A DVA NCE R E A DER’S COPY — U NCOR R EC TED PROOF
I WILL MAKE YOU PAY
OTHER TITLES BY TERESA DRISCOLL
Recipes for Melissa
Last Kiss Goodnight
I Am Watching You
The Friend
The Promise
I WILL MAKE YOU PAY
TERESA DRISCOLL
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by Teresa Driscoll
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
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ISBN-13: 9781542092234
ISBN-10: 154209223X
Cover design by Ghost Design
Printed in the United States of America
CHAPTER ONE
Alice
‘I am going to use cheese wire on you.’
That’s what he says. The first time the voice is in my
ear. In my head. In my life.
It is a Wednesday – 3 p.m. – but I do not yet realise
the significance of the day because the truth has not yet
dawned on me that it all began earlier – that this is ac-
tually the third Wednesday.
At first it simply feels unreal. The voice on the phone
is distorted through some kind of mechanism. I’m so
thrown by this – the robotic echo – that I hang up im-
mediately. Later I will regret this, wishing I’d listened
more carefully, for very soon the police will be asking a
lot of questions – Did he use your name? Background noise?
Rhythm of voice? – and I will feel embarrassed that I do not have the answers.
Me – supposed to notice things for a living.
For now I sit, suddenly alone in this busy, noisy of-
fice, not at all sure how I’m supposed to react. I am
shocked to feel not just afraid, but also that most British
of responses – embarrassment. Yes. Inappropriately and
maybe even ridiculously, I feel embarrassed to be this easily shaken. There is still this strange disconnect between
me and the room. An over-awareness of the physical so
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that I can feel my pulse in my fingers, still gripping the
phone, returned to its stand.
I look at the flesh on the back of my right hand and
the echo of the robotic voice – cheese wire – makes me draw my hand back into my lap. I picture the staff in my
local deli using the razor-sharp wire to slice through an
enormous slab of cheese. I think of that same wire cut-
ting into…
No. I straighten my back. I wonder why anyone would
say such a horrible thing. Even think such a truly horrible thing…
I turn to my right to see Jack walking back into the
newsroom. He moves quickly to his seat next to mine, a
coffee cup in his hand. A light is flashing to signal a new
call. He picks it up and I hold my breath but it is clearly
not the same caller. Jack’s expression moves merely from
puzzlement to irritation. He rolls his eyes, switching the
phone from his right to his left ear, to explain that we do not cover divorce cases routinely, madam…
He clears his throat, pausing to listen to his caller
again for a moment before continuing.
Yes, I’m quite sure it is all very desperate for you, but I’m sorry; we just don’t cover divorce. Not routinely … not unless—
I can hear the response; someone shouting. Jack holds
the receiver away from his ear, the caller’s swearing bleed-
ing into the room, then he puts the receiver back to his
head. I wish you well with the case, madam, but I’m going to have to ring off now.
As Jack takes a final slurp of his coffee before firing
the cup into the bin, I turn to my left, where Adam, our
crime correspondent, is hunched over his keyboard. He
is on a deadline, typing furiously; a court report wanted
right now for the online edition of the paper. I don’t like
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I Will Make You Pay
to interrupt him or Jack or anyone, because I still don’t
know how to process this. How I’m supposed to feel.
We get weird calls all the time. Last week a woman
came in complaining that a cloud was following her…
‘Are you all right, Alice?’
‘Yes. Course.’
No. The problem is I have never had this kind of call before. I turn my head back towards the question; towards
Jack. I am still thinking of cheese wire. Razor-sharp.
Cutting slowly and easily…
‘Jeez, Alice. You don’t look all right. Do you need
water?’
Only now do I hear how laboured my breathing
sounds.
‘I’m fine.’ I take in a deep breath through my nose and
let it out through my mouth, trying to steady myself. ‘Just
picked up a dodgy phone call. Threw me for a minute.’
‘What kind of dodgy?’
Finally I look Jack in the face. ‘A nutter. Just got a call
from a nutter. It’s nothing.’
‘Doesn’t look like nothing. So, what did they say –
this nutter?’
I pause, realising that I don’t want to repeat the words
because I don’t want to give them life; I don’t want to
take them forward.
‘What did they say, Alice?’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘Please. Tell me…’
‘A man. It was a man using some kind of voice changer.
