How to Kill Your Family(46)

He grins again, and tells me that he rather likes saying ‘Barbados’, which is fine, since I won’t be respecting any word he’s chosen. ‘You could charge for this. You’re not the full-on model experience but you’re thorough,’ he says, looking up at me. I ignore him and put the noose over his head.

‘I’m going to tie you up to this hook, and you’re going to jerk yourself off as it gets tighter. I’ll control the level, and I’m going to watch you getting closer and closer. You’re going to squirm and wriggle but you’re going to carry on. Don’t waste my time with anything less than the full show. And when you’ve finished, it’s my turn.’

I place the end of the rope around the hook and complete another knot, allowing myself a moment of pride in my craftsmanship. I hold the ends of the ropes in my hand and begin to tighten the noose by pulling on them gently. Lee begins to stroke himself, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. I pull harder, and his eyes fly open, but I urge him on with a rough bark. I keep my hand steady and let him get accustomed to the pressure, as his neck bulges slightly and his face grows redder under the perma tan. After thirty seconds, he’s groaning as I tell him to go harder. And then, as I lean closely towards his flushed face, I kick the stool out from under his feet. He drops suddenly, and I let go of the rope. My knot holds, and Lee starts to lash out with his feet, writhing and twisting so much that I have to move away fast. His hands are grabbing his neck, clawing at the rope, but I move behind him and pull them down hard. Important not to leave marks. It doesn’t take long, you know. Fast but agonising – for him but also for me as I check the door every few seconds. His eyes look like they’re almost popping out of his head, and his tongue is hanging swollen between his lips as he desperately tries to get air. I think for a second about telling him who I am, but I can’t be bothered. I’ve never cared about Lee. Killing him is a means to a bigger end and he doesn’t warrant an explanation. Within forty seconds he’s unconscious and then he’s dead. Looking at my watch, I see the whole thing has taken less than four minutes, as Deirdre the first aider in Peckham had so obligingly disclosed. Ta da! Fairly disgusting man dies in a fairly disgusting way. Hardly momentous. Except for him, I suppose.

Once I’m sure he’s dead, I get moving fast. Had someone walked in during our little game, I could’ve told them that this was a couple’s room and they’d have left no problem. But this would be harder to explain. I untie his hands and wipe them down with antibacterial wipes. I move the stool a tiny bit closer so that it would appear he’d knocked it over himself and I pack up my stuff carefully, leaving only the rope around his neck. I’d only handled that with gloves, and he’d held it for a minute so hopefully that would be enough. I put my bag over my shoulder and take one last look at the figure behind me, hanging still now. Shame they didn’t let you take phones in here, a last photo to remember Uncle Lee might’ve been nice. Not one to frame though – he looks pretty grotesque. I shut the door behind me, and walk down the corridor, where people are congregating, kissing, flirting. A tall man wearing an animal mask leans against the wall and looks me up and down as I pass him, reaching out for my hand and lightly brushing my fingers. I don’t stop walking, wondering which horny stranger will find him. Would it be that girl in the assless trousers, or perhaps the couple in cheap masquerade masks who both could’ve put in a few more hours at the gym before wearing such unforgiving latex? It’s up to the gods now, but I fervently hope that whoever it was had the foresight to go to the tabloids. Hat firmly on, I go back to the cloakroom where I retrieve my phone and head out into the night.

*

For all that I found killing Lee to be the most painstaking of the lot, the aftermath was delightful. If the waiting around in posh bars and enduring the sight of naked strangers degrading themselves was a trial, the newspaper coverage of his death more than made up for it. News broke on Monday morning, just as I headed into work. ‘Tycoon’s brother dies in sex game gone wrong’ splashed the Daily Mail. ‘Kinky Artemis found dead in sex dungeon’ was the Mirror’s preferred angle. Even the Guardian couldn’t resist, though their headline needed work. ‘Businessman’s brother dies in accident’ buried the lede a little I thought. Still, I appreciated the word accident, which all the papers seemed to emphasise. Quick work from the Artemis family PR there, calling it a tragic accident and vainly attempting to muddy the waters as to why this billionaire’s brother was found dead at a sex club in Mile End. ‘It’s so inexplicable,’ said one unnamed family friend, ‘Lee was a happily married man and loved nothing more than weekends in the countryside with close friends. I can only imagine that he was still grieving the devastating death of his son Andrew. We can never know what such a loss can do to a person.’ Nicely done, I thought. You can’t say anything too critical once someone has invoked a dead kid, can you?

The media coverage trundled on for a few days, but the family machine was in gear, shutting down anyone likely to speak, and the coroner’s report didn’t give them much else to go on. I did feel a pang of regret for not dressing up the scene a little more. An orange in the mouth, or a choice pair of stilettos would’ve given the press a few more inches of coverage, but I’d let sense prevail on balance. No need to get cocky with it. I wanted him dead, and I wanted him dead in a way that would be hastily glossed over. I found myself thinking of Lara a lot over the next few weeks. I wondered whether she was secretly, or perhaps not so secretly, relieved. The loss of her son would have been immense. But the loss of a philandering manchild husband who treated her callously for decades probably felt like a gift. Perhaps now she could detach herself fully from the Artemis family and fulfil the potential she had before she came into contact with them all. I was imagining a future for her, which was strange for me, given that she was still on my list. But the more I turned it over in my mind, the more I lost any heart for it. In many ways, she seemed like as much of a victim as my mother, her life swallowed up by a selfish and thoughtless man who cared little for her happiness if it didn’t involve his own. And more practically, there would doubtless be an iron-clad prenup involved, exempting her from any claim to Simon’s fortune, which meant that I wouldn’t have to worry too much about losing out on my final bonus.