Who Stole My Life? Read online

  Who Stole My Life?

  A gripping psychological thriller.

  (Previously published as

  London 2012 What If?)

  By

  IAN C.P. IRVINE

  Published by Ian C. P. Irvine

  Copyright 2020 IAN C.P. IRVINE

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright observed above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the copyright owner.

  .

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  .

  This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For my Wife and my Children

  Other Books by Ian C.P. Irvine

  Am I Dead? (Out Soon – The sequel to “Who Stole My Life?”)

  The Orlando File

  Haunted From Within

  Haunted From Without

  I Spy, I Saw Her Die

  Say You're Sorry

  The Assassin’s Gift

  Remember Me?

  Time Ship

  The Sleeping Truth

  The Messiah Conspiracy

  Alexis Meets Wiziwam the Wizard

  July 2021

  Chapter One

  PLEASE NOTE: THIS BOOK WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED

  IN SEVERAL COUNTRIES AS

  “LONDON 2012 WHAT IF?” OR “TWO WOMEN, ONE LOVE”.

  A SEQUEL TO THIS BOOK WILL BE PUBLISHED IN SUMMER 2021 CALLED

  “AM I DEAD?”

  Monday morning

  Surbiton

  August 2012

  A few days after the Olympic Games have finished.

  .

  It's not that I hate my own life. Far from it. My 'life', as you may call it, is good. It's just that nowadays, I look around at other people and wonder if, out of all of the thousands of different types of lives that I could be living, am I living the right one? After all, we only have one crack at getting it right. Life, as my father used to say, isn't a practice run. This is it.

  So what if I have got it wrong?

  What, if instead of a Product Manager in a telecommunications firm, I should have been an Olympic athlete, an artist, a policeman, a plumber, or a musician?

  So now, as I stand on the platform, waiting for the 8.12am train into London, I watch my fellow commuters jostling with each other, positioning themselves to be closest to the doors when the train comes to a stop, and wonder what they all do?

  A man nudges me from behind, deliberately or accidentally, it’s hard to tell. I turn slightly, casting an angry look in his direction, at the same time taking advantage of the knock forward and automatically moving closer to the edge of the platform. My neighbour looks up from reading the morning's headlines, but registering the annoyance in my eyes, he pretends not to notice that I have moved a few inches in front of him.

  I wonder what he does? Perhaps he's a banker. Maybe in insurance? Hiding from my questioning look, he lifts up his paper in front of his face. The Financial Times. Probably a stockbroker. His watch catches the morning sun and glistens momentarily, a flash of expensive gold. A Rolex.

  Or is it a fake? Like myself.

  I look around me along Platform 1. A hundred men and women, and a few in between. Young, old, a few almost dead, some already dead for years.

  A lady further down the platform catches my gaze. She is staring at me. Watching me. Observing me patiently. Her eyes meet mine before she looks away, but for a fleeting moment, it is as if she can see inside my soul.

  A moment later, a door opens from the nearby waiting room, and a young woman steps out with a steaming cup of some exotic coffee which has just cost her almost an hour's wage. I wonder what she does? Marketing? PR?

  I turn away, not wanting her to notice me.

  Just then, an ever so polite but rather surprised voice booms across the loudspeaker, proudly announcing the 'punctual' arrival of a train. Seconds later, the train rolls into the station, and the mad rush begins. The doors open, and for a few moments there is the usual mock attempt at politeness, but then, as if in response to some invisible signal, suddenly everyone scrambles forward, and it's every man for himself and survival of the fittest. A hundred people mentally chanting the mantra of the daily commuter: 'Oh please, God, please let me get a seat today.'

  Within seconds it's all over, and for a change today I am one of the winners: a seat by the window.

  Resting my head against the glass, and closing my eyes, I try to block out the world and catch fifteen minutes sleep, but just as I'm about to drift off, the smell of fresh coffee assails my nostrils and I open my eyes. Opposite me, another winner - it's the woman with the expensive coffee import.

  I smile at her. She smiles back then turns away from me and starts reading a book. I look at the title: 'Fifty Shades of Grey' by E.L. James. I recognize the name. It's the book all the women have been talking about in the office.

  My attention now turns to the man beside her. A short haircut, brown corduroy jacket, miniscule earphones stuck deep into his ears, a flashy MP3 player clipped onto the lapel of his jacket and reading his book, 'Perfect People' by Peter James. He's probably something in IT. Beside me an older man with a balding head and a pinstripe suit elbows me gently in the side as he turns the page of another Financial Times. Definitely a stockbroker.

