CONTENTS
WHEN YOUR NUMBER’S UP
LIKE YOU
SMOKING KILLS
THE STAMP OF A CRIMINAL
A VERY SEXY REVENGE
THE KNOCK
DREAM HOLIDAY
A CHRISTMAS TRADITION
COMPANIONSHIP
MY FIRST GHOST
TWO MINUTES
GIFTS IN THE NIGHT
GHOST PAINTING
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
WHEN YOUR NUMBER’S UP
For as long as Gail had known Ricky Walters, he had dreamed of winning the lottery – the National Lottery, with its promise of £50 million, if not more. Much more.
Loadsamoney!
Moolah!
And he would win it, he knew; it was just a matter of time. He had a winning system, and besides, he had always been lucky. ‘You make your own luck in life. I was lucky meeting you,’ he told Gail. ‘Marrying you was like winning all the lotteries in the world at the same time!’
That was then. Now was ten years later. Five years ago, a clairvoyant in a tent at a charity garden party told Ricky she could see he was going to have a big lottery win. Gail had scoffed, but Madame Zuzu, in her little tent, had simply reinforced what Ricky already knew. He had absolute confidence. Absolute belief in his system.
It consumed him.
Yes, he was going to win the lottery. It was a fact. An absolute racing certainty. He was so damned confident that he was going to win that often, over a few drinks at his favoured corner table in The Dog and Pheasant, which he visited most weekday nights on his way home from work, he would spend time going over the list of all the things he was going to buy and the investments he would make with the money.
He subscribed to a range of lifestyle magazines, which he always read cover to cover, tearing out and filing away pages featuring items he was considering buying when ‘L-Day’, as he called it, finally came. A yacht – probably a custom-built Sunseeker; cars – well, it would have to be an Aston Martin Vanquish for himself, and a convertible Mercedes SL AMG for madam; a private jet, of course – he rather fancied a Lear; a Hublot watch.
There’d be a new house too. Gail told him she thought it was strange that he had a new house so far down his list of priorities – considering they weren’t exactly living in a palace right now. Yep, right . . . well, that was another story.
Ricky was a systems manager, with responsibility for the computers in the Brighton head office of a national web design and development company. Algebra and maths were his thing, always had been, and it was through playing around with the six numbers of the lottery that one day, eight years back, he had his light-bulb moment. He saw something in the randomness of those figures that, so far as he could see, no one else had – and certainly not anyone at Camelot who ran the lottery.
A year ago the firm had gone into liquidation and he had so far not found another job. He’d done a few bits and pieces of IT work for friends and acquaintances, and they were kept afloat – just – by Gail’s job as a bookkeeper for a small firm of estate agents. Gail was worried as hell about their financial future, but he was happy and confident. He was going to win the lottery. Oh yes. His system rocked!
You make your own luck in life.
Whenever he talked about it to Gail, her eyes glazed over. He’d told her, on their first date, that one day they were going to be richer than Croesus. But when, after that light-bulb moment, he had begun to explain how, expounding enthusiastically his applications of elements of calculus, Pythagoras, Noether’s Theorem and the Callan-Symanzik Equation, her eyes would always begin to glaze over. In fact, throughout the years of their marriage, her eyes had begun to glaze over faster and faster. Recently, the moment he began to talk mathematics, he could almost hear them glazing over. It was as if the cords holding up shutters had been severed, and they’d fallen with a resounding crash.
But Ricky barely noticed. He wasn’t talking to her anyway; he was really addressing himself, reassuring himself, reconfirming all that he knew. He was going to win one day for sure. The big one – the National Lottery. And, for a whole number of reasons, it would be really convenient for him if it happened quite soon. Ideally within the next few weeks, please! His fortieth birthday was looming, and it was not a milestone he was happy about. He’d read somewhere that if you haven’t made it by the time you are forty, you are not going to make it.
