Broken Hearts

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This didn’t feel like the sort of prank Kelly might play. This had an edge, but was it the edge he had peered over in the past? In spite of himself, Marshall was intrigued.

‘You clearly have a lot of time to waste, haven’t you?’ said the woman. ‘I’ve been to London, Dr Marshall, spoken to your old neighbours. They were very helpful, told me about you, your habits–they even showed me photographs, wasn’t that nice? You’re older, of course, but who isn’t? I took the snaps to a specialist–isn’t it amazing what they can do? It turns out that, with computer age progression, you can’t cheat Nature really. You’ve been caught, Dr Graham Marshall. Caught. Your lies and your cleverness–none of it matters. I know it’s you.’ The woman’s breath was getting faster, rushing towards him as the words fell out of her mouth towards his carefully constructed life. She was rustling paper so much that he could hear it. There was no point telling himself that it could all be fake, that she could be rustling today’s Daily Record and some supermarket receipts.

She knew.

So what? he asked himself. He was Dr Graham Marshall and he would not be taken down by some lowlife scheming blackmailing bitch. Not now. ‘I’m sure you think that your points are terribly interesting, Miss,’ he said, ‘but really, it’s rather old news, don’t you think? Now, I’m assuming that this is all about money and that you’d rather have cash, as opposed to a cheque or money into your bank account,’ he laughed quietly, ‘but I do like to keep things civilized–who am I dealing with? What’s your name?’

‘Names only matter to some people,’ she hissed at him. ‘They’re not everything, are they? For some people, they can be changed as easily as a pair of socks; for others I guess they can be the key to their whole world collapsing around them.’

He felt cold. This needed to end. ‘Name your price,’ he said.

‘You’ve earned a fortune over these last years, haven’t you, Dr Marshall? And, in your game, reputation is everything. If you’re so sure that this is about money, why don’t you tell me what you’re willing to offer?’

‘Have you told your…employer what you’ve discovered?’ Marshall asked, playing for time until he felt more confident. His voice was cold and hard. He needed to know who had instructed her to delve into his past. All he heard was a slow clapping start from her end. A steady, irritating sound that only told him she was using a hands-free and that she was getting stronger, more confident as this conversation went on. It was a long time since anyone had treated him with such disrespect.

‘Well done, good question. What’s the answer, do you think?’ she asked. He heard her drumming her fingers impatiently on a hard surface.

His eyes searched all the parked cars, but from what he could tell she was nowhere in sight. Marshall stared unblinking into the distance and shook his head slowly from side to side. ‘The answer, my dear, is…’ He raised his forefinger to his lips. ‘That I suspect you’re too smart to share this tidbit with anyone else. You’re not working for anyone else at all, are you? Let’s just say I still think it’s our little secret.’ The blackmailer was quiet but her silence revealed nothing more to him. ‘One thing does bother me, though…’ He pushed a stray hair out of his eye as he spoke. ‘You seem very confident about all of this. About dealing with me.’ Marshall paused before he said the next words and they formed a question for himself as much as for his would-be blackmailer. ‘Why aren’t you scared?’

The woman seemed to wait forever before laughing into the phone. ‘When you want something so badly, so desperately, you don’t really care about anything else. You don’t feel fear, you don’t feel anything.’

He had no idea what her game was, but was very keen to believe that she was actually just a money-grabbing lowlife. If so, she would presumably have worked out how much would keep her going for life. Well, let her believe it. ‘I think that five hundred thousand would be fair, don’t you?’ he asked, to no reply. ‘I don’t have that kind of money just lying around,’ he continued, hoping that he sounded convincing enough to buy some time. ‘I need a few days to raise it, to liquidate it. How much time do I have?’

‘Once you’ve paid me exactly what I need, I’ll be out of your life. The sooner the better.’

She switched the phone off just before he whispered, ‘But I won’t be out of yours, sweetheart.’