What truly hurt me was that I’d been so powerless in the face of Mum’s deterioration. I’d always stood up for myself: against bullies, against my teachers, against Mum’s boyfriends. And too many times, against Mum. I’d prided myself on my ability to stand tall even when others were keen to strike me down at the knees. And yet that strength was of no use in the face of cancer. That summer was the worst of my life as I watched Mum’s hair fall out, her body become thinner and paler, her hospital stays get longer each time.
And then in early October, the consultant in charge of her care came by the ward when I was visiting her. I’d started a job on the tills at the local Sainsbury’s and had come straight from work. I’d been there for my usual half-hour, talking vaguely with forced cheeriness, trying not to notice how sick Mum looked, how she seemed to be visibly shrinking before my eyes, and was just about to go when the doctor approached us with a rictus smile on his face.
He asked if he could have a word in private and, without waiting for an answer, drew the curtain round the bed so we couldn’t be seen by any of the other patients. He pulled up one of the plastic chairs so he was sitting across the bed from me.
‘I need to talk to your mother about her progress,’ he told me, ‘so you may want to wait outside for a few moments.’
My mum turned her head towards me, managing a weak smile. ‘You don’t have to stay, love,’ she said.
It irritated me that they both treated me like a child. I was only weeks away from my seventeenth birthday and already vastly more independent than many people twice my age. ‘It’s okay, Mum,’ I said, taking her hand. ‘I can stay. I’d like to hear this.’
The consultant turned to Mum and gave her the bad news – straight and with limited emotion. In spite of their best efforts, the cancer had spread to her bones and liver and her condition was now terminal. With continued treatment, she had as long as six months. Without it, her time could be measured in weeks.
I’d always thought I’d be the one able to handle the news best, but it was Mum who kept her emotions in check. She thanked the doctor while I buried my face in her bedcovers and sobbed silently, and she gently stroked my hair in a way she hadn’t done since I was a young child.
Finally I regained control of my emotions and sat up, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.
Mum was looking at me gently. ‘You’re going to be okay, love. You don’t have to worry. I’ve made arrangements.’
I frowned. ‘What kind of arrangements?’
‘From now on, you’re going to have a thousand pounds a month put into your bank account.’
I looked at her like she’d lost her mind. ‘You don’t have any money.’
‘You’re right, I don’t,’ she said after a pause, looking ashamed at the fact, which made me feel guilty for bringing it up. ‘But your father does. I called and told him about the circumstances and he’s agreed to make sure you have that money. He’s promised me faithfully he’ll pay it.’
It struck me as bizarre that a man I’d never met, and who’d never shown any interest in me, would suddenly start giving me money now, and I said as much.
Mum gave me the kind of look that suggested I wouldn’t understand, which would have pissed me off royally if she wasn’t so ill. ‘He’s always paid that money to me. It’s what’s kept us going all these years.’
I felt like saying she hadn’t spent it very wisely considering the lifestyle we’d led while I’d been growing up. It hadn’t exactly been hand to mouth, but it had been hard. But instead I asked the question that I’d never had a satisfactory answer to for all these years: ‘Who is he?’
She sighed. ‘It’s best you don’t know.’
‘How can that be? He’s my father. I have a right!’ I’d raised my voice instinctively, the anger that I’ve always carried rearing its head.
Mum looked mortified, and I realised a long time afterwards that it was shame for the way she’d treated me. At the time I misconstrued it as defensiveness.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘but I need to know. When I lose you, I’ll be alone. It’s not right that I don’t have a chance to meet him.’
I was playing the guilt card, and for a few seconds, Mum didn’t speak. When she did, her words were like hammer blows. ‘He’s told me there’s no way he wants to meet you.’
I swallowed hard, telling myself that I didn’t need the approval of someone I’d never met, but I can still remember now how awful those words made me feel, and for the first time I wondered if Mum was lying to me, and if it was her stopping me from having a relationship with my father.
‘I’m sorry, love,’ she continued. ‘I didn’t want you to hear that, but he made it a condition of giving you the money. He said he’d stop paying if you ever approached him.’
‘Why?’ I asked incredulously.
‘Because . . .’ She paused. ‘Because he’s a bastard and he doesn’t care about you.’ She took my hand in hers and gave it the gentlest of squeezes. ‘I’ve always been there for you. That’s why I’m finding this so hard, because I’m leaving you behind. But don’t go looking for him. If he ever stops paying you, call Auntie Julie in New Zealand and she’ll deal with it.’
But I never did let it go. I couldn’t. I had to know his name, and what this whole thing was about. I asked her every time I visited, even as she continued her inevitable journey downhill. I badgered her. I told her that I’d travel to New Zealand and demand answers from Auntie Julie if I had to. I ignored all her warnings about how no good would come of it, and eventually, finally, she told me his name.
And so began my own journey, which more than twenty years on would finally lead to the place where I was now, chained up and blindfolded in the bathroom of an abandoned hotel that smelled of stale smoke and damp.
Because one way or another, this was all about my dad.