He said, I am going to use cheese wire on you.’
‘Jeez.’ Jack rakes his hand through his hair and stands
up. ‘Bloody hell. A voice changer? Right. I’m getting water and we’re going straight in to see Ted.’
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He darts to the water cooler and returns with a cup
which he places into my hand, staring right into my face.
‘Drink this. Sip it. Slowly…’
It is ice cold, and I look at the cup and think of the
contrast – the cold water on my tongue and the warmth
of the flesh of my fingers against the plastic.
Cheese wire…
Jack is watching me closely.
‘I’m fine, Jack. Honestly. Just a wind-up. A fruitcake.’
‘What line? Your line or a general line? I mean – was
it random? Did they use your name?’
The first of the sensible questions that I will struggle
to answer. I glance at the little row of lights by the phone.
Middle light? Yes.
‘Line 301. I use it for my column but it’s listed as
general too. I don’t think he used my name.’ I pause,
trying to remember for sure. �
��No. Look. Come to think
of it – probably just an attention-seeker. I shouldn’t have
let it throw me.’
Jack shakes his head. ‘Random swearing we ignore.
Direct threats with voice changers we take to Ted. Come
on. Protocol.’
I pick up the cup of water and follow him to the edi-
tor’s cubicle in the corner of the office. Jack knocks on
the open door.
‘What now? I hope this is a new lead because I’ve just
had the lawyer on and he’s giving me an ulcer…’
‘Sorry, Ted. Alice just picked up a phone call from a
nutter. Threat from a guy using a voice changer. Thought
we’d better report it.’
I repeat what he said and watch Ted suck in his face.
‘Right. So did he ask for you? Did he use your name,
Alice?’
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I Will Make You Pay
‘No, Ted.’
‘Good. That’s good.’ Relief on his face. ‘Probably
some random loon who hates something we wrote. And
did you answer using your name?’
I feel a frown as again I rewind. ‘No. Just the name
of the paper.’
‘And he definitely didn’t use your name?’
‘No.’
Ted is nodding. ‘Good. OK. Random fruitcake, then.
I’ll put this on the log, but good that it’s not personal.
Nasty though. The voice changer. Was it software then?
‘I don’t know.’ I wonder why I hadn’t considered this
myself. For some reason I had imagined some physical
device. But maybe Ted is right. Voice change software?
An app perhaps?
‘You OK, Alice?’ Ted says. ‘You want to finish early?
Get yourself some air?’
‘No, no. Course not. I’m fine. Just thought we’d better
mention it in case he calls again. Upsets someone else.’
‘Sure. Like I say, I’ll log it so it gets shared across the
departments. If it happens again, we’ll report it to Alan.
In fact, I’ll probably mention it to him anyway.’
Alan is the press officer for the local police. A drink-
ing pal of Ted’s. A good egg.
‘Thanks.’
And then I go back to my desk, and already the distance
between the call and this new place where Ted needs to
get back to the lead story makes me feel better. They’re
right. It’s random. Probably someone with a grudge against
the paper – someone who didn’t like a story. Court case
maybe? Back to work…
‘Sorry, Jack. I should have shrugged it off.’
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‘Don’t be daft. Just don’t answer 301 for the rest of the
day. I’ll pick it up. Just in case he gets off on it and tries again. Bastard probably gets a wank out of it.’
I grimace.
‘Sorry, Alice. TMI.’
‘No. You’re right. I’m fine now, honestly. Think I’ll
fetch a decent coffee from next door. Fresh air. Want
another?’
‘Yeah. Cappuccino, please. Want me to come with
you?’
‘No. I’m good now.’
I lean left to nudge Adam, making a cup-tipping mo-
tion, but he shakes his head, still engrossed in his story.
I grab my bag and head downstairs, grateful at last to be
out on the street. There is a soft breeze, the buzz from
the traffic. The roar of a motorcycle. The bleeping of a
pedestrian crossing. Familiar sounds and a familiar bustle,
which make me feel settled again.
It is only when I get to the café next door and see
through the window the owner writing my name on a
small cup – my usual order – even before I step inside,
that I feel a shift again in my stomach.
‘You psychic suddenly, Giovanni?’
‘No. Guy just rang in your order. Said, Alice will need
a double espresso. She’s on her way…’
‘What guy?’
‘Dunno. One of them in your office playing prank.
