31
Neil woke with a start that made him fall off the bed, taking with him a flurry of bank notes. For a moment he half lay, half sat amid the notes, wondering what it was that had woken him so abruptly.
When the sound of the doorbell echoed through the house he jerked upright. His mind was a haze of alcohol and m*******a smoke, which made it hard for him to focus, but he struggled to his feet nonetheless.
He was at the door when he thought of the money he had been counting when he fell asleep – passed out was probably a more accurate term for what he had done. As quickly as his clouded mind would allow, he hurried back to the bed and bent so he could gather up the scattered money and returned it to the bag it had come from.
The doorbell went again as he was shoving the bag under the be
