Maria always tried to buy groceries at the same shop. The small butcher’s shop near her home was renowned for its freshness and quality. The salesman knew her by name, always set aside the best cuts and smiled: ‘Only the best for you.’
But that day there was a new person behind the counter — a tall, thin guy with a tired face. His gaze was strange: seemingly friendly, but somehow disturbing.
‘What would you like?’ he asked, hurriedly wiping his hands.
‘Beef, for cutlets,’ Maria replied.
He chose a piece, wrapped it in paper, and everything looked perfectly normal.
At home, Maria unpacked her purchases and turned on the radio — her usual background noise for cooking. She took out a knife and made the first cut in the meat. But instead of the expected texture, she saw something strange.
Right inside the piece, something wrapped in plastic glinted. At first, Maria thought it was accidental debris that had gotten into the production process. But when she pulled out the bundle, her heart sank: the bag was neatly tied, as if someone had hidden it on purpose.
Her hands trembled as she unwrapped the film. Inside was a wad of banknotes and a small piece of paper. On it, in crooked handwriting, was written:
‘If you are reading this, it means I am no longer here.’
Maria dropped the package on the table in a panic. Thoughts swirled in her head: whose money was it? Who wrote the note? Did it end up with her by accident?
She remembered the new salesman’s expression. His tense smile, trembling hands, haste. A thought popped into her head: ‘What if he gave this piece to me on purpose?’
The night was a nightmare. Maria sat in the kitchen, staring at the bag of money, not knowing what to do. Throw it away? Hide it? Or tell the police?
In the morning, she made up her mind. When she arrived at the police station, Maria told them everything. At first, they didn’t believe her, but when she put the bundle on the table, the officer frowned.
‘You’re the first to come forward,’ he said quietly. ‘But you’re not the first to find it.’
It turned out that an investigation had been underway in the city for several weeks. Several people had brought meat to the police, inside which they had found similar bundles — with money and mysterious messages. All the letters were written in the same handwriting.
The investigation believed that this was an underground network. The money hidden in the products was used to secretly transfer ‘parcels’ from one person to another. But one of the participants in the game had disappeared.
Marie was asked to describe the salesman in detail. Her words matched the description of a man the police had been looking for for a long time. He was a former meat factory employee with ties to a criminal gang.
According to one theory, it was he who tried to ‘pass on the message,’ but perhaps he did so deliberately through the buyer in order to attract attention. After all, he knew that sooner or later someone would discover the hiding place.
Maria found herself at the centre of a blood-curdling story. She couldn’t believe that a routine purchase of meat had turned into a mystery involving money and hints of death.
Who wrote these notes?
Was their author still alive?
And most importantly, why did she become the owner of this piece?
These questions remained unanswered, and Maria continued to shudder for a long time when passing by that butcher’s shop…
