The name tag on the desk read Toby Dunlop and under the name were the words, Marketing Executive.

Behind the desk sat a young man in his mid twenties. He wore a handmade tailored suit that he picked up on his most recent trip to Thailand, between sessions screwing pretty young (but not necessarily pretty and young) prostitutes and checking out the endless Wats that he never grew tired of visiting. He paid £70 for the suit; a bargain when you consider that it would be nearer five hundred to have one made up for you in this country. The hookers were comparatively cheaper too.

His jacket hung on the back of his mock leather chair and the top button of his magnolia coloured Ralph Lauren Polo shirt was undone because those lazy bastards in maintenance still hadn’t sorted the air-con out.

He gazed at his 17” flat screen through the square eyes of someone who sits at a computer all day, every day. The clock at the bottom right of the screen told him it was 12:56. He had four minutes until lunchtime and was considering sending an e-mail to an ex-girlfriend to see if she fancied ‘dinner’ that night. The only reason he was holding it back was the memory of how fucking bonkers she was by the end of their relationship. These thoughts, however, were quickly pushed aside by visions of stockinged thighs and a shortening skirt.

Unconsciously he clicked the SEND button.

The clock read 12:58. What on earth could he do for the next couple of minutes? Ebay? Duck hunt? BBC on-fuckin-line?

As he pondered, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the screen. Not bad, he thought, especially when considering the hedonistic leanings of last night. So that’s how he wasted the minutes until lunch – remembering his £27 pizza at Don Gio’s, the endless bottles of red and the charlie chasers. Three hours sleep and a breakfast meeting with Dick Thurgood, his boss. He blagged that one, as he always did, with eye drops and espresso.

The clock read 13:00 and the open-planned office was almost empty. Toby smiled insincerely as Danny and Justin, a couple of muppets from the PR department, strutted past his desk on the way to ‘do lunch’. Cunts.

Toby stood and released his jacket from its imprisoned position. He fancied a pint or better still, a Bloody Mary, but knew he should settle for a cleansing juice from that hippy bar in the arcade.

He’d already decided, as it was Thursday, to have a pint when the phone on his desk broke its silence. He wouldn’t usually answer but thought maybe Saffron, his ex, had received his message and couldn’t wait for ‘dinner’. Hopefully she wanted ‘lunch’ too.

He answered on the third ring.

“Marketing.”
“Toby, its Stella in reception.”
“What can I do for you Stella?” He asked impatiently. Stella was the company’s official bike; her nickname was Sir Walter, as in Raleigh. Toby had nailed her within a week of arriving at the firm. He didn’t know it at the time but he was just one more name on an endless register; as anonymous as a loaf of sliced white on a housewife’s shopping list.
“I’ve got a Mr Francisco here for you. Shall I send him up?”

Toby didn’t answer. He put the phone back on the hook and turned around slowly. Last night’s bleariness had been substituted by fear. He scanned the room but could only see a few heads bobbing above computer screens and partitions.

A lonesome bead of sweat trickled from the base of his £40 haircut, past his ice blue eyes, through the light rough of his stubble and bungee jumped from his chiselled jaw-line to the Lenor softness of his designer shirt. Although maintenance still hadn’t done fuck all about the air-con, their negligence wasn’t to blame for Toby’s perspiration.

Without taking his eyes from the lift doors at the opposite end of the open plan office, he negotiated the labyrinth-like floor plan like Theseus on Crete. His heart pounded, his mind raced.

He thought this was over.

He thought he’d won.

He was wrong.

Taking the lift was a no-no. He, Francisco, would be waiting for him in reception. Who the fuck sang The Only Way Is Up? Thought Toby. Whoever it was, she was fucking well off the mark. His office was on the top floor of the building and there was only one way out. DOWN.

He took the stairs and regretted smoking. He rushed the first few floors but stopped when it dawned on him that maybe Francisco would be cruising the stairs, waiting for him to come this way. Francisco was a clever bastard, an evil one too, so Toby slowed his pace and carefully stalked his way down the final 11 floors. When he reached the bottom and looked through the glass pane that separated him from serious pain, he almost cracked up with laughter when he saw his nemesis, Bad Francisco, leaning on the reception desk, checking Stella’s cans as if he were Hugh Hefner at a bunny parade.

He saw his chance, his only chance to feel the polluted air penetrate his pores once again. Maybe for, but he hoped not, the last time. He stood back for a moment and breathed deeply. His heart was beating like a drug fuelled drum loop and his left lace was undone. He squatted down and tightened it up. Now he was ready.

Mr Francisco, swiftly dressed in a slim-pinstripe and with his dark hair whipped back to reveal an inch long scar on his forehead - the result of an earlier confrontation with a certain Mr Dunlop, couldn’t resist Stella’s dirty charms. She was so blatantly loose she was angelic. A fallen angel. A dark angel. But definitely some sort of angel. He thought he could probably learn a few things between her thighs; like a sexual CD-Rom. This was the sort of waiting he didn’t mind, at least, it was better than reading Hello fuckin’ magazine.

