Hearing the first snore rumble out of David was enough to stir Kate into action. ‘You were beginning to fall asleep on me there,’ she said as lightly as possible, gently nudging his shoulder.
All Kate’s intervention did was prompt David to roll over and she fought hard to bite back the steadily building rage; turning from her wasn’t a deliberate slight but an unconscious reaction. ‘Maybe there is a better way I can make you stir,’ she said, admiring her uncharacteristically effective wordplay, as she slipped a hand down the sheets. No sooner had she gently clasped him than she could feel it reacting to her touch. Perhaps it would be a good thing if David remained sleepy; she may get longer out of him and it would allow her to take the lead and ensure that her body was being serviced as effectively as his.
With at least one part of him paying her attention, she began to lift the bed covers with the intention of rolling him onto his back and straddling him, but as soon as she moved, he grabbed the duvet and wrapped it tightly around him, expelling her hand in the process. ‘Wait till the morning,’ he murmured irritably.
‘What the actual fuck?’ Kate roared, sitting up and hurling the duvet from the bed and onto the floor. In other circumstances she might have found the way David remained curled up in a protective ball for a few moments amusing.
But it didn’t take long for him to become fully awake.
‘What? What are you doing?’ His voice was confused at first but when he looked up at Kate, whilst still trying to blink away sleep, his expression changed. ‘What’s got into you?’ he demanded more forcefully.
‘Me?!’ she responded, unconsciously covering her breasts with crossed arms. ‘You lure me back here for a two-minute fumble and expect me to be so grateful that I’m just going to lie here and listen to you snore for the next six hours?!’
‘Look, I’m sorry… I, er…’
Kate barely heard David, let alone allow his comments to register. ‘You people make me sick! Is that all it was to you, a chance to empty your balls and hope that we sleep in late enough in the morning that you can push me out of the door without having to do anything more?’
‘I didn’t realise… we had a couple of glasses of wine at the restaurant and I…’
Kate got up, rounded the bed and was now bent over David, wagging a finger in his face. Deep down, beneath the rage, there was a rational part of her that was genuinely enjoying this. Having put up with Scott’s shit for so many years it felt nourishing to finally get a few long-overdue things off her chest.
‘You can’t fucking treat people like this and in any other situation you would be prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act. Pretending you’re all suave and sophisticated, wining and dining me and making me think that accepting your offer of coming back here would lead to some form of satisfaction.’
‘Hold on, no-one made you come here and if I remember correctly it was you who—’
‘How could I have been so stupid not to realise?’ she continued, her voice rising to drown out David’s now-louder protestations. ‘Of course it was all too good to be true. A man of your age to still be single and not to be fucked up in some way—’
‘Excuse me?’ The force with which these two words were delivered did more to cause Kate to pause than the combined effects of everything David had said previously.
But she only hesitated for a moment, enjoying that she had finally drawn blood. ‘All the money and the trips to the gym can’t hide that you’ve hit middle age and have fuck all to show for it.’
David swatted the wagging finger away from him and got up, pushing past Kate. He grabbed a dressing gown from the hanger on the back of the door and tied it around him, his back turned as though suddenly self-conscious of his nakedness. ‘I think you’d better go now. I’m happy to still call you a cab but I think it would be better if you were to wait outside.’
‘Struck a nerve, have I?’ Kate mocked, stalking him back through to the kitchen where he was attempting to separate her clothes from the bundle in front of the fridge. ‘Is that what this was about? A quick fuck with a younger woman to prove that you still have it, so you can prove to your younger colleagues in the morning that you still have some lead left in your pencil?’
‘Fuck you!’ David spat, flinging her clothes in her direction. ‘You don’t know anything.’
‘Oh really?’ Kate responded, stepping over the pile; enjoying the primeval strength her nakedness gave her. ‘Perhaps you’re right, perhaps the real reason why you are like this is because you’re attempting to hide the real truth. I’m thinking the reason why you’re not married is because you’re actually gay and nights like this is about you trying to deny it to yourself and the wider world.’
What came next was the last thing that Kate expected. Laughter; genuine, uncontrollable laughter, to the extent where David was bent double. ‘What’s so fucking funny?’ she demanded, stepping closer.
‘All of this,’ he replied, bringing himself under control. ‘You’re so conceited, so self-absorbed, that the only reason you can fathom why I’m not that interested in you is because I must be gay. It’s easier to think there must be some sort of problem than accept the most likely explanation, well other than the fact that you weren’t that good and I would rather get some sleep than bother having another go.’
Kate stared at David, slack jawed.
‘I’m married, you dumb bitch. This is just a crash pad I use during the week when I’m working late.’ He laughed again, but this time it was short and cruel. ‘What did you think I was doing when I left you outside?’
