The Little Black Book

She raced around the corner and leant back against the wall, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths as sweat trickled down her brow.

How did she end up here? On the run and fearing for her life?

It had all started 10 days ago. You see, she was working in a high-end store, selling designer handbags and belts. Her wages weren’t great, but she earned a decent amount in commission. Enough to be able to afford the rent of a 2 bedroom apartment in the middle of New York anyway.

About 12 days ago, she had been going through, and repackaging returns, when inside one of the handbags, she found a little black book. To be honest, the book was rather unremarkable to look at. It was worn, with frayed edges, and when she flicked through, all that was written in it were a list of names with numbers next to them. She didn’t think anything of it at the time; random items always somehow turned up amongst the returns.

She put the book to the side and didn’t think about it again. At least not until two days later when a strange man turned up, looking for it.

He didn’t speak to her, not at first. She was actually on her break when her manager came into the back office and told her there was a man out the front who was looking to speak to her.

When she’d finished her break, she went outside to speak to this mystery man. She spotted him immediately, he was the kind of man who stood out from the crowd. He had dark, long, slicked back hair and tanned skin. His eyes were bright green, and he had distinct frown lines on his forehead. He was well dressed, wearing a smart shirt and dark jeans, with an expensive looking pair of brown designer boots. He looked like the kind of man you didn’t want to mess with.

When he spoke, he had a thick accent, although she couldn’t place it. He sounded distinctly European, although his English was perfect.

He asked her about the book, and she told him she’d definitely seen it, but couldn’t quite remember what she’d done with it. At this point, the man became quite aggressive, which actually scared her a little bit, so she said she would go and look out the back for the book. Really she was just trying to get away from him.

It seemed he could sense her fear, because all of a sudden his whole demeanour changed. He gave her a charming smile, and promised he’d make it worth her while if she found the book, pulling a thick brown envelope out of his pocket.

Still feeling uncomfortable, she went out the back to search for this book. After a few minutes, she found it under a pile of receipts. Wondering what was so special about this book, she had another look through. It was just names and numbers – completely unremarkable!

Still, she was a naturally curious person, so she jotted down a few of the names on a scrap bit of paper, and stuffed it into her purse.

Grateful she’d found the book (she really hadn’t wanted to face the man again empty handed), she headed back outside to hand it over. The man looked more relieved than she was when he saw her with the book in her hands.

He snatched the book from her, and slid the envelope over to her. She went to open it, but the man hissed “not here girl! What are you – stupid?”

So she took the envelope and put it into her handbag, deciding to wait until the evening and she was home alone before opening it.

For the rest of her shift, the time seemed to drag. Seconds felt like minutes, and minutes felt like hours. She couldn’t stop thinking about that brown envelope. She didn’t sell a single item that day. Until, finally it was home time.

She’d just about made it through the front door when she dove into her bag and pulled out the envelope. She ripped it open and a huge pile of cash spilled out. She was in shock. Surely this was a mistake? The man must have gotten the envelope mixed up with something else.

She sat on the floor, and poured the cash out in front of her. There was even more than she’d first thought! What should she do? Should she bank it? Should she spend it? Or should she keep it somewhere safe, just in case he came back looking for it. She certainly wouldn’t want to owe someone like that lots of money.

She thought the best thing to do first of all would be to count it. And so she did. And there was $20,000 there! What?

It must have been a mistake! There’s no way that little black book was worth this kind of money! She decided she needed to hide it somewhere in the flat. There was no way she could explain paying this amount of cash into the bank! And at least then, when the man came back looking for it, she would be able to give it to him.

So she tucked it all back into the brown envelope and hid it in her underwear drawer. Not the safest of places, she knew, but she didn’t have a safe in her flat – after all, until now she’d never had a need for one!

Over the next few days, she was constantly on the look out for the man. Every night, as soon as she got home, she’d head straight to her underwear drawer and check the money was still there. She couldn’t concentrate at work, and every time a customer walked through the door, she felt a wave of anxiousness wash over her, worrying in case the man returned, and thought she’d somehow taken his money on purpose!

But a week later, he still hadn’t come back. At that point she started to think to herself, what if it wasn’t a mistake? What if there was actually something in that little black book that was worth $20,000!

Up until this point, she hadn’t given much thought to the scrap bit of paper in her purse, where she’d written down those few names. She’d been far too focused on the money, and what she would do if the man came back looking for it.

But when he still hadn’t come back after a week, she decided that she needed to know more. She needed to know if there was anything about the book that made it worth all that money. After all, she couldn’t spend the rest of her life waiting for the man to turn up. And the money couldn’t stay in her underwear drawer forever.

So that evening, when she got home from work, she logged onto her computer and loaded up google. She looked at the list she’d written, typed in the first name, ‘Simon Martin’, and hit search. The next thing she saw sent waves of terror through her entire body. ‘Man brutally murdered with chainsaw!’, screamed the headline.

It must be a coincidence, she tried to tell herself. After all, Simon Martin was a fairly common name. There must be hundreds of them!

Calming herself down, she looked at the second name on the list, ‘Jeremy Calthorpe’. There! That one wasn’t such a common name. Nothing to worry about there. So she typed it in.

‘Decapitation in the kitchen!’

No. This couldn’t be right! She needed to try another name.

And so she did. She typed in all of the names she’d written down and with each headline her breathing became a bit more shallow, and her blood ran a little bit colder.

‘Woman stabbed 42 times!’

‘Senior citizen thrown off bridge!’

‘Murder victim found in lake!’

She froze, staring at the screen. Terror consumed her and she became overwhelmed with panic. What should she do? How had she become involved in something like this?

And then, all of a sudden, she had a strange feeling, like she wasn’t alone. Like she was being watched. She turned her head and glanced out of the window, and on the corner of the street, she spotted a man with his hood up covering his face, wearing those same brown designer boots she’d noticed on the man in the shop, just last week.

Was he following her? Had he been watching her all this time? A shiver ran down her spine.

She quickly closed her curtains and turned off the lights in her apartment, taking deep breaths to calm herself down as she racked her brains, trying to come up with some sort of plan. Hopefully the man would think she’d gone to bed, not that she would be able to sleep that night.

And that’s how, the following morning, she found herself sneaking out of the back entrance of her apartment building, wearing a thick grey coat, sunglasses, and a baseball cap to cover up her long blonde hair.

She sneaked a glance around the side of the building, and saw the man she’d seen the previous night, still standing on that corner of the street, watching her window. He didn’t look like he’d moved at all. To get to where she was going, she somehow needed to get past him without him noticing her.

Keeping her head down, she started walking, at a normal pace so as not to arouse suspicion, on the other side of the road. Every now and again, she looked at the man out of the corner of her eyes, to make sure he wasn’t paying any attention to her.

She’d almost reached the end of the street, when she took another look at the street corner, but he wasn’t there! She continued to walk, gradually increasing her pace as panic shot through her, until without even realising, she started to run. She looked behind her and saw the man, chasing after her.

There was a crowd up ahead of her, so she pushed through, hoping the man would lose sight of her amongst all the people, and then she darted around a corner.

Which was how she’d ended up where she was now. Leant up against a wall, taking deep breaths with her eyes closed and sweat dripping down her face.

She heard footsteps just around the corner. Was it him? Was this it?

She tried to open her eyes but couldn’t out of fear. The footsteps came to a halt and she heard that thick accent saying ‘I really didn’t want to do this.’ But still she couldn’t open her eyes.

And that was the last thing she heard before an unimaginable pain shot through her side. She felt like her entire body was being ripped apart and she collapsed to the floor, taking deep, raspy breaths as her life slowly ended.