I leaned over and opened the glove compartment and saw it immediately, sitting on top of the car’s owner’s manual. A single loose paper receipt. I took it out and inspected it in the torchlight. It was from the BP petrol station in Gerrards Cross, and the date was three days earlier. The time 2.46 p.m.
That was the day Kate had met her friend. And one of the only things she had told me about it was that they were meeting in Gerrards Cross.
Had this woman been following her?
Or, more worryingly, did the two of them know each other?
14
Kate
Matt. I was desperate to know if he was okay. So much so that I’d actually dreamed about him. In the dream, we were back at the hotel, in our private villa high above the rainforest, sitting in the plunge pool looking out over an amazing view I’ve never grown tired of. Naked, sipping champagne . . .
And then bang. I woke up shivering and cold. I’d fallen asleep, but in the absence of light, it was impossible to tell how long for. The blanket had fallen off and my whole body felt stiff and painful – especially my arms where they were pinned behind my back. I was also starving hungry. I hadn’t eaten a thing since a tuna salad I’d put together the previous night, and I hadn’t even managed to finish that.
I sat up against the toilet seat, shaking myself awake, and used my teeth to get the blanket back on.
For a few minutes I sat there pondering my options, until finally I realised I had absolutely none. The silence in the building was unnerving, and a terrifying thought struck me: what if they’d simply left me here to starve to death? No one was going to find me. Not until it was far too late.
And then before the idea could continue its germination, I heard the sound of a door closing somewhere down the corridor, followed by faint footfalls getting closer, and the bathroom door being unlocked.
I moved my feet out of the way as the door opened and someone stepped inside. I caught the same smell of expensive aftershave and knew it was the man who’d brought me in here earlier. It smelled stronger this time, as if he’d recently reapplied it, which meant he’d either been out or he kept a supply here. It made me wonder how a man who took the trouble to buy and wear expensive, subtle scent had ended up being a kidnapper. I’ve always been interested in people and their various quirks, and I knew my best bet was to continue trying to engage with him, because he was the key to whether or not I got out of here alive.
‘Hello?’ I called out, my voice reflecting the fear I felt. ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me,’ he answered, the voice still disguised. ‘I’ve brought you water and some food.’
‘Thank you.’
I heard him put something down on the floor then crouch down close to me. He told me to open my mouth and proceeded to put another bottle of water to my lips, holding it while I drank.
After that he spoon-fed me some Weetabix in cold milk. I was surprised by how gentle he was. It seemed that he bore me no ill will. That he was doing this for someone else. But in a strange way, that made it worse. Because if he was a professional criminal who didn’t have a moral issue with kidnapping a pregnant woman and holding her hostage in squalid conditions, then it was unlikely he’d have too many qualms about killing her either.
Even so, I was encouraged by his small act of kindness and I asked him if he’d mind untying my hands. ‘The cable’s very tight, and they feel numb. I won’t try to escape or do anything stupid, I promise. I wouldn’t do anything to endanger my baby.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t. But you won’t be here long.’
I thought of Matt again. I wondered how he was reacting to my disappearance. He’d been like a puppy around me ever since I’d told him I was pregnant, and I knew he’d be terrified for my safety. Unless, of course, something had already happened to him. ‘Where’s my fiancé?’ I asked the kidnapper. ‘Is he okay?’
‘He’s alive and well.’
‘Is he here?’
‘No. But he’s safe. And you’ll be reunited with him soon enough.’
I had some serious doubts about that. But then I was doubting a lot right now, and I needed some answers. ‘You claimed last night that I knew what this was all about. I’ve got some ideas, but I need to know for sure. So, why am I here?’
He leaned forward and I could feel his breath on my face. It smelled of mint and coffee.
I suddenly felt very uneasy and regretted asking the question as a gloved hand pushed my hair back above the line of the blindfold, and a finger ran gently down the long pale scar that crossed my scalp just below the hairline – a scar that only a handful of people in this world were even aware of.