13
Matt
I was thirty-five and single, and living in a one-room rental flat just off the Holloway Road, when I realised that I was never going to be a full-time actor. Some people realise it far quicker than I did and manage to forge successful alternative careers. Others go a lifetime taking bit parts and scraping by because, like any of us, they don’t want to have to admit to themselves that they walked the wrong path.
I didn’t want to admit it either. It was far easier to live in hope that that elusive major role – the one that would finally catapult me to stardom – was just round the corner, and that if I could just be patient a little longer, it would finally happen.
I think the rot had started to set in after Night Beat ended its run. No new speaking parts turned up at all. Nothing. It was just voice-overs, and that terrible ad. Phil, my agent, told me to think positive. ‘Positive things happen to positive people,’ he always liked to say. But then he also used to say meaningless shit like ‘You’ve got to put it out to the universe’ and ‘Only by looking through the rain do you get to see the rainbow’, so I wasn’t hugely encouraged.
Then one night while walking back to my flat from the bus stop nearby, having just done an eight-hour shift in a bar in the City catering almost entirely for overpaid, arrogant and staggeringly rude twenty-something twats, I was mugged. For those of you fortunate enough never to have had someone pull a knife on you when you’re alone at night, it’s hard to explain the feeling of utter terror it engenders.
My assailants were three kids of about sixteen, and they all had knives. I remember walking past them as they stood on the corner of the street next to mine, already feeling the tension build, trying to look as tough as possible, like my character DC Jonno in Night Beat, who would have just given them the eye and then continued on his way. But I guess it proved that I wasn’t as good an actor as I’d hoped, because just like that, I was grabbed roughly from behind by my coat collar and pulled round so I was facing one of them. I saw the glint of the blade only inches from my belly, and before I’d even fully registered it, the other two were flanking me on either
side.
Three knives. All poised and ready to use. I felt my legs go weak. I was so damned scared I wanted to vomit.
They made me empty my pockets. The lead one still had hold of my collar. He jabbed his knife into my jacket so I could feel the tip of the blade pushing against me. He was grinning beneath his hoodie, revelling in my fear. I gave them everything. My phone, my watch, my wallet. Even my Fitbit.
Afterwards, they ran off and left me there, their laughter and rapid footfalls echoing across the empty street, and I burst into tears. Powerless and humiliated, standing there crying: that was when I had my epiphany. It was time to change direction completely.
I’d always dreamed of travelling the world but, for whatever reason, had never done it. So a few months later, with five thousand pounds to my name and the bulk of my belongings in a backpack, I flew to Mumbai and spent a fortnight travelling down the west coast of India to Kerala. Life was good. I felt free. More importantly, I felt safe. People were friendly. There were no muggers lurking on street corners. Occasionally, I experienced that pang of worry so many middle-class Westerners get – that I wasn’t thinking about my future, that I should be looking for a proper job rather than spending what little money I had. But those pangs never lasted long. I was meeting fellow travellers of all ages and creeds, with their own stories of abandoning the rat race. Talking to them just showed there was so much more to life than plodding along endlessly until I finally conked out.
My next stop was Sri Lanka, and that was where it all changed. Barely two days after I’d landed in Colombo, I walked into the lobby of Royston House, a small boutique hotel on an old colonial tea plantation high in the forested hills of the island’s interior, where I was greeted by the hotel’s co-owner, a young Englishwoman, who knocked me off my feet the moment I met her.
I’ve never been the kind of man who believes in love at first sight, but this was completely different. There was just something about Kate that drew me in. She was beautiful for a start, with long auburn hair and bright blue eyes, and a lean, sun-kissed body. Then there was her wide welcoming smile, the air of warmth that came off her. Her accent was a brave attempt at Home Counties but veered more towards Essex, and wasn’t what I’d expected. Still, as we shook hands and she handed me a welcome smoothie of turmeric, ginger and mango, I realised that even her voice was endearing. There was something sweet about it.
Another thing. Kate was relentlessly chatty, and there was something almost manic about her need to talk, as if she’d only just come off a vow of silence. But do you know what? I like to listen, and that made everything between us just seem to work. In the week I stayed at Royston House, I found out that she was single and I think I must have made my feelings plain, even though I was trying hard not to. On my last night, we stayed up drinking beer and talking on the veranda long after all the other staff and guests had gone to bed, and when it was finally time to say goodnight, we looked at each other for a long moment like they do in those old Hollywood movies, and then kissed.
And that was that. Although nothing further happened that night and I left the next day, taking a taxi to a beach resort on the east coast, it was clear that we had the makings of something special. For the next week, we talked on WhatsApp or Skype at least once a day, and the bond between us continued to grow, and then at the end of my stay on the east coast, we agreed that I should come back to Royston House.
At first I stayed in my own room, which I paid for by doing various jobs round the hotel, but within a couple of weeks, I’d moved permanently into Kate’s small villa in the grounds.
That was just over a year ago. Since then, our life together had blossomed. We’d got engaged, she’d become pregnant, and we now effectively managed the hotel as a team.
