“Sorry,” she said. “It’s a mess in there. That’s the bathroom, over there. Be quick.”
He did as he was told. Was it just him, or was everyone acting really weird in this house?
When he came out again, Angie had joined Kate. She looked like she was holding something behind her back. Kate had opened the door she’d been holding closed, and gave her friend a determined shove into the room. Angie went tumbling backwards, onto the bed. There was someone in it; he could see the shape of legs beneath the duvet, but not their top half. He had no idea if it was a man or a woman in there. As Angie got to her feet, Kate shut the door on her. He could hear Angie inside, howling with laughter. She was really strange. Maybe she had some sort of mental condition. Maybe they both did.
Kate took him gently but firmly by the arm, and escorted him downstairs to the front door, casting anxious glances over her shoulder until they were at the bottom of the steps. She opened the front door for him.
“I’m sorry about all that,” she told him. “Angie’s a bit – full-on, sometimes. She’s keen to find me a boyfriend, but subtlety isn’t one of her strong points. It can be so embarrassing when she’s like that.”
“She saw me as boyfriend material, then, did she?”
“She sees everyone as boyfriend material.”
“Well I wish she’d tried a bit harder to fix us up, then,” he said. He’d said it jokingly, giving her the chance to laugh it off if she wanted, and him the chance to retreat with his dignity intact if she wasn’t interested. She looked into his eyes for a second or two. She was about to speak when she heard the bedroom door opening upstairs. Angie was on the loose again. She looked worried.
“You asked me if I’m going out tonight. I’ll be at the “Board-room” in Canterbury. On my own. Maybe see you there.”
And before he had the chance to answer, she’d steered him out of the front-door, and closed it behind him. She was almost as weird as Angie, though far less scary. But that made her more interesting, in a way. He couldn’t wait to get to know her better tonight.
#
She sat at the bar, tight mini-skirt, legs crossed to show as much thigh as possible. Force of habit, now. It was the pose which hooked them in, time after time.
She shouldn’t be here. She hadn’t wanted to call Mike out in the first place, but Angie had talked her into it, just as Angie always talked her into it. “You’re worried about burglars, right?” she’d asked. “Then it seems to me that you don’t have much choice, Angel. If you leave that window broken, it’s only a matter of time before someone spots it, and they’ll be inside quicker than a junkie in a cannabis factory. Let me call someone out again. A man this time. I’ll stay at home, if that’s what you’re worried about. And dose up Baby Clive before I go, so he won’t cause you any embarrassment.”
She might have known that Angie would turn up while Mike was still there. The temptation was just too much for her. But to bring the syringe with her! She just didn’t seem to understand that you couldn’t phone-a-victim from the local shop. Not without consequences. Or maybe she did understand, but just didn’t care. The excitement was worth the risk to her. But then again, it wasn’t Angie at risk here. Kate was the one the Police would arrest, she’d be the one to spend the rest of her life behind bars, getting slashed across the face and worse by other inmates. Angie would probably be giving interviews to reporters, saying how shocked she was, and how Kate had always seemed like such a nice girl to her. She’d wallow in the limelight of being the ex-best-friend of a celebrity serial-killer.
If she hadn’t shoved Angie into the spare bedroom when she came upstairs, who knows what would have happened? Once Mike had seen the syringe, there would have been no going back. But he wasn’t handcuffed. She wasn’t at all sure that the two of them would have been able to subdue him, not even with the syringe as a weapon. He did a physical job, after all. And besides, she’d liked him. He seemed nice. Men were usually only nice to her when they were trying to get her on her back.
Yet despite all that, she’d told him where she’d be tonight. She hadn’t planned to go out. She’d gone out yesterday, and found Clive. She never did this twice in a row. Never two months in a row, unless she was desperate; the risks appalled her.
Why, she asked herself, did you tell him you’d be here? You can’t have a relationship, you know that. Sooner or later, you’d have to bring him home, and then Angie would be there waiting for him. Sooner or later, you’d ask her to be there, even if she hadn’t invited herself. The temptation would be too much. All that blood, seeping through his veins, through his jugular, just waiting to be tapped. Even if it was someone she knew, someone she cared for, she’d still drain them if the Craving was bad enough. But the guilt afterwards would be so much worse. She wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to cope with that.
She looked at her watch. Quarter to ten. She’d been here for nearly an hour. Still no sign of him. Maybe that was for the best, though. She’d been that close to doing something really stupid. After everything that had happened at home that afternoon, was it any wonder that he hadn’t turned up? He must have thought she was some kind of psychopath. Which was, of course, a pretty accurate assessment of her, in all the circumstances.
