The telephone call

The telephone call.

The steamer was working well so the wall paper was coming off in great long damp strips. I was determined to get the nursery ready before young James was born. Only I knew that he was a boy whose name was going to be James Henry so I had carefully chosen non gender specific paint colours, beige all over. As I peeled back one strip, I saw some writing on the old plaster slowly becoming exposed. It was a phone number.

            My curiosity got the better of me, as always, so I had to ring it. I didn’t get a chance to speak before a Scottish sounding voice said,

            ‘I told you five  years ago not to ring this number again unless you wanted another job, I guess you need the money as usual.’ Giving me no time to answer, it went on, ‘Ok then, I’ll send you the usual package by courier, you will get it tomorrow. The job must be completed in two days or your life will be forfeit’, the line went dead. I called it again because I couldn’t have heard right, could I? There was no answer. I couldn’t sleep that night for the worry and called the number again many times but no answer.

            The courier turned up early the next morning and got me to sign for a bulky, heavy, package. I went inside and opened it. There was a gun, a magazine with ten bullets, fifteen thousand pounds in used tenners and a photo of the house with the address written on the back.

            It was clear that I was now in the strange position of having to kill myself or someone would come and do it for me in two days time. My first two thoughts were, James was in danger and who had done this to me? Was it that ratbag of a boyfriend who had walked out on me when I told him I was pregnant? In fact I had kicked him out when he told me to get an abortion. How could I do that to my James? I insisted on staying in the house well, his house really, I thought he owed me that. I convinced him by mentioning that I might have chat about some of his less public activities to my brother who happed to be a police sergeant. Was this his way of ensuring that I kept quiet about his thieving?

            My third thought was that I hadn’t spoken to the Jock on the phone so he didn’t know who he was talking to but would have assumed it was his usual contractor who would have been the only person with that number. It was clear that the contractor would have only got the photo and address of the house and so would have killed whoever was there.

            A cunning plan was coming together in my mind. If I didn’t kill myself, and James, then a fall back contractor would come and kill whoever was in the house in two days time because he/her had failed to carry out the job. I rang Dave and sweet talked him into doing some decorating for me in a couple of days time. I had an ante natal appointment that day which probably last all day.

            I ended up with a gun, fifteen thousand pounds, a house for James and me, no ex. and a very pretty picture of the house to put on the wall in the nursery, over the phone number. Oh, and James’ nursery nearly decorated. All it cost me was a bit of scrubbing to get rid of the blood after the police had taken Dave’s body away. I had a perfect alibi, I was at the hospital being checked by the midwife.

            Seems like a good result from one phone call.