The Sister(76)

She picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

‘Marilyn?’

Marilyn? The voice didn’t belong to Lynch or JFK. She frowned into the receiver. It had to be a wrong number, but still she said, ‘Yes.’ She thought she knew the voice. She wondered if one of them was pranking her. The next few words unsettled her.

‘Or should that be Melissa?’

What the… Only two people knew her real name. Only two people had this number. This wasn’t one of them. The caller reminded her of a snake.

‘Go and check your safe, and don’t hang up or do anything stupid. I’ll hang on – I know you have two phones – don’t call the police if you want to live.’

Is this really happening? Keeping the phone at her ear, she approached the safe in a daze. The door appeared shut, but the key override was in the lock with her car keys dangling from it.

‘You’ve been in my house?’ she said, her thoughts racing. It must have been after she’d returned from the opening. ‘You broke into my house in broad daylight! How?’

‘Never mind about that; I did – and that’s all you need to know.’

You stupid bitch! She cursed herself. She kept the keys with her whenever she left the house, but it never occurred to her that anyone would rob her while she was actually in the house. When she undressed, she left the keys on the bedside table. She never heard a thing. He must have come in while she was in the bath. If he knew the people she was screwing…

‘You’ve made a really big mistake, mister. Do you know who—’

He cut her off short. ‘I know exactly who all your friends are and I don’t give a shiny shite. Listen very carefully, Melissa.’ The caller accentuated the double ‘s’ in her name with a hiss. ‘I want a favour from you, and if you are a good girl, you’ll get all your stuff back.’

She listened, too stunned to argue.

‘I don’t think Mr Lynch is going to be very happy when he hears you’ve robbed his girlfriend.’

The weariness in the caller’s voice implied he didn’t actually want to get Lynch involved, not unless he had to. ‘Now if you do as I say, he doesn’t have to be any the wiser, it’s only a small thing I’m going to ask, but you need to consider your position carefully.’

Her stomach churned; she felt sick. The money belonged to Lynch. Just look after it a bit, while the club gets up and running. She brazened it out with him. ‘What, you stole nearly a hundred grand from me – and now you want to blackmail me, as well? You know what? I might just tell him myself.’

‘Melissa, you’re too smart to do that, besides, according to your notes, ninety thousand belongs to him, apart from that you really aren’t thinking straight, are you, Melissa?’ He read an entry from her diary.



Lynch: ‘Your policeman friend protects you doesn’t he?’

You: ‘He does.’

Lynch: ‘Good, then the old bill won’t come here looking for anything.’



‘Do you remember writing that? Melissa, you’ve overlooked the fact he’ll think it was you who stole it. It won’t be me he’s going to come after; he’s going to be coming after you.’ The caller mocked her with a short, sharp, scared intake of breath. ‘Well, that’s all right then, but what will our friend say when he finds out you’ve been keeping a file on him?’ A soft sigh, laden with disappointment came down the line. ‘What do you think he’ll do when he finds out about your friend in the police force? What will he think when he is investigated for the illegal—’

‘Okay, okay – I get the picture, but I’m not promising anything until I know exactly what it is you are after.’

When he told her, she was incredulous. ‘What?’

‘Yeah, I know, it seems too easy, doesn’t it?’

‘I guess you have your reasons, but I want to know what’s going on.’

‘Trust me, you don’t want to know. You want your money back, don’t you? You wouldn’t want Mr Lynch finding out about your diary.’

‘No – but how do I know you’ll give the money back, I can’t trust you. You robbed me!’

‘Melissa, the way I see it, you have two choices. Either you do or you don’t. Now, I want you to post on the wall of your Marilyn Mooner Facebook account as soon as he books in with you again. You will announce, ‘Can’t wait for more birthday celebrations’. When I see it, I’ll call. You will give me the details and time, and I will give you your further instructions. Do we have a deal?’

With little choice but to agree, she told him, ‘We have a deal.’ She put the phone back in its cradle. A sense of unreality hung over her emotions. She could just as easily have laughed as cried. She felt crazy.

What he wanted was ridiculously easy; she knew everything had a price, but what could he be planning to want that?

As she sat thinking, the telephone rang again, interrupting her. She wasn’t in the mood, but she composed herself. Taking a deep breath, she picked it up it. The caller, oblivious to her predicament, sent the sounds of heavy breathing down the line. The relief she felt swung her mood to crazy laughter. It was all she could do to prevent herself becoming hysterical; she knew exactly who this was. It was his calling card.