Until Death
Page 1
Table of Contents
Also by Ali Knight
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Acknowledgements
Also by Ali Knight
Wink Murder
The First Cut
About the Author
Ali Knight has worked as a journalist and sub-editor at the BBC, Guardian and Observer and helped to launch some of the Daily Mail and Evening Standard’s most successful websites. She lives with her family in London.
Visit Ali’s website to find out more about her and her psychological thrillers at www.aliknight.co.uk and follow her on Twitter @aliknightauthor.
UNTIL DEATH
Ali Knight
www.hodder.co.uk
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Ali Knight 2013
The right of Ali Knight to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
Ebook ISBN 9781444777123
Hardback ISBN 9781444777109
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
www.hodder.co.uk
To my family, for all their love, support and ideas
1
Kelly spun the rickety display case round with her finger. The pamphlets about domestic abuse coasted to a stop beside her, a mournful child with huge eyes stared out of a black and white photo at her. ‘Children are the real victims …’ the headline said. She pulled her eyes away and caught the receptionist behind the desk opposite sizing her up, her jaw working some gum slowly from one side of her large mouth to the other, masticating over what problem had pulled Kelly in here.
Kelly shifted in her chair, the imitation leather squeaking under her thighs. The drone of stationary October traffic on the Euston Road filtered up from the street. The two women’s glances collided again as if the space were too small for them to look anywhere else. Kelly pulled her beret hard down on to her head, trying to hide beneath it, trying to fight her feelings of failure.
The door across the small lobby opened and banged against the partition as a balding man in a pinstripe suit appeared. ‘You next? Come on in then.’ He held the door open for her as she walked across the poky lobby and into his office. He sat himself down at a desk in front of a shelving unit lined with law books that looked like they’d never been opened. ‘How can I help you?’
‘I want a divorce.’
He smiled on autopilot, small, irregular teeth poking from between his lips and leaned back, the chair groaning under his weight. ‘OK. Let’s just get some details down, shall we?’ He reached for a pen and dragged a piece of paper across the desk. She looked out of the dusty window at the cluster of neon fast-food signs encircling King’s Cross Station like Indians round a wagon train. He didn’t go far for his lunch, by the look of the crumpled McDonald’s wrapper in the waste bin by the desk. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Kelly Malamatos. My husband’s family was originally from Greece.’
‘Can you spell that for me?’
She said the letters aloud. ‘He’s having an affair.’
He didn’t even flicker, didn’t look up. ‘Well, these days you don’t have to actually give a reason. We just work out a financial settlement and you can go your separate ways. How long have you been married?’
‘Five years.’ Get it down, get the money, get the next client in the door. There was no space here for the messy emotions built up over time. ‘I really loved him, for the record.’
The lawyer looked up for the first time and gave her a small smile. ‘There are few who walk up the aisle who don’t feel that. But by the time they come through my door, it’s a distant memory, if they can recall it at all.’ He moved swiftly back to business. ‘Now, does your husband work, or is he on benefits?’
‘He works.’
‘And you, do you have an income?’
‘I make masks for theatre productions. It’s not a full-time job. I take commissions when and where I get them.’
‘So he’s the main breadwinner.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you have children?’
Kelly felt the tragic little pause she always had when asked that question, but she ploughed on. ‘Two. My daughter from my previous marriage and we adopted a son together.’
‘Uh-huh. What’s your address?’
‘We live in a flat above St Pancras Station, next to the clock tower.’ She saw his eyes dart out the grubby window, stare across the Euston Road and up at the Gothic splendour of the huge station and hotel. ‘In the penthouse.’
‘I see.’ He put down his pen and she caught him staring at her shoes. Footwear showed your income bracket more than any other item of clothing. He was rapidly reassessing the dark, nondescript clothes she wore. ‘Well, you�
��re in excellent hands. We’ll see you through the process, make no mistake.’ He leaned back, giving her his full attention for the first time. ‘Tell me about your husband. What does he do?’
‘He runs a shipping company. His grandfather started the business, his late father expanded it and now it’s his. And before you think we’re like Onassis, he’s got money troubles. He had businesses in Greece that have been decimated by the recession.’
‘And the mistress?’
