The Bodyguard

The Bodyguard (Chapter 2)

Recap:

I was just about to open the door and leave when Mark's voice stopped me. "Oh and go home and pack a suitcase. You're going to be staying with Craig Jones wherever he goes. Good luck."

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Chapter 2

Now that I didn't expect. I had been on a few jobs before where I had to stick close to a person but normally I got let off for the night shift. I knew I wasn't going to be getting any sleep in the near future as I was a light sleeper, which was good for my job, but being with a singer who was likely to have house guests and throw parties, wasn’t going to be good for getting some shut eye. All I could do was hope that any parties would be cancelled or postponed until things blew over. Yeah right, and pigs were going to start flying. All I said in reply to Mark though was "Yes sir." Before leaving and closing the door behind me.

I walked into the main room which consisted of six desks all facing the door, three on the left and three on the right, staggered to make the most of the limited space while still leaving a central isle for ease of access. The beige walls alongside each desk had a corkboard with various bits of paper pinned up, mostly used for notes on current assignments, from other colleagues and missed calls and the like. Although people did put up other things, like family photos, to give it a personal touch. I went to my desk, the middle one on the right, and after checking the board for any important notes and finding none; I sat down and started to look through the file.

The file itself was medium sized in comparison to ones I’d had before. Inside it were copies of the threat and death letters, some were more original than others but mostly they seemed to be the usual 'I'm gonna get yah'. Whoever said you had to be able to spell properly to be able to send a threatening letter? The letters appeared to be a mixture of typed letters in varying fonts and more creative ones where the person had cut the letters out of newspapers and magazines then stuck them to a sheet. There was even one handwritten one. I shook my head at that, the person who wrote it was obviously an amateur as hand written letters were one of the easiest to trace.

I started grouping the letters according to how serious the threat in each letter appeared to be; mild, moderate or severe. I put the handwritten one in the mild group after reading it, as it looked like the person was just blowing off steam and warning Mr. Jones to ‘change his ways before it was too late’, sounding more like an annoyed but concerned citizen than an enraged lunatic but it was better to be safe than sorry. It was harder to sort out the typed and collaged letters, as the typed ones could either be the work of something who was enraged at the time, so spur of the moment, or it could be calculated and more sinister and the collaged letters showed serious dedication as it took some doing to find all the letters in varying fronts to give the right effect. Either someone was on a really creative rant or possibly drunk, which seemed unlikely, or they were done more for the effect than actual promise of harm or the person really meant the threat. There were just too many possible reasons a person could have for writing letters like these.

The key though was in the letter itself, so I read through all of the letters and sorted them accordingly. By the end the mild and moderate piles were about equal and there were a handful in the severe group.  The severe group was larger than I expected so it was no wonder Mr. Shaw decided to hire us. Although I had sorted the letters into what I thought were the most and least severe, I Still couldn’t completely dismiss the others. I put letters into one pile with the severest on top and the mildest at the bottom and moved them to one side so I could look at the rest of the file.

The file included a photocopy of the police report about the older brother of Malory Banner, the girl Mr. Jones apparently had been sleeping with, who had threatened Mr. Jones because 'if you mess with my sis, you mess with me' was what he had been reported to have said before punching Mr. Jones. Attached was a photo of him with his name, Kyle Banner, scrawled on the back of it and a photocopied sheet which was Kyle’s police record; nothing really serious, just the odd case of shoplifting and drunken disorderly. Kyle was reported as being 6ft, muscular and weighing 14 stone. I would be able to recognise his face in a crowd because of the scar just under his left eye that was a result of a drunken fight he had last year. After reading his details I felt reassured. I may weigh only nine and a half stone and be 5ft8 but I had taken down bigger guys than Kyle in my karate classes and on the job. I wouldn’t think of Kyle as any less of a threat though, because that was just asking for him to prove me wrong. I’ve found vigilance is essential, so I try to never let my guard down.