Kill A Stranger: the twisting new thriller from the number one bestseller

by Kernick, Simon

  A week before we were due to leave for England, when I was no more than seven weeks gone, I noticed some bleeding one morning. I knew instinctively that I’d lost the baby. I was so shocked I didn’t say anything to Matt. I didn’t say anything to anyone. I just carried on as normal, wondering how I was going to tell him, because I was terrified he might think I was infertile and leave me. I know it sounds totally irrational, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m still not. And now I realise that I may never be able to tell him.

  Poor Matt. He knew so little about me really. I’d kept my past from him as much as possible. I didn’t want anyone to know the things I’d been through, least of all him.

  He had no idea that my father was Sir Hugh Roper, the multimillionaire property developer, a man whose existence had haunted me for more than twenty years, ever since Mum had finally told me who he was.

  Dad and I had met barely a handful of times over the years – our relationship could hardly be described as close – and yet it was because of him that I was in a makeshift cell, I knew that.

  It was possible, of course, that this was a straightforward transactional kidnapping, with my father expected to pay the ransom. But I didn’t buy that. The kidnapper had told me we were going to talk about my past, and I was certain that was what this whole thing was about. Unfinished business. Revenge.

  Because, you see, there’d already been one attempt on my life. Sixteen years ago now. And it had come very close to being successful. My memory of what happened that fateful day is still a blank. I was in a coma for three weeks afterwards, and I still have recurring headaches even now, as well as a six-inch scar on my head where they’d had to operate to stop a bleed on the brain. But these injuries were nothing in comparison to the emotional loss I’d suffered, because another man I’d truly loved had died that day. And I knew exactly why we’d been targets then, and why I was the target now.

  In the end, this was all about Alana. My half-sister.

  The girl who some believed I’d murdered.

  23

  Matt

  It had just turned 1 p.m. and was raining hard when I finally pulled into the driveway of our rental cottage. There were no lights on inside and it looked drab and uninviting in the gloom of the day, although right now it was about the only place I felt vaguely safe.

  I exited the car fast and let myself into the house, shutting the door behind me and leaning back against it for a few moments. I was calmer now. In the two and a half hours since the death of the man called Piers the shock of what I’d become a part of had dissipated, to be replaced by the realisation that I had no choice but to deal with my new reality. That in order to get my fiancée back and come out of this ordeal as a free man, I was going to have to start thinking like a criminal. Because I only had eight hours left.

  First things first. I needed to get rid of the bloodstained clothes, so I stripped naked on the doormat, shivering against the cold before taking a bin bag from the kitchen cupboard and shoving everything inside, including my expensive new trainers. There was a lot more blood than I’d been expecting. As well as having large stains on the knees of my jeans, my trainers were splattered, and there were flecks all over me as if someone had been flicking red paint with one of those thin watercolour brushes.

  I tied the handles and shoved the bag to one side, then went and took a long, hot shower, trying to scrub every trace of the last twelve hours off me. After I was done, and finally feeling slightly better, I switched on the heating and went downstairs in fresh clothes. I made myself a sandwich using some chicken in the fridge from a couple of days earlier. It was the first food to touch my lips in eighteen hours, and I ended up demolishing it in a few greedy bites.

  I found an apple and a banana and wolfed them down too, then made myself a strong cup of coffee. While I drank it, I picked up the phone I’d taken from the man I’d killed. It was an oldish looking iPhone with a scratched screen. I pressed the home button and was immediately asked for a password. One way or another, I was going to have to unlock this phone, because it might lead me to the woman who’d seen me at the house. I looked at the clock on the kitchen wall and saw that I now had only seven and a half hours left. Time was ticking relentlessly away.

  I knew there were shops where if you paid the proprietors enough money, they’d unlock a phone for you. Oxford was only twenty minutes up the road. I’d start there.

  It was dangerous being caught with this phone – given that it was evidence that linked me inextricably to the murder scene – but I couldn’t lose sight of it either, so I shoved it down the back of my jeans waistband out of sight, and put my own phone in my right pocket. With the kidnapper’s phone in my left pocket, I now had three phones altogether, which was suspicious enough in itself, but at least I had a plan of sorts, and if I kept moving, it would mean I didn’t have to dwell too much on the horrendous situation I was in.

  I picked up the bag containing the bloodied clothes, which I intended to shove in a communal bin somewhere en route, and stepped into the rain.

  Which was the exact moment I felt an intense electric shock like nothing I’ve ever experienced before somewhere in my side, followed immediately by a pain that seemed to rack me from head to foot. At the same time, my legs literally went from under me and I fell sideways against the cottage’s outside wall, only dimly aware of figures closing in and grabbing me roughly by the arms.

  Disorientated and unable to see properly, I felt myself being dragged roughly back into the cottage and heard the front door shutting. Still limp and helpless, I was tipped over onto my front, my face shoved into the carpet.

  As I lay there, someone secured my hands behind my back, and then I was picked up again and manhandled over to one of the dining-room chairs and dropped into it. Everything was happening so fast, and I was in so much pain, that I had no idea what was going on.

