Car 3

101
Mr Paul Launcey

Outward appearance

Lanky man rising 50, sitting hunched in a rumpled suit. Creased double chin. Spectacles, pink cheeks, balding dome.

Inside information

Investment advisor for Adventure Capital. A Lloyds name and a soon-to-be bankrupt man.

What he is doing or thinking

He thinks of his wife and his only child, a morbidly shy 12 year old who is intensely vulnerable. Benjamin is hardly able to talk to anyone his own age. He has special tutors. Paul cannot imagine the boy surviving in a state school. That is where he is going.

As for Anne, she is capable, kind, deserves better. Even though his wife is not a name, her own family money will be taken to pay the debts. Lloyds can take the house, everything else. Alone, Anne would not be in any way liable. They would both be better off if he were dead.

Paul has decided to kill himself. The problem is how. He could buy a new pair of slippery soled leather shoes, and slide helplessly under a bus, scattering papers. The insurance won't pay out if looks like suicide. It must be above suspicion, and he must die. The very worst thing that could happen is that he survives as a cripple with debts still due.

He wants to die. He lets his stop rattle past, thinking, thinking, his job now irrelevant. Could he hire someone to kill him? Without anyone knowing it was him? Above all else, cold and angry, he wants the insurance to pay.

He is, after all, insured with Lloyds. The train sweeps him on towards the Elephant.

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