Piers looked as though he was struggling not to hit her again.
“You really are a moron, aren’t you Piers? I truly can’t remember dealing with such a dum-dum, never in all of my life, and I’ve dealt with a lot of thickos! You two remind me of those builders who spent all day building that big wall, and then realised that they had trapped their van inside it, and had to take it down again so they could go home.” Kathy laughed again.
“Okay, you’ve had your fun. What is the deal?”
“The deal will be discussed on the luxuriously comfy sofas in the reception area of The Midland. So come on Ben, get your foot-to-the-floor!”
“We can’t discuss this in a public place Kathy. Are you mad?”
“We can, and we will. So get me there, as soon as you can or the genie is going to get out of the bottle.”
Ben started to indicate, and the car started slowing down.
“What are you doing Ben?” asked Piers.
“Yes Ben, what are you doing?” asked Kathy, in a sarcastic impression of Piers. Ben pulled the car onto a pub car park. The sign said “Roaches Lock” but the place was deserted. The pub backed onto the canal.
Ben leapt out of the car and threw open Kathy’s door. Without warning, he grabbed two handfuls of Kathy’s hair and started dragging her out of the vehicle. Kathy screamed in pain, and terror. Ben was pulling at her hair so hard, but Kathy wasn’t moving, she was trapped by the seatbelt.
“Ben, for fuck’s sake!” snapped Piers, he was panicking, desperately trying to undo Kathy’s seatbelt clip, as Ben was dragging at his two fists full of hair. It looked, and sounded like Kathy’s hair was about to be ripped from her scalp. Piers released the clip and Kathy helped herself on her way out of the car, throwing herself out in a bid to relieve the pressure of her hair being ripped out. As she launched herself out of the car, Ben threw her onto the stoney, gravelled car park, and began kicking Kathy. Over and over again, in the head, in the body, she made no noise, she was too busy trying to curl herself up in a ball, desperately trying to protect herself from this agonising onslaught of depraved violence.
It was no good though, Ben kicked Kathy’s head so hard, she flopped out on the floor. She looked dead.
“You fucking idiot!” said Piers, as quietly as he could. He looked around, there were lights of houses just across the road. A bedroom light was shining just twenty-five metres away from where Kathy was lay in a heap. “You fucking idiot. Get her in the car. Now!” Piers started lifting Kathy’s shoulders. Ben just stood there, his fists clenched by his sides. He was rocking, he had tears in his eyes. Tears of pure rage.
“Ben! Come on!” Piers grabbed Kathy’s shoulders and nodded to his side-kick to grab her legs. “Come on, get her back in the car. Hurry the fuck up.”
A few seconds later, Piers and Ben had bundled Kathy into the back of the Range Rover. She was breathing, which was a relief to Piers. She was half lay down, half kneeling on the floor as Piers slammed the rear door shut.
“Get in, I’ll drive,” whispered Piers.
Ben did as he was told. He really wasn’t bothered if Kathy was alive or dead, she’d pushed him too far with that fucking irritating mouth of hers. He couldn’t care less, he could see that he and Piers were going to jail for killing Janet Croft, so what the hell did it matter if Kathy Hopkirk, the most hated bitch in Britain was also dead? They’d driven here to kill her anyway. She’d just outwitted them, and now they had to face the consequences.
This had been a cock-up from start to end, and his gut feeling had told him to steer clear of this, right from the moment Piers mentioned this spot-of-trouble. But, the money that Piers had offered had been the deciding factor. And now, in the past eight or nine hours, Ben’s life had gone from pretty rubbish, to completely hopeless, and all for a lump sum of twenty-five grand. A lump sum that he already owed out for debts that he’d accrued in his business. Ben had had a disastrous day, it was so bad in fact that he realised that he was in shock, as he sat in the passenger seat, lost in his own world.
“You mad fucking bastard!” said Piers as the car approached Mossley, the town they had left ten minutes earlier, when they were headed towards the moors, planning to batter Kathy to death with the spades in the boot, and bury her body in a grave close to Dovestones country park.
