by Zoe Caldwell
I head into my office and close the door behind me. I take off my coat and sit down at my desk. I’m about to get started on my emails when there’s a knock at my door.
‘Yes,’ I answer, looking over my shoulder.
Jess comes in, carrying some post, and a few international editions of our magazine that I like to keep an eye on.
‘Forgot to give you these,’ she says as she places them on my table. ‘Paris has a great feature on Cosima Bosch. Maybe we should feature her too?’ Jess suggests.
Cosima Bosch is an up-and-coming French designer known for her use of studs, ruffles, and endless embroidery. Jess loves her. I’m not so keen.
‘Yeah, maybe,’ I reply, reaching for Couture Russia instead.
I get on well with the editor – a sharp, decisive, forward-thinking woman. I always appreciate the fresh, unique tone she brings to the magazine. I flick through a spread of models posing against a dark backdrop in 70s-inspired clothes: bright Balenciaga dresses, romantic Valentino flares and chic Marc Jacobs coats.
Jess goes next door and comes back with more magazines and papers.
‘Westminster is an absolute joke, really,’ she comments, rolling her eyes as she dumps The Times and The Telegraph down on the table.
I murmur in agreement, although I’m more interested in checking out the price of an Alexander McQueen choker worn by a model in the spread.
‘Did you hear about that guy?’ Jess asks.
‘What?’ I look up.
Jess places the Financial Times down on my office table, followed by The Sun and the Mirror, which both have Julian’s face on their covers. I try not to flinch.
‘What guy?’ I ask, silently urging her to be talking about a fashion designer. Perhaps she’s referring to Ben Hao, a designer from Taiwan, who’s just released his autumn/winter collection full of playful, yet monochrome styles. His designs are up Jess’s street, but I like them too.
‘That guy who was killed,’ Jess says nonchalantly, gesturing towards The Sun, as she leans against the table.
‘Oh, yeah. The “brutal slaying”,’ I comment. ‘Awful.’
‘Yeah, it sounds intense. Shot with arrows. It’s, like, biblical,’ Jess says, her eyes wide. She clearly knows nothing about Saint Sebastian.
‘I know, it’s so weird,’ I note.
Jess stands there, leaning back against the table, looking at me, as though expecting something more. But what more does she want? Julian’s death was weird. There. I have nothing to add.
‘Thanks for the papers,’ I say, getting up and retrieving the FT from the table. I bring it back to my desk and let its salmon pages fall open across my lap.
Jess is still leaning against the table, not taking the hint. I turn over a page.
‘Wasn’t the guy you went on a date with called Julian?’ she says eventually, her words bursting into the air between us, finally freed, as though she’s been gearing up to them.
The page I turned falls flat – an ad for an airline.
‘Huh?’ I utter, racking my brains for how on earth Jess knows Julian’s name.
‘You were on the phone to him last week, remember? I came in and you hung up. You said you’d been talking to a guy you were going on a date with. You said, “bye Julian”,’ Jess explains.
Bye Julian. Fucking hell, she’s right. I was sitting here chatting to Julian on the phone last week when we arranged to meet. Then Jess came in and in my desperate bid to come across as normal and chummy, I told her I had a date lined up. I thought I could get away with telling her that bit, but I didn’t realise I’d said his name out loud. For fuck’s sake. For fuck’s sake! What is wrong with me? How on earth could I have been so stupid? I hesitate, desperately trying to come up with a way out of this, but I draw a blank.
‘Oh yeah, he was. Why?’ I respond, looking up.
Jess stares at me from behind her fucking Oliver Peoples glasses.
‘That’s the name of that guy,’ she says, eyeing me coolly, blinking. ‘The one who was killed.’
‘Okay…!’ I laugh. ‘Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I killed my date!’
Jess laughs, her face relaxing a bit.
‘Odd coincidence, isn’t it?’ I murmur, looking down at the paper, flicking over another page. Another ad. I don’t take it in, I’m concentrating too hard on pretending to be normal. On getting through this moment.
‘Yeah, definitely! Especially since you don’t really meet many Julians,’ Jess comments.
Are her eyes boring into me, or am I just imagining it? I pray she can’t see the sweat patches that must be starting to appear under the arms of my satin blouse.
