‘You did the right thing,’ said Geeta. ‘You’ve got to stay strong.’
Five minutes passed. Then ten. Still he didn’t phone back.
And as I sat in the heavy silence, I had a truly terrifying thought. One that seemed to creep up out of nowhere and strike me right between the eyes.
Was it possible that somehow Kate had set this whole thing up herself, using me as the killer?
But I dismissed the idea just as quickly. She didn’t need to do something like that. She could have just told me about her past and I’d have helped her get through it, whatever it took. I was the father of her child, for Christ’s sake. I loved her.
More importantly, she loved me.
And yet somewhere deep down in the recesses of my mind, a niggling doubt persisted. Because the person who clearly benefited most from having the master copy of these audio files, which might contain her confession to murder, was Kate.
49
Kate
I could hear at least one person coming through the building in my direction, so I moved fast, knowing that if I was discovered with my blindfold off, I was in real trouble. Feeling around desperately, I found it on the floor and pulled it over my face, then screwed the thermostat back onto the radiator just as he unlocked the door and came inside, shining the light into my face.
I had no idea where the broken cable tie was so I quickly thrust my hands behind my back, hoping he wouldn’t check too closely. I was absolutely terrified, thinking that this might be it. The end.
‘Hello?’ I said into the darkness, my voice cracking.
‘We’re going to call your fiancé,’ said the kidnapper. ‘You will speak to him and tell him to do exactly what I order, otherwise you’re going to die.’
His voice was still disguised, but he sounded agitated, and I knew that things were coming to a head.
‘Please,’ I said, my own voice taut with tension. ‘I don’t want to die.’ I knew I was literally talking for my life here and I channelled everything I had into it, appealing to the small chink of humanity I was praying my kidnapper possessed. ‘My poor baby . . .’ Tears welled in my eyes, and I was so carried away I almost rubbed my tummy for effect, before remembering at the last second that my hands were meant to be tied.
‘And you won’t die if he does what he’s told,’ said the kidnapper.
‘Okay,’ I said, blinking away tears.
I heard his finger tapping on the phone screen, and then he leaned down close to me. So close I could have grabbed him. Poked him in the eyes or thrown a punch. Either of which would have been utterly fruitless.
‘Remember what I told you,’ he said, putting the phone to my ear.
It rang once and then I heard Matt’s voice come on the line, sounding scared. ‘Hello?’
‘Matt,’ I said, hugely relieved to hear him. ‘It’s me.’
‘God, honey, I can’t believe it’s you. Are you all right? Are they treating you well?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said, not quite stifling a sob. ‘I promise. And you? Are you okay?’
‘I’m good, don’t worry about me. Is the baby okay?’
God, I was going to have to tell him. But not now. He sounded so eager, so desperate. ‘Yes, she’s fine,’ I said quickly, knowing that I had to give him a clue to my whereabouts just in case. ‘But it’s cold and burnt-out in here.’ And then: ‘I’ve been told that you’ve got to do what the man tells you, or he’s going to kill me. But if you do it, he’ll let me go.’
‘I’ll do it. Don’t worry, Kate. I’ll get you out of there. I’m going to—’
The phone was abruptly pulled away from my ear and Matt’s voice cut out as the kidnapper ended the call. I heard him stand back up and put the phone away.
‘What the hell did you say that for?’ he demanded. ‘That you were somewhere cold and burnt-out?’
‘I don’t know,’ I sobbed. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’
He stood there in silence and I cowered, trying to look as subservient as possible.
‘If you do exactly what you’re told,’ he said at last, ‘you’ll go free. But if you try to manipulate me, or do anything stupid, like try to escape, I’ll kill you. Do you understand?’
I nodded, praying that he wouldn’t check my bonds too closely. ‘I won’t, I promise. I just want me and my baby to be safe.’
There was another long silence, and I felt my heart beating in my chest.
Then the door opened and a wave of relief surged through me as he went out, double-locking it behind him.
