How to Kill Men and Get Away With It(57)

Hen smoothed my hair, while my mother made a very angry phone call to the mag’s head office.

‘And tell them I would never be drunk enough to fuck one of their knucklehead readers anyway!’ I’d yelled.

I had to start seeing my therapist three times a week after that and ‘Kitty and the Axe’ became part of our lore. I never forgot though.

But we’re adults now. And we’re more than capable of seeing something bad online, and controlling our tempers.

Except this time.

‘You have got to be fucking kidding me.’ Tor is looking at her phone. ‘What the actual fuck?’ She turns to me first, eyes already half full of tears.

‘What’s the matter?’

She thrusts the phone at me. Twitter.

I look at her phone. It’s a screenshot of a message from a footballer called Raphael Reynolds. He’s young, good-looking, world at his feet plus other football puns. And also, a massive fucking dick, by the look of things.

‘If you don’t reply I will come to your house myself and rape you. Hahahahaha.’

‘Is this for real?’

I stare at the message in shock, look at Tor, who nods. I pass the phone to Hen. She does the same and gives it to Maisie, until all four of us have seen the screenshots.

‘Wow,’ Maisie finally says. ‘Care to share the backstory to this?’

‘I don’t know much more than this,’ Tor says. But she hands the phone back to me and I swipe through several more screenshots. There are about five in total showing him threatening and slagging off a girl who’d clearly turned him down.

‘And they’re for real? Been verified?’ Hen asks.

A heavy, world-weary sigh from Tor. ‘According to Emily (one of the Extras), yes. But he’s been released on bail. Probably won’t even get charged if he says he’s sorry.’

We all sit in a stunned silence. A bar worker comes over and asks us if we’d like any more Prosecco. Maisie shakes her head and asks for the bill.

‘The trouble with men like Raphe,’ Tor says, ‘is that they think they’re untouchable. And to be honest he is. He just does whatever the fuck he likes and leaves his managers to sort out the mess.’

‘Who’s the girl?’ Maisie asks, ‘Do we know her?’

Tor shrugs. ‘It won’t be long before she’s called out on Twitter though. And obviously subjected to a witch hunt.’

We pay up and leave, each of us equally disturbed by the Twitter revelations. But even before I reach the lobby in my apartment building, a plan is starting to form in my mind.





49


KITTY’S APARTMENT, CHELSEA It’s not often that the Extras play much of a part in our lives, but one thought has been sitting in my head, growing, tentacle-like branches stretching out across my brain. I detest the football groupies. They make me want to grab their silly little heads and shake some sense into them. ‘This isn’t a career choice,’ I want to scream. But they would never listen. They all want to be the next Victoria Beckham.

I grab my phone and scroll through my contacts until I find the name I’m looking for. Jodie Jones, Queen of the Extras and the most desperate of the WAG wannabes. I need to make a super-quick new best friend for the night. The football season hasn’t kicked off yet, which means the little dickheads will still be hanging out in nightclubs, getting papped cheating on their partners or driving while clearly half-smashed from the night before.

‘Hey Jodz! Are you out tonight?’

‘Kitty! Hey babes. Yes, we’re going to Raffles. Coming?’

‘I’ll see you there.’

Urgh.

But. It is time for kick-off.





50


RAFFLES, KING’S ROAD, CHELSEA

I hate nightclubs. I remember this fact as I’m stood at one of the bars in Raffles, desperately trying to order myself a vodka to take the edge off and make myself feel less self-conscious. I’ve already had to bat off unwanted attention from three men and I’ve only been here half an hour. My head is banging, I feel claustrophobic, there are too many bodies and not enough air conditioning. Some of the Extras are here and have been milling round me, trying to engage me in conversation, but a) I can’t really hear them and b) I don’t want to spend my night listening to them vacuously gossip and bitch.

‘Amber’s been cheating on Jesse with Andre,’ one of them, I think she’s called Emily, tries to tell me.

‘I don’t give a fuck,’ I say.

‘What? Can’t hear you?’

‘I said “what rotten luck!”’

Even though we don’t have much to do with each other, I’m quite pleased the Extras are here. It makes me look less of a saddo, propping up the bar alone. Even better is the news that they’ve got a table. My feet are fucking killing me. Am I getting old?

‘Come and sit with us, Emily’s got a table.’ I thought I was talking to Emily. Anyway, she links her arm through mine and pulls me over to where they’re sitting.

‘Look who I found at the bar,’ Not Emily says.

‘Well done, Emma,’ says someone else. ‘Hey, Kits, who are you here with?’ She’s probably hoping that Ben and some of his crew will turn up later. He’s very popular with them, although I can’t work out who’s getting the worse side of the deal.