Killing Kate

by Alex Lake

  Kate hesitated. The last thing she wanted was to get Phil in trouble. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘You need to talk to Phil about this.’

  ‘We have. But—’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said that it wasn’t him, but—’

  ‘Then it wasn’t him. He admitted to hiding outside the house, so why wouldn’t he admit to the car?’

  DI Wynne sipped her tea, then put the cup and saucer on the coffee table.

  ‘I am trying to establish whether it could have been Mr Flanagan’s car,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘It could have been,’ Kate said. ‘But it could have been lots of cars.’

  ‘It could,’ DI Wynne said. ‘One other thing, Ms Armstrong. Is Mr Flanagan a keen biker?’

  ‘Keen-ish. He likes to ride his bike from time to time. Why?’

  ‘We’ve found tracks from bike tyres near the murder scenes.’ She shrugged. ‘Probably nothing, but we’re keeping an open mind.’ The detective stood up. ‘Thank you, Ms Armstrong. That’s very helpful. I’ll see myself out.’

  Kate followed her to the front door and watched her drive away. Why were they trying to prove that Phil had followed her in the car? Even if it was him, what did that have to do with the murders? He was simply upset – very upset – at the break-up.

  And the bike? It was only a bike, surely. Millions of people had them. It didn’t mean anything.

  She closed the door and went upstairs. She had a horrible, uneasy feeling that something was very wrong.

  Maybe Phil had followed her and was lying about it, but that didn’t make sense. If it was Phil, then why would he lie? If it was because he didn’t want to piss her off it was too late for that: that ship had sailed when he confessed to hiding at the end of the street.

  Unless he was covering up something worse.

  Unless he was the Strangler. And it made sense, in a way. She could see the press stories now: MAN DRIVEN MAD BY BREAK-UP KILLS WOMEN WHO REMIND HIM OF HIS EX.

  Kate sat on her bed and hugged her knees. All the optimism of her fresh start with Mike drained away. She felt guilty – which was ridiculous, this wasn’t her fault – and scared. If it was Phil, then was he coming after her? Who the fuck knew? Who the fuck knew anything in this kind of situation?

  But it couldn’t be Phil. It couldn’t. She knew him as well – almost as well – as she knew herself, and he wasn’t a killer. She was sure of it.

  Almost sure, that was.

  8

  Kate looked at her phone, her finger hovering over the green ‘call’ button. She’d been hesitating for a few minutes, but was close to making up her mind.

  She didn’t want to speak to Phil, but she had to know what was going on, and she had to hear it from him. She’d known him for a long time, and she was sure that he would not be able to hide the truth from her. If he was lying, she’d know.

  At least, that was what she told herself. A voice in the far corner of her mind whispered that she was being naïve, that we never truly know anybody, and that, even if we do, people change, and they can change quickly, pivot on a sixpence, be knocked onto an entirely new trajectory if something powerful and unexpected enough happens to them.

  Like an out-of-the-blue break-up with the love of their life.

  She dismissed the thoughts, and called him. He answered immediately.

  ‘Kate?’ he said. He sounded hoarse, and, she couldn’t help notice, hopeful. ‘Hi. What’s up?’

  ‘Can you talk?’ Kate said.

  ‘I’m at work,’ he replied. ‘But yes, of course. What is it?’

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you with this, Phil, but I need to know …’ she paused, ‘I need to know what happened the night you were outside my house. I need to know if you followed me in your car.’

  ‘Have you been talking to that detective?’ he said, his voice suddenly harder. ‘I told her it wasn’t me. Did she get you to call me?’

  ‘No. And if she had, I wouldn’t have done it, for the record. I want to know for my own peace of mind.’

  ‘Like I said, it wasn’t me.’

  ‘Phil, this is important. If it was you, I need you to tell me. I won’t talk to DI Wynne about it, I promise, but I need to know.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Let’s talk face to face,’ Phil said. ‘Now’s not a good time.’

  Kate tensed. ‘You said you could talk.’

