by Carla Blake
Title Page
LOVE. LIES. DYING.
by
Carla Blake
Publisher Information
First published in 2013 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent 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.
The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.
Copyright © 2013 Carla Blake
The right of Carla Blake to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Chapter One
The stillness.
That’s what fascinates her the most.
The absolute lack of movement. No flicker of eyelash. Or twitch of hand. No deep throbbing at the side of the throat. There is nothing but stillness.
The undeniable non existence of life.
Katherine Johnson stands, as motionless as the woman she is viewing and stares at the body on the bed.
Katherine is naked. Her skin smooth and unblemished in the half light of the dimly lit bedside lamp. Her long, dark hair is still tangled from the passionate love making she’d been indulging in less than fifteen minutes ago and her hands are pressed close against her thighs. Her fingers, with their beautifully manicured nails coated in dark burgundy polish, rest lightly against her skin.
Only her eyes are alive. Ablaze with wonder and disbelief and a wild, tumultuous sense of triumph laced with an awesome sense of power. She has taken this woman’s life, not five minutes ago. Snatched it right from under her nose and now it is gone. Forever. Never to be retrieved.
Smiling, Katherine flexes her neck and shoulders. She feels, strong invincible.
Guilt does not come into it. Nor sorrow. Or regret.
Only triumph and a deep, deep sense of peace and inner calm. She feels purged and aware that, at last, at long last, she has found the sense of release she has been searching for, for so long. Ever since that day.
Ever since Hannah.
Her hand moves. Not the dead woman’s, she will never move her hand again, or her body or her lungs, but Katherine’s hand moves, away from her thigh, across her stomach and down to the dark, neatly trimmed patch of hair between her legs. She pauses, as if in anticipation, and then inserts a finger into the pink cleft. She is wet, there is moisture nestling between the folds, as rhythmically, she rubs herself and immediately feels the first ripple of desire stir deep within her.
She doesn’t care that it is inappropriate, or that minutes earlier, it was another hand busy at her clit. She needs to come now. To provide an effective outlet for this huge surge of emotion that is rapidly building inside her. This, she feels is a celebration! A thanksgiving at finally, finally, after months of pain and heartache, and crying in corners, discovering a way to make herself feel better again.
She comes quickly and deeply. Her knees giving a little at the crucial moment, forcing her to take a single step backwards to regain control. The orgasm trickles away and she sighs with contentment, withdrawing her fingers to bring them quickly to her lips, where she licks them clean of her juices before casting around for her clothes.
She finds them everywhere. On the floor, on the bed, on a rickety wooden chair with a teddy bear sitting skew-whiff against a patterned cushion.
Without fuss, she dresses in slow deliberation. Expensive underwear first, then designer jeans, a sweater she had brought only the day before and black boots for her feet. A waist length jacket completes the outfit.
Her handbag, one of a limited edition of five hundred, sits on the floor beside the chair and from it she retrieves her lipstick, hairbrush and mirror and puts her face back together. She doesn’t bother with perfume. What’s the point?
The woman on the bed lies motionless throughout. Her eyes closed. Her blonde hair, ruffled from fucking, no longer growing but spreads across the pillow in clumps and fine strands. She looks, Katherine thinks, so very peaceful, as though Katherine has done her a favour by introducing her to death. Even the scar above her eyebrow looks paler than before, as though it has faded away at the same time as her life.
Only the bruises at her throat are still livid. A disquieting bloom in the shape of Katherine’s fingers pressed into her cooling flesh.
Katherine assumes they will remain until her body rots away and is lost forever and she briefly wonders if her own identity can be obtained from such markings, before deciding she doesn’t really care. She will be long gone by the time the police show up and she’s confident no one saw them arrive together. Strangulation will undoubtedly be recorded as the cause of death, but they will never be able to identify her as the cause of it. She has led an impeccable life. Her criminal record is clean and unblemished. She doesn’t even have a parking ticket against her good name.
It is all under control.
Crossing over to the mirror hanging on the wall at the end of the bed, Katherine surveys the room from a reflective angle. It’s not bad, she muses, if you like eye watering pink against stark white, though it is undeniably cheap. Nothing designer. Nothing new and some of it has clearly been carted from childhood into an adulthood unwilling to grow up.
And then there is - what’s her face? This newly still woman she picked up in the bar.
That ridiculous leather and chrome filled place, which although situated in the suburbs, patently strives to be a viable substitute for its trendier London counterparts.
She’d disliked it the moment she’d stepped in the door because it had made her feel old, and she didn’t like feeling old. Not when she was only thirty five. But that’s how it was. Young and new and in your face. Most of the clientele so young they were obliged to stand at the bar brandishing ID along with their money.
One drink was all that it had taken, a Vodka and tonic with ice and a slice, and she had been hers. Hardly a drink of sophistication, but it had done the trick. She herself, had ordered a large glass of their finest white wine. A request the barman had met with a pinched expression and the affirmation that all their wine was good - madam.
