What's Luck Got To Do With It?

CHAPTER 1

Wednesday evening just after 11. Not quite the last tube but getting close to it.

The tube carriage was full but not packed, just another bunch of passengers playing the usual game of ignoring each other, wrapped up in their own little area. Two couples of thirtysomethings, a middle-aged couple, an Asian family and a couple of single souls staring idly at the adverts and really interesting sight through the tube windows.

Kings Cross came and went letting on two youths and a middle-aged woman who sniffed at them and moved swiftly as far away as possible down the carriage. The youths were dressed in a uniform of trainers, jeans, t-shirts, jackets and baseball hats, one for the Raiders, the other for the 49-ers. They were quite tall, spotty faced and chewing gum. Old enough to dream of needing to have a shave. The din of the tube as it made its way to the next station was broken by the youths doing their best to make sure everyone could hear them.

They stood at the tube doors gesturing through the windows at the Asian family. Two adults, one male one female and two little girls staring wide-eyed. The Asian adults hushed and pulled closer together. They looked away at the other passengers glancing out of the corner of their eyes, but keeping themselves to themselves.

Raiders hat chipped in with, What do you call a prick with a bandage on his head?

49-ers, the straight man, replied, I don't know. What do you call a prick with a bandage on its head?

It's obvious you prat - A Paki!

No you got it wrong. It's what do you call a cunt with a bandage on its head?

Their laughter rang out as other the passengers shifted uncomfortably occasionally looking at the Asian family, or pretending that they were not really there.

The youths moved to stand in front of the Asian family, blocking off the entrance. Their jokes became more raucous and even more juvenile. They started pulling at the Asian man's turban and holding their crotches, making suggestive remarks to the Asian woman. The other passengers distanced themselves.

Angel approached.

The Asian man got up and motioned to the woman to get the children up. The youths pushed him down. He protested. The youths made fun of his accent.

No no Sabu. You stay down. Wrong stop. We tell you right stop you Paki!, shouted Raiders hat.

The tube stopped at Angel. A few people entered the carriage. Some exited, seemingly unaware of what was happening. The Asian man made vain attempts to move. But got stopped every time and pushed back. The carriage doors closed and the tube started moving again. The children were looking frightened not sure whether to look directly at the youths or not.

The Asian man pleaded, Look please we are not harming you. We need to get off

Look you stupid Paki - you get off when I tell you to and not before With that Raiders hat shoved the Asian man back into his seat and proceeded to kick him.

Just then two men in their 20's came striding through the connecting doors from the next carriage. They came closer unnoticed by Raiders hat. The first tall and white dressed in jeans and jacket addressed the two youths.

Now that's not very nice is it lads?

Not very nice at all, added the other, tall black similarly dressed.

Raiders hat turned menacingly glancing at them both.

What's your problem...do you want some?

No not just now thanks, but I suggest you stop that now. You see we're transport police and we've been watching you harassing this man and his family

Raiders hat started to answer back but was stopped by 49-ers.

Look we weren’t doing anything, just having a laugh. Ask this lot, we was only messing about

The black man spoke, I don't think this gentleman or his family thinks you were messing about. Are you and your family OK, Sir?

The Asian man spoke hesitantly, Yes, yes officer, we are ok now we just want to go home.

No worries it's all sorted.

The white man moved to the youths and told them to sit down which they somewhat reluctantly did. He then stood covering one exit whilst the black man covered the other.

The tube stopped at Old Street.

Everyone in the carriage got up to leave, but the 2 men continued to block the two exits.

The white man spoke to the Asian man, You and your family can leave, but we want statements from the rest of you, he added to the other passengers.

A middle-aged man objected, Look we haven’t done anything. You've got these two, you saw what happened, why do we have to stay?

The white man replied, Well from where we were standing it was hard to tell who was or was not involved. After all you all seemed to be enjoying the entertainment from these two prats. Did any of you object or try to help this family?

There was silence. Some looked rather shamefully at the ground, while the Asian family departed. Both men stopped other people entering the carriage.

The male half of one of the couples broke the silence, Look we're just going about our business, you don't need us.

Oh but I do, you see I need to find out who was doing what. You see London Transport likes to know what kind of caring citizens travel on the tubes!