“Piers, seriously, shut the fuck up.” Ben’s voice was cold, and very threatening.
“What are we supposed to do now?”
“Piers, if you had a brain, you’d be sat in the back, wiping Kathy’s fingerprints all over that stuff in the bag. The mug, the glass, the cutlery, the door handles, that poxy microwave meal packaging. You’d be wiping the rope all over her skin to get her DNA samples on the murder weapon. Everything that we planned. But you’ve lost the plot.”
“Wait, woah, how the fuck is this my fault Ben? Come on, get a grip here. It’s out of my control if Kathy has alerted people that she was meeting me. How the hell are you laying that on me?”
“It might be bullshit.”
“What might?”
“Kathy telling The Midland staff about the meeting with you. It could be a nothing more than a lie. How can we know if it is a lie or if it’s true?”
There was a silence whilst the two men contemplated the idea in their own minds. It was a good point. Kathy could have just made it up about The Midland. It would be a pretty bizarre thing to say to hotel staff, especially for somebody as famous, and ridiculed as Kathy Hopkirk. It was quite plausible that hotel reception staff would be straight onto the newspapers about this, it was a story in itself. “Britain’s most hated woman fears for her life so much, that she leaves notes at hotel reception desks to tell police where she went, just in case she doesn’t make it back.”
The more that Piers thought about it, the more that he mulled it over, the more he doubted that she did inform the hotel staff. Ben was probably right, it was just a bluff. A bluff to buy her time. By the time that Piers had driven to Ashton, the next town along from Mossley, and had reached the M60 motorway junction, he had decided that he was going home, back to London. He’d decide what to do with Kathy on the journey. He’d find out if The Midland story was true or false, shortly after eleven pm.
Ben was sat next to Piers, in total silence. He wasn’t thinking about Kathy, or Janet, or even Piers and this latest shit, idiotic situation that he’d managed to get himself caught up in. Ben was thinking about his other problems, his drug habit, and his debts, his failing security business and the fact that he never saw his kids, and when he did, they couldn’t be arsed with him. He started thinking about his ex, and how happy she was now with her new boyfriend. It hurt him, even though he’d wrecked the relationship with his violence, his reckless behaviour and one-night-stands. It hurt him to see the mother of his kids happy, because that was supposed to have been his job, and he’d failed at it. Ben was thinking about all the girls he’d managed to get with, and how they’d hated him after a few dates. Ben knew this familiar feeling, this heavy, dark come-down from his beloved cocaine. He knew it all too well. He knew that he needed to take more, or face this revolving cycle of misery and self-hate for the next few days at least.
Piers was thinking about ways around this, if Kathy had been lying about The Midland, then it left him with various options. He didn’t definitely have to go to prison, they weren’t that far down the road yet. Piers looked at the time, it was half past ten. He knew that he’d hear, soon after eleven pm if Kathy had told the reception desk that she was meeting him. One of the three names that Kathy had been talking about was bound to have been Sally King, Kathy’s manager. Piers started nibbling at his nail, feeling a flip in his stomach as the thought of having another half an hour of this nerve-jangling uncertainty playing on his mind.
The car had been on the M60 motorway for ten minutes when Piers came off and joined the M56, the motorway which would take him down past the airport, and towards the M6, which would eventually get him home, i
n roughly four hours time. Piers had not been on the M56 long when he picked up his speed to 80mph and got settled in the middle lane. The motorway was pretty quiet, just a few wagons were meandering along on the inside lane.
Suddenly, Ben turned to Piers and said, “fuck this shit.” As he said it, he unclipped his seatbelt, opened his door, barging it with his shoulder, and rolled out of the speeding car. The door slammed shut, the force of the oncoming wind saw to that.
“Whoah!” said Piers, looking in his rear-view mirror, trying to take in what had just happened. It was too dark to see anything, there were no lights along this stretch of motorway, and there was no traffic trailing behind. He couldn’t see anything. Nothing at all.
“Fuck!” Piers looked down at his speedo, he was still going 80mph. He couldn’t take this in. He couldn’t
believe that ten seconds ago, Ben had been sat there, and now, he had leapt out of the car.