‘You’re here so we can talk about this,’ he said quietly. ‘You remember how you got it, don’t you?’
I tensed before I could stop myself, and breathed out slowly, trying to sound calm. ‘I had a fall.’
‘It was more than a fall, wasn’t it?’
‘I don’t know. I have no memory of it. It put me into a coma and gave me amnesia.’
‘That’s interesting,’ said the man, almost playfully. ‘And how far before your fall does your amnesia stretch?’
I knew what he was getting at. ‘I don’t know. A while. I have a lot of memory blanks from before. It was bad. I was in hospital a long time.’
‘I know. Two months. And under police guard too. Things have gone a lot better for you since then, though, haven’t they? Money. A new life in the sun.’
‘You seem to know a lot about me,’ I whispered. But of course he did. He – or whoever he worked for – had planned all this.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘But there’s more I need to know. And you’re going to provide me with the answers.’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ I said, knowing exactly what he was driving at.
‘You’ll do more than that,’ he said, his words taking on a more ominous tone. ‘You’ll tell me the absolute truth, and you won’t use amnesia as an excuse. Because if I think you’re lying to me, I’ll have to hurt you. Badly.’ He paused. ‘Do you understand?’
Suddenly he didn’t seem so nice any more. And I knew he wasn’t lying. He would hurt me. It was possible – maybe even likely – that when he finished asking his questions, he’d kill me anyway. I had to think. To plan my next move. There are very few puzzles that don’t have a solution, and I had to make sure that this wasn’t one of them.
‘Yes,’ I told him quietly. ‘I understand.’
15
Matt
Ultimately, it didn’t matter what other clues I might find, because time ran out. Barely half an hour after my search of the car, I was driving towards the address in London that the kidnapper had sent me.
The man I’d been ordered to kill lived in a 1950s terraced house close to a railway viaduct, on a long residential street of near-identical homes not far from Wembley Stadium. I was almost an hour early, and it was one of those dark, gloomy November days that threatened torrential rain at any moment. There were only a handful of pedestrians on the street and, being London, no one took any notice as I drove slowly past the house, navigating speed bumps and making sure I had the right address. Number 46. There was light coming from inside the ground floor. I assumed the white Ford Fiesta parked on the carport directly outside belonged to my proposed victim.
I made a mental note of the number plate and continued driving at a steady speed. I passed under the viaduct, not wanting to stay too close to the house, and found a parking spot on an adjoining street half a mile away. As soon as I stopped, I typed the registration number into my iPhone. I knew I had to get as many clues as possible to the identity of my target, even though I still had no idea how I could do it without drawing attention to myself.
After that, I settled back in the seat to wait. I was wearing a cap, pulled down as low over my face as I could manage without looking suspicious, and staring down at my phone like any normal person would.
And all the time my heart was racing as I realised
what I was about to do. The knife – the murder weapon – was under my seat. At some point this morning I was going to be called upon to use it. I tried to imagine what it was going to feel like to kill a man I’d never met before. Just the thought of it made me nauseous. I was sweating and my hands were shaking. It was very similar to the feeling of utter terror I’d got just before I went on stage for the first time in my first proper acting role – a big part in an Agatha Christie play running at the Theatre Royal in Windsor. The stress had made me want to vomit, and I’ll always remember one of my co-stars, a much older actor who’d had a half-decent career in TV, putting a supportive hand on my shoulder and saying: ‘You’ve just got to look at it this way: what’s the worst that can happen? It’s a play, not the end of the world.’
His words had reassured me at the time, and I’d gone out on stage and all my nerves had disappeared, because he was right. In the end it was just a play not the end of the world. But this . . . this was totally different. This was killing a man. Ending his life. Risking imprisonment. This could easily be the end of my world.
And yet if I didn’t go through with it, I risked losing my fiancée and our unborn child, and then my life as I knew it – the life that I’d lovingly built up this past year – would be over too. It was like I was trapped in a vice, with no way forward and no way back, its jaws slowly crushing me.