  ‘I could, for a bit, but this will take more time.’

  ‘I’ll call you this evening.’

  ‘No. It needs to be in person. That way you can look me in the eye and know that I’m telling the truth.’

  ‘Phil, I’m not sure it’s a good—’

  ‘Then don’t. But I’m not doing it over the phone.’

  Kate paused. She could meet him in a well-lit, public place at a busy time. Maybe in the town centre, on a bench outside.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘How about this evening?’

  ‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘Just tell me when and where.’

  He was already there when she arrived, sitting on a bench in the Golden Square shopping mall, shoppers and workers streaming around him. He had his arms folded, and he needed a shave.

  She sat on the other end of the bench, facing him.

  ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You look different.’

  Kate ran her hand over her hair. ‘Yeah. It was … you know. Because of the women. They all look the same.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Phil said. ‘I like it.’

  She could see that he was lying, but she didn’t care. ‘So. I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘And this is honestly where you want to meet?’ he said.

  ‘It’s fine. As good a place as any.’

  ‘Nice and public,’ he said. ‘I can’t hurt you here. That’s why you chose it, isn’t it?’

  ‘No!’ Kate said, then sighed. ‘Yes. I suppose so. I’m worried, Phil.’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about me. I would never hurt you. Never. You know that.’

  The sudden intensity in his voice startled her; she flinched away.

  ‘What?’ he said, his voice rising. ‘Why are you scared of me?’

  A man in a suit turned to look; Phil lowered his voice.

  ‘So what do you want?’ he said, deflated. ‘What do you need to know?’

  ‘There’s been a lot of weird stuff happening lately. Three things, mainly.’

  ‘One of them was me under the tree, right?’

  ‘Right. The other was the car following me—’

  Phil interrupted. ‘Which wasn’t me.’

  She ignored him. ‘And there was another. I think someone was in the house. I came back and the computer was shut down. I never shut it down.’

  ‘I know. It used to piss me off.’

  ‘Which is how I know that it wasn’t me who shut it down. Someone else did.’

  Phil stared at her. ‘Are you saying that was me?’ he said. ‘As well as the car?’

  ‘Who else could it be?’ Kate replied. ‘You have a key. You might have needed a file from the computer, or something like that.’

  ‘I would have asked.’ He laughed sarcastically. ‘Unless of course I was spying on you, or whatever it is you’re going to accuse me of next.’

  ‘Look, Phil, you’ve been upset. You’re not yourself.’

  ‘It wasn’t me, Kate,’ Phil said. ‘I know what the cops – and you, it seems – think. I know they have some idea that I’m losing my mind and doing this stuff in some kind of a trance, but I’m not. I miss you, I love you, my heart is totally broken and I don’t know how I’m going to live the rest of my life, but that does not mean I did these things.’

  ‘Then who did?’

  The words hung between them. Eventually, Phil shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe you imagined it. Maybe you did switch off the computer, or knock the plug out, or something else.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Then it was someone else. But it
wasn’t me. The Strangler, maybe.’

  Kate closed her eyes to fight the tears that were threatening to come. Was she making this up? Was it her who was going crazy?

  When she opened her eyes, Phil was standing up.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘It was nice seeing you.’ He gave a little wave. ‘Bye, Kate.’

  9

  Friday afternoon. Phil had read a study somewhere claiming that the average time that people stopped being productive on a Friday was two fourteen p.m. After that, they entered weekend mode and mentally switched off. They might be physically present in their workplace, but they might as well not have been, because they got nothing done.

  In happier times – when he’d been a relaxed, charming, fun member of the team – he’d suggested to his boss that they recognize this by instituting a two fourteen p.m. finish time on Fridays.

  No point is keeping people here if they’re doing nothing, boss, he’d said.

  Yes, she replied, but it’s not two fourteen that’s important. It’s that two fourteen is about two hours before everyone normally goes home. If we made the official end of the day two fourteen, then everyone would mentally clock off at twelve fourteen. Then you’d come to me with a study showing that to be the average time people stopped being productive, and the working day would end then. We’d end up cancelling Fridays altogether.