I waited a full five minutes, just to make sure he’d really gone, before finally removing the blindfold and getting to work on the chain again. Five minutes later, I’d moved it to the end of the pipe, and it fell to the floor with a rattling clank. I was still attached to it, but for the first time I was able to move around freely.
I smiled. There might still have been a locked door between me and freedom, but for the first time I felt real hope.
50
Matt
‘That was her,’ I said to Geeta, the phone still clutched in my hand. ‘Kate. She’s alive.’
Geeta frowned. ‘How did she sound?’
‘Scared. She sounded scared, which isn’t like her. She’s a tough cookie. But she didn’t sound like she’d been harmed, either.’ Any suspicions that she might have been involved in setting this thing up had disappeared now. Her fear had been genuine, and I felt a desperate need to get her back.
‘Did she give any clue as to what might be going on?’ asked Geeta.
‘She didn’t get a chance to say much,’ I said, but then something struck me. ‘But she did say that it was cold and burnt-out where she was being held. And I’ve seen her twice on footage he’s shared. Once she was on a stage that looked damaged by smoke. The other time she was chained up in a toilet, and again it looked like the place was damaged.’
‘She’s giving you a clue. There’s no other reason she’d have said that. Tell me more about this stage. What did it look like exactly?’
I tried to picture the room in that initial footage, realising where she was going with this. ‘I can’t tell you much about it. It was just a stage, lit by two very bright lights, and Kate was standing on it with a noose around her neck and a rope going up towards the ceiling. I couldn’t see the ceiling, so it must have been high. That’s all I can really remember.’
‘That might be enough. If there was a stage with a very high ceiling then she’s not being held in any ordinary building.’ Geeta’s fingers drummed a steady tattoo on the dashboard and she was stroking her chin. You could almost see the cogs whirring behind her eyes. A lot of people over the years had inferred that she’d been promoted because of her colour and sex, but I knew better. The main reason was because she was damned good at what she did.
‘What time did you get home last night?’
‘About one. Something like that.’
‘And what time did you last have contact with her?’
I took out my phone, checked the WhatsApp messages. ‘I messaged her when I got to you. That was ten to eight. She messaged back at seven fifty-seven, said “See you later. Have a good evening.” Three kisses.’
‘Okay. She was taken at some point between eight and one, so that’s a fair-sized window. He could have got her quite a distance in that time. Were there any signs of a struggle, or a break-in?’
I shook my head. ‘There was nothing out of place. Except obviously a dead woman in our bed.’
‘And would the doors to the house have been locked?’
‘Not necessarily. The front door locks automatically but the back door doesn’t, and Kate may not have locked it until she went to bed. It’s a quiet little village, and we’re used to Sri Lanka, where home security really isn’t an issue.’
‘So he could have walked in and ambushed her. But he’d need to have parked out the front of your house to have got her out and the other body in.’
‘It’s not overlooked.’
/>
‘Even so, it’s still a big risk. The point is, there must have been at least two of them involved.’
Before she had a chance to continue, the kidnapper’s phone started ringing again.
I picked up immediately, noticing that Geeta had come in close so she could hear what was being said.
‘I’ve done you a favour,’ said the voice that had tormented me for close to twenty-four hours now, ‘letting you speak to your fiancée like that. Now it’s your turn. Do you still have the drive?’
‘I do.’
‘Describe it. Exactly.’
I looked down at it, sticking out of Geeta’s laptop.
‘It’s black, made of metal, with a white lever that pushes out the plug, and the make’s Cruzer.’
‘Good. Where are you now?’
I wasn’t sure what to say. I had no idea whether he knew about Geeta or not, but if he didn’t, I didn’t want to put her needlessly at risk. I had to think fast. ‘I’m at a cheap hotel in Ealing,’ I said, hoping I hadn’t hesitated too long. ‘Lying low.’
‘Get in your car now – the rental one.’
