Death Rope by Leigh Russell

Author:Leigh Russell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oldcastle Books

35

Seeing a missed call from his stepmother, Eddy dashed to the toilet to speak to her. He could hardly catch his breath for impatience as he waited for her to answer.

‘Well?’ he demanded as soon as he heard her voice. ‘Have you got the cash?’

‘Calm down, Eddy –’

‘Don’t tell me to calm down.’ He drew in a sharp breath and lowered his voice in case someone was outside the cubicle, listening. ‘Have you got the money, yes or no?’

‘Yes, I’ve got it. I told you I would. You can come round for it whenever you want.’

‘I’ll be round straight after work.’

After he rang off, he realised he hadn’t thanked her. Oh well, that could wait until he saw her in a few hours. Immensely relieved that he had succeeded in persuading her to get hold of the cash quickly, he was impatient to get started. Facing the prospect of a decent stake with which to try his luck made all the difference. Only of course it wasn’t luck that sorted the winners from the losers, it was having the bottle to continue when you had suffered a run of bad fortune. What he needed to do now was make a start on recouping his losses that afternoon, hopefully before Luciana noticed he was late home from work.

As he had promised, Eddy went straight round to his stepmother’s house after work to collect his cash. Before she had even closed the front door behind him, he reminded her what he was there for. She gave a smug smile, as though she was doing him a favour, when in fact she was giving him only a fraction of what he was entitled to inherit. But he wasn’t going to argue with her about that. He just wanted to get his hands on the thousand quid and leave as quickly as possible.

‘I was just putting the kettle on,’ his stepmother said.

‘No, no. I can’t stop. I have to get home.’

‘But – are you really saying you’re going to take the money and leave straight away?’

‘Yes, exactly. I’m sorry, but I haven’t got time to hang about. So, where is it? I can run and get it if you like. If it’s upstairs or –’ he broke off, registering her expression. ‘What’s wrong, mum? You aren’t thinking of changing your mind, are you? Only you told me you’d got hold of it. You promised me –’

‘No,’ she interrupted him coldly. ‘I’m not changing my mind. I said you could have it, and you can.’

Scurrying along the pavement five minutes later, with a thousand pounds in his pocket, Eddy glanced around and slipped on the cap which he had remembered to bring with him. His stepmother’s parting words didn’t bother him in the slightest. He really didn’t care that she wouldn’t part with another penny to help him out. She had given him a thousand pounds and with some careful tactics he was going to make at least fifty times that amount before the night was over.

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