She had let the barb slide. What did she care what this stupid adolescent thought? She had status and money whereas he probably went home to his mummy’s house, where he sank cans of cheap supermarket beer whilst tugging at this cock until he made a mess of the duvet.
They’d sat at a glass topped table with chrome legs. The seating had been hard, the lights too bright. The music, pumped through speakers the size of fridges, too modern and jarring and repetitive for her tastes. Her companion, Angela, yes, that had been her name, had smiled self consciously and sipped at her vodka as though it was wine. Katherine had sipped at her wine as though it had been pleasant. Small talk had occasionally filled the space between them, but the rest of the time Katherine’s attention had wandered, until Angela, reaching across to touch her hand, had dragged her back from her reverie and admitted in a small voice that she was afraid Katherine might simply get up and leave her.
It wasn’t as though she couldn’t. Katherine could have had anyone in this bar had she so chosen. She knew she was gorgeous. Heads turned when she walked into a room, at roughly the same time as good sense invariably got up and left. Women hated her and men wanted her, most of them willing to fork out for any drink she
so desired if it afforded them even the merest whiff of getting between those soft, perfect looking thighs.
They never did. She wasn’t into men, though she never told them that. Let them fawn. Let them sit there with their tongues hanging out and their legs repeatedly crossing in an effort to disguise their growing lust. They could hope all they wanted. They could fantasize all they liked. They were never going to have her. They were all idiots!
They had ended up here. Her and Angela of the blonde hair, scarred eyebrow and cheap clothes. Angela’s apartment. Too far away from the river to truly be called desirable but close enough to the tube to allow Angela to get any place she wanted.
Inside was clean enough, she supposed, and when Angela had offered coffee, indicating towards the percolator, she’d immediately apologised for only having Columbian ground.
Katherine had declined. Why were they wasting time with coffee when they both knew what they really wanted? Her bedroom, she assumed, was upstairs?
They’d kissed half way up to the landing. Angela suddenly turning from leading the way, to taking Katherine’s face in her hands and planting a small, delicate, kiss on her lips. Katherine had responded dutifully. She didn’t much care for kissing strangers, mouths were such unpredictable things, such reservoirs for germs, but she kissed her back anyway, dissuading her from trying again by grabbing her backside and propelling her up the last few risers.
Angela had gone willingly enough and pulling at Katherine’s clothes the moment they were through the bedroom door, she’d almost ripped her own in her haste to get naked.
Katherine had helped her, seeing clothes mutilated for no good reason, no matter how off the peg, a complete waste of fabric and she certainly wasn’t about to let this vodka fueled, red lip-sticked little wild cat ruin her own. Passion was one thing and she had no problem being naked in front of a virtual stranger, but she wasn’t about to have over a hundred quid’s worth of sweater ripped from her back and thrown to the floor just because Angela couldn’t wait to see her tits. Teddy could look after that.
The sex had been okay. In all honestly, that was the best she could say about it because Angela was clearly a sex by numbers kind of girl. Kiss. Suck of nipples, then straight down to her pussy which she’d jammed open with clumsy fingers before rubbing her clit as though she was trying to get a dab of paint off her skin. It had been anything but sensual and frustrated, Katherine had put up with it for as long as she could before faking orgasm, thinking Angela lucky that she’d put that much effort in for her.
She’d screwed her back of course. It would have been rude not to, but Angela wasn’t Hannah and where Hannah might have sighed or moaned or begged her not to stop, God, please don’t stop, Angela had remained quiet. A little church mouse tying to come with the minimum of fuss and bother.
It had infuriated her and she had questioned why she was bothering? Did this stupid, little bitch not realise who was fucking her? Did she not know how utterly, bloody privileged she was to have someone like her working on her pale, freckled body? She should be writhing in bloody ecstasy by now and bloody loudly! Not lying there all quiet and docile!
The occasionally ‘hmm’ leaking from between her lips was not good enough. Her brow knitting in concentration was almost an insult.
Silly, little bitch!
Shaking her head, Katherine turns from the mirror and stands with her back to it.
Her hand strokes her chin. She should be going, she muses. Leaving Angela to rot in comfort until someone finds her. She hopes it won’t be too long. Nature’s smaller creatures have a nasty habit of doing terrible things to people who no longer have the energy to swat them away, and she doesn’t like to think of Angela crawling with maggots, annoying though she is.
It’s also surprised her at how easily she has died. Two hands around her throat, a bit of pressure and she was gone. No fuss, no bother. Angela didn’t even manage to scratch her face in her futile efforts to remain breathing. Her fingernails simply too short for the job. The surprise of coming and then going, too shocking for her to do anything more than thrash around for a bit and then die.
It had been ridiculously easy to kill her.
But Christ, it had made her feel good!
Chapter Two
Seven months previously.