It would be a relief to go home. She didn’t like these places. She came to them because it was the easiest place to meet men after dark. Ironically, it was the only safe place to meet them at night-time. Safe for her, of course. Not so much for them.
But still, she didn’t like them. She had to sit here on her own, looking cool and confident (she found she only pulled control-freaks if she looked nervous and mousey). But she didn’t feel like that. Tonight, she felt frightened, anxious and pumped full of self-loathing. The Craving usually eased her through the ordeal, but there was little of that tonight. She had someone tied up at home; she’d drunk before she came out. She was all on her own this time round, without even her addiction to buoy her up.
She picked up her handbag from the bar, and shuffled her bottom off the high barstool. She took one last look around the room. There was the long bar behind her, tables to her right, sofas to her left, and a packed dance-floor in front of her. She was only twenty seven, but still she felt old here. She’d have felt happier in a pub rather than a club, but people talk to you in pubs. Clubs were far more anonymous, because the loud music meant that the only conversation you could have was to shout in one another’s ears. No-one else could hear you that way. Anonymous was good. Anonymous kept her out of prison.
She was just about to start walking towards the door, when she noticed someone looking at her from the sofas. He was maybe thirty, and just the type she went for. Good-looking, confident, not too old, not too young. In Goldilocks terms, he was just right. And on his own, by the look of it, which was important. No witnesses. But what to do? She didn’t need anyone right now, not really (however much Angie had tried to convince her to the contrary). If it was bad enough worrying about one person chained up in her house, how much worse would it be with two?
The Craving stirred within her. “Why not?” it whispered. “Angie’s already volunteered to help you farm them. You’ve done all the hard work already. It’s time to claim your reward.”
She switched on “the look” for him. Cool, confident, sexy. He smiled. She picked up her bag and walked across the dance-floor towards him, never breaking eye-contact. The look, the walk, the attitude, everything was perfect. He didn’t stand a chance now the Craving was back to keep her company. She’d be drinking him before the night was out.
She stopped a few feet away from him. His eyes wandered over her body, feeding on it, just as she would soon be feeding on his.
She moved closer. “Kate,” she said, her lips brushing his ear. Keep it short, to the point. Too much talking could spoil the moment.
He got to his feet. He opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly closed it again. He was looking at something over her shoulder. She was tempted to glance over her shoulder to see what he was looking at, but that would show a lack of confidence, a lack of focus. She had him. She intended to keep him. No distractions. She was in control.
“And you are?” she asked.
There was a hand on her shoulder. Some girl; tall, tarty, tits all over the place.
The girl lent into her, shouting in her ear. “Are you trying to get off with my boyfriend?”
Kate’s confidence evaporated in a second. The girl had friends; two or three of them gathered behind her. Barely grown-ups. They all looked ready for a fight. She held her hands up to placate them.
“Sorry. My mistake.”
“Too fucking right it was.”
“I’ll go. I thought he was - ”
“Well he’s not. So fuck off, you dirty slag.”
“Deck her, Debs,” said one of the friends. “Teach the old slapper some respect.”
“Really, I’m going. I don’t want any trouble.”
Debs gave Kate an experimental shove. Kate staggered backwards a step or two, wobbling on her high-heels. She bumped into the man she had been trying to seduce. He pushed her back towards Debs, no doubt trying to get back into his girlfriend’s good books. The two of them collided. Debs took a swing at her, which caught Kate across the face. It wasn’t hard; more of a slap than a punch. But she wasn’t used to being struck. She felt like crying. This was getting out of control. Sooner or later, this would kick off, and they’d tear her to bloodied pieces between them.
“I’m going,” she shouted over the music. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m going. I don’t want any trouble.”
And then the bouncers were there, one of them talking to the group of women, the other taking her by the arm and pulling her towards the door. They were throwing her out! She hadn’t done anything, but they were still throwing her out. Never mind. She was getting out of here in one piece, which was the main thing. She wouldn’t be coming back, not ever. It was a mistake coming out tonight. She already had someone at home. She should have stayed there, feeding in peace, rather than coming all this way to see a man who hadn’t even had the decency to show up.
The doorman left her at the exit. She took a few seconds to compose herself. She felt like crying her eyes out, which at her age would be embarrassing to say the least. A few deep breaths, and she was ready to walk back to the car. She’d made it about ten yards, when she heard a shout behind her. Startled, she looked back towards the club. Debs was running towards her, her gobby friends in tow. Any doubts the girl might have had about whether or not to kick the crap out of her appeared to have been resolved. And the bouncer was nowhere to be seen.