I had a straight choice. Let two lives of people close to me be lost, or end the life of someone I didn’t know. In the end, it could only ever go one way, and this was why I was sitting here counting down the seconds, knowing I had to drive the fear out of my mind and do what I’d been ordered to do.
But Jesus, the half-hour I sat there in that car was the most unpleasant of my life. Yet it was also one of the shortest. I kept looking at my watch, willing the time to slow down, to grind to a halt, to give me more time to think of a way out of this, even though I knew in reality there wasn’t one. More than once I punched 999 into my phone, thinking that I had to call the police, give them the responsibility of finding Kate and saving her from this faceless killer, but each time, I stopped myself. The jaws of the vice were too tight. There was no time, and the chances were they’d never believe my story about the body in our bed. A body that I’d made disappear. I also reconsidered calling Geeta. Telling her everything, asking for her advice. Because one thing about her was that she always seemed to know what to do.
But this time she couldn’t help.
I have no choice. That was what I kept telling myself. I have no choice.
I looked at my watch: 9.55. It was time.
Taking a deep breath, I put the car in gear and pulled away from the kerb just as it began to rain, big heavy drops that splattered against the windscreen, suddenly becoming the kind of torrential deluge that sends people scuttling inside, providing me with much-needed camouflage.
Conscious that I was going to have to make a quick getaway, but one that didn’t look too suspicious, I found another parking spot on the road running parallel to the viaduct, less than fifty yards from my target’s front door. Leaning down in the seat so I couldn’t be seen by anyone still foolish enough to be outside, I put on my gloves, then removed the knife, still in its sheath, from under the seat and slipped it into the inside pocket of my jacket. Then, with a final check of the watch – 9.59 – I felt in my jeans pocket for the keys to the target’s house and got out of the car, hurrying down the street, head down, as the rain pelted down on me.
As soon as I rounded the corner, I saw him. My target. Thirty yards away. He was dashing to the driver’s side of his car. I recognised him instantly, even though he was pulling the collar of his coat over his head in a vain attempt to keep the rain at bay. He was taller than I’d been expecting, and thinner too. But there was no doubt it was him, and the thought that I was looking at a living, breathing human being on an ordinary street who had no idea that he was about to die almost made my legs go from under me, and I visibly stumbled.
Thankfully, he didn’t even look my way as he jumped inside the white Fiesta, quickly reversing out of the carport before driving away in the opposite direction. I knew without looking at my watch that it was almost exactly 10 a.m. Kate’s kidnapper had known exactly what time he’d be leaving, which only served to confirm how dangerous were the people I was dealing with.
I was almost hyperventilating as I approached the house. The light was still on downstairs and I had a terrifying thought that there might be someone else in there. A woman or a child. Then what the hell would I do? I had no answer to that question, and I just had to hope the kidnapper’s intelligence was as reliable as it appeared to be.
Without dropping my pace, I glanced round to check the street was still empty, then hurried up to the front door, pulling out the keys. The target had double-locked it, which was a relief, because it meant that the house was unoccupied.
I opened the door and stepped inside, half expecting an alarm to go off, but I was met by silence and engulfed in a wave of centrally heated warm air. Double-locking the door behind me, I wiped my feet on the mat to avoid leaving any incriminating footprints and looked round. I was in a narrow, tired-looking hallway with a staircase directly in front of me. The place smelled vaguely of cannabis mixed with incense sticks. A cardboard box almost overflowing with books sat in one corner, with a suit and a couple of other jackets piled on top of it. Other than that, and a mirror shaped like a smiling sun hanging from one of the walls, it was empty.
I glanced at my reflection in the mirror’s dirty glass. The man who stared back at me looked wide-eyed and haunted, as if suffering some terrible shock, nervous exhaustion pumping out of every pore. It was all so different to the face I’d seen last night in the mirror of the pub washroom. Then I’d been happy. Returning to London in triumph, having finally made something of myself.