You nice girl, Alice. You want to tell them boys to grow
up.’ He is wagging his finger.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. What guy?
What prank?’ I am thinking of Jack but he’s not one for
messing about.
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I Will Make You Pay
‘The joker with one of them voice changer thingies.
Creepy.’ He snaps a lid on my drink and pushes it towards
me. ‘You tell them boys in that office of yours – they can
ring in orders but no pranks. What if one of my girls picks up the phone? Eh? Not nice.’
7
CHAPTER TWO
Alice
Just a few hours later and I am home, waiting for Tom.
This new and paranoid version of myself.
I have checked both doors and all of the windows. I
have set the landline to caller display. I have turned off
location services on my mobile, I have reset my pass-
words for Facebook and Twitter and have switched my
Instagram account to private. I have made an appointment
for a security company to check over my rented two-bed
first thing tomorrow. I have ordered a ‘police-approved
personal alarm’ which should arrive in the morning post.
In short, I have done all the things the police have ad-
vised – along with googling pepper spray, which they
most definitely did not.
Still I do not feel safe.
tom line as I sit here alone is sinking in.
Alan from the press office brought a woman detective
sergeant from CID. She took statements from me and the
coffee shop staff next door. At first all this official fussing felt good; as if it would lead to something positive. I’m not sure precisely what I expected – but a full stop of some
kind? Pretty soon I realised, as Alan and the policewoman
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I Will Make You Pay
exchanged knowing little glances, that they were going
through the motions as a favour to my editor.
‘So what happens now?’ I asked.
The awkward pause and their expressions said it all.
Turns out that unless I can suggest an obvious suspect –
someone I’ve upset through a story or someone who’s been
hassling me – nothing much happens now. The report goes
on file. And we just wait…
The important thing from here is to be vigilant and gather evidence, Alice. If he calls again or anything unusual happens, you must keep very precise records. Bring us right up to date.
The best hope, of course, is that this was just some random nutter who guessed about the coffee shop.
What surprises me most of all is they don’t seem
especially worried he might be actively watching me. I
am. That’s what’s worrying me most of all.
I mean – how did he know I’d be at the café? What
my order would be? The police say these kinds of indi-
viduals often punt a bit. It wouldn’t take rocket science
to guess reporters use the café next door. The guy may
have phoned previously with an excuse to check on my
regular order, to spook me. Or just made a guess.
But he used my name when he phoned t
he café. Knew I
was going to the café…
And yes, they said, this made it more of a worry and
they were taking it very seriously. That was when they
gave me this big to-do list of general precautions. The
security visit and personal alarm, blah blah blah. They gave me leaflets.
But since arriving home I’ve been surfing websites
about this – stalking and anonymous threatening calls –
and it makes pretty depressing reading.
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Seems these callers know very well that they have
the upper hand.
The police can’t give you a bodyguard. Or a new car.
Or a new address. And unless and until things ‘escalate’
(I don’t even like to think what the hell that means), it
seems they can’t actually do very much at all.
Basically, I’m on my own with this.
I look around the room again and then stand up to
pace. I draw the curtains, even though it won’t get dark
for another hour. I make another coffee and then realise,
even smelling it, that I have drunk far too much coffee
today and pour it down the sink.
Finally I am sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the
bolt that is pushed across the top of the back door, when
I hear the key in the front door.
I find that above all I am deeply disappointed in myself.
So that by the time Tom walks into the house, I have
burst into tears.
‘Hey, hey. I came as quick as I could. So, what’s hap-
pening with the police? What did they say?’
I let him hold me for a moment but then pull away,
wiping my face with my sleeves. Once more I feel both
ridiculous and embarrassed; I don’t like anyone, not even
Tom, seeing me like this.
Jack phoned him from the office, apparently, while I
was with the police, and he’s keen for more details now.
‘Look, I still don’t know if I’m simply overreacting,
Tom. To be honest, I’m all over the place.’
I babble that it is probably just some saddo who’s hop-
ing for this precise reaction, which is why I wish I could buck up.
I sit down on the sofa, and Tom sits alongside me
and takes my hand. At first he is reassuring. He seems to
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think it was probably random. Someone who hates the
paper. But as I share more of the story, about the call to
the café, he suddenly looks more alarmed.
‘So you’re saying they phoned the café as well? This