  I turn to the window and look out at the sloping embankment, covered in the rejects and debris of suburban life tossed over the walls at the bottom of the gardens which border onto the railway lines.

  So many houses. So many lives.

  I wonder what they all do?

  The stockbroker beside me jabs me in the ribs again, and my attention turns back to myself and I ask myself the same old question that I've asked myself a million times before: at the end of university, instead of doing the ‘sensible’ thing, what if I had done what I really wanted to do? What if I had ignored the advice of my parents, and what if I had sent that speculative letter to all the big London advertising firms, all those years ago. What if one of them had replied? And what if one had said yes?

  But with a degree in Physics, no experience in the arts, and several offers from companies in the rapidly expanding IT industry, I took the easier, well paid option and joined an American software company in London. A steady income. A good job. The easy life.

  But is it the right life?

  Someone coughs, and my mind jumps back to last Friday night, and my dinner with Jane. I remember the light catching her eyes from the candle on the table in the restaurant, the touch of her fingers on my face and the taste of her lips when I kissed her against the car, and I fantasize about sleeping with her for the hundredth time.

  And then I think about Sarah, my wife, and feel guilty.

  Chapter Two

  Sarah.

  .

  I feel a tightness in my stomach when I think of her, and I look upwards, following the trail of a plane in the sky. The sight of the plane reminds me of the last time we flew on holiday together, and it makes me feel worse.

  None of this is my wife's fault. She doesn't deserve it. She's a kind and considerate, wond
erful mother, and a good partner. And she loves me, no doubt there, so in theory, our marriage should be great too. No, Sarah certainly doesn't give me any grounds to complain or be unhappy.

  So, if there is a problem, then the fault must lie with me...?

  I don't know why, but when we make love nowadays, I feel as if it’s somebody else's body that’s going through the motions, not mine. I feel detached. Mechanical. I don't feel the same old sparkle, the same lust or the excitement that I used to. And I can't help but wonder, should there not be more to it?

  We've been together a long time. We got the ring, the house and the car almost eleven years ago, and statistically that’s a long time for any marriage to last. I met her one lunchtime in a queue for sandwiches at the shop around the corner from work. She dropped her tuna-and-sweetcorn on the floor and I picked it up for her. We got talking, and she walked me back to my office, followed me up in the lift, and then just as I was beginning to get scared she was a stalker, she announced that she worked for the same company as me, in the department down the hall. After that I saw her every day, and a week later she asked me out. I couldn't believe my luck.

  So we went out that Friday, and after a couple of pints of beer I kissed her for the first time. All my hormones were telling me that it seemed like the right thing to do , and I can remember the rest of my body seemed to agree.

  After that I took the lead, and a few nights later we ended up in bed. By then I was hooked, and soon we were in love, and even sooner married. And life became good. Then, a few years later, good became wonderful with the arrival of my first baby girl. Beautiful, perfect, Keira.

  But for the past few years I can't help thinking, shouldn't it be better? Where has all the excitement gone?

  "Thanks for travelling with South West Trains. We'll shortly be arriving at London Waterloo. Please remember to take all your belongings with you."

  I wait for everyone else to get off the train, and give a couple of minutes for the crowds on the platform to thin out, before making my way into the Marks and Sparks on the main concourse of Waterloo station, where I grab an egg-mayonnaise and a tuna-and-sweetcorn sandwich. Old habits die hard.

  I walk down the broken stationary escalator, one of man's best inventions, perfected by the London Underground, and fight my way through the barriers heralding the entrance to the Jubilee Line.

  I get down onto the platform just as a train shoots out of the large wormhole on my left and stops behind the wall of glass protective panels and electronic safety doors that run along the edge of the platform.

  The doors open, and within seconds most of us are inside. The train fills up.

  I'm an old hand at riding the Jubilee Line, and I know that enough people will get off at the next station to let me sit down, and I will be able to enjoy a few minutes of reading before I have to get off at my stop further down the line at Canary Wharf. Southwark arrives and as predicted I find a seat and pull out my book, quickly losing myself in its pages.

  About ten minutes and several stations later, the train begins to slow and a little alarm bell rings in my head. My subconscious, busy counting the stations as we pass them by, interrupts my reading and instructs me to get off here. This is Canary Wharf.

  I emerge from the escalator into a world of sunshine, and towering, powerful skyscrapers and office blocks. In spite of the Euro crisis money is everywhere. You can see it in the arrogant, bold designs of the new buildings, the designer clothes of the people streaming into the banks, investment houses and high-tech companies all around, and in the flashy restaurants lurking at the base of the buildings, just waiting to skim their slice from the rich people who stream pass them in the evening, ready to relax and show off their wealth.

