On a Saturday night in July, Marie and her husband, Steve were flaked out on the sofa. On screen Tom Cruise was being chased by bad guys along the roof of a high-speed train.

‘Could you do that, love?’ Marie asked with a smile. ‘Run along the moving train like that?’

‘Not after all that pizza.’ Steve laughed, pointing to the empty pizza boxes on the coffee table in front of them.

The take-away pizza had been lovely, but they had eaten way too much. Once Tom Cruise had leapt dramatically from the train, only just evading capture, an advert break came on screen. 

As the commercial break came to a close, the Saturday night lottery numbers appeared. Marie sat bolt-upright. The weekly draw. She grabbed her ticket from the fire-place. She stared at the screen, then down at the ticket, checking each number, one by one.

Steve took a swig from his glass of lager, and was about to say how she was wasting her time and money on the lottery tickets, when Marie gasped. 

‘You okay, love?’ Steve asked.

‘I’ve won.’ She whispered.

‘Very funny.’ He said. ‘Nice try.’

With her hands shaking, she carefully handed him the ticket. He was half-way through accusing her of trying to wind him up, when he stopped talking. His words simply fell away. The numbers rolling along the bottom of the screen were the same as those on the pink ticket in his hand.

‘I have, haven’t I?’ 

‘Yes, it looks like you have.’ Steve said, still unsure what was going on. 

They checked online and discovered that you could scan your ticket on the Lottery website if you thought you had a claim. Using the camera on her mobile phone, they managed to scan the ticket onto the website. 

After the egg-timer icon spun around for what seemed like hours, the screen changed. The message simply read, congratulations, please contact Lottery HQ on the below details. 

Marie screamed in utter delight and shock. Steve cheered and punched the air, bouncing around like his team had just scored a last-minute winner. They hugged each other, and cried tears of joy and relief. Their days of money worries, and living from one pay-day to the next looked to be over.

‘We’ll be able to quit our jobs.’ Marie said. ‘I can’t wait to tell my manager, Derek, where he can shove his job.’ 

Steve pointed to Toby, their golden retriever curled up on the rug in front of the fire.

‘Just make sure Toby doesn’t chew the ticket to bits.’ He laughed. 

‘We’ll treat Toby to a new collar and a bed as big as ours.’ Marie said.

The next few days were a whirlwind. Lottery HQ confirmed Marie had the winning ticket and arranged the pay-out of the millions of pounds. Marie and Steve called their family and friends to fill them in on the exciting news.  

Marie went into work. Having quietly packed away the belongings from her desk, into the boot of her car, she took a deep breath and went into the director’s office.

Derek looked up from the stack of papers.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’m leaving.’ Marie said.

‘What? Really? If this is because of our argument last week, I thought we’d sorted all that out.’

Marie gave him a wide grin and explained that she has won the lottery, and would be leaving.

‘Are you not going to work your notice?’ 

‘No, and if you don’t like it you can sue me. Good-bye.’ She said.

She marched from Derek’s office, where her colleagues, having heard the altercation, clapped and cheered. You go, girl! somebody called out. As she left through the double-doors, Derek was shouting at his workers to get some flaming work done. 

When she met her husband in a coffee shop in the shopping mall, she sipped her cappuccino and details how it had gone at work.

‘Honestly, love, it was like something from a film. Like the end of a romantic comedy where everything all works out.’ She said. 

‘All the lads at my work shook my hand, told me how lucky I was. They gave me a really good send-off, to be fair.’ Steve said. 

Over the next few months Marie and her husband transformed their lives. They moved away from the inner city, to a larger house in the leafy suburbs. Marie fulfilled her dream of owning lots of dogs. She doted on her new pets and they did seem to make the large house a home. When Marie crossed the living room, she would have a trail of fluffy puppies following her.  

The new house had a lot of land surrounding it, and Marie had even hinted at the idea of horses and stables. 

‘What do you think? Could you live with horses roaming the grounds?’ she asked.

‘As long as they don’t get their muck on my new sports car.’ Steve laughed. 

Marie hugged him tightly. This was the life they should be living. At that moment her mobile phone rang. 

‘Get us another coffee, love, while I speak to the accountants.’

As Marie popped outside to take the call, Steve headed to get two more coffees and decided to treat themselves to a chocolate chip muffin to go with it. 

They were finally able to live the life they deserved. They treated their friends and family to holidays, cars and houses. There was meals in Manchester’s finest restaurants, limousine hired for everyone, champagne and single-malt whiskies that were almost as old as they were. Marie had stables erected and horses, and even people to come regularly to help tend to them.

One afternoon, her husband came in from playing a few rounds with his new golf club buddies with news. He joined her on the large L-shape sofa in their living room. Once Marie had hung up her phone call, he filled her in. 

‘Have you heard about Mrs Rochford?’ Steve asked.

‘Who?’

‘Mrs Rochford, the old lady who we used to live over the road from? You know, you used to argue with her about the dog.’

‘Oh yes, she’d complain Toby was off his lead, when we were on our doorstep. Tsk! Toby would be on his way from the car to the house. We had some right arguments. She was just outrageous. You’d think she owned the street, the way she’d carry on. It was like we were her tenants. She used to have a right go at me. So glad we don’t live there anymore.’  