‘She’s his PA.’ Kelly picked a piece of lint off her black skirt. ‘I guess you’ve seen it all before.’
The lawyer puffed up his cheeks for a second. ‘Doesn’t mean it hurts any less for you.’
‘It hurts. But then it always does when your dreams die, doesn’t it? I only care about one thing: custody of the children. That’s more important than the money.’
He looked at her searchingly. ‘It’s unusual for a woman to think that the best she can do is get away with custody of her children. From where I sit, half of everything up there in that penthouse, half of every trust fund, half of every car in that underground garage is yours. It’s my job to get you your fair share.’
She shifted uncomfortably on her chair. She had always been attracted to strong men, big personalities, but for every positive a negative came trailing in its wake. Strong men like her husband didn’t like to lose. ‘Christos will see this as a battle with one winner and he fully expects to come out on top.’
‘Who has your husband appointed?’
‘I haven’t told him I want to leave yet.’
He looked surprised. ‘The first thing you must do is talk to your husband. Tell him your decision.’
She gave a nervous laugh. ‘I’m scared.’
He smiled again; a kinder, more confident face appeared. He leaned across the desk towards her. ‘That’s what the law is for, to achieve what you can’t on your own, Mrs Malamatos.’
‘I’d prefer it if you called me Kelly.’
‘Remember, Kelly, you’re a wife, you have rights. And one of those is the right to leave.’ He was allowing himself to become expansive. ‘After the love has gone, we appear.’
She turned away, anxiety chewing at her guts. She was in here, not a high-end Chancery Lane lawyer’s office with fresh flowers and a college-educated secretary because this was nearest to the flat. Christos sometimes asked her to account for every moment of every day. His manipulation and control masquerading as concern had become more extreme as the years had come and gone.
‘Millions have gone through it, just like you’re doing. Once you emerge out the other side, it’ll be a new start, a new you.’
Now he was resorting to platitudes and it annoyed her. She needed him to know that deep within her was a pounding fear of even being in this office. ‘How long have you done this job?’
‘I’ve been a lawyer for twenty-three years, for my sins. Been here in this building for seventeen.’
‘I bet you’ve seen it all, every lying sucker, every cheating husband—’
He finished the sentence for her: ‘spoilt wives, manipulative mistresses, violent kids. Nothing can surprise me.’
‘You’re very certain of yourself.’
‘Believe me, in this business you get to see how dark human nature is, how extreme some people’s suffering.’
She gave a small nod. ‘I know all about that.’
The buzzer went on his desk and he pressed the button without taking his eyes off her. ‘Not now, Bethany.’ He grinned at her. ‘Here’s what you do. Tell him your decision, try not to get involved in an argument or recriminations. Try to keep it calm and rational. Then come back and see me and we’ll get the ball rolling.’
‘Tell me, are you married?’
‘I’m divorced. Twice.’ He looked a little ashamed and she warmed to him immediately. ‘Dreamers and optimists tend to be.’ He threw his hands up in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture. ‘Let’s get those details down, shall we?’
Ten minutes later he ushered her out of his office and past Bethany’s desk and shook her hand at the doorway to the stairs. ‘Come back as soon as you’ve told him.’
She nodded, but with every step down the narrow stairs her courage dimmed like a torch with a fading battery. Asking Christos for a divorce was a risk. But maybe now she knew he had a mistress, had Sylvie Lockhart to distract him, she could slip away. He spent twelve hours a day with the bottle blonde. She had short hair that tended to the spiky, like her character, and a big laugh. She wore high heels and patent belts, preferred loud colours and fashion extras that served no purpose such as zips on sleeves and bows on shoulders. Kelly suspected the American accent was emphasised to make her stand out, to be heard and seen. She was the complete opposite of herself, and that made the hurt lance her anew – Christos hadn’t chosen a lover who was anything like his wife.
She stepped off the kerb of the Euston Road and heard the squeal of brakes, the siren of a horn and felt the wind caress her cheek as air was shoved aside by a heavy object inches away. A bus was silently coasting down the inside lane, a row of blank city faces staring out at her. She sharply told herself to get a grip and walked along until she could cross the road at the lights. Adrenalin fluttered through her body, mixing with the shame, the defeat, the anger. But none of these emotions was stronger than the fear.