  Still, I can't help but look up and admire it all. Five years of working at Canary Wharf hasn't taken away my initial reaction the very first day I stepped out of the tube and into this world, in new suit and tie, hoping to pass the job interview.

  "Excuse me, sir, would you like...?" A voice interrupts my thoughts.

  I shake my head, and walk swiftly past the woman in front of me, ignoring the free glossy publication full of advertisements and job vacancies that she offers me every day as soon as I step from the protection of the tube station.

  At first I found it annoying, and wanted to scream 'Just leave me alone…' , but now I can't help but admire her stamina. For as long as I can remember she's been there every day, come sun, rain, or snow, always enthusiastic, smiling and polite, always determined, always hoping that people will take her wares. She must earn a pittance. And yet, she's got more loyalty and dedication to her pathetic little job than I've seen in most of the people I work with.

  My office is on the tenth floor of the Russell-Hynes Building, one of the newest and most flashy buildings to be built on the wharf.

  Thirty floors, all glass, silver and shiny, built within six months, and completed a month ahead of schedule, with views from my floor across the city that are just fantastic. On a good day, you can see as far as the London Eye, maybe even a little further. Which is all rather academic to me anyway, since my office doesn’t have any windows and is in the middle of the building, near to the lifts and facing inwards towards the corridors and the ever busy, unisex toilets.

  "Morning James," the receptionist smiles, greeting me as I step out of the lifts and walk through reception. I walk around the open-plan telesales department and almost bump into a large, man-size, furry cat, who suddenly steps out from behind one of the concrete pillars in the centre of the room, a shoulder bag full of Kitte-Kat promotional leaflets draped around its neck.

  Another one of the latest marketing ideas. Pay a starving refugee from West Africa a few pounds a day to walk around Canary Wharf dressed as a big, furry, tomcat, and hand out leaflets to all the rich bankers advertising Kitte-Kat’s latest high speed, low cost, special offers: "Get 50Mb Fibre-Optic Broadband Access for the price of 8Mb. It'll make you purr with satisfaction. Meow!"

  No comment.

  I stop by the coffee machine on the other side of the sales floor, nodding hello to my boss as I walk past his room on the way over to my office. Closing the door behind me, I settle down behind my computer, and sip away at my coffee as my PC takes four full minutes to boot up and log onto the network.

  Opening up Outlook I find 112 new emails since Friday night, most of which are trying to convince me that my manhood is too short and that I should consider a penile extension. Spam. Which probably means our firewall crashed again over the weekend.

  I delete all but six of them. The first two are from the marketing department. A few new crazy promotional ideas they want to tell us about. I read them in some disbelief, then delete them. Are these people for real?

  Two of the other emails are from customers who have somehow got hold of my address and have emailed to inform me that their broadband connection only gives them 95% of the download speed they were promised. Have they got nothing better to complain about? I forward them to the support department who I know will just delete them without responding.

  Saved until the end, the last two to get my attention are from Jane and Sarah. They sit right beside each other on the screen, one against the other.

  I pick up my coffee again, and take a few slow drinks as I open up the email from my wife first.

  "Hi James,

  Have a great day at work today, and I'm looking forward to seeing you tonight. Going to take the kids swimming after school, but should be home about 7pm. Will you be back home in time for dinner, or are you working late again?

  Sarah."

  I open up the one from Jane next, a pang of guilt hitting me even before I read the first words, immediately followed by a rush of excitement and childish nervousness.

  "Hi James,

  Thanks for Friday night. It was great. Loved the meal. Loved the kiss afterwards. Maybe we can do it again sometime soon. Like tonight… What are you doing after work? Do you want to meet for a quick drink in town? Or
, if you want, Mike's gone away for a few days, and you could come round here?

  Jane.

  P.S. No promises. If you come round here…we'll just see how it goes. Slowly does it. "

  I lean forward in my seat and read both emails again, resting my elbows on the edge of the table, holding the coffee cup in both hands and biting the edge of it with my teeth. My heart is beating fast.

  What the hell am I doing?

  Both emails sit on the screen, side by side, screaming at me to reply to them.

  I hit the reply button on the one on the right.

  "Sorry. I have a deadline to meet tonight and probably won't be able to get away from here till late. Have a great day. Speak later.

  James."

  The one on the left is now alone on the screen. It demands attention. I know that I have to turn her down. I know that I have to end this madness now. To say no. Once and for all.

  Slowly, I type my reply.