‘I guess.’ I shrug. ‘I’ve met a few though. I think the name’s getting more popular.’
I turn another page.
‘Hmmm… Want a coffee?’ Jess says, standing upright, seemingly forgetting it. Putting the weird coincidence behind us.
‘Starbucks or canteen?’ I ask.
‘What do you want?’
‘Starbucks would be good,’ I say.
‘Cool. BRB,’ Jess says, before turning to leave.
‘Thanks, Jess,’ I murmur, flicking over another page of the FT as though I’m engrossed. I swivel my chair back around to face my desk as I hear the door snap shut. She’s gone.
I let out a sigh of relief.
I think I just about styled that one out but fuck me, how could I have been so careless? Blabbing Julian’s name like that and then killing him. For God’s sake. I need to read fucking Serial Killing for Dummies because I am clearly out of my depth.
My palms are sweating. My heart is hammering.
I close my eyes. Cursing myself. Cursing myself. Cursing myself. Jess’s right, there are hardly any Julians. I may have shrugged her off for now, but what if something else connects Julian to me? What if the police figure out he’d been in Mayfair? What if Jess starts putting other bits and pieces together? Oh my God. My heart’s pounding, but I force myself to draw in a deep, shaky breath. I need to pull myself together, for appearances’ sake, if nothing else. I pull open my desk drawer and retrieve my face powder compact. I click it open and check out my reflection. Thank God for Botox. My face looks smooth: stress and blemish-free. Most women I know get Botox to avoid ageing, I get it to maintain a poker face. In freezing my muscles, Botox disables my thoughts from reaching my face. It prevents the flicker of micro-expressions, the tiny frowns, the raised eyebrows, the giveaways. It keeps me impassive. My thoughts my own. The real me is a crying, wailing bag of rot, like Dorian Gray’s painting, festering and filthy in an attic somewhere, lined with rage, pitted with sin, washed out with angst. But instead, the face that looks back at me is pretty. My cheeks have a nice pink glow, thanks to Abay last night. I smile at my reflection, taking in my blue eyes, the curve of my cheekbones, my neat nose. I finger my hair, silky smooth from the conditioning treatment I put on in the bath yesterday. I couldn’t look less like a killer if I tried. I laugh, snapping my compact closed. Jess was merely commenting on a funny coincidence. She couldn’t possibly suspect me.
I flick through the FT a bit more and finish looking through Couture Russia before turning my attention to my inbox. Eventually, there’s a tap at my door. Jess.
‘Come in,’ I say, not bothering to look round.
Jess walks up to my desk.
‘Venti Americano, black,’ she says, placing the coffee down by my keyboard.
‘Perfect. Thanks, Jess!’ I reply, trying to sound chirpy.
‘No worries,’ Jess replies breezily, before heading back to her desk.
The door snaps shut. I prise off the lid of my cup and breathe in the coffee smell, watching a spiral of steam. I reply to an email from advertising, delete some spam. I should get in touch with Ben Hao, find out what he’s up to. Arrange a feature. But I can’t quite bring myself to. I still feel a bit unsettled. The Jess encounter has rattled me, even though I know it’s nothing. But still, I can’t help wondering, what if I were to get caught? H
ow many years would I go down for if the police figured out what I’d done? Would they realise who they were dealing with? Connect my other kills to me? It’s been a while since a thought like that has even occurred to me. For so long, I’ve felt like I’ve been operating outside the law, like an animal. Wild. Prowling through London, striking when I need to strike.
I need to clear my head. I grab a notebook from my desk drawer and start trying to make a list of all the men I’ve killed. I write Martin’s name in shorthand. I haven’t had to use shorthand since back when I actually knew Martin, when I was a reporter, but it comes in handy sometimes, especially when I’m trying to be discreet.
Martin. It all started with Martin. It was meant to end with Martin. I never set out to be a serial killer. Never in a million years did I expect I’d make a habit of it.