2
She walked past a couple hand in hand outside the St Pancras Hotel, enjoying London on a loved-up city break. She looked away and headed down a side road past the brutalist British Library to a discreet smoked-glass door. The drill of large machinery competed with the hum of traffic. The whole area was being rebuilt and redeveloped into something shiny and new. The contrast to her rotting marriage was not lost on her.
She walked past a concierge who nodded coldly at her. Such was her level of paranoia about her husband she wondered if he was paid to spy on her, whether this man too had Christos as a boss. She rode up in the lift to their dedicated floor under the roof, to the flat he had chosen and despite her disagreement had bought anyway.
She walked into the bedroom off the corridor near the lift, saw his suit in its dry-cleaning wrapper on the bed. She hung it in the wardrobe. Christos liked things in the right places, he demanded order and routine. She caught sight of herself in her drab black outfit in the wardrobe mirror. It was as if the colour had leached out of her life with every year of her marriage. She tried to anticipate what he would do, how he would react when she told him, and she felt sick to her stomach. It seemed impossible that he would walk out of the house he loved, so she busied herself in packing a bag in case it got ugly, threw some clothes of hers and the kids’ in. They might be leaving in a hurry.
She collected the kids from school, made a meal for them, watched them with a forensic eye. Change was upon them, but they were loved, they would adapt. They’d have to. She felt her heart soar with the possibility of being with them without her husband, how light that would feel, how free. And then she heard the lift doors opening and her husband walking up the wide curving staircase from the corridor below, the heels on his hard-soled shoes clicking across the marble of the living room floor and into the kitchen. The colours of the day dulled, the air seemed colder. Her shoulders tensed.
Yannis heard him coming, got down from the table and ran to give his dad a hug. Florence stayed where she was. He roughhoused his son for a while, picked him up and pretended to throw him across the room, which made Kelly flinch, anticipating an imaginary impact. He put Yannis back on his feet and came over to her, shoved a hand up the back of her skirt and pinched her arse. ‘You look like a real slut in that. Where have you been today?’
She murmured something to him about language in front of the kids and moved away down the kitchen to put a plate in a cupboard. He stared at her, the dimples in his cheeks visible now. ‘I’m starving. Why can’t you make beef stew like my mum makes it? Eh, Yannis, why can’t your mum cook beef?’ He turned back to her. ‘Have we got a T-bone in this bloody
fridge? I want it with peas, not salad.’ He thumped the kitchen counter with his palm and picked up his phone.
Half an hour later Christos was sitting opposite her at the kitchen table, sawing his steak into squares. Christos liked his table laid a certain way, with a placemat and a napkin in a ring, too many different types of glassware and classical music’s greatest hits on low, as if a TV crew were about to arrive and start filming the perfect family dinner. He was picky and precise and chewed his food carefully, spearing his peas with the sharp tines of his fork so that each one burst, sending a tiny squirt of liquid across the plate. The scrape of metal on china made her spine jump unpleasantly. The children were downstairs in the den next to the main bedroom, watching telly.
‘If you’ve got something to say, say it.’ He could always anticipate what she was thinking. He tended to be one step ahead of her. Back in the early days she had been enthralled by that, now it was one item on the long list of things she didn’t like. He put his knife and fork together, wiped his mouth carefully with his napkin and sat back, his hands gripping the table as if he were readying himself for a bar fight.
She listened for the kids, couldn’t hear them. She took a deep breath, teetered on the edge of an emotional precipice and threw herself off. ‘I know about Sylvie. I know you’re having an affair.’
He didn’t reply, but stood up, calmly moved his chair back and walked across to the percolator. ‘Do you want coffee?’ He hadn’t even acknowledged what she’d said.
‘No, I don’t,’ she snapped. ‘I want a divorce.’
He turned round with a small china cup in his hand and sat down again. The cup made a small cracking sound as he placed it on the slate table. He picked up a sugar cube with the silver tongs from the bowl on the table and put it on his tongue, waited a few moments for it to begin to dissolve and then chased it down with a large gulp of coffee. He didn’t take his eyes off her. ‘What did you say?’