She ran. Her high heels slowed her down. They were on her in seconds, pulling her down to the ground like a pack of wolves, punching her, kicking her, pulling her to pieces. She covered her head as best she could, curling into a foetal position as three of them set about her. One of them stamped on her left elbow, grinding it into the cold pavement. A kick to the forehead, just beneath her interlaced fingers, sent her into nauseous shock. This was it. This was where it was all going to end. They would beat her into a coma. And someone would go to her house, and find that man – whatever his name was – chained to her bed, and they’d lock her up forever. Better to just get it over with, here and now, once and for all. She uncovered her head, and waited for them to send her to the relief of oblivion. It was what she deserved after all, a tiny fraction of what she deserved after all she had done.
And then all of a sudden Mike was there.
#
He was late. Not deliberately; he’d never understood the playing-it-cool thing. He just had a habit of leaving everything to the last minute, and the train was pulling away from the platform as he pounded up the concrete stairs. He’d thought of running back home to collect his van, but it wouldn’t have saved any time, and he wouldn’t be able to have a drink all night. She was so attractive that it intimidated him a little, and he felt that a few drinks might help him relax a bit. A lot of drinks might have helped him relax even more, but he’d probably say or do something stupid (not for the first time), so best to stick to three and four to minimise the chances of being dumped on the first date.
Not that he was totally sure that this was a date. She’d told him where she would be tonight. That wasn’t to say she’d be there alone. Girls never went to night-clubs on their own, in his experience, unless they were really desperate, and Kate wasn’t desperate by any stretch of the imagination. At best, she would be surrounded by girlfriends when he arrived, which would make it difficult to talk to her (he wasn’t all that good in groups of strangers). At the worst, she’d have another bloke with her, in which case he’d stay for a couple of drinks and then find some excuse to slope off as soon as he could. He could always say he was on call for work tomorrow; it was an easy excuse for someone in his line of business.
No, scratch that; at the worst, Angie would be there too. In which case there was no point even staying for one drink, yet alone a few of them.
He arrived at “The Board-Room” about three quarters of an hour later than he’d intended, fearing that he’d missed his chance. More than likely she’d got bored of waiting for him, and moved on to somewhere else (if she’d even remembered inviting him in the first place). Should he look into a few other clubs in the area, to try to find her? That would look pretty desperate. But it was probably better to look sad and apologetic than to stand her up altogether.
As he was walking down the street, he could see three women giving someone a kicking on the pavement. Awkward. If they had been blokes, he would have waded straight in there, but it was different with women. It wasn’t as if he could fight them, after all! He had visions of the three “ladies” turning on him, trying to kick the crap out of him, while their original victim hurried away unnoticed.
He hurried towards them, still uncertain precisely what he was going to do when he got there. Shout at them, maybe, hope he scared them away. Two blokes came out of the club and stood nearby, egging them on. He swore to himself. How much worse could things get? Maybe he should just fetch the bouncers and leave them to sort it out. Taking on five people was a bit much for him to tackle on his own.
The woman on the ground was holding her arms over her head, trying to shield her skull from flying feet. He had to help her, no matter what. They’d kill her if this carried on much longer. He wouldn’t want that on his conscious.
And then she uncovered her head. Kate! It was Kate. The nearest girl – a brunette, barely out of her teens – took a step backwards, as if she was about to take a corner in a football match. Kate’s blonde head remained motionless on the pavement, vulnerable and unprotected. One hard kick to the skull might be all it would take. Serious injury, brain damage, maybe even death.
“Kate!” he shouted. He barrelled into the girl as she was drawing back her leg, sending her flying backwards on to the ground. One of her friends started screaming at him, while the other went to her assistance to see if she was okay. The two men moved in. No point in reasoning with them; he could see that they weren’t coming over for an intellectual debate. He took a swing at the first man, sending him staggering backwards into a wall, but the second man rushed him, bundling him to the pavement, throwing punches all the while.
He fought to regain his feet. He’d seen what these animals had done to Kate when she was down. He needed to be standing up, fending them off. It was the only slim chance he had of getting Kate and himself out of this mess in one piece.
The young brunette was up again, and all three girls descended upon him, screeching obscenities, demanding that “Chris” should “rip his fucking head off”. He pushed his assailant away and half regained his feet, but the other bloke waded in, sending him down on his back again. Two of them, with three frenzied women as back-up. This wasn’t the night-out he’d planned.
Finally, the bouncers waded in. It took four of them, but between them they pulled the men off Mike, and pushed them to one side. Chris retaliated, but a punch to the head from a doorman (who looked about five stone heavier than him) persuaded him to stand where he was told. The women were rounded up with rather more difficulty, one of them slapping one of the bouncers across the face before her male friends calmed her down, fearing that they would bear the brunt of any repercussions.
