How to Kill Men and Get Away With It(89)

After our meal, Charlie and I head to the room we’ve booked in the hotel for a ‘snooze’ – aka a couple of hours of sleeping and lazy sex – before we go to the bar to see in the new year. Hoping this one comes empty-handed, with no murderous friends, etc.

‘I know I sound like a complete boring twat,’ Charlie says in the lift as he pulls one of my tits out of my dress and begins to play with my nipple. ‘But I’d really quite like this year to be drama free.’

I’m laughing as we reach our floor and I rearrange my clothes. I’m sure we’ve just put on a good show for the security camera guys – well, it is the season of giving.

We head into our room and Charlie pulls a bottle of Champagne out of the minibar fridge. ‘Shall I run a bath for us?’ he asks me.

‘Sure,’ I say, although I’m distracted by a breaking-news story on the TV. ‘Hold on though, I just want to watch this.’

The reporter is a pale and nervous-looking woman of indeterminable age. She’s fiddling awkwardly with her microphone and is standing on the embankment, with the Thames behind her. If the camera turned around, it would show my building. There’s a lot of action going on behind her. Men in full hazmat, one of those white tents. The whole shebang.

She says into a microphone, ‘Once again a body has been recovered from the Thames near the Chelsea Embankment as police continue their search for thirty-four-year-old Bethany Miller, who has been missing since Christmas Eve. The trainee vet was last seen walking home from her Christmas party, which was held at a venue in Soho. It’s thought that Miss Miller may have got into a car believing it to be an Uber. A police spokesperson has confirmed this is a murder enquiry.

‘Police are urging women in the London area to remain extra vigilant as Miss Miller has been the second woman to be found dead in recent weeks. In November twenty-six-year-old Nala Sidhu’s body was discovered in a wooded area of South West London. If possible, the message is not to travel alone, especially at night.’

Charlie’s saying something in the bathroom, but I can’t make out his words. All I can hear is the gushing of my blood as it starts pumping harder and faster around my body. In the pit of my stomach, I can feel something stirring, opening an eye, stretching out like an animal after a long sleep.

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A Letter from Katy Brent




Thank you so much for choosing to read How to Kill Men and Get Away With It. I hope you enjoyed it! If you did and would like to be the first to know about my new releases, click here to follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Littlemisskatyb

Funnily enough, the seed of How to Kill Men was planted while I was watching an episode of Made in Chelsea some years ago, and wondered what would happen if one of the girls just went completely Patrick Bateman on all the cheating men. It sat in my head for a while until the #MeToo movement started to make waves in 2018. It was around that time I started to make some very rudimentary notes about what could happen if women snapped back. I clearly wasn’t alone with this train of thought and have seen wonderful writing about women’s revenge stories over the last few years. Obviously Killing Eve, Promising Young Woman, I Will Destroy You, Sweetpea and My Sister The Serial Killer all spring to mind and I owe them all thanks for helping to pave a path for Kitty’s story. Eventually, my notes became How To Kill Men. If you’re a film noir buff like me, you’ll also recognise the name, Kitty Collins.

I truly hope you loved How to Kill Men and Get Away With It, and if you did I would be so grateful if you would leave a review. I always love to hear what readers thought, and it helps new readers discover my books too.

Thanks,

Katy xxx





Acknowledgements


I have been mentally writing one of these since I was about nine years old (obviously some of the names have changed along the way) so this is a bit of a seminal moment for me. One I didn’t expect to be doing in my dressing gown, eating a cheeseburger because I missed the McD’s breakfast slot on UberEats.

Firstly, the biggest thank you to my wonderful editor, Belinda Toor at HQ. Thank you for taking a chance on Kitty and giving her – and me – a home. Your enthusiasm for my writing has pulled me out of many melodramatic fits of despair over the past year or so. ‘Thank you’ doesn’t feel enough. Also to Audrey Linton and your magical eyes which spotted things other edits had not.

Thank you to everyone else at HQ and HarperCollins for your hard work on the cover, the marketing and that pesky, pesky title. We got there. Now, buckle up.

Thanks to my brilliant agent, Euan Thorneycroft at AM Heath for your unwavering belief in my writing.

A huge shout out to two women – and fellow (fellow!) authors who have been brilliant mentors and friends to me over this process, Julia Crouch and Stephanie Butland. Your guidance and advice have been invaluable to me. As have the care packages. Special thanks as well to Simon Trewin. I’m going to wear you down, yet!

My wonderful friends who have kept pushing me and encouraging me, even when I behaved like a harpy and swore I would never write another word again. Charlotte, Annaliese, Donna, Becky, Laura, Louise, Gwefs and Craig. I love you all very much. Thank you for putting me back together when I needed it.

My sisters, Vicki, Luci, Emily and Chloe. Thanks for having my back.