Black Mail (2012) Read Online Free Page A

salopettes instead of a bloody kilt.’
    ‘Laura! What on earth happened?’ Simon stared at her face in astonishment.
    Despite her best efforts, Laura Harrison’s make-up couldn’t disguise her swollen jaw and blackened left eye. ‘It looks a lot worse than it is,’ she said, slipping her ocelot coat from her shoulders and handing it across.
    ‘Mugged, she was,’ Mike said, draping his coat over the hallstand.
    ‘What!’ Simon said incredulously. ‘When? Where?’
    ‘Monday night,’ said Mike. ‘The back of eleven, in Renfrew Street, right outside the cinema. I was trying to flag down a cab when two morons on a motorbike mounted the pavement and tried to snatch Laura’s handbag.’
    ‘Good God!’
    ‘I managed to hang on to my bag,’ Laura said, delicately fingering her bruised cheek. ‘But I got a punch in the face for my trouble.’
    ‘Did you get a good look at them?’
    ‘Sure!’ Mike snorted. ‘Two thugs, dressed in black leather gear, wearing crash helmets, on a bike with no licence plates. As much chance of identifying them as flying to the fucking moon.’
    ‘Come on in here, you lot!’ Jude’s voice came echoing out from the lounge. ‘I don’t want to miss anything!’
     
    Tracey Reid came to a tittupping halt outside the cashpoint booth and stared through the slush-splattered glass door. Relieved to see there was only one person inside she swiped her cashpoint card through the reader and pushed open the door.
    The elderly woman, huddled over the screen, snatched an anxious glance over her shoulder when the blast of cold air hit her in the small of the back. She eyed the shivering young girl up and down, frowning disapprovingly at the diamond stud piercing Tracey’s shiny nose and the rows of pewter rings lining both her ears. Hunching her shoulders she turned her attention back to the screen, peering myopically over the top of her spectacles at the faint instructions. The cubicle door swung closed and the traffic noise was once again muted.
    ‘It’s, like, starting to freeze out there,’ Tracey said, forcing a cheerfulness she didn’t feel, not quite sure whether she was trying to reassure the woman or herself. There was a grunt of a response, more in annoyance that her concentration had been broken than in acknowledgment of the comment. Tracey stood near the door, twiddling her cashpoint card in one hand while flicking at her braided hair with the other, trying to dislodge the melting sleet. The woman pulled her headscarf tightly underneath her chin and moved her face as close to the screen as possible to block it from prying eyes. Tracey idly wondered why she needed to withdraw cash so late at night, but to ask would have been an invasion of privacy too far.
    Tracey was annoyed with herself. She’d meant to come to the cashpoint earlier in the day but it had slipped her mind. She hated the silence and claustrophobia of this place. She wouldn’t normally come here this late at night but she couldn’t go clubbing with the two pounds fifty she had in her handbag and she wasn’t prepared to tramp through the snow in her high heels to a busier cashpoint. She’d thought about giving the Arches a miss – she was shattered – but it was the last chance she’d get to see Linda before Christmas and exchange presents.
    It seemed to take an age before the woman finally withdrew her card and tucked the single banknote that emerged inside her woollen glove. Avoiding eye contact with Tracey she depressed the button to open the cubicle door.
    Tracey slid her card into the slot and was entering her PIN when she saw his reflection in the screen. He’d caught the door with his foot before it could close. She felt her heartbeat quicken as he shuffled to a halt behind her. No reason to panic, she told herself. She’d intended to withdraw a hundred so she could give Stevie the money she owed him but she decided to ask for twenty instead – just in case. Stevie had already waited a month for