Want You Dead (2 page)

Then he picked up his binoculars again, switched off the lights, made his way over to the window, and opened the curtains a fraction. It was much nicer to watch her in the flesh, rather than on the screens showing images with sound from every room in her place. He could feel her pain better that way. He looked out and down towards the second-floor window across the alley. Her living-room light was on and he could see her clearly. She was holding her phone to her ear and looking very worried.

So you should be.

5

Wednesday night, 23 October

‘Don’t do this to me, please,’ Red said, as the mobile phone again went to voicemail after six rings.

‘Hi, this is Karl. I can’t answer just now, so leave a message and I’ll call you right back.’

She’d left three messages, and still he had not called
right back
. The first one had been at 7.30 p.m. – half an hour after the time he’d said he would pick her up. They’d planned to have dinner at the China Garden. She’d left a second message at 8 p.m., and a third, trying not to sound angry – which had been hard – shortly before 9 p.m. It was now 10.30 p.m. Shed even checked her Twitter messages and Facebook page, although Karl had never before used them to communicate with her.

Terrific
, she thought.
Stood up. How great is that?

Splitting up with Bryce had been a nightmare that still stayed with her. In those first few weeks after she had thrown him out, with the help of the police, she would often come home to find his Aston Martin parked right outside her old flat. He would be nowhere around, but the sight of the car was enough to give her the creeps. He’d stopped doing it after the time she had got really pissed off at him and let all four of the tyres down. But even after that, sometimes during her solitary training runs for the Brighton Marathon, in aid of the Samaritans, she would spot him watching her, always from a distance, either on foot or in a moving car. For a while it had put her off, particularly the evening runs she used to love across the Downs in the falling darkness.

On the advice of the people she had talked to at the Sanctuary Scheme, she had moved out of her flat into this temporary accommodation, rented under an assumed name they had given to her. The second-floor flat, chosen for its position, had no windows that were visible from the main road, and a reinforced front door. It was in a gloomy, tired converted Victorian mansion block that had once been a grand private residence, close to Hove seafront. Her view from all the main windows was out onto the fire escape of an ugly 1950s apartment block, across a courtyard and an alleyway that led to the car park and lock-up garages behind her building.

Although she was meant to feel safe here, the place depressed her. It had a narrow hallway, dingily lit, that led through into a small open-plan living/dining area, with an old-fashioned kitchen that was little more than a galley separated by a breakfast bar. There was a small bedroom off the hallway that she had made into her den, and a larger bedroom, with a window that looked down onto the lock-up garages and wheelie-bin store at the rear.

She’d given the whole place a lick of white paint which had brightened it a little, and hung some pictures and family photographs, but it did not feel like home – and never would. Hopefully, she would be out of here soon and moving into her dream flat, thanks to the sale of her old place going through, and some financial help from her parents with the deposit. It was airy and spacious, on the top floor of the Royal Regent, a Regency house conversion on Marine Parade in Kemp Town, with a huge suntrap of a balcony facing the English Channel, and fabulous views of the marina to the east and Brighton Pier to the west.

She had been advised by the police not to drive her beloved 1973 convertible Volkswagen Beetle, as it was too conspicuous. So it now sat, forlornly, in a lock-up garage she had rented nearby, and she took it out only very occasionally to keep the battery charged and everything turning over.

She poured the last of the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc she had opened earlier, when it was obvious she wasn’t going anywhere tonight with Karl.
Men
, she thought angrily.
Sodding, bloody men.

But this was so out of character.

After the nightmare of these past years that she had been through, Karl Murphy had seemed a total breath of fresh air. She’d been introduced to him by her best friend, Raquel Evans, a dentist. He was a doctor in the same medical centre as Raquel, and a recent widower. His wife had died from cancer two years back, leaving him with two small boys. According to Raquel, he was now ready to move on and start a new relationship. Raquel had had a feeling the two of them might hit it off, and she’d been right.