And, as Gail had only too accurately pointed out, in eight years of spending twenty pounds a week on tickets for his system, to date he had had just one small win of fifty pounds to show for his efforts.
She’d calculated that if he had banked twenty pounds a week over this same period of time, they’d have over eight thousand pounds saved – and more, with interest.
‘Just how far would that amount get you today?’ he would retort.
‘It would get us a new dishwasher, which we can’t afford,’ Gail reminded him. ‘It would enable us to pay for a holiday – which we haven’t had for two years because you say we can’t afford one. It could replace my car, which is a basket case.’
Most importantly of all, in her mind, it would pay for IVF treatments, since all their attempts to conceive so far had failed.
‘Ah, but just wait!’ he would reply.
‘I’ve been waiting – when do I stop waiting?’
‘Soon, very soon. I know – I just know – that we are on the verge; it’s going to happen. All the numbers are meshing closer and closer. It could be any week now!’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘dream on.’
‘Oh, I will!’
Ricky had always had a lot of dreams. But he needed the money to make the most important one of all come true.
*
They decided they could not afford to throw a party for Ricky’s fortieth birthday, so instead they invited a dozen friends to join them for a dinner celebration at their favourite Italian restaurant in Hove, Topolino’s. On the strict understanding everyone would pay for themselves. Ricky, who was by nature a generous man, hadn’t been happy about that idea, but his latest bank statement was the gloomiest to date, and had forced him to accept the plan, albeit still reluctantly.
That damned win was just around the corner, he told Gail. He could feel it in his bones!
But after an hour of gulping down Prosecco at Topolino’s, listening to jokes about ageing and questions about whether he was looking forward to his free bus pass, he was enjoying the company of good friends, and all he could feel was a deep sense of bonhomie growing inside him, the more alcohol he drank. They were a rowdy table, sensibly placed in a far corner of the restaurant so they could stand up and make their toasts and tell their speeches without ruining the evening for the rest of the diners there.
Suddenly, part way through eating his starter of ravioli florentine, he glanced at his watch. It was just past 9 p.m. Shit! He waved over a waiter, a tall, thin, cadaverous-looking Italian with a voice that was far more cheerful than his face.
‘Si, signor?’
Ricky tried to speak to him without attracting the attention of the rest of his guests. ‘Could shew do me a favour,’ he slurred. ‘I shleft my phone at home. Could shew let me know this week’s lottery numbers?’
The waiter frowned. ‘I go ask.’
‘Thank you so much.’ Ricky shoved a twenty-pound note into his hand.
‘For God’s sake!’ Gail admonished quietly into his ear. ‘Can’t you leave it alone for just one evening, darling, and enjoy yourself?’
‘What if tonight’s the night?’ he hissed back.
She shook her head, and drank a large gulp of her red wine.
‘Hey, Ricky,’ his oldest friend, Bob Templeton, the overweight owner o
f a heating engineering business, said. ‘Did you hear the one about the forty-year-old IT man who goes into a pub with a frog on his head? The barman asks, “What’s that you’ve got there?” And the frog replies, “I don’t know. It started off as a wart on my arse.”’
The whole table erupted into peals of laughter. Ricky stifled a wry smile. Then the owner of the restaurant – a wiry, cheery man in his late fifties – bounded over. In a broad Italian accent he said, ‘OK, who wanta know tonight’s lottery numbers?’
Ricky raised a hand.
The owner read them out. ‘1, 23, 34, 40, 41, 48.’
Ricky frowned. ‘Could you repeat those?’
‘Si, signor. 1, 23, 34, 40, 41, 48.’
‘Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?’
‘I sure. I go check, if you like? Make absolutely sure?’
‘Please.’
Gail stared at him, and Ricky avoided looking at her. Inside, he was trembling. He downed the remainder of his glass of wine, reached for the bottle with a shaking hand and refilled it.
‘It’s a rip-off, the lottery,’ Hilary Wickens, the wife of his best man, said. ‘I think it’s a mug’s game.’