‘Well, she’s dead.’ Steve said.

‘What? Really? What happened?’

‘A hit and run, apparently. A car mowed her down outside the post-office one afternoon.’

‘That’s shocking. She said. Poor thing.’ Marie said.

‘What a world we live in, eh? Some scally driving like that and speeding off when they have an accident?’

‘Unbelievable. Poor Mrs Rochford.’ said Marie.

Marie and Steve spent the next the weeks on a cruise ship sailing around the Mediterranean. They would spend their days hopping off for lunch in the port before lazing on deck on sun-loungers for the afternoon. Their evenings would be spent dining at the Captain’s table, dressed in their finest new clothes, before hitting the ship’s casinos. 

The day after they got home, they were relaxing at home with the dogs, when the local news came on television. The headline report was that a Manchester business man has been found dead in a city centre canal. 

The report went on to state that on a night out with friends he became separated following several hours of heavy drinking. The police are not looking for anyone concerning the death. Family and friends are coming to terms with what they say is a tragic accident.

Steve pointed at the photograph on screen. 

‘Derek Winton? Isn’t that your old boss?’ 

Marie stared at the screen, in shock.

‘Oh yes, it is. Poor Derek.’

‘That’s really strange.’ Steve said, the colour draining from his face.

A few weeks later, Marie came home from her tennis lesson to find Steve pacing the hallway, waiting to speak to her. 

‘Have you heard about Jackie, your old friend?’ He asked, in a panic. ‘About the fire at her office?’

‘Yes, one of my friends rang the other day about it.’ Marie said.

Steve stared at her, still shocked and asked if she found it strange. 

‘The house-fire? The fire brigade will be investigating I’m sure.’ She replied.

‘What I am struggling with is the fact that since we’ve won all this money, three people we know have died. I’m scared. What if we are being targeted?’ He said. 

‘I don’t understand what you’re saying.’ 

‘What if we are next? What if whoever it is, comes for us? They could demand money. What would we do?’ Steve said.

‘Just relax, you’re getting all worked up over coincidence.’ Marie said.

‘I really don’t think so. It all fits.’ He said, shaking his head.

‘Stop this, love. Just chill out. We have a life we’ve always dreamed off, don’t let your imagination run away with you.’ Marie replied.

Steve buried his head in his hands.

‘We have no money worries, no work stress, so you’re looking for things. What’s happened to these people is sad, but it’s nothing to do with us.’ Marie insisted. 

Her husband said nothing, tried to process it.

‘We’ve been through a lot, love.’ She said. ‘Winning a life-changing amount of money is mind-blowing. Maybe you’re over-thinking because of everything that’s happened. Maybe you should get some counselling.’

‘Maybe you’re right. We don’t have much to worry about day to day, do we?’ Steve admitted.

‘Exactly, love. Okay, so my old friend has died. It’s tragic. It is so strange I’ll never see her again. I loved her, and in her own way, I know she loved me. We used to fight like cat and dog, argue like mad, but the fact that she’s gone breaks my heart.’ 

The next day, Steve found her in the kitchen.

‘About your friend that’s just died. You said used to argue?’ He said, his expression serious.

‘Yes, why?’

‘I don’t know. My mind’s all over the place. I’m thinking all sorts. I must be losing the plot.’ He said.

‘I’ll put the kettle on, we’ll have a cup of tea and you can tell me what’s on your mind.’ She said softly.

As they sipped their tea, her husband explained his crazy-sounding theory that these three people had all clashed with her at some point.

‘What if that is the common thread, the link between the deaths?’ He asked.

‘That sounds like one of those random conspiracy theories, like saying a film is cursed because the cast all died in the decades after it. Sounds like you’re clutching at straws, looking for things that aren’t there.’ She said. 

‘But you argued with Mrs Rochford about the dog, you hated working for Derek, always said he was a bully, and now the friend you argued with has died. I can’t get it out of my head.’

‘So what are you suggesting? I don’t understand.’

‘I honestly don’t know. These people have all died recently, and the only connection I can find is that you clashed with them.’ He sighed.  

‘You’re surely not suggesting I had anything to do with it?’ She scoffed.

‘Maybe someone is trying to frame you, set you up for it all.’

‘You’re being ridiculous. What a ludicrous notion. This is real life, not an Agatha Christie novel.’ She insisted.

‘Well, another notion would be that you used your winnings to hire somebody to bump these people off.’ He blurted out. 

Something occurred to him that supported his theory.

‘When I told you about Mrs Rochford and when we heard about Derek, you didn’t seem surprised. I thought that strange at the time. I put it down to shock. But you wouldn’t be surprised if you knew about it, if you actually had a hand in it.’ 

‘I think you need help, love. You’re not thinking straight. Go and have a lie down. You’ll feel better after a nap. We’ll get a takeaway sent in tonight and put a nice film on. And we’ll see about getting your head sorted out.’

As he trudged upstairs, she reached for her mobile phone and dialled.

‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘I’ve got another name for you to take care of.’

By Chris Platt

From: United Kingdom