“You’re dead,” the brunette shouted at Mike, as he went to Kate’s motionless side. “And I hope I’ve killed that dirty old slag, too.”
He put his hand on Kate’s shoulder. She looked up at him. Her face was cut, and she didn’t look totally with it to him. She seemed to be having trouble focussing.
“Call an ambulance,” he told the bouncers.
“No,” she shook her head. “I just want to go home.”
“And the Police.”
She was suddenly focussed. “No. No police, Mike. No police.”
“They could’ve killed you.”
“No police.”
“She’s the one who should be fucking locked up!” protested the brunette. “Dirty slag.”
“I should be locked up,” Kate nodded. Mike gave her a worried look. She must be getting hysterical.
“No police,” she repeated, serious again.
He sighed. What to do? He was conscious that the people who had assaulted them were still hyped up. If the Police weren’t coming, he and Kate would be in trouble the moment they tried to leave. It wasn’t as if the bouncers were going to walk them safely back to her car (not that she could drive it anyway in this state).
A siren sounded in the distance. “No police!” Kate shouted at him again. She was worrying him; she wasn’t acting rationally at all.
One of the blokes made a run for it, haring off down the street as if his life depended on it. His mate followed suit. The girls stood their ground for several seconds longer, hurling abuse after their fast-departing accomplices, but eventually gave it up as a lost cause and, high heels in hand, fled after them, swearing loudly and inventively as they went.
Kate attempted to struggle to her feet.
“You shouldn’t move,” he told her. “You might have broken something.”
“I’ve got to go,” she said. She clung to him for balance. It made him feel ashamed in the circumstances, but he felt a thrill at her body being pressed against his. I must be sick, he thought to himself. She’s half dead, and you’re still fantasising about shagging her.
An ambulance entered the street. Kate sighed with relief.
“No police,” Mike reassured her, as if speaking to a child awoken by nightmares.
“And no ambulance,” she pouted. He stared at her. She allowed herself the tiniest of grins.
“Now you’re taking the piss,” he said.
#
She left Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother Hospital at five o’clock in the morning. She’d been diagnosed with two possible broken ribs, multiple bruising and concussion, but she’d refused to allow them to keep her in for observation. It was still dark outside. She had to get home before it was light. And she had to check that her special guest had not woken up and made a groggy break for it in her absence.
With Mike holding he arm as if she was his grandmother, and with an information sheet about head injuries clutched in her free hand, she made her way through the automatic doors into the car-park outside. A taxi was waiting for them there; “no extra charge after midnight”. She would have liked to have picked up her car (well, Angie’s car actually), but a taxi back to Canterbury would have cost a fortune, and there was no time. She needed to be home before sunrise. Angie could collect it later.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked anxiously. “You look awful.”
“Flatterer.”
“No, I just meant -”
“I know what you meant. I was just teasing.”
“What happened? Why were they – doing that to you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just got up to leave, and she was in my face. And then they all followed me outside. You pretty much know the rest. You’re a bit bruised yourself.”
“Yeah, but you should see the other guys.”
She gave a suppressed laugh. “Don’t. It hurts.”
“Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. Sorry you had to get involved in this. I’m glad you did; I don’t think I’d still be around if you hadn’t shown up when you did. But you shouldn’t have had to. It was my problem, not yours.”
“It was my fault, though. I missed my train. I was late. If I’d have been there on time we might have been safely back home by now. At our own homes, I mean. I didn’t mean to suggest -”
“If you don’t stop apologising, I’m going to beat you up myself.”
It was his turn to laugh. “I reckon I could take you. In a fight, I mean. I didn’t mean -”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Sorry.”
She slapped his leg. “If you say that one more time!”
“If you’re going to smack me every time I apologise, we could be here for a long time. I’m starting to like it.”
The taxi pulled up outside her house. He looked at her with concern.
“Shall I come in?” he asked. “Just to check that you’re okay?”
“No.” She shook her head violently from side to side. “You can’t come in.”
“Just until you’re settled.”
“I said no.”
Her voice was sharper than she meant it to be. She touched his leg. “Sorry. It’s been a long day. I just want to go to bed.”
“Stop apologising,” he joked, but she didn’t laugh this time. She gave him a smile; small, but heartfelt. She glanced over towards Angie’s house. The bedroom light had just gone on. Kate got out of the car quickly.
“Take care of yourself,” he said.
“You, too,” she replied. She took another look at the house next door. “You’d better go now.”
“Are you sure you don’t want