Tightrope

by Marnie Riches

  Praise for Marnie Riches

  ‘A gripping page-turner of a plot’

  Roz Watkins, author of The Devil’s Dice

  ‘A corking thriller’

  Ed James, author of Kill The Messenger

  ‘Fast-paced and enthralling’

  C. L. Taylor, author of Sleep

  ‘Fast, furious, fantastic … One killer thriller!’

  Mark Edwards, author of Follow You Home

  ‘Edgy’

  Clare Mackintosh, author of Let Me Lie

  ‘Gritty and gripping’

  Kimberley Chambers, Sunday Times No.1 Bestseller

  ‘Marnie Riches is already a leading light in the field of Mancunian noir.’

  The Guardian

  ‘Gritty and great fun.’

  The Express

  For my darling Natalie and Adam, the loves of my life.

  I apologise for your genetic predisposition for filth and swearing. Soz, not soz.

  Contents

  Praise for Marnie Riches

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 Bev

  Chapter 2 Angie

  Chapter 3 Bev

  Chapter 4 Boo

  Chapter 5 Bev

  Chapter 6 Angie

  Chapter 7 Bev

  Chapter 8 The Wolf

  Chapter 9 Boo

  Chapter 10 Bev

  Chapter 11 Bev

  Chapter 12 Bev

  Chapter 13 Bev

  Chapter 14 Bev

  Chapter 15 Bev

  Chapter 16 Doc

  Chapter 17 Boo

  Chapter 18 Bev

  Chapter 19 Angie

  Chapter 20 The Wolf

  Chapter 21 Bev

  Chapter 22 Bev

  Chapter 23 Angie

  Chapter 24 Bev

  Chapter 25 Bev

  Chapter 26 Boo

  Chapter 27 Angie

  Chapter 28 Bev

  Chapter 29 Boo

  Chapter 30 The Wolf

  Chapter 31 Bev

  Chapter 32 Doc

  Chapter 33 Bev

  Chapter 34 The Wolf

  Chapter 35 Bev

  Chapter 36 Bev

  Chapter 37 Bev

  Chapter 38 Bev

  Chapter 39 Bev

  Chapter 40 Bev

  Chapter 41 Bev

  Chapter 42 Bev

  Chapter 43 Bev

  Chapter 44 Bev

  Chapter 45 The Wolf

  Chapter 46 Bev

  Chapter 47 Bev

  Chapter 48 Bev

  Chapter 49 Angie

  Chapter 50 Bev

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Exclusive Extract from Backlash

  About the Author

  Also by Marnie Riches

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  The Wolf

  Pinned beneath him on the leather chaise, the girl stares up into the gaping maw of the latex wolf mask he is wearing. Despite the alcohol and cocktail of drugs they forced her to take to make her relaxed and pliant, the terror is evident in her eyes.

  ‘You know what I’m going to do?’ His voice is muffled as he speaks – hollow and otherworldly. It excites him to tell her what he has in store for her, adopting the role as narrator in this climactic scene of her own personal horror story. It is being filmed, after all. ‘I’m going to squeeze the life out of you, because that’s what your sort deserves.’

  Her expression freezes for a brief moment. Perhaps she is deciphering the unfamiliar English. Suddenly, her face crumples into a look of sheer despair. She shakes her head from side to side. ‘No! I don’t like,’ she says. ‘Stan. Where is? I need to talk.’ Her words are vodka-slurred, making her Russian accent unguent and treacly. Tears track down the sides of her face as she turns to the cameraman for a reaction. ‘Please make stop.’ She says something in her mother tongue. The imploring tone in her high-pitched whimper makes her sound like the little girl she really is beneath the heavy make-up.

  But her needs are not The Wolf’s concern, and the camera keeps rolling. He digs his knees into those slender haunches to limit her movements. Pinions her skinny arms above her head to stop her from lashing out in defence. He calls to the others to hold her down, and like her, they comply with his demands.

