Chapter 1
This was the worst bit.
Every time I found myself standing on the edge of a building looking out over a beautiful skyline, I always told myself ‘don’t look down Daisy’. I wasn’t afraid of heights per se, I mean I climbed rocks in my spare time for fun. It was the prospect of scaling down said height that frightened the bejeesus out of me. There was something about standing right at the very edge that always rocked me, like adding my five feet and eight inches made it too high.
Ignoring those thought I forced myself to turn around and lean back, allowing the ropes to go taught and take my weight before I edged backwards. As I moved the fringes of the building crept up on me like I wasn’t expecting them, A whirl of warm air unleashed a few strands of hair from my hood and they whipped about my face. I stopped, teetering on the boundary of horizontal and vertical. I’d done this more times than I really cared to count but it never got any easier. I kept telling myself that the next time I did this I’d hop over the edge like a pro, repel down and unclip faster than Tom Cruise in any Mission Impossible movie, but it never happened.
So why do I keep doing this?
Clenching my teeth together I mechanically brushed the light coloured strands of hair behind my ear with a gloved hand.
Because getting away with this is better than sex.
A thief.
That’s what my brain called me in the wee hours of the morning, when I cant sleep and I’m replaying every single one of my wrong doings or embarrassing moments like some kind of macabre PowerPoint. Or when someone first meets me and causally asks what I “do”, the word replays in my mind like an ear worm that I can’t distance myself from. Not that it bothers me too much, there where much worse things I could be. And out of all my misgivings being a thief wasn’t the one that concerned me the most. In fact, I kind of liked it. I didn’t steal from the needy or the poor, I got that from Robin Hood.
Yes, the Disney one with the fox.
Hello sexual awakening.
I’d watched and re-watched that movie so many times. And every time I did I felt the thrill along with the characters, when they took from those who didn’t need it and escaped into the woods to safety. For so long this had been just that, me watching and imagining what is felt like. It didn’t take a seer to tell me what I already knew back then. That one day I’d cross the line of my imagination and actually do it. Although that was where the similarities between Robin and I ended because I never gave my treasures to the needy. I wasn’t anywhere near a good enough person for that. I took because nothing compared to the rush. That, and I liked money and tonight, I’d bagged myself the jackpot.
The wind was picking up as I still teetered on the edge, thoughts of climbing into my cosy warm bed came unbidden to the forefront of my mind. But I pushed them away because first, I had to actually get off the balcony of this penthouse and then navigate the cities streets without being seen. Or at least noticed.
In Edinburgh, that’s no easy task. This city is the real city that never sleeps, no matter what day of the week I venture through here there is always someone stumbling home drunk from one of the many pubs located on every corner. And that made the task of blending in harder, even if the person who saw me on a deserted street was seeing double. I always worried about how much they remembered. Just a pretty face? Maybe. A woman dressed head to toe in tight black fitted clothes, wandering the streets in the early hours of the morning? That’s strange and memorable. And to top it off I usually had something stowed away that I definitely didn’t want anyone to see.
This time especially, I had a very expensive painting rolled up as tight as it could possibly go stuffed into a poster tube currently hanging out of my much too small backpack.
Everything so far had gone according to my plan. I’d made it out of the grand apartment building and I knew I had to move now, so I steeled myself against the wind and finally forced my feet over the edge and into the vertical drop to freedom. Once I was over the edge it got easier. It always did, I forced myself to take a deep breath and quiet the thump of my heart and allowed the rope to flow more freely through the hand which held the belay device. Basically the thing that stopped me from falling to my death. I didn’t have time to do this slowly, so I bounced off the wall dropping closer to the ground with each push. They became longer and quicker with every foot I gained towards the earth. I kept glancing from the ground to the ledge where I had come from. Every time I repelled from an apartment I had pilfered from I was painfully aware of the chance that at the very moment of my escape the owner may either return home, or become aware of my presence and find my escape route. If that happened on this occasion and they decided to take matters into their own hands by loosening my lazy anchor knot I’d be nothing more than a red mark on the pavement below.
I suppose I’d stop feeling that wind at least.
Sometimes when dark thoughts like that came unfiltered from my mind, the helped me. Sometimes they made it harder to move. Luckily if what I had thought did come to pass and I fell from the height I’m currently at the most I would sustain is a broken ankle or maybe a leg if I was having a bad night. But I was usually, very lucky.