Ricky remained silent. Totally silent. Only Gail, staring at him intently, noticed all the colour had drained from his face. But she said nothing.
Suddenly the owner was standing over Ricky’s shoulder, leaning down, handing him a tiny sheet of paper, torn from a pad, with the six numbers written on it. ‘Si, Signor Walters, I have checked. Called the phone line to make-a-sure for you!’
Ricky said nothing. He nodded silent thanks, read the numbers carefully, folded the sheet and tucked it into his jacket pocket. He was aware of Gail’s intense gaze and avoided her eyes. He downed his newly filled glass in one gulp. He was shaking, almost uncontrollably, and did not want to be at the restaurant any more. But he had to go through with the rest of the evening.
He picked at his main course, a thick, broiled veal chop on the bone, normally one of his favourite foods, but right now he had no appetite at all. And why the hell did Gail keep looking at him so strangely? Annoyed that he wasn’t in the party spirit? Well, hey, big surprise, it didn’t take much to annoy her these days.
A massive cake arrived, with forty candles and a big firework thing in the middle. Everyone sang ‘Happy Birthday’, with most of the rest of the people in the restaurant joining in. Then he had to blow out the candles. Of course, they were those stupid jokey ones that kept relighting themselves.
Then he was called on to make a speech. He bumbled through the words he had prepared on a scrap of paper he produced from his pocket – although he was much more interested in the scrap of paper in a different pocket.
He finished his short speech by quoting George Carlin. ‘Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting, “Holy shit, what a ride!”’
Everyone laughed and applauded, except for Gail, who sat staring at him in stony silence.
She leaned over to him when he sat back down, as Bob Templeton was rising to his feet to begin his speech. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Never better!’ Ricky said.
And he meant it.
And at the end of the evening, he insisted, absolutely insisted, on paying for everyone on his credit card. Despite almost coming to blows with Gail, who kept telling everyone he was drunk and to ignore him.
*
The cab dropped them home just after midnight. Ricky, well lit up with three Sambucas inside him on top of everything else he had drunk, slumbered for the entire short journey. He went straight into the bathroom, closed the door behind him, then pulled out the crumpled piece of paper the owner of Topolino’s had given him, on which were written the winning National Lottery numbers.
His numbers!
Oh shit.
Oh shit.
He focused hard on them, to make absolutely sure he was not mistaken. He knew them by heart. They were one of the group of numbers his computer algorithm had calculated was bound to come up from the combination of six balls dropping. And now they had.
He was not mistaken.
As he stepped back out of the bathroom, Gail gave him a quizzical smile. ‘So, what’s going on?’
‘What do you mean, what’s going on?’
‘You’ve been very quiet most of the evening. Didn’t you enjoy your party?’
‘I’d have enjoyed it more if you hadn’t tried to make me look so small over the bill.’
‘You were drunk, darling. Everyone had already agreed to contribute – you didn’t need to do that.’
‘No? Well, let me tell you something. I’ve won the lottery! My numbers have come up – and you never believed me when I said I would win. Well, I’ve been looking forward to this moment for a long time – a long, long time. You see, I don’t want to be with you any more. I’m in love with someone else and have been for a long time. Now, finally, I can afford to divorce you. You don’t have to worry, I’m not going to dump you in the shit. I’ve thought about it very carefully and done the maths. I’ll make sure you’re well provided for.’
‘Very thoughtful of you,’ she said, acidly.
He gave her a drunken leer. ‘Yeah, well, I’m all heart. Too bad you never recognized that.’
‘Silly old me.’
‘I’ll be gone in the morning,’ he said. ‘I’m going to start packing now. I can’t stand the sight of you for another day.’
‘You know how to make someone feel good,’ she said, ‘that’s for sure.’ She stepped past him, up to the washbasin, and began to remove her make-up.
‘You’ve always ridiculed my system. You told me I would never win. So, just how wrong are you?’