  And then it dawned on me: I’d been tasered by the police, who were arresting me for the killing this morning, and I felt a weirdly unexpected sense of relief that all the pressure to find Kate was finally being taken away from me. That other, better-equipped people were going to take over.

  But then one of the figures suddenly marched forward, pushing a large gun directly between my eyes, and the relief evaporated immediately as he said: ‘Where is she, you bastard? Tell me or you die!’

  24

  Matt

  I’d never seen a real gun before. I’d seen plenty of fake ones during my acting career – and had even carried one during an episode of Night Beat where we’d raided the home of an armed suspect. It had looked cool in my hand. I’d liked the weight of it. The feeling of power it gave me. Unfortunately, it gives you absolutely no preparation for when you face a real one and can feel the cold hardness of the barrel being pushed against your skull. Knowing that one tiny pull of the trigger will end your life. Just like that.

  The figure stepped back, still pointing the gun at me, and my vision cleared. The pain that had been surging through my body from the taser disappeared as my mind focused entirely on the situation I was in.

  There were two of them, both men, although only one of them was armed. They were dressed in dark clothing, their faces covered by balaclavas. Straight away I knew they weren’t police, and that made it a lot worse. As did the fact that the bin bag I’d been carrying – the one containing my bloodied clothes – was now sitting only a few feet away from them.

  Instinctively I glanced towards it but forced myself to look away. Under no circumstances did I want them looking in that. But for an actor, I wasn’t doing a good job of keeping a poker face, because to my horror, the man with the gun looked at the bag too. ‘So what’s in here then?’ he said.

  ‘Just some bits and pieces,’ I answered, with a confidence I really didn’t feel.

  He clearly didn’t believe me, because he tugged open the drawstrings and bent down to rummage inside, his hand emerging with one of my bloodied trainers. Even with blurred vision, I could see the blood sp
lattered all over it.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said the man inspecting the shoe, while the other one looked on impassively. ‘This doesn’t look good, does it?’

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ I said, trying to calculate how much information to give them. ‘Who are you? And what do you want?’

  ‘Who we are is irrelevant, and I’ve already told you what we want,’ he said, coming back over with the gun. ‘We want to know where she is.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your fiancée, Mr Walters. Kate. What have you done to her?’

  Now I was completely confused. ‘If you tell me who you are,’ I said, ‘I may be able to help.’

  The blow caught me completely off guard and I felt a searing pain through my nose as I toppled backwards with the chair.

  My assailant grabbed hold of my shoulder to stop me going over entirely and brought his face close to mine. ‘That was a warning not to fuck me about. Now where’s your fiancée?’

  I had no idea whether this was a trick question or not, so I gave him the truth. ‘I don’t know, I swear it.’

  He hit me again. A hard slap round the face that rattled my teeth and sent the blood pouring from my nose onto the carpet. ‘Don’t lie to me or I’m going to keep hurting you. Do you understand?’

  I nodded, feeling dizzy, confused and scared. I swore to myself that if I got out of here in one piece, I’d never set foot in this godforsaken house again. Or this country. ‘I understand,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Good. That’ll be better for all of us.’ He sounded calmer now, more reasonable. ‘Admit it,’ he continued. ‘You’ve killed her, haven’t you?’

  ‘God no,’ I answered quickly, shaking my head even though the act of doing so hurt. ‘I’d never harm Kate. I love her.’ I tried to look over the man’s shoulder towards the other one, hoping he might intervene. But instead he just stared back.

  ‘I think you’re lying to me,’ said the gunman, an edge coming back into his voice.

  I knew I was going to have to tell the truth. I didn’t want to be hit again. ‘She’s been kidnapped. It happened last night.’

  ‘And that’s why you’re trying to get rid of your bloodied clothes, is it? Bullshit. You think I’m fucking about here, do you? You think I won’t really hurt you?’ Once again he shoved the gun barrel between my eyes, pushing hard until it seemed to cover my whole field of vision. I heard him cock the pistol and I swallowed hard.

  ‘I’m telling you the truth,’ I said, forcing myself to keep calm, knowing I was talking for my life now. ‘She was taken from here last night while I was with friends in London. Her kidnapper gave me a phone and a link to the dark web to show where she was being held. But I think the link might be down now. The phone’s in my left pocket.’

  I realised how lame this all sounded, but you say and do pretty much anything if your life depends on it.

  The gun stayed where it was for what felt like an interminably long time but which was probably no more than three seconds. Then the man stepped forward and fumbled in my pocket until he found the phone.

  ‘If you’re lying to me, you’ll pay,’ he said, glaring at me from behind the balaclava.

  ‘I’m not,’ I said, hoping I sounded desperate enough for one of them to believe me. ‘The kidnapper’s called me from an unknown number at least three times, and texted twice too. You can see it all on there. Along with the link to the Tor app.’

  The second man took the phone and silently scrolled through it. I sat there waiting, my wrists cuffed tightly behind my back, the blood continuing to drip slowly out of my nose, wishing I hadn’t just given away my only means of communicating with the kidnapper.