I loved Kate. She made me incredibly happy. But how much did I really know about her? Because for all her chattiness, she was evasive whenever we talked about her past. I like to discuss things in depth, but every time I tried to get her to open up, I was gently, subtly but firmly rebuffed. I sometimes wondered if that was the reason Kate didn’t drink much. Because she was worried it might loosen her tongue.
She’s got a hidden scar that runs along the top of her forehead that looks like it must have come from a serious accident. When I asked her about it, she said she’d fallen from a first-floor window at the age of twenty-one when she was drunk, and had ended up in hospital with amnesia, unable to remember large parts of her life. I knew she’d grown up in England – an only child in a single-parent family – and that her mum had died. They were the only details she was prepared to share. Apparently she’d come into some money from an inheritance, which was how she’d managed to buy into the hotel eight years earlier, and she’d been making a decent income from it ever since. At least until the terrorist attacks a few months earlier, which had seen bookings collapse. That was one of the reasons why we’d decided to come back to the UK, with a view to having the baby here before returning to Sri Lanka when things picked up again.
It was Kate’s idea to come back to the UK. At the time, it had seemed sensible. The healthcare was far better for a pregnant woman. It would also give us a break from the hotel, which was close to empty most of the time and could easily be left in the charge of our highly efficient duty manager, Raj. For me, it would be a chance to see my mother and brother – not that I was especially close to either of them – and to catch up with friends in London.
I wanted to introduce Kate to everyone – to show her off, if I’m honest – but it seemed she wasn’t keen to reciprocate. She didn’t seem to have friends or family here. Or at least no one she wanted to introduce me to, which was probably why she’d suggested we rent two cars rather than one. We might have only been back in the country six days but already Kate had arranged to meet up with a girl she hadn’t seen since school. I’d wanted to go along with her, if for no other reason than to hear about my fiancée from someone who’d known her before me. But Kate hadn’t wanted me to. She’d tried to act casual about it, but the upshot was there was no way she was going to let me be there, and I wasn’t really given any good reason why.
So she’d taken her rental car for the lunch and come back a few hours later, and when I’d asked her how it went, she’d talked only vaguely about it – ‘it was nice to catch up’; ‘she’s looking good for her age’, that sort of thing. I remember thinking at the time that something about it didn’t sound right, but I let it go, because there seemed to be no reason why Kate would lie to me about meeting up with a friend.
But now, after last night, her secrecy seemed far more sinister. Someone clearly hated her enough to commit murder, abduct her and threaten her with death – and then blackmail me.
I stared down at the photo of the man I was supposed to kill. What information could he possibly have that connected him to Kate? Why did he have to die for it?
But even if I could find out the answers to those questions, it wasn’t going to help. I either had to do the deed or locate Kate in the meantime – which was impossible, given that it was already 7.30 a.m. Right now I only had one obvious lead. The dead woman, who I suspected had been watching us. She had to be involved somehow. I decided to search her car in the small window of time left before I had to leave for London.
It was beginning to get light as I walked out of the cottage’s front door and took a right down the track that bordered the village allotments. At this time of year, the plots were largely empty. There were lights on in a few of the houses opposite, but I couldn’t see anyone outside. I turned onto the single-track road I’d driven down the previous night, which ran parallel to the field beside our cottage, and followed it to the dead woman’s car. Parked between two trees, it was almost completely hidden from anyone who came this way.
Raindrops were still dripping from the bare branches of the trees, and I pulled up the hood of my coat to keep them from landing on my head, looked round to check no one was watching me and tried the driver’s-side door. I was wearing glov
es to keep myself from leaving prints on the handle, because I was in enough trouble as it was without contaminating yet another crime scene.
Thankfully, it was open. I peered inside, squinting against the dim light, turning on my phone torch to see better. The interior was clean and tidy. I climbed in, sitting carefully in the driver’s seat and closing the door. I remembered what my police mentor Geeta had always told me: the key to solving a murder is knowing the victim’s story. In most cases, the best way is to start at the end – the murder scene itself – and work backwards.
My first impression had been that the woman had died in our bedroom, stabbed as she stood by the bed. My search of the car turned up no sign of a struggle or bloodstains – and there would have been a lot of blood – which seemed to confirm my theory. But I couldn’t understand why she was in our bedroom in the first place. There was no evidence of forced entry into the cottage. Someone had let her in – and there’d only been one person inside.
Kate.
And yet that didn’t make sense either. It was possible that the woman had gone inside with the kidnappers, but it would have been extremely difficult, and risky, to kill her and overpower Kate at the same time. And if she had been one of the kidnappers, then what was this car doing here? And why hadn’t it been locked?
In the end, I was turning up plenty of questions but no actual answers. But I was sure of one thing. This woman had been watching us. There was a half-full litre bottle of mineral water in one of the cup holders and a thermos flask the same size in the other. I unscrewed the lid and took a sniff. Coffee. She’d been here for the long haul. I looked towards the cottage. From the driver’s seat I could see our bedroom window perfectly.
Why were you watching us? What did you want to know?
Kill A Stranger: the twisting new thriller from the number one bestseller Page 5