coming from the old guys clothes.

  Hedge suddenly felt quite lonely and depressed.

  During the remainder of the journey he reflected to himself how in a matter of months he had gone from being a minor celebrity to being a convict, or hero to zero, as people often referred to it. This year had bought him the proudest moment in his life, and now also his worst nightmare. He had been fired from his job and many of his friends had disassociated themselves from him. The local press had ceased to publish the positive articles about him. He couldn’t imagine how things could possibly get any worse.

  Chapter Eight

  The first three weeks of his incarceration had been fairly uneventful. Hedge had kept his head down and did as he was told. It was all about getting into a routine, the guards and other inmates kept telling him. He was okay with that to some degree as he liked to have order in his life. He preferred to know what was going to happen on any particular day.

  He kept his cell clean a
nd tidy. He hadn’t noticed it himself, but several of the other inmates had told him that his room was the neatest on the block. On one side of his cell was his bed, which he made up every morning, running his flat hands down the top bed sheet several times to ensure that no creases were visible. On the other side was a set of three wooden shelves. On the top one he kept his hygiene stuff – soap, toothpaste etc. The next shelf was for photographs and other personal items, and the bottom one was where he placed any letters and paperwork. It was a good system, and it worked well for him. He certainly didn’t regard himself as abnormally over-organised, but he hadn’t sleep well for three days after his last cell inspection. Most likely related to the highly spiced curry that had been served up for lunch at around that time. Certainly nothing to do with a prison officer leaving his toothbrush on the second shelf while checking things during the inspection. Hedge was still not sure why the officer would have done that – it was obvious that the toothbrush belonged on the top shelf with the other hygiene items!

  Every morning after the prison ‘wake up’ bell had sounded he would head straight to the bathroom to have a shave and take a shower. Breakfast was at eight thirty and usually took around twenty minutes. Hedge normally went back to the serving hatch to request a second cup of tea. It wasn’t the best quality tea he had tasted, but it was good all the same. He took the opportunity to chat to the inmates who were working in the kitchen. He tried to get on with everyone as best as he could.