Look we were not involved, just let us go.

Sorry but it's not as simple as that. It's important that we sort this out properly, don't you think.

Look you could see we weren’t involved, it was these two arseholes. We were just..

Sitting enjoying yourselves! How many of you concerned citizens came to the help of these people?

Look ok so we did not do anything but you can't blame us for that. We were not involved.

The Black man added, Don't worry it's not us that you have to convince, we just take the details. So now we want names and addresses.

At this all of the passengers started complaining.

Why. This has nothing to do with us. You can't hold us up like this.

The white man glared at them, You are all here, so you are all witnesses. As far as we can see a crime has been committed so we have to take details. Now the sooner you co-operate the sooner you can be on your way.

No-one answered, but the two youths seemed to find the situation amusing. The two men took the names and addresses of all of the people in the carriage starting with the two youths. They carried on as the tube entered then left Moorgate, angering the passengers even more, while stopping other passengers from entering the carriage. As the next station approached the two men got ready to leave, followed by some of the passengers.

The Black man spoke, Ok we're leaving now but you all have to stay put. We've radioed on ahead and you will be met by officials at the next stop. You may think of disappearing into another carriage, but the police will be waiting for you at London Bridge so I would advise you all to stay put!

The passengers started to complain again.

You've taken our names and addresses, what else do you want?

London Transport takes all offences committed on its trains quite seriously. We like to ensure that all of our customers are safe, the black man replied.

The protests died down as the pair departed and waited at the doors to see what would happen. As soon as the doors closed and the train had moved out of the station all of the passengers escaped from the carriage as fast as possible.

CHAPTER 2

On the platform the pair just laughed, then started to walk to the exit to get to the Central line. The white man stated, Well that's another one down to the good guys. How long do you reckon it'll be before they suss out what's happened.

The black man replied, Probably never. I doubt if any of them gave the right address and I don't think there will be any of them left in that carriage by now. Anyway it serves them right, but I think you make a really good policeman, Dave.

Oi Carl, don't give me any grief right, but it worked a treat and I didn't fancy taking on that pair of arseholes. What should we do with these names and addresses?

Oh just bin them they're crap anyway. Look we better get a move on back to work or the other two will be seriously pissed.

They were similar in build, both about 5ft 10in. Not exactly muscle-bound, but not exactly skinny. Dave had short brown hair and took a lot of stick because he looked like the character Jambo from the Channel 4 soap, Hollyoaks; though no one was stupid enough to actually call him Jambo. At least not to his face. Carl looked and sounded like a young Garth Crooks. This would have been fine apart from the fact that as a dedicated Arsenal fan he thought that Ian Wright could walk on water.

They had gone to the Jazz Cafe in Camden to see Edwin Starr on their break. It had not been planned. They had looked in Time Out to see what was on and had chosen to see him on the spur of the moment. It had been a good night out. Edwin could certainly fill his suit, but he could still move and sing well enough to please a crowd. The last thing they had needed was to see the two idiots harassing the Asian family, but they both felt they had to do something. However, once they got into the roles it had felt good.

They had only got the tube because both their cars were off the road. Dave was saving up to get the head gasket replaced on his Golf and the battery on Carl's BMW was so flat it could not even power the courtesy light. It was the third time it had gone and he had got seriously pissed off with jump-starting and charging it up. But right now a new battery was a luxury he could not afford.

They were both computer operators. It was a standing joke in the computer department that Carl was a frustrated policeman always good at working out who was doing what and with whom. Dave was never far behind.

On the platform they jumped on a tube for the short journey to Liverpool Street. Once there they made their way to the offices where they worked, stopping to get a bargain bucket from the Kentucky Fried Chicken shop. The streets were pretty empty but they could see that there were still a few lights on in their office building with people working late. It never ceased to amaze them how many people were always around in the offices. They entered the main door, greeted the security guards with the usual unpleasantries and signed in.

They worked for a company which was the investment arm of a multinational company dealing in investments, securities and insurance. The multinational had its headquarters in America, with offices throughout the world. The offices each had their own array of mainframe and midrange computers all linked via a vast network. The site they worked at was the designated European headquarters, hence there was a need for the computers to be manned constantly.

