Kill A Stranger: the twisting new thriller from the number one bestseller Read online

  And it didn’t get much grimmer than what I was about to do.

  Or at least so I thought at the time.

  I pulled back the duvet on the bed and looked down at the dead woman. They often say that the dead wear peaceful expressions. This woman didn’t. Her expression was utterly blank, her blue eyes staring into the middle distance. I wondered what her story was.

  There was only one way to find out. Taking a deep breath and ignoring the fact that someone could be watching, I grabbed her with both hands and turned her over so she was lying on her back. Her coat was zipped up to the top and there was a large bloodstain on her chest.

  I partially unzipped the jacket, which was when I saw that several deep stab wounds had penetrated the sweatshirt she was wearing, clearly aimed at her heart. And yet they hadn’t penetrated the jacket. I wasn’t sure what this meant and didn’t have time to think too much about it. Instead, I meticulously searched through her pockets, finding nothing in any of them. Whoever had killed her had taken away anything that might be used for identification. They weren’t going to make this easy for me.

  Now it was time for the hard part. Reaching down, I hooked my arms under hers and hauled her off the bed. Her feet hit the floor with a thud and I had to tense all the muscles in my upper body to keep the rest of her upright.

  I’m forever ashamed about what happened next. Instead of hauling her out by the shoulders, I did it by her ankles, because that way she was less of a weight. At first it felt horrible, coming into contact with her steadily cooling skin. Even through the gloves and her socks, I could still feel it. But I did a good job of pushing my distaste to one side and getting on with the job, although I did gag while I was dragging her body down the staircase as her head thumped hard against each of the stairs.

  In the end, the whole thing took several minutes and a rest break before I’d unceremoniously dragged her to the front door.

  I turned off the outside light and stepped into the wind, watching as the clouds scudded across the night sky, occasionally showing glimpses of a butter-coloured half-moon. Our cottage was situated opposite the village allotments and was remarkably private, which was the reason we’d chosen it. There were a dozen or so other cottages on the other side, but all a good hundred yards away. Although ours was semi-detached, the house next door was separated from it by a thick stone wall, and it faced out onto the road in a different direction, so we never saw the owners.

  I checked that the coast was clear, then opened up the rental car’s boot, which, since I was driving a new Discovery Sport, was fairly spacious. I went back and got hold of the body, by the shoulders this time, and dragged it across the gravel. Finally, with a huge effort and one last furtive look over my shoulder, I manhandled it inside and covered it with a picnic blanket I’d got from the cottage, before shutting the boot with a temporary sigh of relief.

  Temporary, because getting rid of a body was no easy task. I couldn’t just take her up to the woods and bury her. It would take forever to dig a deep enough hole, and I didn’t even have a shovel. I couldn’t burn her either, not without drawing a huge amount of attention to myself. And even considering these possibilities made me nauseous.

  Ultimately I had to accept that the body was going to turn up somewhere and the point was to get it as far away from here as possible. My best option was the nearby river. It was already coming close to bursting its banks, thanks to the almost record-breaking levels of recent rainfall, and was flowing fast enough to transport her a long way downstream.

  I felt awful dumping this poor woman like this, I want you to know that. But she was dead. There was no way of bringing her back. At least if I did this and got Kate back, then some good would have come from the situation.

  Having made my decision, I reversed slowly out of the driveway before turning right onto the single-track road that led round the allotments, then right again in the direction of the river, passing alongside the field that sat across from the cottage. Slowing down, I spotted the car I’d seen earlier from the window of our bedroom. It was an ordinary-looking dark-coloured saloon, not especially new, partially hidden by undergrowth where it had been driven onto the bank at the side of the road. I didn’t recognise the make, but then I’ve never been interested in cars. However, it was parked in a spot where it couldn’t be seen from any of the houses around here, and where, more importantly, it had a direct line of sight to our cottage.