‘You’re fucking married? You’re… you’re Scott?’ Kate felt sick and lunged past David to steady herself on the kitchen work surface. This was worse, so much worse than when she thought she had merely slept with a narcissistic pig. The experience may have been dissatisfying but at least it served the ultimate purpose of being able to wrestle some of the power back from her husband. But all she had now done was to serve another man’s infidelity, causing the same sort of pain to another that she had experienced herself. ‘How… how could you?’
‘You think it’s difficult, do you?’ David said, having fully regained his composure. ‘There are dozens of slappers like you to choose from any night of the week I fancy, each with their own pathetic little back story that makes them only too willing to go back to the place of a complete stranger. So, what’s your story then? Husband left you has he and you’re trying to prove something to yourself?’
But Kate seemed impervious to the vicious jibes; all she could think about was his poor wife. Did she know what he was up to when he was supposedly busy working in London? ‘Have you got kids?’
‘What the fuck has that got to do with anything?’
‘You need to tell her.’
‘What?’
‘She deserves to know. Where’s your…?’ But Kate didn’t need to finish the question because her search settled on David’s phone, sat next to the sink with his keys and wallet. Without hesitation she lunged for it, but David must have been following the direction of her eyes, such was the speed at which he intercepted her.
‘Oh, no you don’t, you mad bitch,’ he spat, yanking her arm and spinning her back around to face him.
‘Don’t you dare touch me,’ Kate cried, trying to squirm free; the feel of his hands on her intensifying the disgust she felt.
But David was strong and his grip on her shoulders was firm. Now desperate, Kate’s hands scrabbled blindly on the work surface behind her; searching for something to repel this awful man. Perhaps if she could reach for the block of knives, she could force him to back away.
‘Sadie doesn’t need to know anything,’ he said, shaking Kate as though assisting the words in penetrating her brain. ‘She’s perfectly happy as she is and what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.’
What Kate found worst about the statement was the honesty with which it was delivered. David really believed that there was no harm in what he was doing, so long as his wife, Sa
die, didn’t find out. Not only did he fail to understand that the tell-tale signs would be there for her to read, just like she had done with Scott, but he probably justified his infidelity as somehow adding to his marriage, harking back to a time when it was common for men to have mistresses.
‘You don’t get to decide what she knows, and as soon as I get out of here, I’m going to make sure she knows everything. Then we’ll see how perfectly happy she is.’ Kate didn’t need David’s phone; it wouldn’t take very much searching to figure out who this Sadie was. Once she was safely away from here, she could piece together the different things he had told her over the course of the evening and work from there. Then as soon as she put that poor woman in the picture, she would go home and have it out with Scott. She didn’t yet know whether she would reveal what she had been up to that evening, and it would certainly be an abridged version if she did, but that didn’t really matter anymore. All that was important was letting him know that she wasn’t the same poor sap that David clearly thought his own wife to be.
So focused was Kate on what she was going to do that she had stopped regarding the present and the moment David’s hands wrapped around her throat came as a complete shock. ‘You’re not going anywhere, you psycho bitch!’
Kate had never felt such an unpleasant sensation. With her airway blocked, her body was involuntarily hitching to try and take in air, which only served to make her need for oxygen more desperate. Attempting to remove his hands was no use, he was far stronger than her and his longer reach ensured he could duck out of the way of her efforts to claw his face.
Finally Kate understood what people meant when they talked about seeing stars. It wasn’t in the same literal way as in the cartoons but there were explosions in her vision that reminded her of fireworks. But far more unsettling was the darkness that was creeping in from the sides and she knew that unconsciousness would follow soon after. In a final, frantic attempt to save herself she resumed her search of the worksurface behind her. With David no longer clasping her shoulders she had more reach but, in her panic, she was knocking appliances over.
That was until she struck a far more solid object. Its surface felt cold and smooth and it was only when her fingers slipped into the middle and the coarseness within, that Kate understood what she had found. She didn’t know which part of the pestle and mortar the bowl was but nor did she much care. It was heavy; perhaps too heavy but she was rapidly running out of time and would only have one chance with this.
If Kate were to try and replicate what happened next, any number of things would go wrong. The sheer weight of the mortar could have seen it slip from her grasp, either as she attempted to pick it up or mid-swing. Similarly, in her disorientation caused by a lack of oxygen she might have only delivered David a glancing blow, or perhaps would have missed his head entirely.
But nothing went wrong and Kate’s outstretched arm brought the hewn rock around in a perfect ark, centrifugal force combining with her strength to see it accelerate all the way through to its impact.
One moment David was there in front of her, face contorted in anger, and the next he was gone. Kate’s immediate concern was not with where he had fallen; with her throat suddenly unblocked her lungs were dragging in as much air as they could, and causing a burning sensation to mix in with the blessed relief. Her head throbbed but her vision was gradually clearing, and it was only after a few more seconds that she realised her right hand was still holding the stone bowl. Kate stared at it almost quizzically as though trying to recall the fragments of a dream.