Their job was to maintain and monitor the systems and ensure that the communications network was running correctly, passing information around. They worked 12 hour shifts, from 8 till 8. There were 3 shifts with 4 people per shift alternating between days and evenings. Nights were good as the shifts could please themselves as long as all the work was done. People who worked with computers tended to be treated as a necessary evil, with computer operators being the lowest of the low. Not like the real workers, the investment people who brought in, and occasionally lost, all of the income. As if to convince people that they really were useful, during the day, operators were expected to wear suits or at least a jacket, shirt and tie. However at night it was much more relaxed.

Tonight all 4 members of the shift had met up in a local pub just before 8. There they met 2 members of the previous shift who gave them a handover telling them what work was outstanding and any problems that needed to be dealt with. As there was not much going on Dave and Carl took the first break to go to the Jazz Cafe. There was no argument as Dave was the Shift leader and Carl was his deputy. The other 2 members of the shift would keep things going. Besides this was to be a sort of celebration as Dave was due to go on a golfing holiday to Portugal the morning after next. He had taken a lot of stick from the other operators as he was going with a group of managers and naturally this was looked on as a way for him to brown nose his way to the top.

Dave and Carl went into the machine room but it was empty. They found the other 2 members of the shift in the Operators rest room watching cable TV; Simon the Muppet, a real clown and Andy the tall intelligent one. At least everyone called him intelligent because he had a habit of being pedantic and weird.

To break the monotony of the night shift, this night had been designated 'Junk food night', which meant that at some stage each of the four of them had to either go out to get food or order it to be delivered. Naturally the later it got the fewer choices there were which made it all the more interesting. They then took it in turn to go to the machine room to check on the systems to make sure all was fine, until the main reports started being produced, when they would all be needed to work.

As it turned out it had been a hard night shift. The system had been up and down all night and some of the production jobs had failed. They had had to spend a lot of the night calling support staff, who naturally had not been pleased to be contacted.

By 8 the next morning they were more than ready to leave. Dave and Carl were not looking forward to the tube ride but they had no choice. The good thing was that they were on their way home. In Dave's case he could sleep all day and night if he wanted and then he would be off in the early hours of the morning to Gatwick airport. Carl on the other hand could look forward to another night shift, but at least he would be in charge with Dave away.

They mingled with the unhappy, unsmiling faces on the tube of people on their way to work. Defiantly reading their books or papers no matter how crowded the tube was.

It took Carl over an hour to get to his maisonette. He realised how late it was as the post was waiting for him on the doorstep. Mainly bills which could wait. He put on the radio and listened to the sounds being played on Choice. He made himself cornflakes and then crashed out into his bed.

At 23 life wasn't too bad. He had sort of fallen into his job. After leaving school with 10 GCSE's, he had been put on several youth opportunity schemes which had all achieved very little. Then by chance he had seen an advert in the evening papers for computer operators. He had sailed through the aptitude test and been suitably polite in the interview and four years later he was still there. The job was ok and he had risen through the ranks from trainee to Deputy Shift leader.

It had not all been plain sailing though. He was good at the job as he was quick to pick things up. He was also not afraid to try things out. This occasionally got him labelled as a bit of a cowboy when things went wrong, but it was good when things went well.

He had started at about the same time as Dave and their career paths had been similar. They had both been up for the Shift leader position, at least that was what Carl had thought, both being deputies. However, Dave had got the position when it became vacant. At his next appraisal after that Carl had asked about his prospects. He was told that he was a valued member of staff and they needed people like him as deputy to help train junior operators. It was not felt he had the aptitude to be a Shift Leader. He pointed out that as deputy he was expected to stand in for the Shift Leader when he was not around, take responsibility and supervise, but that argument was not considered relevant.

For a time this had seriously pissed him off. He decided that there was no need to take on extra work if it was not being appreciated. The Shift Manager had made passing comments about his attitude, but Carl was not bothered. Then there had been a shift change and Carl was put on Dave's shift. Dave knew how Carl felt and didn't try to push him. Carl eventually decided to go back to his old reliable ways as after all Dave was a mate and it wasn’t his fault that the managers were all arseholes!

Fortunately the salary was good, though he had to work shifts and overtime to make it really worthwhile. This had enabled him to move into his own place and run a nice motor even if the piece of