The Lottery Ticket (3 page)

The third and smallest bedroom had a sewing machine in it with an old kitchen style table. This was where Sandra would do the alterations on garments from other people. This helped to subsidise the wages from her main employment.

She managed to give the children a small amount of pocket money now and then but neither of the children asked or expected any. They knew how difficult it was for their mother to eek out an existence each week without her telling them.

The front room was like the rest of the house, sparsely furnished. The sofa was older than the armchair that was mostly occupied by Roger. Sandra had covered them both with throws she had made from old material that didn’t match but at least covered the cigarette burns that Roger had made when falling to sleep with a lighted cigarette in his hand.

The rest of the furniture in the room consisted of a glass top coffee table dating back to the sixties and of course the modern television which was rented. The dining room was furnished with an almost antique table that had seen better days and four chairs that were really kitchen chairs.

The kitchen had a number of units and plenty of worktop space. Unfortunately the units were sparingly filled as shopping was done on a need to do basis. Most of the time, the girls would sit in the kitchen on the two rickety stools to do their homework, whilst their mother would cook the meals. This gave them the opportunity to talk about their day.

      “I forgot to mention I had seen my friend Mandy in town last Saturday Mum” Julie mentioned.

As if by magic Roger appeared in the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. Although he had been in the front room since getting out of bed he had only made it that far and sat watching the cricket on the television since the early afternoon.

No one seemed to take much notice as he slouched around the kitchen with his pyjama bottoms on and a vest, looking for the things he would need to fulfil his need.

Julie continued her conversation with her mum. “She told me about her holiday to Portugal, she was dead excited. I’d love to be able to go somewhere like that she said dreamily, eyes transfixed on nothing in particular.

      “So would I “, chirped in Rachel who was swatting over a puzzle she was doing in a girly magazine.

      “And I would like to take you some where nice like that too if I could”, Sandra retorted sadly. “When are they going”, she asked as if it really mattered to her.

      “She told me they were staying overnight in a hotel because they were flying out on the Thursday morning. They would be flying very early on that morning. I guess they must have been out there for just over a week by now”, she thought aloud.

      “When are they due back”? Inquired Roger, pricking up his ears to this compelling information. This could be useful information to his mates he thought to himself.

Not realising that he had been listening to the conversation, Julie turned surprisingly to where he was propping up the worktop with his cup of tea in his hand and replied, “They were going for a fortnight so I guess they will be back on Thursday or Friday of this week”.

That was all the information he needed. As he returned to the front room he was thinking he would have to act quickly if his plan had any chance of working. Firstly he would need to find out where Julie’s friend lived. To ask Julie for any more information might cause her to be suspicious.

Suddenly it dawned on him where he could get that information without anyone being suspicious. While the females were gassing in the kitchen he would search out Julie’s diary. She was bound to have it in there somewhere.

He knew roughly where it would be and sure enough it lay in the top of the small side table drawer. Flicking through the pages like someone possessed he found the page that gave him the information he needed. 23, Sissons Road was all it had underneath the girl’s name, with her telephone number. He guessed that it could only be the road in this same town as he knew the area and had passed it many times and wasn’t this the same road the gang had hit a few nights earlier. Quickly he jotted it down on a piece of paper from his daughter’s exercise book.

He needed to get in touch with his mates as quickly as possible. He darted into the bathroom and washed and dressed. Almost running down the stairs he collected the van keys and shot out of the front door.

At the sound of this Sandra thought it was someone at the front door. She placed the iron on the board and opened the kitchen door to the hall. On opening the front door she could find no one at it. She noticed the van had gone from its usual parking space on the road. When she came back into the house she went into the front room to find it empty.

Going back down the hall and back in to the kitchen she was puzzled.

      “That’s strange your dad has just gone out the front door”, she informed the girls.

      “In all the time I’ve known your father he has seldom used the front door he usually uses the back door. Oh well never mind I expect he’s gone to meet his mates again”, she supposed rightly.

She carried on the ironing and continued the conversation she had been having with the girls. She had lost interest in where he went when he left the house all she cared was that her daughters were happy and she was pleased that although they came from a poor background they had made friends with other children who had no hang-ups about social classes.

She had met Julie’s friend’s mum at the school on the odd occasion and they seemed a very nice family. It was also obvious that Julie and Mandy where not only good friends but had over the years grown very close, even though their social classes was worlds apart. They would go into town just to window shop or to buy things they needed for school. Sometimes they would allow Rachel to tag along.

Mandy would invite Julie round to her house now and then to work on some projects for school or just to do girly stuff. Julie on the other hand was embarrassed to invite Mandy to hers as she didn’t want her to bump into her dad who would quite often walk around the house in his night attire which embarrassed her so much.

Because they lived not far from each other Julie would cycle round to Mandy’s. Mandy’s mum and dad always made her feel welcome and would invite her to stay and eat with them. In return Julie would help Mandy to do her homework for although they came from different backgrounds Julie seemed to be able to grasp most subjects much quicker than Mandy.

Because Julie had to make do with cheaper clothing to make up her uniform she was teased by some of the other girls in the school. Whenever this happened Mandy would always be there to stick up for Julie. Mandy could never stand bullies and would report any she knew of.

The time that Mandy had been on holiday seemed like an eternity to Julie and she couldn’t wait for her friend to return. They would have loads to talk about. Before Mandy went away both girls had decided to do a spot of detective work of their own in an effort to solve the increasing number of break-in’s that the police had failed to solve so far. Some of the preliminaries had been done, such as mapping the streets of the town and the villages close by that had been targets of the burglaries and the dates on when they had happened.