‘Not wrong at all,’ she said, dabbing away her mascara. ‘I thought it might make a fun evening if you thought you’d won the lottery. So I asked the waiter to give you those numbers, which I wrote down for him. Oh, and just in case you are wondering, I have tonight’s actual winning numbers. I suggest you tweak your system – you didn’t get a single one of them.’
LIKE YOU
She liked him on Facebook. He liked her back. Actually, he liked her a lot.
He liked her smile. He liked her photograph. She was the right age for him – late twenties, he guessed. An age when people started to mature and know what they wanted. She had a serene air about her, and a friendly smile that suggested she could be fun, a bit of a sport, maybe very sexy. But at the same time he could sense a slight hunger in her eyes. As if she was looking for something she had not yet found. He liked her name too. Teresa Saunders.
He wanted to be her friend. Very badly. Oh yes. You are one stunning girl. We could definitely hit it off. Me, I could be that guy you are looking for. Really I could!
He clicked to see more photographs, but all he got was the message: No photos to show.
Damn, he thought, she had her privacy settings high. He sent a request to be Teresa Saunders’ friend. Then he waited. Twenty minutes later, it was past midnight and there was no response. He had to be up early for an important client presentation: the launch of a new food brand, a vitamin-packed, cholesterol-busting super-porridge that would be all the breakfast you ever needed. So he logged off and went to bed.
Teresa came to him during the night in a dream. Her long, wavy hair, the colour of winter wheat, floated in slow motion around her face. Her blue eyes smiled at him. She kissed him lightly on his forehead, on his cheeks, then on his lips. He woke with a start, convinced, for a fleeting instant, that she was in the room with him. And feeling horny as hell.
Of course, it was just a dream. But what a dream! He could feel some kind of strange, magical and deeply erotic connection with her across the ether. It was so powerful he had to switch on the light just to make sure she was not really in the room with him. But he was alone, of course. Alone in his big, loft-style bedroom, with its bare wooden floors strewn with rugs, and the curtainless picture window
overlooking the inky waters of the Thames, half a mile upstream from Tower Bridge.
Lights glided by, accompanied by the throb of an engine: a Port of London police boat. He slipped out of bed and padded through to his den, sat at his desk, which looked out over the river; then he flipped open the lid of his laptop and logged back on to Facebook. There was a notification: Your friend request has been accepted. Teresa Saunders is now your friend. And there was a message: Thanks for the friend request!
Yayyyyyy!
But he held off replying. Did not want to seem too keen. She might think him a bit of a saddo messaging her at 3.20 a.m.
He went back to bed and closed his eyes and wondered if she would come to him again. But all that came were images of MaximusBrek, the porridge of gladiators!
His slogan and he was proud of it.
*
He awoke at 6.15 a.m., a few minutes before his alarm was due to go off. Dawn had long broken and it was almost full light. He liked this time of year, early April. Spring was in the air. The nights were getting shorter. Maybe this spring he would fall in love. Perhaps with Teresa Saunders?
He sat in his black silk dressing gown in front of Daybreak on television, and ate his microwaved MaximusBrek. It tasted like molten plaster of Paris but, hey, he wasn’t going to tell the clients that. He would stride into the meeting bursting with energy, like an unleashed gladiator, and tell them how terrific this new food was. Especially for the below-the-line profits of the ad agency that paid his wages.
As he ate, angry Palestinians were shouting on the screen and holding up placards. He should have been thinking about his pitch at the meeting, but he couldn’t focus on that. All he could think about was the message he was going to send Teresa Saunders. Something original that would make her smile, that would make her think he was a really interesting guy to communicate with. Hell, he was one of the highest-paid advertising copywriters in London right now. He wrote hot slogans for hot products. So surely he could write one for the hottest product of all – himself.
He was thirty-two. Single. He had this cool pad. His charcoal Aston DBS. He kept himself and his bank balance in shape. But for the past eight months, since his last short-lived relationship, he slept every night in an empty bed.