Early days, but they’d had dinner a few times, and then last Saturday, with his sons staying overnight with his late wife’s parents, they’d slept together for the first time, and spent much of Sunday together. Karl had told her, with a big grin, that he must be quite sweet on her to have sacrificed his regular Sunday-morning golf game.

It was a little bit early in their relationship to be a golf widow, Red had replied, with an equally big – but pointed – grin. They’d spent Sunday morning in bed, then they’d gone to the Brighton Shellfish & Oyster Bar, under the Kings Road Arches, for a seafood brunch of oysters and smoked salmon, followed by a blissful long walk along the esplanade. In the late afternoon, Karl had left to go and collect his boys, and they’d arranged their next date for tonight, Wednesday. He had planned to take the day off to play in a golf tournament and would be over straight after, he had said, to pick her up at 7 p.m.

So where was he? Had he had an accident? Was he in hospital? He hadn’t told her which golf course he was playing at, so she had no idea where to begin phoning. She suddenly realized how little she actually knew about him, despite having checked him out. And probably how little about her he had told anyone.

She toyed with phoning the police, asking if there had been any accidents, but dismissed that. They’d heard enough from her over the past few years, with her frequent 999 calls after yet another of Bryce’s violent attacks. The hospitals?
Excuse me, I’m calling to see if by chance Dr Karl Murphy has been admitted.

She realized, though, from her past experience with men, that she was probably being too charitable. He was more than likely pissed, propping up the bar at the nineteenth hole of some clubhouse, and had forgotten all about her.

Sodding men.

She drained her glass.

Her fifth, counted the man watching her.

6

Wednesday night, 23 October

He continued to sit in the darkness, his binoculars to his eyes; she was still wearing a wristwatch that looked like it had come out of a Christmas cracker. What kind of a cheap skate was Karl, her wonderful new lover, not to have bought her a more expensive one? She’d returned the Cartier Tank watch he’d given her, along with all the other jewellery, when she’d dumped his bags out on the street and changed the locks on him.

Everything except the thin silver band on her right wrist.

He drew the curtains shut and switched the lights on again, then sat at the small round table and picked up a deck of cards. He fanned them out with just one hand, snapped them shut, then fanned them out once more. Practise. He needed to practise for several hours a day, every day, on his existing repertoire of tricks. Tomorrow he had an important gig, performing his close magic, table to table, at the Brighton estate agents’ dinner.

Maybe Red would be there. He could give her a nice surprise.

Now you see the queen, now you don’t!

Once my queen.

Still wearing the bracelet I gave you!

He knew what that meant. It was very Freudian. She needed to hang on to something he had given her. Because, even though she might refuse to admit it, she still loved him.

I bet you’re going to want me back, aren’t you? Won’t be long until you come begging, will it? You really do find me irresistible, but you just don’t realize it. All women find me totally irresistible! Just don’t leave it too long, because I won’t wait for you for ever.

Just kidding!

I wouldn’t take you back if you came crawling and begging. You and your hideous family and your ghastly friends. I hate the whole shitty little world you inhabit. I could have freed you from all that.

That’s your big mistake, not to recognize that.

He looked at his watch. 11.10 p.m. Time to rock ’n’ roll. He placed his mobile phone on the sitting-room table and picked up the keys of the rented Vauxhall Astra. He had parked it in his lock-up garage two streets away, and fitted it earlier with the false number plates copied from an identical car he had found in the long-stay car park of Gatwick Airport. Then he donned his black anorak, checking the pockets to ensure he had everything he needed, pulled on his black leather gloves, tugged a black baseball cap low over his face, and slipped out into the night.

7

Wednesday night, 23 October

Karl rolled around inside the pitch-dark carpeted boot of his car. He had a blinding headache, and he was shaking with fear, and with anger. He was determined not to panic, breathing steady calming breaths through his nostrils, doing his best to think clearly, to work his way out of the situation.

