Stories of Tie Up Games

This is the first of a set of stories based on ideas I had for a long time. It is based in the fictional town of Prestingham (which I made up) in the Greater Manchester area and centres around a gang of thieves who work on a strict moral code and abide by their own honourable rules.

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Chapter 1

Lord Harold Farrington-Smythe was a very wealthy person living in quite a large house on the outskirts of Manchester, which he has lived in for many years. He always wore smart suits and was a respected businessman to some of his peers but there were others who he looked down on, especially the poor and disabled. He was in fact a very horrible and corrupt person.

He was a Conservative peer and was very unpopular with much of the general community of Prestingham, particularly the areas around Whittaker Street, where much of the characters of this story reside.

It was three weeks before what was to happen was when Harold stepped into the local pub on the corner of Whittaker Street called The Royal Oak, a pub he had set foot in on quite a few occasions.

“Don’t look, it’s that Tory scumbag,” he heard a voice say from a nearby table. As Harold walked up to the bar, he recognised the voice and turned to face the person who was a woman in her late thirties who sat with her disabled daughter, who she cared for full time but was struggling due to Tory austerity.

“Excuse me? Just because I work hard for a living doesn’t make me a scumbag. You should try it sometime, you might learn something,” Harold sneered.

“How dare you! I have a daughter with severe learning disabilities to look after and thanks to your party, I am struggling to pay the bills and look after my daughter,” the woman said. Her name was Cathy Matthews. Her daughter was called Monica.

”I don’t give a damn, work pays lady, disabled or not. She’ll be up for an assessment soon anyway. Then we will see if she is fit for work,” Harold mocked.

Cathy was shocked at this, she knew about the dreaded work assessments and was determined to help Monica in the best way she could.

“Monica has severe autism and learning disabilities, she can’t work. Surely even you can see that,” Cathy replied.

“Not my problem. Disability is not an excuse to not work. She can walk can’t she, so she can get off her lazy ass and work.”

This angered Cathy so much that she was about to punch Harold.

“What a disgusting thing to say. You should be ashamed of yourself,” a male voice interrupted.

“Who asked your opinion?” Harold asked.

“I think you should leave,” another man said who sat with the first man.

This was Carl and Jeff, two friends who had heard the altercation.

“It’s a free country, Do you know who you are speaking to? Harold said.

“Not exactly, I’ve seen you around a few times but I don’t like the way you spoke to this lady,” Carl said.

“Neither do I,” Jeff added.

“Are you okay?” Carl asked Cathy.

“I’m fine, thank you for sticking up for me,” Cathy replied thankful for these two guys for stepping in.

“Now if you don’t mind, I am going to have my drink,” Harold said turning back to the bar.

As Harold turned away from the others, Carl walked up to Cathy while giving Harold a dirty look behind his back.

“Hey, I’ve not seen you around here before. I’m Carl. Who is that guy? He seems really nasty,” Carl asked.

“I’m Cathy. Yeah, I come here sometimes but not often. That is Lord Harold Farrington-Smythe, he hates the poor and disabled,” Cathy replied.

“Yeah, so I gathered from the way he spoke to you. Lord Harold Farrington-Smythe huh? With a name like that, I bet he is hoarding tons of money,” Carl said while nodding his head back at Jeff who smiled back.

“Well it was nice to speak to you Cathy. We’ll see you again sometime. Me and Jeff have to get going now,” Carl said as he and Jeff walked out.

Once they were outside, Carl and Jeff looked around to make sure they were alone before speaking.

“We need to find out more about that Lord Harold. Who he is, where he lives, if he lives alone and what times he is at home. He sounds like a right nasty piece of work and I bet he’s loaded with cash,” Carl said.

“You’re right, we should talk to the others. He needs to be taught a lesson,” Jeff replied.

“It’s been a while since we did a job and that loser in there will be a perfect target for a classic burglary,” Carl said. “He won’t be laughing once we got him all tied up and gagged and much of his possessions in our hands.”

“Let’s get the rest of the guys and start planning,” Jeff replied.

I'm hooked at the idea! Let's see how the robbery progesses!

Chapter 2

Later that day, Jeff and Carl met up with a group of associates in an abandoned warehouse about 10 miles away from Prestingham, in rural Lancashire, which just happened to be their safe house.

“Lord Harold Farrington-Smythe,” a gruff sounding man said. This was David Rawlings, the leader of the gang.

“You heard of him?” Carl asked.

“I know that name, he’s such a pompous twat. So you saw him today. I think a visit to his place would be an interesting challenge. About time we got back into some action,” David said.

“Have you got an address?” another associate said. This was Charlie, a long time associate of David.

“The name of his house is called Highgate House, it’s on the edge of Red Lane before the main road to Oldham. I’ve done some digging prior to this meeting as I always saw him as a potential target,” David said.

“Good. What about a wife or any children? We’d rather not get any women or children involved in this,” Carl asked.

“Luckily for us, he lives alone. We will need to track his movements and not go in too quickly. We will attack three weeks from now,” David replied.

“Make sure he is in at the same time also so we can tie him up also and give him some proper justice,” Carl replied.

“We can interrogate him also for any safe codes while we are at it,” Johnny, another associate who had not yet spoke said.

The group continued to plan their robbery for the next hour before they finished. Three weeks later they would put their plan to action.

Before the robbery, they all met back at the warehouse in different cars and took their gear, which they have stored. Ropes, tapes, ski masks for example.