After pocketing Martin’s cash, I laid low while the police failed to make an arrest for his murder, and then moved to London with a mission: to become someone. That kept me occupied for a while. I rented a cheap studio flat near Chelsea and decided to fake it till I made it. I got the right look – a capsule wardrobe of decent clothes, a gym membership, a decent haircut, and I made sure I looked the part. Then I went to the right bars, the right parties, mixed with the right people. I got a part-time job working in PR for a designer, spent my evenings at press events, shows and launches, but far too quickly, my money started running out. I’d managed to take around £30,000 from Martin, but that only lasts so long when you’re living it up on the King’s Road. And my job was only a gesture at a job – the same kind of thing my friends had. The girls I’d befriended were gallery assistants, interior designers, PAs. Their LinkedIn profiles looked nice and they had a nice office to get dressed up to go and potter about in occasionally, but they didn’t actually work. Their trust funds covered their bills and kept them in Chanel and Chloé. Their jobs were just pocket money. I didn’t want to leave their world, but I could only fake it for so long, so I did what I had to do, I set about finding myself a rich boyfriend.
Along came Gerard. I write his name down. Gerard wasn’t exactly the type of guy I had in mind when I went looking for love, but you’re not meant to judge a book by its cover, are you? And honestly, who did I think I was going to find? I was never going to end up with a nice Chelsea boy. They wanted the Hatties and Millies of the world – the rich, adoring simpletons who’d look up to them and hang off their every word. Those kinds of guys have never taken to me. I was deemed fuck-worthy, but I wasn’t considered girlfriend material. While the girls of Chelsea were happy enough to be friends, the boys sensed my wild side. They couldn’t handle my sexual proclivities, my kinks, my bisexuality. Not to mention my personality. I’m not take-home-to-meet-the-mother material. Far easier to date a sweet girl.
Older men, on the other hand, were game. And along came my ex-husband, Gerard. I met him in a stuffy old bar off the King’s Road where I used to go sometimes to read. It was the kind of place that was fusty and uncool enough that I was confident I wouldn’t bump into anyone I knew, and I’d go there and devour books to plug the gaps in my state school education. I clued up on British history, royalty, theology, philosophy and art. I learnt the rules of sports I’d never played like lacrosse, fencing, netball and polo. I studied languages, gaining basic fluency in German, French and Spanish. I even taught myself some Latin. I’d sit for hours on end, just poring over my books, making notes, drinking nothing but coffee.
I knew my presence amused some of the regulars; they must have found me quite an odd sight amongst the usual older gentlemen clientele. One day, a man in his sixties who always wore a suit with a silk pocket square, whatever day it was, asked if he could join me. He was short and unremarkable-looking with thinning hair and crumpled skin, but his eyes had life in them; they were humorous, interested and engaging, and I warmed to him immediately. He noticed that I was reading a biography on Churchill and commented on it, offering to buy me a drink. I’d been reading alone for a few hours and didn’t see the harm in accepting and sharing a bit of light conversation.
Gerard bought me a Martini and we talked about World War Two – sparring, testing each other – before moving on to easier topics like London life, Chelsea, our backgrounds: he heralded from a long lineage of wealth and privilege. I trotted out my usual Suffolk spiel – my parents, Anne and Robert Black, our gorgeous old farmhouse, private education, after-school clubs, Sadie the dog – the works. If Gerard questioned why a supposedly well-educated girl like myself was spending Saturday afternoons reading books like Latin for Beginners, he was too polite to ask. We chatted away and I laughed at his jokes. I could tell how much it meant to him to share a drink with me. He couldn’t take his eyes off me, they’d pass over my lips, my teeth and my hands as I reached for my drink, as though I were the most beautiful thing in the world. Weirdly, I liked how Gerard’s admiration made me feel. I wasn’t attracted to him; he was twice my age and then some, but he made me feel so beautiful, like an exotic flower, hyper-aware of my own youth and charm. And he wasn’t boring either. He didn’t just drink and shop and gossip about who was dating who, like most of the people I knew. He could hold a conversation; he was reflective and shrewd. We started running into each other regularly, and although I knew it was desperately uncool to while away my afternoons chatting away to an old guy in a fusty bar, I couldn’t deny that I secretly enjoyed mine and Gerard’s meetings. I liked the way he made me feel protected, taken care of, safe. Daddy issues, eat your heart out.