Katherine Johnson steps into the foyer of the Marble hotel and places her Louis Vitton suitcase carefully by her feet. At once, a smiling young man dressed in dark green livery, appears at her side, greets her with a respectful ‘good morning’ and escorts her the short distance to the reception desk. There, an equally pleasant and cheerful young woman, also decked out in the hotel’s trademark green and gold, enquires after her health, confirms her reservation for two nights stay and informs her the conference she is due to attend will start in just over an hour.
Thanking her, Katherine accepts the small, plastic square that passes for a key these days, and with high heels clicking loudly on the polished floor, follows the young man into the lift. Inside, she suffers the piped music that accompanies them up three flights, walks a short way along the corridor and finally steps into her room.
It is spacious, a suite with a ‘magnificent, balcony view’ so the hotel blurb says, and she can certainly see over the river.
A complimentary fruit basket big enough to obscure her head sits on a low coffee table.
The young man does not hang around for a tip. Instead after briefly running though the room’s facilities, he wishes her a very pleasant stay, reiterates that the reception and hotel’s concierge are on hand, day or night, should she need anything, and leaves.
The sound of the door closing behind him lands like a stone in her chest.
Alone again, Katherine sits on the very edge of the bed. There are chairs, several of them, but she ignores their soft, plush invitation for her less comfortable perch. Lacing her fingers together in her lap she takes a deep breath and allows her eyes to defocus, staring into nothing, but feeling exactly as she has felt for the last few weeks. A soulless, empty limbo in which she’s existed rather than lived and breathed only because her body insisted she must do so. She’s hardly eaten anything in this time and lost so much weight even her work colleagues have commented on it, taking to bringing in coffee and doughnuts or dropping by with invitations to fancy restaurants in the hope of putting a little meat on her ribs. She hasn’t accepted any of them though. She doesn’t want to eat. Or drink. She doesn’t want to go out or stay in, or do anything that might ‘take her mind off it’. All she wants is to be left alone. Preferably in the dark. With curtains drawn and doors locked. She feels hard and brittle all at the same time and nothing the outside world can produce can touch her or break through the shell she has built around herself. Inside she feels cold and solid, as though she’s been hollowed out and then filled in again with concrete. Even her heart is suffering, beating too thickly inside her chest and to her mind, too slowly. It’s natural rhythm knocked out of kilter by grief.
Pulverized by the loss of Hannah.
She doesn’t even know what she is doing here, not really. Why she is in this ultra modern hotel with its pristine white and dark green duvet and its fluffy white towels and its glass fruit dish big enough to withstand nuclear attack?
It’s too soon. All too soon. But Alex has been insistent.
Alex. Her assistant. Her right hand girl at ‘ Clothes and Catwalk’, the fashion magazine she’s been editor of for the past three years. Alex is energy personified. She never tires or complains or tells Katherine she is ‘full of shit’ like some of the other, more short-lived assistants who have graced her presence.. Instead, Alex is punctual and reliable and pretty much unflappable and if there isn’t anything to get done, usually finds something..
They are, Katherine has to admit, a pretty formidable team at the magazine and together they have dealt with the designer ‘Catwalk’ side of
things rather than the high street ‘Clothes’, effectively and very profitably.
Not that Katherine always thought the concept such a grand idea. Initially she’d had serious doubts about it, failing to appreciate how show casing top quality designer gear alongside its slightly lesser and undeniably cheaper counterparts could possibly work. But it had and the magazine consistently sold well, propelling Katherine, who’d started out in positions far lower than the one Alex was in now, to editor of the magazine and a force to be reckoned with. These days, far from running round making tea and collecting sample dresses from designers she’d never heard of, Katherine sat in the front row at fashion shows and greeted Anna Wintour by her first name. She had power and respect and anything she endorsed, rocked.
And now, if she, Katherine Johnson, announces that green velvet with red spots is in, everyone immediately wears it. Everyone except her that is. Because by then, she’ll be onto the next big thing, wearing something completely different. Cutting a swathe along with the cloth. An unstoppable force.
Or at least she had been, till Hannah died.
That had stopped her. It was still stopping her. Still...
She doesn’t want to be here. In this glossy hotel where everything shines and sparkles and where she is expected to do the same thing. She wants to be at home, surrounded by her memories and slumped in the corner, where she can cry all day and be alone.
Except Alex has made her come.
It is THE fashion conference of the year, she’d enthused earlier . Everyone is going to be there! Everyone! Katherine has to go! How can she possibly want to miss out on all the latest styles? Ideas? Gossip!?
Katherine tells her she doesn’t give a flying fuck about gossip. Besides, she probably is the gossip and she doesn’t want to listen to that!. Alex can go without her.
Alex crosses her arms and pouts. Stuff that, she isn’t going anywhere without her. And yes, she knows it will be hard. Christ, they’d all adored Hannah. She’d been a brilliant, beautiful, talented, totally lovely human being, but she was gone and there is nothing Katherine or any of them can do about that.