Once they were all ready, they all got into a red van and drove up to Highgate House and waited outside. It was a fairly big house and was in a quiet road with hardly any other witnesses, a perfect location for a robbery without getting caught.

The group of seven who were now all dressed in black having changed their clothes back at the warehouse put on their ski masks and black gloves got out the van and approached the house. An eighth man stayed in the van; the getaway driver who also acted as lookout.

They saw Harold’s car parked in the driveway and saw it as a sign that he would be in.

“Three of you go the back way, two of you go through the side door, one of you can stay with me” if Harold tries to run away as soon as we break in, we can surround him and block his escape.” David said and the robbers split up to each of the entrances.

“This is going to be fun,” Carl said as he went over to the side door. Three crowbars were then used to force open the three entrance doors.

Harold was in the living room when he jumped up after hearing his doors break in.

“What the heck?” he cried as he tried to run out the back as David predicted.

Soon he found himself surrounded by the seven thieves determined to take him down.

“What’s going on?” Harold cried looking round at his unwanted visitors

“Lord Harold Farrington-Smythe, you’ve been a very naughty boy,” David taunted.

“Who the hell are you? How do you know my name? Get out my house right now!” Harold demanded.

The thieves laughed at his desperate tone of voice. They could tell he was scared.

“Sorry, no can do,” David said, “Grab him,” he said to his accomplices.

“Hey, let memmmmmph,” Harold cried as the robbers managed to pull him down. A gloved hand clamped over his mouth. He stood no chance with seven against him, the robbers easily overpowered him and kept him pinned down.

One of the robbers pulled out a handkerchief and shoved it into Harold’s mouth while tape was wrapped round it shutting him up. Harold tried to fight to get away but the robbers were too strong.

Ropes and tapes were took out and after about fifteen minutes, Harold found himself securely tied up and gagged. His ankles were tied together as was his legs below and above his knees, hands behind back and his arms together.

Once the robbers were finished, they let go of Harold satisfied he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Looks like we got you all nicely secured. We know you got tons of cash and stuff lying round so we are going to help ourselves to it all and there is nothing you can do about it to stop us,” David said.

Harold looked up with wide eyes and the robbers looked amused at his pathetic attempts to struggle.

“Oh don’t worry, I’m sure someone of your status will be able to claim it all back on the insurance or whatever and I bet you got plenty other money not in this house, you’ll survive. It’s about time you shared some of that wealth, isn’t that right?” Carl said.

All Harold could do in response was a make a muffled cry making Carl laugh. He was both furious at these thieves and also felt humiliated at himself.

“He’s not going anywhere. Let’s search this place and see what goodies we can find,” David said as the robbers split up.

Carl and Jeff stayed with Harold and stood guard in case Harold was to somehow able to escape so they stayed so Harold wouldn’t try anything.

After about twenty minutes of looting, the robbers had almost cleared the house of plenty of goods.

“We’re almost done here. Just one more thing we need,” David said as the robbers re-joined.

“Let me guess, the code for a safe,” Carl replied. David nodded. He smiled as he approached Harold who was now scared of this man.

“Listen you, I am going to take off this gag but if you scream, there’ll be trouble. Do you understand?” David asked. Harold nodded as he knew he didn’t really have a choice in his current situation.

After the gag was removed, Harold breathed a few times before saying quietly, “You’ll never get any codes from me.”

“Defiant as always, eh Harold,” David said.

“Why don’t you make it easy for all of us and just give us the codes, we’re going to get into that safe one way or another anyway,” Carl said.

“I won’t tell you anything. You’ll have to kill me first,” Harold replied.

The robbers just scoffed at that response.

“Kill you? That’s not going to happen. Luckily for you, we never kill anyone. You haven’t even got a scratch on you and we intend to keep it that way,” David replied.

“All you thieves are the same. You’re nothing but thieving scumbags,” Harold replied.

“And you’re not? You got people struggling to eat and yet people like you are hoarding tons of money for yourself,” Carl replied.

“Also, no we are not all the same as you so claim. Sure there are some really nasty people out there. The people we steal from are people like you, rich bastards who think they can look down on people and keep their wealth to themselves, you’re no better than the banks” David replied.

“Whatever, you’re still not getting the safe code from me,” Harold replied.

“Suit yourself,” David replied and proceeded to re-gag Harold as before.

“Right, time to take the whole safe with us, we’ll safecrack it later on. I think we’re done here. Let’s get out of here,” he added as he and another robber returned upstairs to carry the safe down. The rest of the robbers proceeded to carry their load into the van outside.

Before leaving for good, David spoke to Harold one last time as the rest of the gang waited in the van.

“This is what happens to people who think they can get away with hoarding so much money. We aren’t some petty crooks who rob from elderly women or vulnerable people like that. You was targeted specifically for the reasons I said earlier. Don’t worry though, you’ll be able to claim it back on the insurance anyway and I’m sure you’ll be able to restore your loss back just like that. Just like the banks and those security vans, they aren’t missing out on much. Maybe you should just stay here and think about it. You’re not exactly going anywhere for a while. See you around,” David said as he left.

Harold could only stay down where he was and struggle to no avail. Maybe someone would find him and release him. He heard the van drive off as he tried to escape his bindings but could only roll around on the floor helplessly.

Later the robbers returned to their safe house and unloaded all of their stolen goods and changed back into their regular clothes.

The goods were sold on the black market and much of the money they got from it as well as the cash they stole from the house was shared out to some poor people, including one Cathy Matthews, whom Harold had tried to mock before the robbery happened. The robbers themselves only kept a small portion of the cash satisfied another job went successfully.

THE END