After a few months of dating, Gerard surprised me by proposing and I went for it, thinking we might be able, in our own weird way, to make it work. I wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of becoming Gerard’s wife, but he let me do my thing. He didn’t mind me working. He didn’t stop me going out with my friends. He turned a blind eye to my occasional affairs. He bankrolled everything. I figured life could be way, way worse than marrying an old guy who doesn’t really bother you that much and puts you up in his luxurious Chelsea mansion. I couldn’t think of a reason not to marry him. But married life turned out to be very different to what I’d expected. Something about putting a ring on my finger, and me changing my name to his, made Gerard think he owned me. Over a few months, he went from being easy-going and charming to controlling and toxic. I stopped being the pretty young woman he admired and adored and became his property – a piece of meat to use for sex whenever he wanted, not to mention an unpaid cook and cleaner.
One night, Gerard pinned me down on the bed and this time, I couldn’t take it. I had a headache; I wasn’t up to it, but he kept grabbing at me, he pressed his crotch against me like Martin had done and I snapped. I pushed him off so hard that he smashed his head on the bedside table and tumbled to the ground. He lay still. Collapsed, like a discarded puppet. A pool of blood slowly began to form around his head. I watched, intrigued, wondering if his injury would be fatal or not. His chest was softly rising and falling, he was still breathing. What if he got up, enraged, wanting to rape me or hurt me? I couldn’t risk it. I crept over to him, my eyes not leaving him for a second as I crouched down and gently enclosed my thumb and forefinger over his nostrils. I pressed one hand over his mouth and squeezed his nostrils hard, holding my own breath, tense, watching, waiting, willing his chest to stop moving. He started squirming, his body putting up a last-ditch fight even though he was unconscious. Terror flooded through me, but I maintained my grip and then finally, his breathing stopped, and he lay still.
It was as easy as snuffing out a candle.
I was shit-scared the police would nail me for Gerard’s murder, but they didn’t. Idiots. Amongst a long list of health issues, he had breathing difficulties, emphysema, and the police bought my story that he must have fallen out of bed, knocked his head hard, and stopped breathing. I took sleeping pills straight after I killed him, and woke up six or seven hours later next to his cold corpse. I called the ambulance, claiming I must have been too sedated to have heard him fall. The paramedics and the cops bo
ught my story, just about. They didn’t test my blood but if they had done, everything would have added up. There was one officer – a woman around my age – who I could tell didn’t trust me, but she couldn’t prove anything. Gerard’s autopsy ruled that he’d died from a concussion and breathing difficulties. And I was free.
Gerard didn’t have any next of kin. Like I’d marry someone who did. And so naturally, all his wealth passed down to me. He was even richer than he’d let on. A retired oil tycoon, I thought he was worth two or three million, but it turned out he was worth way, way more than that. Crazy amounts. All mine, now. Not only had I gotten away with murder, wiping out an awful rapist creep, but I’d become rich. Filthy, filthy rich.
I thought my new-found wealth would make me happy and it sort of did, for a while, but then the buzz of it passed and I felt strangely alone. I was living in Gerard’s house, full of memories of what he’d become, and I felt rotten. The initial triumph I’d experienced at having gotten away with killing him faded and I slid into grief, not for Gerard but for the dream I’d had. I’d genuinely thought I might be able to be married. I thought I could possibly lead a relatively normal life, and yet I’d ended up alone again, in a house full of horrible memories. I’d ended up more broken than before, burdened with even more traumas. Two dead men behind me. I tried to distract myself by doing the things I used to do before Gerard. I went to the bars I used to go to, but the people who’d once included me in rounds, the people who’d invited me on the holidays and nights out I used to struggle to afford, no longer wanted me around. London stopped feeling like a place where I could reinvent myself, it felt tainted. I craved a sense of belonging, home.
But being me, home has always been hard to come by. I tried my luck though. I contacted my cousin, Rita. She’s a few years younger than me and we used to hang out when we were teenagers, getting drunk together at the weekends, back when I was a mess, a waster. We’d get dressed up in the skimpiest, ugliest dresses, plaster on makeup and false lashes, spritz ourselves in cheap perfume, getting ready, listening to the latest hits on the radio while knocking back whatever booze we could get our hands on. We’d get the bus to town and go to clubs where we’d flirt with guys, both of us damaged and desperate for attention. Sometimes we’d take them home, screw them. Pretend it was cool. Wake up the next morning, wondering if we’d remembered to use a condom. Alone.