Finally, cold reality started to dawn.
Choosing to place it back on the worksurface and retrieve the grinder that had dropped out was only delaying the inevitable which, once done, could no longer be postponed. Even if the distance David had travelled wasn’t enough to reveal how devastatingly effective the impact had been, his caved in left temple was. She knew she should check for a pulse but the way his sightless eyes stared at the ceiling above him confirmed it would be a waste of time.
David was dead and, more significantly, she had killed him.
Chapter Thirty-one
Despite only having clocked off five hours before, Ruby was anxious to get to the station early the next day. DCI Nelson may have taken the events at King Harry far more calmly than she had expected, but that stance would be severely tested by events in the morning.
She arrived up in CID to find the main floor empty and might have believed herself to be alone were it not for the light on in Nelson’s office.
‘Morning, guv,’ she said, offering a cursory knock on his opened door.
‘You’re in early,’ he responded flatly, staring up from his empty desk.
‘I could say the same thing but, judging by the way you look, I’m not sure you went home at all last night.’
‘DSI Robson will be here in a minute,’ he said, in way of a reply. ‘He wants to go over what we’re going to say in the press conference.’
‘And chew you a new arsehole into the bargain?’
‘Is that what you think I deserve?’
Ruby sighed and sat down in the chair opposite his desk. There had been a number of times she would have welcomed her chance to stick the boot into Nelson but now the opportunity had arrived, she was disinclined to.
‘What happened would have been hard to predict,’ she said, offering only half a lie and accepting that just because she and Cooper had thought yesterday’s strategy wrong didn’t mean they would have come up with the right one.
‘I’m not sure Robson’s going to see it that way, nor for that matter will the press.’
‘If it’s any consolation, guv, you were right that they would strike again; so that kind of vindicates your decision to hold back the papers for a day.’
‘Alternatively, going public might have prevented it happening, especially now murder is involved,’ Nelson countered, demonstrating to Ruby that he understood the full consequence of the decision he’d made.
‘Do you ever regret it? Becoming DCI, I mean, and having to make these sorts of calls?’
‘Thankfully not too often but it’s times like these when I miss still being in your shoes; being able to focus on doing the job right rather than always having to wonder how it will be perceived by others.’
‘No matter where you are in the chain of command, you’ve always got someone on your back demanding more,’ Ruby responded, choosing an element of ambiguity to soften the implied criticism.
‘I guess. Look, he’ll be here in a minute so it’s probably best if you…’
‘I think I might go and get started,’ Ruby said, taking the hint and getting up. Whilst she still felt tired and thoroughly pissed off that the people she was tracking had managed to attack again, she hoped that her brief conversation with Nelson had done them both some good. Perhaps what little encouragement she had given him would allow him to better defend himself in what was to come and, more crucially, less inclined to chuck some of the fallout her way.
She was only just sitting down at her desk when Cooper strode in. ‘Couldn’t sleep either?’ he called across, by way of greeting.
‘Yeah, something like that. Look, let’s get our heads together and compare what we know about each attack. Aside from the one obvious difference, everything else looks similar.’
‘Okay, sure,’ he shrugged before turning to regard the entrance to the kitchenette. ‘I guess I don’t need to ask you whether you put on the percolator then?’
‘No time,’ she responded coldly. ‘As soon as this goes public we’re going to be inundated with supposed leads and I want us to be in the best possible position to be able to narrow them down.’
But Ruby’s anxiousness to get started was soon interrupted by DSI Robson’s arrival. Despite being the only two people in the main area he didn’t even glance in their direction as he marched over to the DCI’s office.
‘That doesn’t look good,’ Cooper whispered once the door was shut.
�
��I think Nelson knows what the score is,’ she responded simply, glad that she was the one sat out here.
‘I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to be somewhere else when he leaves. I was thinking we could do that checking business you spoke of at one of the crime scenes itself.’
‘Such a coward,’ Ruby commented but stood anyway.
‘What do you think the attackers’ next move will be?’ he asked as they headed down the stairs.
‘Well, I’m even more convinced now that it’s not organized crime. As smart as it was switching stations, I still think they would have chosen to lay low or target somewhere else altogether if it was. I can’t help but feel we’re just dealing with some kind of local gang we’re not aware of.’
‘But surely a brutal gang like that can’t be existing totally under the radar. Perhaps we should get IT to step up the trawl of social media?’
‘Yeah, and hopefully CCTV from the station will throw up something,’ Ruby responded, pushing open the door to the duty area and nearly sending a young officer flying. ‘Shit, you alright mate?’
‘Ah, you’ve already heard then,’ he replied, rubbing the wrist that bore most of the impact.
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