  ‘The link’s blank and the texts look like they’re from you,’ said the second man, speaking for the first time. He had a very deep voice and a local accent. ‘You’re not helping yourself here. Why don’t you just admit what you’ve done?’

  ‘Because I keep telling you, I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Then whose blood is that all over your clothes?’

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell the truth, but I had to give them something. ‘It’s not Kate’s. I swear it.’

  The gunman released a frustrated sigh. ‘This is going nowhere. We need answers. Now.’ He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled something out.

  At first I wasn’t sure what it was, but when he started screwing it onto the end of the pistol, I realised with a jolt of fear that it was a silencer.

  ‘I’m going to shoot you in the kneecap if you don’t tell me the truth right now, and I’ll keep shooting you in various joints until we get the answers we want.’

  ‘I killed someone,’ I told him quickly. ‘The man who kidnapped Kate said I had to do it otherwise I’d never see her alive again. I have no idea who he was. I wasn’t going to kill him, but there was a struggle and I stabbed him by accident.’

  ‘So if that’s the case, why isn’t Kate back with you now?’ said the gunman.

  ‘Because the kidnapper told me I had to get a flash drive from the man before I killed him. I didn’t manage to.’ Even as I spoke the words, I realised how far-fetched my story sounded.

  The gunman clearly felt the same way, because he stormed over, clamping his shoe down on my right foot to hold it in place while he pointed the gun straight at my right knee. ‘Don’t give me that bullshit story. I know you killed her. I’m going to count to five and if you haven’t told me the truth by then, it’s goodbye to ever walking properly again.’ He pushed the silencer into the flesh above the kneecap. ‘One . . .’

  ‘Please don’t do this,’ I pleaded. ‘I’m not lying.’

  ‘Two . . .’

  I turned to the other man, tears filling my eyes, more scared than I’ve ever been in my life. ‘Please help me. I’m not lying.’

  He didn’t move.

  ‘Three . . .’

  ‘I don’t know what else I can say to convince you, but I’m telling the truth. Don’t do this!’ The words were tumbling out of my mouth now as my desperation reached new heights.

  ‘You’ve got one fucking chance,’ the gunman hissed, his mouth so close to me I could feel the hotness of his breath. ‘Use it. Four . . .’

  What could I say? My mouth opened again, but this time nothing came out. I looked down at the gun, then into the man’s eyes. Saw the ruthless determination in them.

  Saw his mouth begin to form the word ‘five’.

  ‘Oh shit.’ It was the other man speaking. I could see him looking towards the window over the gunman’s shoulder.

  The gunman stepped back and turned. ‘What is it?’

  And then suddenly there was a distinct crackling sound and the gunman was staggering blindly as his colleague tasered him, his gun hand jerking wildly, his finger squeezing the trigger as the barrel swung round in my direction.

  I dived sideways off the chair, landing on the carpet with my teeth clenched in anticipation of the bullet.

  But no shot rang out, and I saw him fall to his knees, dropping the gun. The other man fired the taser a second time, and this time the gunman keeled over, shivering frantically, his eyes wide behind the balaclava.

  ‘Come on,’ said my rescuer, crouching down beside me and using a knife to cut the ties binding my wrists before grabbing hold of my collar and pulling me to my feet. ‘He won’t be out for long. Have you got your car keys?’

  I nodded frantically, up in an instant and half stumbling, half running as he guided me past his colleague and out the front door.

  I pulled out my keys and almost felt like laughing out loud as we ran over to the car, the cold wet air hitting my face like a slap.

  The guy jumped in the back rather than the front, which would have unnerved me if I’d had time to think about it. But right then I didn’t, and as I switched on the engine and flung the car into reverse, I just had time to see the front door of the cottage fly open and the gunman appear, staggering slightly, in the doorway, and then we were out of there and h
eading God knows where.

  25

  Kate

  When Mum told me the story of how she’d met my father, it did two things. It made me terribly sad for her. And it made me furious with him.

  My biological father, Sir Hugh Roper, was married with very young children when Mum started working for the family as a cleaner and domestic help. According to her, the wife was rude, snobbish and generally unpleasant, while my father was a hard-nosed businessman involved in enough questionable activities to need bodyguards. But the pay was good for an eighteen-year-old, so Mum tried to keep her head down and get on with things.

  In the end, it was the age-old tale. My father – successful, charismatic and ten years older – had started paying Mum attention. They embarked on a short, sporadic (and it seemed not very romantic) affair that came to an abrupt end when Mrs Roper told her she knew exactly what had been going on and fired her on the spot. Mum was given an hour to pack her things and get out.

  But as you know, that wasn’t the end of the story. A month later, Mum realised she was pregnant. She’d hadn’t slept with anyone else in the previous six months, which meant there could only be one candidate. She knew better than to contact Mrs Roper, but she was determined that my father should know what had happened and do something to help, so she’d waited for him outside his London office and, after several fruitless attempts, finally confronted him with the news. At first he hadn’t believed her, and had even accused her of extortion, but for once in her life Mum stood her ground, and eventually my father agreed to pay her a monthly income to help bring me up – in return for her signing a non-disclosure agreement that also forbade us from having any future contact with him.