The Magpies A Psychological Thriller - By Mark Edwards Page 0,104

was getting dark, and then he headed home.

He hung his wet clothes on the radiator and got in the bath. He sat in the bath with the scissors and cut most of his hair off, so there were just a few clumps left, sticking up in ugly clumps on top of his head. He shaved, nicking himself a few times but ignoring the pain and the blood that dripped into the water, where hair and stubble floated among the foam. He got out, smothered himself in talcum powder and pulled on a set of clean, dry clothes.

He waited.

At half-seven he found himself standing before the window, looking out at the dark road. He had been working out, and his muscles ached pleasantly. He ran his hand over his scalp, thinking how strange his hair felt. He wondered if Kirsty would like it when she saw him.

The minutes trickled by. Seven thirty-four. Seven forty-one. He made himself a coffee and scrolled through iTunes again, trying to decide what to play when the men arrived.

Seven forty-eight. Seven fifty-four.

He waited.

Eight o’clock arrived and there was no sign of them. He wasn’t worried. In fact, he had expected them to be a little late.

By half-eight, he began to wonder if they had got stuck in traffic.

By nine – when half his fingernails were gone, chewed up and spat out – he felt thoroughly sick and a cold, clammy sheen of sweat covered his body. Should he phone them? He didn’t want to piss them off. They had probably just been delayed somewhere. Maybe they had another job to do.

By half-nine, he had started to wonder if they had definitely agreed on eight o’clock. Had they actually said ten? The man had spoken in twenty-four hour clock, and Jamie was sure he’d said twenty-hundred, but maybe he’d said twenty-two hundred. Yes, that must be it. He relaxed a little. But only a little.

He realised he was standing in the dark, and had been for several hours. He wished he’d gone out after all. Except he didn’t have any money, and he would have got home expecting the job to be done…and what if it hadn’t?

What if they weren’t coming?

He sat down. It was now ten-thirty. He knew, with sudden and sickening conviction, that he had been conned, taken for a ride. They should have been here two-and-a-half hours ago. He bent over and his stomach spasmed. He ran to the toilet and threw up. He had been fucked over. For £10,000.

The realisation of what he had done made him start to shake. He had given away all of his and Kirsty’s money – his and Kirsty’s – to a pair of men whose names he didn’t even know. He started to laugh. He fell onto his knees, his laughter growing louder and louder. He clutched his stomach, trying to hold in the pain. Oh Jamie oh Jamie…you stupid fucking idiotic moron…

Eventually, the hysteria subsided. He lay perfectly still in the dark. He tried to think. What could he do?

He heard a car door close outside. They were here. At last. Oh thank God.

He leapt to his feet and ran to the front window. It wasn’t the men. It was Brian and Linda, coming home. He sobbed, bit his tongue, fell to his knees.

He crawled across the floor and grabbed the phone. He dialled the men’s number. The line was dead.

£10,000.

Kirsty had gone and he had stayed behind because he had planned to get some men to scare off Lucy and Chris. The men had taken his money and not done the job. Kirsty was going to be so angry that he had taken the money that he couldn’t even go after her now.

He was stuck.

He was fucked.

He lay on the sofa all night, the heating turned up as high as it would go, listening to noises in the street. He still thought they might come; they might turn up in the middle of the night, which, he persuaded himself, would surely make their actions more effective.

Jamie woke up shortly after the sun had risen. The flat was like a furnace and his clothes stank of stale sweat. He would take them off and put them in the washing machine with all the other unwashed clothes; clothes that reeked of cigarettes and sour, unhealthy perspiration. It was half-eight. He tried to remember when he had last looked at his watch during the night. About three, he thought. Maybe they had come after that, stealing in during