  Stopping to take a look while I had a body in the boot wasn’t an option, so I kept on, driving slowly and carefully, bypassing the village centre. I was terrified that at any moment I might get stopped by the police for some minor discrepancy, even though I’d yet to see a single officer during the six days we’d been in the country.

  I needn’t have worried. We were in a surprisingly quiet area of south-east England. I only passed one car on the ten-minute journey to the place I’d hastily identified as the best spot to carry out my plan – the other side of the river, where I’d been out walking two days earlier.

  I cut the headlights as I came down the track that led to the river, passing a large detached house where there were still a couple of lights on inside. A security light was immediately triggered, bathing the car in an unwelcome bright yellow glow, and I instinctively turned my head away in case there was a camera. That was another problem I faced. Nowhere was completely isolated and there were cameras recording your every move.

  The track reached a dead end near the riverbank and I parked close to the side of a hedge and switched off the engine.

  Which was when I heard a dog barking. Loudly. It was coming from somewhere in or around the detached house behind me.

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ I whispered, leaning forward on the steering wheel with my head in my hands, wondering again what the hell I was doing. I’m not a bad man. I’m not even a brave one. I’m normal. Maybe even a coward. And yet here I was, slumped in a car with the body of a murdered woman in the boot, drawing attention to myself at every turn.

  I sat back in the seat as panic began to tear through me. I forced it down, thinking of Kate with the rope around her neck. I knew that for once in my life, I had to be strong.

  The security light went off and the dog stopped barking. But the longer I sat in here the riskier it became. I had to move. Now.

  I got out, looked towards the house, and – seeing no movement – hurried to the boot. I didn’t dare look behind me as I opened it, removed the blanket and hauled the woman out by her shoulders. With a burst of strength I never knew I had, I managed to close the boot one-handed, then drag her towards the river, using the car as cover, moving as quickly as possible.

  Rather than go straight down to the exposed bank, I turned onto the footpath, which was screened from the house by trees, and continued down another ten yards or so to where there was a gap in the foliage and, exhausted, dropped her unceremoniously close to the water’s edge.

  I stood panting in the darkness while I got my breath back, feeling strangely exhilarated, as if I’d just done a really good scene in a single take. Because that was the thing. The more time passed, the more I got used to what I was doing, and the less human the woman seemed. She’d become a problem that needed solving.

  The water lapped right up to the edge of the path, twisting in angry little whirlpools as it tumbled downriver, only just contained by the banks. Another day’s rain and this footpath and the area around it would be flooded. In that respect, my timing was fortunate.

  With one final deep breath, and realising there was no way back from this, I went down on my hands and knees, ignoring the slippery mud I was getting all over myself, and pushed her like a log into the water, grunting hard with the effort.

  I’d assumed the water would take her like one of those Hindu funeral pyres you see on documentaries about the River Ganges, but it didn’t happen like that. Instead, she stayed almost still, turning slightly this way and that, caught in one of the mini whirlpools, forcing me to shuffle forward so that my knees were
in the water and give her another hard shove. She went out about a foot before floating straight back. Cursing under my breath, I moved deeper until the water reached my thighs and I could feel its strength. It struck me how utterly ridiculous and yet weirdly fitting it would be if I was dragged to my death while trying to get rid of her body.

  Luckily, that didn’t happen. I gave her another push, and this time, thank God, the river took her and she began to drift steadily away.

  I got to my feet, took a couple of steps backwards so I was out of the water and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Which was when the torch beam fell on me and a man’s voice said: ‘Excuse me. What is it you’re doing out here exactly?’

  5

  Matt

  I almost jumped in shock, especially as the body was still very much in view as it began its rapid journey downriver.

  I had to think fast. ‘Jesus, you scared me,’ I said, shielding my face from the torch beam while simultaneously trying to obscure the man’s view of the body. ‘Do you mind not shining that in my eyes?’

  It always pays to be polite, and it worked this time, as he lowered the torch so that it was now shining on my very wet lower half.