‘I think the police are looking for it.’
‘They’re not that quick off the mark. If you keep a low profile, no one will stop you. Drive north-west out of London on the M40. Come off at Junction 5 and put the postcode SL6 9GG into your navigation system. Pull over at the sign on the road welcoming you to the village of Hedsor. Be there by nine thirty p.m. I’ll call you then. Don’t be late. And . . .’ he paused, ‘whatever you do, come alone. If you bring anyone else – anyone – Kate dies. Do you understand?’
‘I understand. But I want to see her before I hand anything over.’
But I was already talking to a dead phone. Once again the balance of power had shifted. I knew Kate was alive. I had hope. I just had to follow these last instructions. ‘Did you hear all that?’ I said to Geeta.
I think she must have seen the hope on my face, but her own expression didn’t reflect it. ‘I’m going to come with you,’ she said.
‘He said come alone. I’ve got to do what he says. I can’t risk losing her now.’
‘Matt, think. They want that drive. It probably contains your fiancée’s confession to killing a young woman. That young woman has relatives who want to avenge her, who’ve already tried to kill Kate once. They’re not going to release her. They’ll want her dead.’
‘What do you want me to do, Geeta?’ I said, exasperated. ‘Not go? Give up? I’ve got no choice. She’s the mother of my child. I’ve got to try to get her back. And I’ve got to hurry. I need to be at this place – wherever the hell it is – in less than an hour, and my car’s near your place.’
‘Then we need to pick it up right now,’ she said, chucking the laptop onto my legs and pulling out of the parking spot. ‘You drive. I’ll stay in the back. He won’t know I’m there. And if you’re going somewhere isolated, that’s going to be putting you in danger too. You’re a loose end, Matt. You know too much. They may want you out of the way. It’s worth having some kind of backup.’
She was right. Geeta was about the only person I trusted in the world right now, and even she’d betrayed me once.
‘Meanwhile, you can make yourself useful,’ she said, nodding at the laptop. ‘If the kidnapper wants to meet us in Hedsor, it means he’s probably holding Kate not that far away. It’ll be somewhere between there and where she was snatched. You need to look for any big building that might have a stage – theatres, hotels, maybe. Somewhere that’s been damaged by fire in the last year. Because if we can find out where she’s being held, we can turn the tables on this guy.’
I nodded, hoping she was right, because right now time was slipping away all too fast.
51
Kate
I’ll be honest. I was petrified when I found out for sure they’d involved Matt in this. This whole thing was nothing to do with him, but at least he was okay. The problem was, I was scared to think what they might be getting him to do, and whether he had the strength to do it.
I loved Matt deeply, but I’ve never been a hundred per cent sure if he truly loved me, and I’ve never been able to put my finger on exactly why I doubted him. After all, he’d never shown me anything but kindness and affection. But it struck me when I was there in that cell that I didn’t know him, and I think this was because he was a far better actor than his career would suggest. In fact, I had no idea where the actor stopped and the individual began. Or even if there was a real Matt underneath, because I’d seen the way he changed his whole persona depending on who he was talking to. He drew people in, made them feel special, and they fell for it. Always. In that respect, he was a perfect hotelier. At first, I was so infatuated with him myself that I didn’t notice, but as the months passed and the infatuation turned to something far more dangerous – true love – I found myself feeling peculiarly vulnerable.
I’d never felt vulnerable around David. I was a different person then. Happier. More complete. And it had all been stolen from me.
I’d been riven with grief for David for a long time afterwards, and had never settled in a relationship until I’d met Matt. Even so, it hadn’t been a bad life, and I’d built up a solid and successful business through my own hard work. Mum would have been proud of me, I know that.
And then a few weeks ago it had all gone wrong in a way I would never have imagined.
