“Your numbers up” said Gypsy Rose, “if you want to know more you have to cross my palm with silver, or in your case, make it a twenty.” I’d heard enough, I knew exactly what she meant. I collected my belongings and hurried out of the caravan.
How much time did I actually have? Word on the street was that Mac the knife was out and trying to find me. He had had his sentence reduced. That must have been some bribe as it could never have been for good behaviour. I’d left the neighbourhood as soon as he was sent down, now it would seem that it would be best to move again, just in case. Mac was not known for giving up.
I need a different colour hairstyle and some clothes he would not recognise.
I quickly bundled a pile of the contents of my meagre wardrobe into black bags and went to the nearest charity shop. I went to another one and bought very different clothes, ones I would not normally have been seen dead in, unless Mac caught up with me. I boarded the next bus, it didn’t really matter where I went, as long as it wasn’t here.
I arrived at the women’s refuge, these have always provided good hiding places. Most of the women there are so traumatised that they keep themselves to themselves. I had made up some cock and bull story that would secure me some lodgings, I just needed to lie low for a few days. It was there on the third day, that I heard the lottery result: –
14 My poor mother’s birthday
28 My birthday
1 The number of my former home
15 Our wedding anniversary
18 The age I got married to Mac
31 Mac’s birthday
I had used the same numbers for years and now they had finally come up. I had won 2.5 million pound, but where did I put my ticket? I had been wearing my big orange coat when I bought it, the one I’d given to the charity shop. “Oh my God! The charity shop!” I rushed to the bus stop and caught the bus to my previous town.
My luck was in, the coat was still on display. I rummaged through the pockets till I found my lottery ticket that would give me a new life away from here . I gave a huge sigh of relief and walked as calmly as I could out of the door. As I stood at the bus stop, a heavy hand clasped onto my shoulder and a familiar voice said, “I recognised the lottery numbers, you would have had to come out of hiding sometime.” I looked at the lottery ticket in my hand and wondered if Mac would spare the knife for just 50% of the money, or would he kill me and take it all.
“We’re rich baby, I ‘ll never have to do another job again.”