Her cleavage hypnotised him, her heavily made-up eyes entranced him, her Madonna mole mesmerised him; which left him hornier than Fred Wesley and unprepared for what came next. To his left, Stella’s right, the door leading to the stairs burst open and Toby Dunlop sprinted past them and out through the revolving doors onto the street. After adjusting the semi in his Calvin Klein’s, Francisco winked at Stella before pursuing his prey. 

When he reached the outside world, Toby embraced the stench and humidity of the town centre like a mother smothers her newborn child. He didn’t think he’d make it this far and knew he couldn’t wait to appreciate his surroundings for too long. Francisco was slipping, but the fucker was still only metres behind him through a pane of glass. He didn’t have a plan, but knew that the best form of anonymity was to be found in a crowd, so he headed for the consumer throng on Queen Street.

He bounded through the faceless masses, took a left down an arcade and a right back onto the pedestrianized zone. Every ten metres or so he looked over his shoulder and was confronted by the same thing every time: Francisco. The high-speed chase continued and took in a couple of shops and a Barclays Bank. Toby thought he’d be safe in the sea of people but you could never be sure with Francisco. The guy was a maniac. He was also fit.

They careered through Boots like Supermarket Sweepers on speed and Francisco was within reach of Toby’s threads when, to his rescue, came an unlikely saviour. As Toby sidestepped the Samsara display and almost ended up face to face with one of the makeover monsters, Francisco was taken out by an amputee in a motorised chair. With his right hand outstretched in dramatic desperation, he was mugged of his balance and took out the afore mentioned Samsara stack.

Toby made his getaway.

Francisco’s eyes welled with pain.

Boots had never smelled so sweet.

The chase continued and Francisco was getting closer. Too close. Toby crashed through Burger King’s doors and ran straight into a ten deep by ten wide queue. Stupid fuckers one and all. He ignored the yells, pulled himself back to his feet and exited the establishment through the gates at the other side of Hell.

He stood for a split second facing the Castle. Decision time: left, right or straight on? Left was the answer and he went for it like a steroided sprinter off the blocks. He neared a pedestrian crossing but the little green man was red and with good reason; a double decker, the unchocolate kind, was heading towards it in the only way bus drivers know how: fast as fuck. Without hesitation, and without considering the possible negative outcome of his action, Toby crossed the road to a chorus of gasps as he avoided the bus with mili metres to spare. Later ya fucker, he thought as he stopped for a well-deserved breath on the other side. But once the bus had moved away, Toby was faced with a smiling Francisco and the beep beep-beeping of the little green man.

Toby turned and ran. He ran faster than he’d ever done before but every time he looked over his shoulder, who was there but Bad Francisco. Like a fucked up dream except worse, seeing that this was reality.

Without meaning to, he found himself in a park, the Castle Grounds to be precise. His world span as the essential oxygen struggled to ventilate his lungs. He didn’t know where he was or where he was going but seeing that left had failed him so far; he took a right to see if it would serve him better.

It didn’t.

Within two hundred yards he was faced with a bigger obstacle than any bus: the stinking, brown flow of the Taf. He looked at the river through breathing eyes. His heart was knocking at his ribcage, like a Jehovah’s Witness who knows you’re home, and his throat burnt with sickening acidity.

With hands on hips, he slowly turned ‘round to face his destiny, to face his fate. In contrast to Toby, Francisco looked comfortable and confident, like a hunter on a closed range. Sweat clung to Francisco’s face while it cascaded from Toby’s.

Francisco smiled the smile of someone who knows they’ve won.

“Had enough?” He asked.

Toby looked up at him and his eyes squinted in retaliation to the post midday sun. He seemed to consider the question and answer in equal measures, before finally regaining some composure and breath in order to answer and execute his next move.

“Never,” was the answer.

His move?

Toby turned around, negotiated the bulging boulders that flank the flow and took a few strides into the water. As soon as it was deep enough, he dived in and caught the current, which took him towards the bridge, the stadium and the barrage beyond.

Francisco sighed but didn’t follow.

                                                            *            *            *

When Toby returned to his desk that afternoon his clock told him it was 14:30. He was soaked but still breathing. Nobody commented on his wetness; they’d seen it all before.

He checked his inbox and was pleased to see a message from Saffron accepting his invite to ‘dine’. As soon as he was comfortable, that is as comfortable as is possible when you’ve just returned from a lunchtime dip in a dirty river, he clicked on a message from his close friend, Frank Cisco.

The message was as short as it was sour. It read:

Bastard.

He smiled at his small victory and savoured the moment like the Man from Delmonte savours his tinned fruit. But his newfound smugness was soon quashed by the knowledge that it was far from over. Francisco would be back. He knew this because his friend hated losing; be it at Trivial Pursuit, tennis or touch.