  Sounds good to me, Phil said. Should I put it on the agenda for the next staff meeting?

  Sure. And how about preparing a proposal for a mini-weekend in the middle of the week? We could have Wednesdays off too.

  I’m on it, boss.

  It hadn’t happened, of course, but at least he’d been the kind of person who could joke about that kind of thing.

  Now he was watching the clock, hungover, and waiting for the moment he could go home and have a nap. Or a cup of tea. Or a beer, maybe.

  He was going out with Andy, to some bar in Liverpool where there was, according to his friend, wall-to-wall pussy, whatever that meant. For Andy, going out was still about getting smashed and picking up women, although his picking up women bore a close relation to his fishing: lots of time and money invested in it, but not many actual fish caught or women picked up.

  Phil hadn’t done that since he and Kate had got together when he was sixteen, and it wasn’t like he’d done much of it before then. A few discos, some nights sneaking into pubs that didn’t worry about the age of their punters, evenings drinking illicitly procured cider in the park.

  Now, though, that was what he had ahead of him. He was a late twenties single man who went drinking and picking up women in bars in Liverpool which had wall-to-wall pussy.

  He looked at the clock. Three twenty-nine. He was well past the end of his productive phase for the day, although the truth was that he had barely been in one at all; he’d arrived late with a nasty headache. Cheap red wine clearly didn’t agree with him, although in the quantities he and Andy had drunk the night before, it was doubtful it agreed with anyone.

  He logged off. He had to go. Maybe go for a run. Clear his head.

  As he crawled over the Thelwall Viaduct – the busiest, or one of the busiest, motorway bridges in Europe, or so he’d heard – the traffic report came on the radio.

  There was a major tailback on the M62 between Leeds and Manchester; the motorway was closed. Apparently a badly attached surfboard had fallen off the roof of a car and caused chaos behind it. The driver was probably oblivious; he’d only find out when he got home that he had left something behind.

  Shit. Andy was coming back from Leeds. He’d be late, and Phil didn’t feel like staying in on his own. He dialled his friend.

  The phone went to voicemail.

  ‘Hey, mate,’ he said. ‘I hear there’s traffic on the M62. Let me know your ETA.’

  Ten minutes later Andy called back.

  ‘Mate, it’s fucked,’ he said. ‘No way through. I’m aborting the mission.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘I’m going to see my buddy, Chaz. You know, the one that married that hot Polish chick, Elsa.’

  ‘The one you went to uni with?’

  ‘No. A guy I met skiing.’

  Phil shook his head. This was typical of Andy; he had seemingly random friends all over the place, the result of his easy-going, open character, and his complete lack of any boundaries. He thought nothing of showing up for the night unannounced at the home of one of these distant friends, which meant that, over time, he kept in touch with them.

  ‘We can go to Liverpool tomorrow night,’ he said. ‘Unless you’ve got plans?’

  ‘No,’ Phil said. ‘No plans. Tomorrow it is.’

  ‘All right. It’ll be great. Wall-to-wall pussy, mate, remember that. Wall-to-wall pussy.’

  By six p.m. he was half-drunk and feeling sorry for himself. He didn’t want to go to the village; he didn’t want to sit in a busy Friday-night pub on his own, drinking away his sorrows in full view of the people he’d known all his life.

  But he couldn’t stay in. He’d go crazy. What he really wanted was to see Kate, to curl up on the couch in front of a crappy movie with her, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen. Even catching a glimpse of her would be good enough, though. Just seeing her would do.

  But even that was not going to happen, and it was driving him crazy. He had another large swallow of whisky.

  He pushed the glass away. This was a disaster. He had to get out, had to do something. He grabbed his bike helmet and headed for the door.

  10

  Kate’s mum’s car bumped along the cobbled street that led to the Feathered Egg. The pub had a thatched roof and was supposed to be one of the oldest in the country; at one time it had been a coach house and there were stories of murders and robberies and dark dealings accumulated over the centuries.

