How to Kill Men and Get Away With It(85)

‘And if I don’t?’

‘Then I’ll go to the police with a different story. Just as juicy, maybe even more so. The beautiful Instagram star who has been trawling the web for rapists and sex offenders to feed her blood lust.’

‘So, blackmail basically? It’s him or me?’

‘Look at him,’ she says. ‘He shouldn’t even have got bail. He shouldn’t be spending his time in a luxury hideaway. He still thinks he’s untouchable.’

‘Unlike my daughter,’ he scoffs.

It’s that comment that does it for me and I think he realises it as soon as it comes out of his mouth.

‘Your dad told me a story about you once, Kitty,’ James says. He looks me directly in the eyes. ‘He told me about a time you begged him to take you to one of the abattoirs. You were about twelve, I think. You were desperate to know what your daddy did all day. He told me that you wanted a go.’

I know the day he’s talking about. The truth is obviously different to the version James has heard. But it was the day my dad learned to keep one eye on what was going on behind him. He’d taken me to the Hampshire abattoir after I refused to eat my cooked breakfast. After throwing the plate at the wall and screaming at me to get dressed, he forced me into his car and drove us there. He showed me the animals that had been delivered that morning. Mostly chickens, which were always killed en masse in a gas chamber. There were calves and piglets and lambs too. It was spring. Baby season. He’d dragged me through the slaughterhouse and given me a stun gun.

‘Shoot one,’ he’d said. ‘Let’s see what you’re really made of, Kitty.’

Any other twelve-year-old girl would have been beside herself with just the thought of murdering an animal, a baby ripped away from its mother before it was ready. Not me. I took the stun gun, walked up to a piglet – I can remember the way it looked at me, curious, it didn’t know I was a threat – and I shot it. Right between its eyes. The stun guns were bolt guns back then. I’d shot a metal bullet into a piglet’s head and hadn’t flinched. I stood there and watched, feeling nothing as it convulsed on the ground, the other pigs around it starting to panic. I didn’t feel a thing. No wonder my dad had a pact with James.

He knew I’d fucking kill him if he laid a finger on me.

‘Okay.’ I turn to Hen. ‘How are we doing this, then?’

She smiles. It’s ghoulish. ‘See? What are friends for?’

Hen tells me her plan and James just sits there. I’m not even sure he thinks I have it in me. Not until I take the electric stun gun (progress) out of my Chloé handbag and shoot him in the head.





69


THE PEMBERTON APARTMENT, BELGRAVIA

While he’s out cold, we’ve got some prep to do, to make this exactly how Hen wants it. Obviously, I have questions. Many, many questions.

‘So why the stalking shit?’ I ask her as we begin to get things ready, starting with the handcuffs.

‘I honestly wanted to have a bit of fun with you. I know it’s twisted but I think that’s something that comes with my dad raping me for years. I was jealous of you. I wanted my dad to fucking disappear. Everything’s always been so easy for you, hasn’t it? You’ve just had it all handed to you. And then both your parents fuck off, leaving you in a fancy apartment, with a huge stash of money. I mean, lucky fucking break or what?’

‘You have no idea what goes on behind closed doors, Hen. I mean, you of all people should realise that. I’ve done nothing to you apart from be your friend. Why would you want to scare me?’

‘My friend?’ She practically spits the words into my face. ‘You’ve not been my friend. You’re all about yourself, Kitty. Or Tor. Or Maisie. And now Charlie. Jesus Christ, even my own dad likes you better than me. Do you know what it feels like to constantly be in the shadow of someone? Of course you don’t because you never have been.’

She pauses for a breath and a gulp of wine as we heave James from the sofa, along the corridor – I’m grateful for the marble floors, it really makes the whole traction thing much easier – and into the master bedroom. It’s been so many years since I’ve been to this place, I’d actually forgotten how big it is.

‘Obviously the whole thing with Adam damaged you. You weren’t the same after that, were you? Not as much as him though. I know you were behind that too.’

‘What? What are you talking about?’

‘I went to see him after you killed that Joel guy. Had a nice little chat with him. It’s amazing how much information you can get out of someone who can only blink. Mind you, takes an absolute lifetime. No wonder there was never a second book.’

I stare at her. ‘He told you it was me?’

She nods. ‘But don’t worry. He’s not going to tell the police. He seems to think he’s getting some kind of Living Karma for cheating on you. I mean, fuck though, someone had better warn Charlie not to get on your wrong side.’

‘You’re going to need to get serious help after this,’ I say, as we heave James’s unconscious body onto the bed and handcuff him to it.

Hen laughs. ‘A man-hating, vegan serial killer is actually lecturing me about needing to get help. Oh, you’ve always been hilarious, Kits.’