I’d kept in regular contact with Dad over the years – although it had taken me a long time before I’d started calling him that. Our relationship was best described as awkward, which wasn’t surprising under the circumstances. But he’d invested in the hotel, made sure I was financially secure, and we both tried hard to make things work. So when he’d called and told me he had inoperable cancer, with only months left to live, I’d flown straight to London to visit him, telling Matt that I was going to the funeral of an old school friend. He’d wanted to come with me but I’d said I’d prefer him to stay and look after the hotel, which hadn’t gone down well.
Dad knew about Matt – it was hard to keep anything from him even from five thousand miles away – but when he’d found out that we were engaged, he’d been less pleased than I’d hoped, which was why I hadn’t told him about the baby. ‘You be careful before you marry him,’ he’d said. ‘He may well be after you for your money.’
I’d laughed and told him that I didn’t have that much money for him to be after.
But Dad hadn’t laughed. ‘You will have,’ he said. ‘You’re going to inherit the vast bulk of my estate. That’s a hell of a lot.’
I’d been shocked. You might think that’s ridiculous given that I’d known for many years how rich he was, but I hadn’t expected him to leave so much to me. Not after everything that had happened between us. In truth, I’d never given it much thought, because he was still relatively young. Don’t get me wrong. The money would be hugely welcome. It meant never having to worry about anything again.
But as any rich person will tell you, money brings problems of its own, and one of my biggest was Dr Piers MacDonald.
I’d started seeing him after Alana’s death. I’d been having terrible nightmares in which I’d relive the moment she’d fallen to her death again and again, and always I was unable to help. And with David in prison, and my other friends deserting me after what had happened, as if I was some leper whose very presence put them at risk, my life had begun to fall apart. In the end, things had got so bad that I finally decided to visit a psychiatrist for help.
I saw him for a total of about three months. During that time, I was the most vulnerable I’ve ever been in my life. I was young and naïve, and because of that I finally and reluctantly gave in to his repeated requests that I undergo hypnotherapy.
But the treatment seemed to work and the nightmares did fade away, though I was left with a strange feeling that something hadn’t been quite right with the sessions. There were parts of them that I couldn’t remember, as if I’d been put completely under
, and it made me wonder how much I’d revealed about myself. But as time passed and my life took new turns, I largely forgot about Dr Piers MacDonald. It was only after Dad told me about my inheritance that I suddenly thought about him again. Because he was the only person I’d ever completely opened up to, and I wanted to make sure he would keep his promise of client confidentiality.
A few days before I headed back to Sri Lanka, I googled him, which was when I got my first real shock. He’d been struck off, not only for molesting clients but in two cases for blackmailing them too. And he was still alive.
He knew that I was Sir Hugh Roper’s illegitimate daughter, and if he found out that Dad was dying, and that we now had a proper relationship, I had little doubt he’d try to blackmail me.
So I made the decision to contact him first, and after some unseemly haggling, we met up in a café the day after Matt and I returned to England. I paid him ten thousand pounds in cash in exchange for all the paper files he had on me, plus the recordings I was certain he’d made of our sessions.
In hindsight it was a very foolish move. I should have left him well alone, and if he had crawled out of the woodwork at some later date, simply brazened it out. I suppose the reason I didn’t was because I knew I’d said deeply unflattering things about Alana. After all, I’d hated her by then for the way she’d killed herself like that, right in front of me. How horrible she’d been beforehand. I had no doubt that a lot of vitriol had come out of my mouth, and I may even have suggested that I was glad she was dead, although I don’t remember saying that. Such things could easily be subject to misinterpretation, and yes, I was worried that if Dad heard them he might reconsider his decision to leave me so much of his money.
So that was why I agreed to pay MacDonald. Not because I wanted to cover up a crime, but so that I could move on.
Of course, the problem hadn’t gone away. I suspected the reason I was here now was due to MacDonald approaching either that vengeful bitch Diana or her feckless son to sell them the information. And I had to assume that if it was one of those two behind it, then they weren’t going to let me go.
Kill A Stranger: the twisting new thriller from the number one bestseller Page 21