Rant Read Free Page B

of cash.
    I stared at it, thinking that someone went to a lot of trouble to photocopy this, cut it up and bundle it into an envelope. Not to mention sending it over by courier. But the problem was it looked quite real.
    Very real.
    Big fat healthy bundles of English fifty-pound notes wallowing on the table.
    It had to be a send-up. I emptied out the rest of the contents of the envelope, looking for some kind of explanatory note, but there was only a very large handgun of some description, some bullets, and a map.
    I say “only”, but for some strange reason the sight of these objects caused me to leap from my chair and run out into the garden holding onto my pants like a four-year-old who desperately needs to pee. I became aware of the fact that I was running around in very small circles and hyperventilating. Then I also became aware of an old lady with one of those Zimmer-frame-cum-shopping-trolley things watching me concernedly from the road.
    â€˜Alright?’ I said. ‘I...er...I’m alright. Just burned my hand. On the gun—no! On the toaster.’
    She watched for a moment longer and then wandered on her way, muttering something about bloody nutters, wasn’t like that in her day, people had the manners to be mad in their own bloody houses. Or something. Perhaps I was just a bit stressed and projecting.
    Worried at who else might be watching, I strode purposefully up toward the house, tripped, and fell flat on my face. Swearing my way rapidly through the Webster’s Concise Encyclopedia of Rude Sayings and Expletives , I looked down to see what I’d fallen over.
    It was a number two.
    By this I do not mean to suggest that Mr Poodle Molester had been remiss in his poop-collecting duties; it was an actual number two. The actual number two from our front door. The actual number two, which I had heard falling off during my door-slamming extravaganza earlier in the day.
    I looked at the front door. The number six was still there but not the two. My brain clunked and heaved and suddenly everything fell into place as rapidly as I had hit the front path.
    Are you No. 6?
    Of course! Everything was all right with the world. See, I live on one of those weird new estates where there is only one street, and it winds back and forth quite randomly. At the end of the road are Nos. 2 and 4, then there is an unmarked cul-de-sac containing all the houses between No. 4 and our own house, No. 26.
    So the gun and the money were obviously not intended for me but for whichever homicidal maniac lived at No. 6.
    Phew! Maybe I could just pop round there and say I bet you’ve been waiting for this! Do let me know if you need any extra bullets won’t you? No, no problem, happens all the time. Bye!
    Bugger.
    I crept back into the house, half expecting a gunman to have crawled out of the envelope to join his gun, just waiting to blow me out of my unemployed (sorry, resting ) socks. Or at least hoping that it might all have disappeared and been a figment of my overheated imagination. But everything was still there, exactly as I’d left it.
    Shite.
    I gingerly picked up the envelope and read the address. Yup. No. 6. No name, surprise, surprise. No name for the courier company either and I was buggered if I could remember any kind of logo on the rider.
    I looked at the pile of money again and the words police, The Bill, bills, mortgage, Anna, lie, violent death, lots of cash, naughty boy, hide, run away, organized crime, very violent death and cup of tea flashed through my head with dizzying speed.
    Cup of tea sifted itself to the top of the pile and I picked up one of the fifty-pound notes and popped round the shop to buy some milk.
    Now, if you think stealing a huge wedge of cash, or contemplating using a handgun in order to somehow earn it, are sinful forms of behaviour, you should try buying a bottle of milk at your local corner shop with a fifty-pound note first thing in the morning. Talk about