I turned away, not wanting to see myself any more, and looked around for clues that might give me some kind of leverage later. The nearest door opened to a lounge with a matching sofa and armchair, facing a cheap-looking TV on a corner unit. There were a couple of bookshelves along one wall, but they were empty. It felt like a house rather than a home. It also looked like its occupant was planning to leave.
There was a stack of washing-up in the kitchen sink, and an open box of cornflakes on the worktop. The sight of it stopped me in my tracks, because it reminded me that this was a man who’d woken up this morning and carried out his usual routines, including eating his breakfast cereal, all the time expecting to still be alive at the end of the day.
And my job was to make sure that didn’t happen.
Creeping back into the hallway, I went over to the box in the corner and gently lifted the jackets with my gloved hand. The topmost book beneath them was a well-thumbed tome called Influence: Science and Practice, which appeared to be some kind of psychology self-help manual. Under that was another equally well-worn psychology textbook. The rest were a selection of fiction paperbacks.
Replacing the jackets, I headed upstairs and into the main bedroom. The bed was unmade and a large suitcase crammed with clothes sat on top of it, which confirmed that this man was definitely planning on leaving. There was a single chest of drawers next to the bed, but they were all empty. I opened the large free-standing wardrobe only to find nothing but a few items of clothing and a pair of shoes.
Frustrated, I spent the next ten minutes carefully looking for any clue to this man’s identity – and what possible connection he could have to Kate. But he’d almost cleaned the place out. Clearly he didn’t want to be found, and I was reminded of what the kidnapper had said about him: that he was no angel and the world wouldn’t miss him. It was scant consolation for what I was about to do, but at least I wasn’t killing a complete innocent.
Except was I actually going to stick a huge knife into a fellow human being and watch him die? Even thinking about it made me nauseous. And it wasn’t as if my intended target wouldn’t resist. He’d fight for his life, and he wasn’t a s
mall man. So there was no guarantee I’d even be able to kill him, no matter how determined I was.
But if I didn’t . . .
I tried to shift myself forward in time a few hours to see how this would pan out, but the fact was, I had absolutely no idea. Except for one thing. Whatever happened, my life was never going to be the same again. I’d already dumped the body of a murder victim, so I was forever destined to be looking over my shoulder, wondering if it would come back to haunt me.
The car horn ringtone sounded in my pocket and I cursed myself for forgetting to put the phone on vibrate. It was 10.25. Once again it was an unidentified number, but I had absolutely no doubt who was on the other end.
‘Where are you?’ demanded the robotic voice. I thought I detected frustration in his tone.
‘At the target’s house,’ I whispered.
‘He’s on his way back now. He’ll be there shortly. Be prepared.’
I felt my stomach clench and had to fight to control my breathing. This was it. ‘I am,’ I said, even though I wasn’t.
‘Good,’ said the voice. ‘Because you have new instructions. Before you kill the target, you are to get some information from him. When he arrives, ambush and incapacitate him. Use the knife as a threat, but keep him alive and conscious. He’ll be scared. Get him to lie down on his front, then put your knee in his back so that he’s completely subdued. Tell him you’ll kill him unless he answers the following question: where is the master copy? Tell him if he doesn’t produce it right now, you’ll cut his throat. You’re supposed to be an actor. Make him believe you. Tell him if he gives you the copy then you’ll let him live.’
I felt a sudden burst of hope. I had no idea what this master copy was, and knew the kidnapper wouldn’t tell me, but at least now there was a chance of getting out of here without committing murder.
‘If a copy exists, he will have it on him,’ continued the voice. ‘It will be in the form of a flash drive or a micro cassette. It may even be hanging from a chain round his neck. If he refuses to cooperate or says there isn’t one, stab him in the gut. Then ask him again.’
Kill A Stranger: the twisting new thriller from the number one bestseller Page 6