Chapter 1
I locked the shop door for the final time, 4.30pm Christmas Eve. That was it, officially retired at just 45 years old. If I was honest I didn't really know what I was going to do now. I wasn't relishing retirement, just sitting doing nothing. I suspected I was going to be lonely!
I went round the back of the shop and got into my new SUV, a retirement present to myself. It was really too big for just me but I'd always fancied one and 'what the hell' - I'd made enough money selling the business that I could afford it. As a salve to my conscience I'd bought a Mazda CX-5, something with low emission and with reasonable fuel economy.
A quick visit to Tesco then back home - I had no intention of leaving home again for a few days - not until the festive season was over. I'd watch TV, listen to music, read or surf the net to keep myself occupied. Don't get me wrong, I liked Christmas as a family occasion, but with my wife dead just over three years now, from cervical cancer, and my two kids living abroad, it was just me.
My daughter Sarah had met a Kiwi at university and followed him back to New Zealand - they had married in the Summer just past. My son Pete had moved to the States when he was twenty and now played drummer in a band. They were never going to be huge but played lots of gigs locally and made reasonable money. With the extra he earned teaching drum kit out of a local music shop he lived OK.
Was I lonely? I had got used to living on my own. I kept busy with work. Until now anyway!
I had built up a very successful business. Fortunately I didn't know what I wanted to do when I left school, and couldn't see the benefit of going to Uni just to get a degree in something I wasn't really interested in. I took a year out and managed to get a job in a local chemists shop.
The pharmacist was a nice chap but not very with it! After a few weeks I noticed that a lot of clients coming in to get their prescriptions filled were asking where to buy other 'over the counter' products. I persuaded Charles, my boss, to invest in some shelving and bought some simple products - shampoo, talc, some cosmetics, etc. (most prescriptions were brought in by women I had noticed). Sales jumped up and soon the shop was making more from over the counter sales than from the prescriptions.
I sat Charles down after I had been there a few months and showed him a business plan I had made. He was a bit wary but eventually decided to give it a go as the over the counter sales had done so well. It worked - we were making much more money, reflected in an increase in my wages. Charles was not really a businessman - he was a pharmacist and a good one, but had taken over his Dad's pharmacy one year out of University. Despite having no formal training in business I seemed to have a head for it and soon was running the shop all except for the pharmacy.
After two and a half years Charles asked me to be a partner, as we were making so much more money. He felt I was going to leave and set up a rival business. I had hinted to him I would like to own my own business. Within five years we had a small chain of pharmacies in the town and surrounding smaller communities.
We computerised our records as soon as computers took off, which helped us streamline the business. When internet pharmacy became legal we started an online business - that was the deal breaker. Getting in at the start meant we picked up a lot of the early business, and ended up renting a business unit to deal with the volume of sales. The business rapidly grew and we employed more and more people. Charles was older than me and when his wife became ill when he was mid fifties he decided he wanted to retire.
We had the business valued and when I found out what it was worth, I couldn't afford to buy him out without selling the business. A major internet company offered us over twenty million for the business so we jumped at it. We sold the shops separately to the individual pharmacists, they were separate from the internet company anyway, and netted another couple of million approximately for those. After the government took its share in Capital Gains Tax we were both left with more than enough to live on without ever having to work again.
Charles retired immediately, and I agreed to work for another six months at two of the shops, in a consultative capacity, to teach the new staff the business. Today was the last day. I'd gone to one shop in the morning, and come to the second one at lunchtime to just check that the new owners were happy with everything, The owner of the second one was stressing about getting everything ready for Christmas for her young family so in a burst of Christmas spirit (or idiocy) I offered to let her go early and run the shop for the afternoon, then lock up.
I turned left out the car park to head to the supermarket. Most of the shops in the row mine was in (not mine any more - had to stop thinking of it that way) were closed already and in darkness. I did notice a girl standing in the doorway three shops down, huddling back to avoid the flurry of snow that was just starting. Probably waiting for a lift, I thought. The snow we had had over the last few days had partially melted earlier in the day but the temperature was dropping rapidly, my dashboard thermometer told me it was below freezing already. It felt bloody cold!
I just needed a few perishables, milk and bread mainly. God, Tesco's was crammed. I had no option, having offered to work till the end of the day, but surely most of these other people, especially Mums with kids in tow, should have shopped earlier. It took me an hour to pick up a few essentials and get through the checkout. People are strange - shopping trolleys packed to overflowing. I wanted to shout at some of them - "They're only closed one day. Sunday opening hours on Boxing Day." You'd think they were stocking up for a national disaster. What a waste to time and money!
At last - home, to lasagne and garlic bread, and I thought, a glass of red! I had to retrace my journey and go past the shop on my way home, which was on the other side of town. I did notice a strange lump in the same doorway three doors down from the shop out the corner of my eye. Ten minutes later I was unpacking the shopping and putting it away. Lasagne in the oven - I'd prepared it last night.
Fed and the dishes in the dishwasher, I relaxed in my big, comfy leather armchair. A second glass of wine sat with my coffee ready for drinking, the TV on in the corner for some sound, though I wasn't really watching the programme, a Christmas film, and I suppose I started to dose. Certainly I wasn't thinking about much. That's when my brain obviously started to process information gathered through the day.
Suddenly alarm bells were ringing in my head. I sat up, tried to work out just what my brain had been subliminally working on. I took a swig of coffee, it was lukewarm now. I jumped up, grabbed my thick jacket off the chair in the hall, picked up the car keys and went out.
The car windscreen was frosted up, but a spray with de-icer and a couple of minutes sitting with the engine on sorted that out. Ten minutes later I was pulling up just past the shop. Yes, the lump was still in the doorway. I left the engine running and got out to investigate. It was a blanket over the top of something, and it was frozen to the doorstep. A good tug got one corner loose and I was able to pull it off. My brain had been right, underneath, huddled on the doorstep, was the young girl I had seen earlier, and not in a good condition. Her breathing was shallow and her lips were blue. She was freezing.
She was non -responsive when I tried to talk to her. Should I call 999, police, ambulance? Bugger it, I stooped over, one arm round her waist, the other under her knees and pulled. I almost ended up falling on top of her. The long jacket she was wearing was, like the blanket had been, stuck to the floor. I bent my knees a bit more and repeated the process and up she came. God, she was light. I carried her to the car and buckled her into the passenger seat, went back and picked up the blanket and a small rucksack, presumably personal items, chucked them in the back seat and set off, with the heater and fan on full blast.
