Thomas Brady was late coming into work the next day. It was not that he was tired from drinking last night, or the difficult fight he had with the fighter from Thailand. It was because he could not sleep. The image of the lady in the dark dress burned deeply in his mind. He could still see her in his minds eye standing high on the roof of the Potteries Shopping Centre. He knew the building itself stood over fifty feet and it would have been impossible for her to even be that high up. The building had been shut so there was no way she could have entered it and there were no ladders to climb to the top. Even if she had managed to get up onto the roof, the speed at which she did it was just not possible. Thomas knew it would be impossible for her to get that high up in such a short span of time when he had only just went after her a few minutes after she had left Weatherspoons.
He began wondering whether it was just a trick of his mind. Probably the effect of booze on his brain. But he had not drunk too much that night. He even hypothesized that it might have been a blow to his brain inflicted by the opponent he fought the same night. Thing was, he had endured much tougher fights in the squared circle and never once hallucinated because of it. His most crazy assumption was that the woman somehow had a twin sister. But that in itself raised more questions than answers like...
What was she doing on the roof in the first place?
Was she planning to jump?
And why would she be dressed the same?
It messed with Thomas's head and by the time morning came about, he felt far worse for wear than coming out of one of his bouts in the ring. He had stumbled lazily out of bed, put on a creased pair of black trousers and a stained shirt with a tie that did not even go with it, before washing away any last remants of sleep from his eyes with cold water. He ate half a toast and some coffee before setting off to work.
His workplace was near Trentham on a small industrial estate just a mile off a busy main road. He worked as a data input clerk at a small company called SynTech Ltd, a company that provided IT support to other businesses throughout Staffordshire. It paid good money though the job was quite boring to Thomas. He hated desk jobs and an office environment. It felt cramped, almost claustraphobic and he could not stand any of the gossip and back chatter that always comes with working in this particular environment. His place was in the ring and it was there where he felt like a god. Here, he was just an average Joe working for an average wage to stupid and pointless deadlines with irritating people who always made it an habit to sit on their pity pots, moaning and complaining about other people in the workplace. It almost drove him to complete distraction, though he always kept himself sane by dreaming about his next upcoming fight and the wild partying that accompanied it straight after.
His boss was non too pleased by his lateness and tired frame of mind.
"I can understand that you have quite a busy and hectic lifestyle outside these company walls," his boss told him. "But here, I expect you to fulfil your duties that we pay you to do! Do I make myself clear Mr Brady?"
Thomas apologised though deep in his mind, he pictured himself punching his bosses lights out. It made him chuckle to himself at the though and helped him get through the day. His two hungover mates, Grant and Hugo did ask him during lunch time what had happened last night..
"Saw you leave the pub in quite a hurry," commented Hugo as they sat in the canteen. "Your brother Travis told us you went after some bird in a black dress".
Thomas sighed to himself as he tucked into his pot noodle meal. "He sure has a big mouth," he replied. "I'll kick his ass tonight".
"Aw cmon!" said Grant, finishing his tenth coffee of the day, despite the dark bags under his eyes. "Don't take it personally! I saw that bird myself last night before you and Travis arrived. Man, she was fit. Looked straight at me and I just kinda froze. Those eyes. They were so deep".
"So what happened when you left the pub? Did you catch up with her?" enquired Hugo.
Thomas finished off his pot noodle meal and set it aside. He took out a can of Red Bull from his sachel and opened it up, downing almost half of it in one gulp. It was his second can of the day. He felt, after the sleepless night he experienced, he needed some energy.
"I lost her," he told his friends. "I don't know how, but she managed to evade me".
Both Grant and Hugo looked at each other with puzzled expressions and then at Thomas who proceeded to finish off the rest of his energy drink.
"Seriously?" said Grant, not quite believing what he was hearing. "You mean to tell me, a woman in high heels managed to give you the slip?'
"It is not like she left Weatherspoons ages ago. I'd say a few minutes and she would not have walked far," added Hugo. "And you are athletic and fast".
Thomas just shrugged his shoulders. He was as stumped as both his friends.
"Well it beats the shit out of me," he told them.
Grant leaned forward on the table. "You are not thinking of finding her?" he asked Thomas. "I mean, what would Sarah think?"
"You still seeing Sarah?" enquired Hugo.
Sarah Mannings was a woman Thomas had been dating for the last six months. He had met her at the new Total Fitness gym that had opened up a year ago in Tunstall and from that one meeting, they hit off straightaway. She was a Zumba and personal fitness coach providing personal fitness tuition for people around the Stoke area. She had been attracted to his good looks, his build and finely toned body. Not to mention the fact that he was the local kickboxing champion and an all round martial artist. What Thomas liked about her was her athletic and tuned body that he had wanted to get his hands on for weeks. Yet what was so frustrating to him was the fact that she insisted on taking things slow which did not bode well for Thomas. Still, he was quite happy to carry on dating her while playing away. After all, he was the kickboxing champion of Stoke and he could pretty much do what he liked. He knew he would eventually get Sarah in bed and maybe, just maybe he could bag this mysterious lady if he could find her.
"Yeah," was Thomas's reply, crushing his can. "But I am going to find this woman".
Grant and Hugo both looked at Thomas in surprise.
"You sly little fox. You want to find this woman and give her one?" said Hugo.
"He wants to bone every woman in Stoke," joked Grant.
Thomas laughed along with his work mates. "Hey, what can I say. I'm Thomas Brady. I'm a champion. What woman could resist me?"
After lunch was over, he spent the rest of the afternoon at his desk, clock watching. The image of the mysterious woman in the dark dress kept appearing at the forefront of his mind, despite his efforts to keep her to the back. So he tried distracting himself by eves dropping on the conversations of the office staff. Most of them were talking about the news of several big name banks in America experiencing financial difficulties and the problems it was posing for the global economy. Thomas had heard that the economy was not doing very well and that a few dozen companies across the North West of England had folded up. But it did not bother him as much as it bothered everyone else at his workplace. The economy could fall apart for all he cared. Way he saw it, he was destined for bigger and better things. It was 2008, and he was going to make this year his best ever. The year when he becomes the British Kickboxing champion, a prize which he knew would cataput him to a life of riches, luxuary and comfort.
When it was time to clock off, Thomas headed out to Hanley and spent nearly all the money that he had earned from the fight on new clothes, toiletries and various sports supplements. He put a certain amount aside for going out tonight. He could have asked his two mates, Grant and Hugo to come along, or even the two women he knew, Monica and Laura, or even his brother Travis. But he decided he wanted to go at it alone. His intention was not to create so much attention, even though he lavised being the centre of attention. He wanted to find this strange woman in the dark dress and get to the bottom of who she was and how she pulled off that stunt of getting to the top of a roof on a shopping mall. Even as he stood in front of the mall itself, his hands full with shopping bags, standing amidst crowds of shoppers looking up at the roof, he found it impossible for anyone to have climbed up there. Unless, of course, they had some kind of supernatural ability. Even if it took all night, he was going to find her and find out how she did it.
He ate at KFC, a quick and easy meal of a Zinger Burger with fries and a coke and then drove home where he showered and changed before heading back out. He had arranged for a taxi cab to take him back in to Hanley where he would look for her. The best place to start was the place he first saw her in, Weatherspoons.