his ears.
“Darling, please just drop the matter. It isn’t worth the risk.”
“Don’t tell me what I should do. If the financial authorities aren’t going to deal with it, I’m going to the police.” He was adamant.
“Didn’t you hear what those people said they’d do? How can you ignore that?”
“Idle threats from cowards who haven’t even the courage to say who they are.”
“Please, stop now.”
The accident came a few days later.
Even though it was impossible to prove the car crash wasn’t an accident, Michael knew deep down this wasn’t some unconnected tragedy. He didn’t believe in coincidences. He could never shake off the belief that powerful people had conspired to kill his father and they had no problem with his mother becoming collateral damage.
Okay, he accepted that even with expert planning the outcome of the crash would have been uncertain. His parents could have survived, had some of the circumstances been different. They were unlucky to have spun off the road, and even more unlucky to have plunged down a thirty foot drop. The final nail in the coffin was the fact that the car had landed on its roof; they may have lived had it landed right side up. Maybe the ‘accident’ was intended as just another warning, but the outcome was that both his parents died.
He’d never find out who was responsible, he knew that, but he remembered his father’s perseverance in protecting him as a child so he put some serious effort into tracking down the guilty. Someone needed to be punished even if he couldn’t work out exactly who the culprits were.
He trawled through the evidence his father had painstakingly gathered. All he could see was big account holders consistently winning while the ‘man in the street’ accounts consistently lost. No matter where he looked there was no concrete proof, so he was left with a smouldering resentment of big banks and a dogged antipathy for their fat cat owners.
The whole experience had been a major force in shaping his adult life. In particular, his animosity towards the super-rich coupled with his ingrained sense of goodness combined to create his overwhelming desire to strike back.
And so he developed a plan.
Chapter 11 - Escape
They crept out of the prison basement and eventually out of the castle. They moved quickly through the narrow streets which criss-crossed the inner ward of the great stone fortification.
The castle stood on a hill and towered over Thamesius, the largest town in Mifal’s kingdom. The massive structure could be seen from every part of the city. It was a magnificent stone construction with thick granite ramparts and high defensive towers at each corner of the pentagon-shaped outer walls. With its reputation of being impenetrable, most of England’s various invaders avoided it and got on with the job of conquering the rest of Britain. William and his all-conquering Normans came years later and even he chose to form an uneasy alliance with Mifal rather than tackle the daunting defences. Thamesius therefore attracted thousands of rural dwellers who were fed up with being terrorised by invading raiders. The city was a sanctuary so the immigrants kept coming, and coming, and coming.
Thamesius was a bustling settlement, but it was a grey, cold place. Its cramped damp houses, badly cobbled streets, dark stinking alleys and rats the size of cats were just a few of the things which made it unwelcoming. Despite that, the town was growing dramatically, partly because of the thriving commerce, but mainly fuelled by waves of scared Britons who had fled from the surrounding farmlands. This influx of peasants made for a dangerous environment. The locals resented the immigrants and refused them shelter, so many of the newcomers lived rough on the streets. There were just too many people and too few houses. This led to a homeless underclass which would do anything to survive. Robberies, beatings and murders were commonplace. These were the
“Darling, please just drop the matter. It isn’t worth the risk.”
“Don’t tell me what I should do. If the financial authorities aren’t going to deal with it, I’m going to the police.” He was adamant.
“Didn’t you hear what those people said they’d do? How can you ignore that?”
“Idle threats from cowards who haven’t even the courage to say who they are.”
“Please, stop now.”
The accident came a few days later.
Even though it was impossible to prove the car crash wasn’t an accident, Michael knew deep down this wasn’t some unconnected tragedy. He didn’t believe in coincidences. He could never shake off the belief that powerful people had conspired to kill his father and they had no problem with his mother becoming collateral damage.
Okay, he accepted that even with expert planning the outcome of the crash would have been uncertain. His parents could have survived, had some of the circumstances been different. They were unlucky to have spun off the road, and even more unlucky to have plunged down a thirty foot drop. The final nail in the coffin was the fact that the car had landed on its roof; they may have lived had it landed right side up. Maybe the ‘accident’ was intended as just another warning, but the outcome was that both his parents died.
He’d never find out who was responsible, he knew that, but he remembered his father’s perseverance in protecting him as a child so he put some serious effort into tracking down the guilty. Someone needed to be punished even if he couldn’t work out exactly who the culprits were.
He trawled through the evidence his father had painstakingly gathered. All he could see was big account holders consistently winning while the ‘man in the street’ accounts consistently lost. No matter where he looked there was no concrete proof, so he was left with a smouldering resentment of big banks and a dogged antipathy for their fat cat owners.
The whole experience had been a major force in shaping his adult life. In particular, his animosity towards the super-rich coupled with his ingrained sense of goodness combined to create his overwhelming desire to strike back.
And so he developed a plan.
Chapter 11 - Escape
They crept out of the prison basement and eventually out of the castle. They moved quickly through the narrow streets which criss-crossed the inner ward of the great stone fortification.
The castle stood on a hill and towered over Thamesius, the largest town in Mifal’s kingdom. The massive structure could be seen from every part of the city. It was a magnificent stone construction with thick granite ramparts and high defensive towers at each corner of the pentagon-shaped outer walls. With its reputation of being impenetrable, most of England’s various invaders avoided it and got on with the job of conquering the rest of Britain. William and his all-conquering Normans came years later and even he chose to form an uneasy alliance with Mifal rather than tackle the daunting defences. Thamesius therefore attracted thousands of rural dwellers who were fed up with being terrorised by invading raiders. The city was a sanctuary so the immigrants kept coming, and coming, and coming.
Thamesius was a bustling settlement, but it was a grey, cold place. Its cramped damp houses, badly cobbled streets, dark stinking alleys and rats the size of cats were just a few of the things which made it unwelcoming. Despite that, the town was growing dramatically, partly because of the thriving commerce, but mainly fuelled by waves of scared Britons who had fled from the surrounding farmlands. This influx of peasants made for a dangerous environment. The locals resented the immigrants and refused them shelter, so many of the newcomers lived rough on the streets. There were just too many people and too few houses. This led to a homeless underclass which would do anything to survive. Robberies, beatings and murders were commonplace. These were the
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