  I could just make him out. Middle-aged, a little rotund, roughly my height and dressed in what appeared to be the classic country look of wax jacket and gumboots. His expression was like the tone of his voice: confident, snooty yet not unfriendly. Mind you, I’d have been confident if I had a dog like his: a big German shepherd on a lead, who was staying very calm and still but also carefully sizing me up, as if he was choosing which bit of me to go for.

  ‘So what is it you’re doing?’ he repeated, staring at my wet, filthy clothes.

  But that was a good thing. I wanted him looking at me and not out into the river. I’d already concocted a story and sighed theatrically, careful not to appear panicky or suspicious. ‘If you must know, I had a huge argument with my wife. A bad one. I took a drive to calm down. I was walking here the other day, so I thought I’d come back and just sit by the river. Unfortunately, as you can see, I slipped over and almost fell in.’ I looked down at my clothes and then back at him, making a ‘what can you do?’ gesture. ‘So all in all, it’s been a pretty bad night.’ Which, of course, was something of an understatement.

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ he said, seemingly satisfied. ‘I heard you driving past our house. The only people who usually come down here at this time of night are kids smoking drugs and leaving litter all over the place. We’ve had a lot of trouble with them lately. That’s why I came out to have a look.’

  ‘Well, you can’t be too careful,’ I said rather pointlessly, deciding that the body was going to be out of sight by now and that it was time for me to make a rapid getaway. The less this guy knew about me the better. ‘Anyway, I’d better get back and change out of these clothes. Hopefully the wife will have gone to sleep.’

  And then, as I started towards him, trying to act as casual as possible, the unthinkable happened. ‘Don’t I recognise you from somewhere?’ he said, lifting the torch up so he could see my face better. ‘I’ve definitely seen you. Have you been on the telly? Yeah, you definitely have. What have you been on?’

  All through my acting career, and in the enforced hiatus since, I’ve been waiting to be recognised by someone – anyone. Just one tiny nod to whatever talent I might have had. To make it seem like it hadn’t all been a colossal waste of time and effort. And now the one time in my whole existence I desperately wanted to remain anonymous, someone – at last – fucking had.

  And you know what? This guy wasn’t going to let it go. Even in the gloom, I could see that. Denying it would just make him suspicious.

  I stopped next to him and smiled ruefully. ‘I was on that cop show on Sky, Night Beat. DC Jonno Johnson.’

  ‘Never heard of it,’ he said emphatically.

  I genuinely felt like slapping him then, but that clearly wasn’t going to be much help. ‘Well I don’t know where then,’ I said with a shrug, taking the opportunity to glance casually across at the river, just in case the body was out there in plain view, stuck in reeds or something, which would have been just my luck right now. Thankfully, though, it was gone, and hopefully hurtling rapidly through the English countryside a long way from me and my new-found friend. ‘Anyway, goodnight,’ I said and started past him. But I could feel his eyes still on me, and before I knew it, he was walking in step alongside me, the dog between us.

  ‘No, it was something else,’ he said. ‘It’s on the tip of my tongue . . .’ He stopped. ‘Oh yes, that’s it. I remember now.’

  I stopped too, intrigued.

  ‘That advert. You’re the chap injured in the car crash, the one where you end up in the wheelchair, crying. Your wife has to comfort you. “When there’s nowhere left to go, call Hannett and Stowe, the compensation specialists.”’

  Jesus. I remembered that horrendous scene where, in a neat bit of role reversal, I broke down in tears in my wife’s arms on screen until she had the bright idea of calling the ambulance chasers at Hannett and Stowe, who miraculously made everything right again with a big wodge of cash extracted from someone else’s insurance company.

  I always thought of that advert as the lowest point in my professional life, and this bastard remembered it word for word. No wonder those leeches at Hannett and Stowe were making so much money.

  ‘Yeah, that’s me,’ I said, relieved to be back at the car.