“It was a trick? No, it’s not a trick. That was not a trick. How the fuck could it be a trick?” Piers was mumbling to himself.
The thing that made it so surreal was the silence. Ben had just gone. The only noise was the door opening, and slamming shut and in between, the blast of air hitting the inside of the vehicle. Other than that two-second blast of noise, there’d been nothing.
“FUCK!” shouted Piers, banging his hand on the steering wheel, and pressing his foot even harder against the accelerator. “FUCK!”
“What’s… where am I?” Kathy Hopkirk began stirring on the back seat. She was whimpering in pain. Piers had almost forgotten about her, chucked in the back about half an hour earlier, after taking a severe battering at the hands of Ben.
“It’s alright Kathy, I’m taking you to a place of safety. You’re going to be alright.”
“I… need a… my head… I need a drink.”
Piers handed back Ben’s bottle of water from the drinks holder. “Here. Are you okay?”
Kathy turned around, she’d been knelt, her knees had been on the car’s floor, her body had been sprawled on the back-seat. She’d not moved an inch since Ben had chucked her in that way. Kathy had been knocked out. For the second time in her life, Kathy was coming round from being unconscious. The only time that it had ever happened before was an hour earlier, on that dark, scary country lane where the mini-cab had dropped her off.
“Kathy, are you okay?” Piers asked again. Kathy was confused, she was in pain, as well as discomfort from how her legs had been twisted in the foot-well. She was in bad shape, but she was alert enough to remember that she was in grave danger. She drank the water, realising as she held the bottle to her mouth that her lip was severely swollen and her jaw was feeling tender too. As she opened her mouth to take some of the water, a pain shot down her jaw, and into her chin.
“Ah, shit. I’m in trouble,” she said, pouring the water into a gap at the side of her face. “My mouth.” She managed to say.
Piers was concentrating on the road ahead, which was in complete darkness, as well as trying assess how badly Ben had hurt Kathy. His eyes kept flicking up at the rear view mirror, looking at Kathy, and looking through the back window, convinced that blue flashing lights were going to be chasing behind him at any moment.
“I need to see someone Piers. I’m in pain.” Each word that Kathy said was slow, laboured, and there was a strange sound accompanying each word. A kind of slur, as though she’d had a bit too much to drink.
“Yes, yes, don’t worry, I’m on it.”
“I don’t trust you. You said all this. Before. Where is your psycho friend, anyway?” Asked Kathy, her speech was becoming a little more clearer as she adapted to the wounds around her mouth and face.
Kathy’s question inspired Piers. It brought a much craved for moment of clarity in what had been a mixed-up, highly chaotic few hours. Suddenly, the question about Ben’s whereabouts gave him a cover story. A cover story that might, just might be enough to dig himself right out of this absolute fucking disaster.
“He’s. I’ve killed him Kathy. It was you or him. One of you had to die. I didn’t want it to be you. I saved your life Kathy.” Piers started crying, openly sobbing at the wheel as his Range Rover switched lanes, and merged onto the M6 motorway. Tears were streaming down his face and the bright lights of the motorway illuminated them well.
Kathy saw the tears reflecting, she heard the snot and the sniffing and wiping.
But these weren’t tears of sadness. Piers was crying because he had found a way out of this nightmare situation. These were tears of relief.
Kathy may have been accused of a lot of things through the years, but stupidity was never one of the accusations levelled at her. To Kathy, these tears looked about as sincere as Piers himself. Never-the-less, she was intrigued to know what this latest development was all about.
“Thank you.” Said Kathy, before clutching the side of her face and making a sharp intake of breath as the pain from her swollen, bruised skull shot another searing, stabbing pain through her jaw.
“Come on, let’s get you checked over. Try and get some sleep, we’re going to be alright Kathy. Everything’s going to be alright.”
PART FIVE
Chapter 49
Rudovsky and Kenyon had to look away from the person standing before them at Piers Marshall’s door. They trained their gazes at each other, before double-taking back at the individual stood before them. Their mouths were both wide-open, and they looked as though they wondered if this was a prank.