Julie was going to update the map when Mandy returned and to tell her of the robbery at the house just up the road from where she lived that had happened while she was away.

When they parted after their meeting in town just before Mandy was due to go on her holiday, they had made arrangements to meet up on the Saturday after she returned. This wouldn’t be long now as today was Tuesday.

      “Mum is it OK for me to meet Julie on Saturday? She will be back off her holiday by then and I did say I would”, she asked.

      “Of course you can”, replied her mother. She approved of Mandy as Julie’s friend unlike some of the other girls she sometimes hung around with.

Julie went upstairs to write the entry in her diary. “That’s funny” she thought to herself, “I’m sure I didn’t leave my diary open”. She noticed it was open at Mandy’s address. “Maybe it was Rachel that had looked in it”, she surmised. She was not going to make an issue of it just now but she would tackle her sister tonight after they were in bed.

Chapter 3
 

A Change of Plan
 

Roger drove to the block of flats where one of his mates lived. The news he was about to divulge would change the plans that had already been made for tonight. Taking the lift to the sixth floor he alighted and proceeded down the corridor.  This corridor had doors on the left and rows of windows on the right.

This was the only block of flats in the village and was council owned. Before he reached ‘113 The Towers’, he glanced out of the window which overlooked a row of garages. One of these he knew was rented to a Mick Russell, the man he was about to see. He knocked on the door and waited. The door opened slightly and the chain rattled as the man peered through the partly opened door.

“Are you expecting someone to burgle you”, inquired Roger jokingly as he smiled at the unshaven face that looked out at him.

“You can never be too careful these days, there’s some real crooks about you know”, he chuckled, as he took the chain off the catch.

He greeted Roger with a shake of the hand and a puzzled expression on his face.

“I thought we weren’t meeting until tonight”, he inquired as he walked in front of Roger down the hall into the living room.

The flat was strewn with dirty clothes and the coffee table top could hardly be seen for the number of empty beer cans on it. The parts of the table you could see were covered in cigarette burns where the butts had landed on the table instead of the ashtray which was even now overflowing.

The whole flat had a mixture of smells ranging from stale smoke, sweaty clothes and cooking fat that must have been off.

Mick, who was in his late forties but looked ten years older, had met Roger when they served time in the category B prison just outside a small town in the north of England called Nelson.

Mick had been caught trying to break into the back of a grocery store with the intent of stealing Fags and booze. He had jumped out of his car in such a rush that he had dropped his keys. In the dark he was unable to find them.

He was convinced that he would find them after he had broken in. As he tried to jemmy the steel door the alarm sounded inside. Minutes later he found himself staring at the security mans dog which was ready to pounce should his owner allow him freedom from his lead. Shortly after this the police arrived to take him away. By the time he had served his sentence of fifteen months his car was smashed and sitting on bricks exactly where he had left it.

Roger moved some clothes from one of the two armchairs that faced the wall mounted gas fire, while Mick turned off the television.

“Do you want a drink”, asked Mick as he pulled the ring on another John Smith’s Smooth beer can.

“No thanks, I want you to ring Bert and Pete and tell them to get over here fast”, said Roger with a sense of urgency.

Roger had always been the main man of the outfit. He was trusted by the rest of the gang and so when he asked for something to be done it was done. Mick made his way through the maze of disorder he called his lounge and picked up the phone that hung on the wall in the hall.

All that Roger could here was Mick mumbling indistinguishable words. That was enough for him, as this conveyed that Mick had managed to get in touch with either Bert or Pete, as they both lived together.

Mick returned to the
‘lounge’
to inform Roger that both would be over within the hour. Now Roger would have a drink. Mick passed him a whisky neat which he knew was Roger’s favourite tipple.

The clock on the makeshift mantelpiece ticked loudly as both men sat in silence waiting for the other members of the gang to arrive. The time was coming up to two o’clock.

35 minutes later there came a knock on the door. Thinking this was Bert and Pete he went to the door. Even though he was confident as to whom the caller would be, he still went through the ritual of putting the chain on the door before opening it.

Two men dressed in suits stood in front of him. This scared the living daylights out of him as the only people who visited him in suits were invariably the law or someone he owed money to.

“We would like to talk to you about the bible”, one of the men began as he started to open the book he had in his hand.

“I’m not interested so bugger off”, was the irritated response from Mick.

No sooner had he slammed the door on the two Jehovah’s Witnesses and returned to the living room than another knock came at the door. He was certain this would be Bert and Pete this time and answering the second knock he opened the door. This time his guess was correct. They both stepped in and followed him through to where Roger was now standing with his back to the fire waiting for them.

Bert was the first to speak. He was in his late forties; about five foot eight with a beer belly that his tee-shirt had little chance of covering. He had spent time in the same prison as Roger and Mick serving a sentence of five years for armed robbery of a sub-post office. This was his second period at ‘Her Majesties Pleasure’. The first was a stretch for tax evasion which cost him two years of freedom.

“What’s this all about” he inquired. “I thought we were meeting tonight as planned”, he continued puzzlingly.

Pete did not need to speak as his question had already been asked. To describe this man as handsome would be an injustice to Quasimodo. He had very little hair which he constantly swept back over the bald patch at the crown of his head. The teeth that he had left, which were few, had rarely seen a tooth brush since he had been booted out of Her Majesties armed forces after only serving two years of a nine year contract with the army.

The reason for his dismissal was for breaking the nose of an officer with the butt of his rifle whilst on an exercise. He served three months in a military prison before being dishonourably discharged.

He met the other motley bunch when he was given eighteen months for causing an affray outside a nightclub and for carrying a dangerous weapon, namely a six inch bladed flick knife.