  The name came from one of those stories: in the time of the witch trials, a chicken had begun laying eggs with feathers on them, which was not, in itself unusual. It was the fact that the feathers were growing through the egg shells, and when they hatched they did not contain fluffy little chicks but baby wyverns.

  This was taken as a sign of witchcraft, and, as there was a known witch in the area, it was obvious that it must be her work.

  No proof was required; there was no other possibility. It was the work of witches, and everyone knew who the witch was. The Witchfinder General himself stayed at the coach house and oversaw the trial, which was swift: he declared her to be guilty.

  No matter that the young – and beautiful – witch claimed to be with child as the result of intercourse (some called it rape) with Earl Belvoir, and suggested that he had staged the whole affair in order to rid himself of her and the babe. No matter that the Witchfinder General was a friend of his. No matter that the wyverns – the only pieces of real evidence – had disappeared.

  She was executed by drowning that very day. Very convenient for the Earl.

  But then, a week later, the Earl’s horse threw him. He died of his injuries. Witchcraft from beyond the grave, some said. Bad luck, others said.

  But justice had been done.

  Her mum pulled up underneath the pub sign. There was a large, feathered egg in the foreground. Behind it stood a confused-looking chicken, a distant witch and a man lying at the feet of a horse.

  ‘Shall I pick you up?’ her mum said. ‘Ten o’clock?’

  ‘I might be a bit later than that,’ Kate said. ‘I’ll make my own way home.’

  ‘Don’t get a taxi,’ her mum said. ‘It’s not safe. Give me a call. I’ll come and get you. But no later than eleven. I’ll be in bed by then.’

  Kate leaned over and kissed her mum on the cheek. ‘Thanks, Mum. Love you.’

  ‘Love you too. Have a nice time.’

  She watched her mum drive away and walked into the pub. It was dark and warm and full of quiet chatter. It was not the usual Friday-night crew that you got in town; the clientele here was older, less frantic, but she noticed that there were fewer than
usual. Perhaps fear of the Strangler was keeping people at home.

  Mike was standing at the corner of the bar. He waved and she walked over.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Happy Friday.’

  ‘You too.’ She felt a strong urge to touch him, to hold his hand or hug him or kiss him. She put her hand on his elbow. ‘Good to see you.’

  ‘What are you drinking?’

  She ordered a gin and tonic; when it came they went to find a table. Mike passed her a menu.

  ‘You want to eat?’

  Kate nodded. ‘I’m starving. Have you eaten?’

  ‘Not yet. I’m going to have steak and ale pie. I always have it.’

  ‘You come here a lot?’

  ‘No. But I always have steak and ale pie, whatever pub I eat in.’

  ‘Not very adventurous.’

  ‘I’m a creature of habit. Plus, I don’t like to waste time deciding. Easier to get something you know you like.’

  Kate laughed. ‘Does that only apply in pubs? Or other restaurants too?’

  Mike wagged his head from side to side. ‘Lasagna in Italian restaurants, crispy duck in Chinese, lamb jalfrezi in Indian.’ He grinned. ‘Keep it simple.’

  ‘Don’t you want to try different stuff?’

  ‘I’ve tried plenty. And I’ve decided that the best way is to find something you really, really enjoy and stick with it.’

  ‘All right then,’ Kate said. ‘I’ll have steak and ale pie too.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. I’ll go and put the order in.’

  Mike went to the bar to place the order. While she waited, Kate picked up one of the beer mats from the table. It had the picture from the pub sign on it. She turned it over; there was a web address and a message.

  Interested in more tales from the bloody history of the Feathered Egg? Go to our website and click on the ‘Gory Stories’ link.

  When Mike came back, Kate tapped the beer mat.

  ‘You know the history of this place?’ she said. ‘How it got its name.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I did wonder, though.’

  ‘Look at the picture. It pretty much tells the story. It’s the usual: powerful man, vulnerable woman. Apparently, there was a local girl who caught the attention of the Earl. He—’