They could not believe what they were seeing. Kathy Hopkirk had answered Piers Marshall’s front door. She looked like she’d just woken up. She looked scared, and ashamed, as though she’d just been caught stealing from an elderly neighbour. She looked beaten-up too, there were dark yellow remains of bruises all around her face, and one side of her mouth looked swollen. There was an injury above her left eye too.
“Kathy?” said Rudovsky, quietly. She didn’t know what else to say.
“Come in,” she said, shrugging. She had the beginnings of tears in her eyes.
“Wow, shit, wait a minute, just stay there.” Rudovsky phoned Miller. He answered on the first ring.
“Yeah?”
“Back-up required urgently. Over.”
The Manchester CID car was parked just around the corner, no more than twenty-five yards away. Miller, Grant and Saunders scrambled out of the car and sprinted the short distance to Piers Marshall’s front door. One or two neighbours were beginning to appear at doors and windows up and down the posh street, desperate to know what all the drama was about.
“Fucking hell,” said Miller, as he caught sight of the missing woman. Rudovsky and Kenyon had had a few extra seconds to get their head around this surprise, and seemed quite accustomed to the extraordinary outcome.
“Where’s Piers?” barked Saunders, as he saw the state that Kathy Hopkirk was in. Kathy waved the detective into the house.
“Ah, hello, are you police officers?” asked a man, walking down the stylish staircase.
“Piers Marshall?” asked DC Rudovsky.
“The very same, and you are?” He had a very charming, very confident way about him. All five of the detectives took an instant dislike to his sleazy, insincere manner. None of the detectives spoke until Piers was standing at the door, next to Kathy Hopkirk. She was shaking, trembling, and her teeth were chattering as though it was a freezing cold morning. It wasn’t cold at all.
“Piers Marshall, I am arresting you on suspicion of holding a person against their will, and on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm to that individual, you do not have to…” Rudovsky made the arrest. Piers was very submissive, he tried the usual feigning of surprise, as did most people who were being arrested, but he soon held his wrists out for Rudovsky’s cuffs.
“DC Grant, can you organise a meat van please?” asked Miller. “DI Saunders, we’re going to need a CSI urgent job here, and send some uniforms.”
“Is there
anybody else in the house Mr Marshall?”
“No… I, er… no, nobody else is here.”
“Are you okay Kathy?” asked Miller. She didn’t look okay. She looked ill, and scared, and battered. Miller’s kind, gentle question, and the look of concern on his face made Kathy break-down in tears. She fell forwards, stumbling to her knees on the spot and began crying openly. “Thank you… thank you…” she said, though it wasn’t easy to understand her through the sobs and gasps for breath.
“Kathy, don’t forget, what we’ve been through, together…” said Piers, it was hard for the detectives to ascertain if the sentence contained a threatening tone of malevolence. They didn’t know his voice, so couldn’t be sure – but Miller thought he heard it, and that was enough for him.
“Right, Rudovsky, Kenyon, get this guy in another room until the meat van lands up. Kathy, come on love, let’s sit you down and let you catch your breath back.”
Chapter 50
“Good morning, and welcome to Sky News Sunrise, it has just turned eight o’ clock and we have some very sad news to share with you this Saturday morning. The King of Light Entertainment, has died. Bob Francis, who celebrated his ninetieth birthday only months ago, died suddenly at his Hertfordshire home earlier this morning.” Eamonn Ahearn, the Sky breakfast show host looked close to tears as he shared this devastating news, concerning one of the best-loved stars of British broadcasting.
“And there is another major story unfolding this morning. Kathy Hopkirk, who has been missing for the past eight days, has this morning been found, apparently safe-and-well in London, by Manchester police officers who were investigating the disappearance. Sky sources have obtained exclusive mobile-phone footage of the incredible moment that police found Kathy, as she answered the door of an address in Belsize Park, in north-west London. But first, we return to our main story this morning, which is the tragic news that Bob Francis, the undisputed British superstar of television and radio for over seventy years, has died. This news was announced just after seven am by the East of England Ambulance Service.”
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