He was trying to figure out where he was and how long he had been here – and why the hell this had happened to him. Mistaken identity? Or had his assailant taken his keys and was now robbing his house? Or worse, going after his beloved children, Dane and Ben?

Jesus, what the hell must Red be thinking? She was at home waiting for him to pick her up. If he could only phone her . . . But his phone was in his trouser pocket and he was unable to move his hands to get to it.

He occasionally heard a vehicle passing, and guessed he had to be somewhere near a country road. They were becoming less and less frequent, which indicated it was getting later. Whoever had done this to him knew about bindings; he was unable to move his legs or his arms, nor spit the gag out of his mouth, and he was suffering painful cramps. Nor did he know – and this frightened him a lot – how airtight the boot was. He was just aware that the faster he breathed, the more oxygen he would use up. He had to stay calm. Sooner or later someone would rescue him. He had to make sure his air lasted.

His mouth was parched and he had long since given up trying to cry for help, which made him choke on the gag, held tightly in place by some kind of tape which felt as if it was wound all the way around his head.

For Chrissake, there had to be a sharp object in here somewhere, surely? Something he could rub against and use to saw through his bindings? He nudged closer to his golf bag, heard the clubs rattle, and slid his arm bindings up against the edge of one of the irons. But each time he tried, the club just spun around without traction.

Help me, please, someone.

He heard the roar of a car, and the swish of tyres on the wet road. Hope rose in him. Then the sound receding into the distance.

Someone stop, please!

He heard the roar of another engine. The swish of passing tyres, then the squeal of brakes.
Yes! Oh God, yes, thank you!

Moments later he felt a blast of cold air as the boot lid raised. A blinding light in his eyes. And his joy was short-lived.

‘Nice to see you again, my friend,’ said a suave male voice from behind the light. ‘Sorry to have kept you, I’ve been a bit tied up. But not as much as you, eh?’

Karl heard the sound of something metal striking the ground, then a liquid sloshing around. He could suddenly smell petrol.

Terror swirled through him.

‘You’re a doctor, aren’t you?’ the suave voice asked.

Karl grunted.

‘Do you have any painkillers on you?’

Karl shook his head.

‘Are you sure? None anywhere in your car? You’re a doctor, surely you must have some?’

Karl was silent, trembling. Trying to figure out what the hell this was all about.

‘You see, doctor, they’re for you, not for me. You’d be better off taking some. With what’s about to happen to you. Please understand this is not your fault, and I’m not a sadist – I don’t want to see you in agony, that’s why the painkillers.’

Karl felt himself being lifted, clumsily, out of the boot, carried a short distance, then dumped down on wet grass. Then he heard the slam of his boot lid closing. ‘I’m going to need you to write a note, Karl, if that’s okay with you?’

He said nothing, squinting against the bright light of the torch.

‘It’s a goodbye note. I’ll free your right arm so you can write it – are you right-handed?’

The doctor continued to stare, blinking, into the beam. He was close to throwing up. The next moment, there was a searing pain on his face as the tape was ripped away. Then the gag was tugged out of his mouth.

‘That better?’ his captor asked.

‘Who the hell are you? I think you’ve got the wrong person. I’m Dr Karl Murphy,’ he pleaded.

‘I know who you are. If you promise not to do anything silly, I’ll free your writing arm. Left or right?’

‘Right.’

‘Now we’re making progress!’

Karl Murphy saw the glint of a knife blade, and moments later his right arm came free. A pen was thrust into his hand, then a sheet of lined notepaper was held in front of him. It was from a pad he recognized, that he kept in his medical bag in the car, clamped to a clipboard. He caught a glimpse of his captor, all dressed in black, with a baseball cap pulled low over his face.

The next moment he felt himself being dragged across the grass and propped up against something hard and unyielding. A tree trunk. The clipboard, with the torch shining on it, was placed in front of him.

‘Write a goodbye note, Karl.’

‘A goodbye note? To who?’