The last few lengths of rope flew through the belay device until I stopped myself, hanging by the groin only a foot or two from sweet, sweet mother earth. I blew out a breath I had been holding in tight and felt my shoulders relax with it. I ripped the glove off of my right hand with my teeth and deftly pulled my pocketknife out of the pocket on my thigh before bracing my legs against what was coming. I grated the knife’s serrated edge against the climbing rope watching, as it ripped apart slowly with each stroke. I huffed through my teeth as I did this, suddenly tired from my nights activities. It hadn’t been eventful in the sense that I had to avoid detection or do much sneaking but it had been long. I had been fore warned that the painting was in town unaccompanied by it’s owner. But that didn’t stop me from watching the building for hours before I actually entered it. I’d waited for night to fall, which in the middle of summer wasn’t until around one in the morning. And even then it wasn’t full night. And climbing ropes weren’t made to be breakable, so cutting it with a blade that I had let dull to be as sharp as a butter knife wasn’t going to be swift.
I felt my eyes widen as if it was a surprise that the rope snapped when it eventually did, and stumbled slightly when my feet thumped down on the hard cement. As soon as I did though, I regained my balance and slipped quietly into the shadows. The harness I wore immediately begun to sag as the tension left it, making me feel like a child with a nappy that was too big for them. I quickly undid the straps and began ripping it down my legs. Now I was loitering with a stolen painting worth more than some people earn in lifetime and I was only a short distance from the front entrance of the building it had come from. It wasn’t a good hiding spot and it was imperative that I move, but now I had another problem. From the top floor window I had spotted two drunk lovebirds stumbling in this direction, and they needed to hurry up and walk by already. So far, my ‘client’ up above hadn’t raised any alarm. There was no blood curdling scream, there were no loud noises and no police cars screeching to a dramatic stop in front of me. Yes, I was told the apartment would be empty but it never paid to rely on information that could change at any given time.
Edinburgh is an old city, and that means a lot of funny looking buildings with a lot of nooks and crannies to squeeze myself into if need be, but I was hoping that I was right in thinking that the couple coming down this street were too intoxicated and in love to notice me standing here. I hurriedly stepped out of the harness as it fell past my knees and scrunched it together before pulling my backpack off my shoulders and stuffed it in without disturbing the painting. The escape rope could stay where it was, I wasn’t worried about it, but I wasn’t leaving my harness behind. It was the only one I had that didn’t make me fear for my life when I stepped over the edge into oblivion.
I went still as I finally heard the slurred conversation of the couple coming up behind me.
They do exactly as I hoped they would and go by chatting animatedly, their eyes glassy and fixed only on the other. Occasionally the boy would reach for the girl and pull her close for a quick kiss and they would get lost for a moment, their hands travelling to intimate places while I tried not to stare or grumble too loudly. Because that kind of behaviour is exactly why I’m stuck in this shadowy crack in the wall, waiting rather than getting the fuck out of here the minute my feet touched down like I had wanted to. But I had been on enough jobs by now to know that sometimes, more often than not actually, patience really was a virtue.
So I stood stock still and breathed shallow breaths until finally they moved on and I let my self relax slightly.
Then I set off running, up the hill away from the couple and any other revellers as swiftly as I could. I needed to get to my stash of clothes that I’d hidden in a close garden nearby. If someone saw me in my everyday attire I was just a woman out for an early morning stroll. A very, very early morning stroll. But that was my business and I didn’t have to worry about looking like a cat burglar so that’s exactly why I always made sure to stash some in a safe spot.
When I reached the secluded little garden I quickly and located my clothes. Panting, I stripped off as fast as I could and pushed the outfit into my backpack. A weight seemed to lift off of me every time I took that damned outfit off. A weight that I swear seemed heavier today than it first had all those years ago. And even though I was standing in only my bra and panties in the middle of a tourist hotspot I didn’t feel fear, I wouldn’t be the least bit fazed if someone came around the corner and saw me now compared to a few seconds ago. I’d just have to stumble a few times and pretend I’m a drunk lady who just had a little fun. If I cried it would come off even better.
I pulled my crumpled t-shirt over my head and hauled my jeans up my legs fastening the button at my waist just as I heard the hinges on the gardens gate groaning. Footsteps and laughter followed it. I quickly swiped my bag from its resting place making sure to check there was nothing hanging out of it that shouldn’t be and headed for the other end of the garden, towards home. As I emerged onto one of the many famous streets in Edinburgh I hear the all too familiar sound of sirens screaming their way towards something. The place I’d just come from? I didn’t know, but my heart beat a little harder and adrenaline spiked making me feel giddy. I smiled wide at the feeling, my dopamine receptors had just released the happy little drug that had lead me by the hand into this life.
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