  But he wasn’t giving up chatting yet, asking me if my wife and I were new to the village and, God forbid, even inviting us round for coffee.

  In the end, I had to promise that we’d stop by for a cup of tea at the weekend if we had the time, before finally I turned the car round and, as he stood there waving at me with a big smile as if he’d just met Marlon Brando, I drove away thinking that now there was no way back, because there was a witness who could put me at the scene of the heinous crime I’d just committed, making it very hard for me to deny my role in it.

  And I know what you’re thinking. That this is all very convenient. But it’s the truth. I swear it.

  6

  DCI Cameron Doyle

  Matt Walters wears an expression of injured innocence as he recounts his story. It’s as though he can’t believe he’s been flung into this terrible situation. He looks at me pleadingly with those last words:

  ‘And I know what you’re thinking. That this is all very convenient. But it’s the truth. I swear it.’

  Let me tell you, Matt. You have no idea what I’m thinking.

  I’ve been across the table from hundreds of suspects over the years, listening to them attempt to wriggle out of the crimes they’ve committed, or try to blame others for them. Most of those suspects are easy to read. It’s obvious when they’re lying. But to give Matt his due, he hasn’t paused once so far in his retelling of the events that led him here. Nor so far has he contradicted himself.

  But then he’s an actor by profession – and he’s had a few hours to get his story straight. And truth is, I don’t like him. I admit there might be an element of jealousy in this. Even amidst all the cuts and bruises, you can tell he’s a good-looking guy – a boy-next-door charmer type – who looks ten years younger than the age on his birth certificate. DS Wild commented on it as we watched him through the two-way mirror before the interview. ‘Not bad,’ she’d said with a lazy half-smile. ‘Not bad at all.’

  That wasn’t something I wanted to hear. I’ve had a thing for Tania Wild ever since we started working together three months ago. The problem is, I’m fifty-one, and look every inch of it, right down to the thinning hair and extra stone in soft flesh I carry round my waist. She’s fifteen years my junior and out of my league in every way.

  So here I am, looking at a man who is my polar opposite. Who is trying to convince me that I should believe him. So I do what every good detective does when they’ve got the suspect talking. Nothing. I don’t give him any help. Neither, credit to her, does Tania
. She just sits back in her seat with her arms folded across her chest, an expression of vague scepticism on her face.

  I motion for him to go on.

  And as he starts talking again, I wonder if he has any idea what his fiancée’s been saying to us. Or who she really is.

  Because she’s a very, very interesting one.

  7

  Kate

  I’ve had some horrible moments in my life, but my God, nothing compares to the sheer ice-cold fear you experience when you believe you are about to die. And when one of my kidnappers cranked a pulley somewhere behind me, and the noose round my neck suddenly tightened, lifting me onto my tiptoes, I was utterly convinced it was the end.

  What got me most was that it was so unexpected. They’d removed my gag, so I’d relaxed just a little. I’d tried to engage them in conversation and made a point of telling them I was pregnant, but to no avail.

  And then right out of the blue, I was being half strangled, my toes barely touching the floor, knowing that one more crank of the pulley would be it. The end of my life. The injustice of it felt almost too much to bear.

  Seconds passed. They felt like minutes. Hours. Every nerve in my body tingled. And it’s true what they say. It was the most alive I’ve ever felt.

  I heard the pulley crank again. This was it.

  And then the rope loosened enough for my feet to sink flat to the floor and the pressure round my neck to ease.

  A moment later, someone walked past, their footsteps loud on the hollow stage. I heard them going down the steps and the door shutting. Silence.

  I sighed with relief. It doesn’t matter how bad a situation is – if you’ve been seconds from death, anything else is tolerable. These people wanted me to know they could kill me any time, but this wasn’t the sole reason why they’d tightened the rope. Everything felt choreographed. The bright lights shining through the blindfold; the ropes binding my arms; the noose; what felt like a stage beneath my feet. As if it was for someone else. A threat of what would happen if they didn’t cooperate.