  ‘No! No!’ she cries, wriggling uselessly against them. ‘It hurt. Where Dmitri? Get Stan! Stan! Help!’

  ‘Stan’s not here,’ he says, almost whispering in her ear. ‘Dmitri’s busy. And so are we.’

  She screams, loud enough to distort the soundtrack.

  The Wolf looks up at the other men. There are five in total, all naked but for their masks. A pig. A bulldog. A horse. A cockerel. He stars as The Wolf. It is hard to infer the others’ moods at this point, but they are all still visibly aroused, queuing up for a second bite of this ripe cherry.

  Right now, however, it is The Wolf’s turn.

  He reaches over to the coffee table. Snatches up the ball gag, which he straps around her head with practiced ease, despite her wriggling. The only sounds of protest she can emit now is the gurgle of her choking on her own saliva.

  ‘That’s better. You talk too much.’

  He puts his hand around the naked girl’s neck and squeezes while he rides her. Invincible. In charge of her destiny, as he’d witnessed his own father, all those years ago, masterfully controlling the babysitter, the cleaner’s daughter, his younger sister. The girl – silenced now ; red-faced with the sheer effort of clinging to life – writhes beneath him in a bid to break free. There is pleading in her wide eyes, the veins in her forehead standing proud. She mouths the word, ‘Nyet!’ but the sound never quite breaks free of her compromised gullet.

  The others have started shouting at him, shouting over each other. Their noise is such that it is difficult to tell if they are egging him on or protesting. But with the smell of fresh meat in his nostrils, The Wolf does not care.

  When the girl’s body finally lies still and her head lolls to one side, the bulldog speaks :

  ‘Jesus! She’s gone limp. Is she dead?’ He approaches, pressing two fingers to her neck. ‘I can’t find a pulse! Am I pressing in the right place?’ Unbuckling the leather straps of the gag and prising the red plastic ball from her mouth, he cocks his head and holds his ear close to her lips. ‘I can’t hear her breathing.’

  ‘Try her wrist,’ the horse says. He approaches and feels along the inside of her wrist for a pulsating vein. ‘Nothing.’ Lifting the girl’s eyelids, he uselessly waves his hand in front of her glazed eyes. ‘You’ve fucking killed her, haven’t you?’ he says to The Wolf. ‘You absolute knob. We’re buggered.’ His voice is tremulous. He backs away from the scene, covering his waning erection with both hands as if he finally knows shame.

  The Wolf, however, has no such compunction. Sated, he dismounts the teenage prostitute. She is nothing more to him than a spent horse after a long, hard ride. His work is done.

  This is why he is the star of this little home movie, which Stan’s sweaty coke-head of a cameraman is still discretely shooting.

  The girl’s limbs hang around her at odd angles like the arms of a broken clock, which is fitting as time no longer matters to her now.

  The pig tugs at his mask as though he wants to remove it. He seems to think better of it, though. ‘Why the hell did you strangle her? You prat. This is going to come back on us. My wife will find out. We’ll all get nicked as accessories to murder. Christ’s sake, you brutal bastard! We’re ruined.’ Both anger and terror are audible in his voice.

  ‘Can you just stop panicking for five minutes?’ The cockerel speaks quickly to the pig. He turns to The Wolf. ‘We can’t just leave her like this . . . can we? We should at least find out
who she is.’ He snatches up the girl’s handbag, perching it on his paunch. Starts to rummage through it. Clearly agitated, he empties it out onto the coffee table of the stylish apartment, rifling through the pile of contents. Painkillers. Phone. Lipstick. Lube. Condoms. A tampon. Purse.

  The Wolf picks up what appears to be ID but it is only an Oyster Card. ‘Fake,’ he says. He holds the photo-card up. Compares the smiling girl in the photograph to the anguished death mask of the under-aged prostitute. ‘Emma Davies? Not bloody likely. This silly little bitch was Russian. She’s just another of Dmitri’s trafficked whores. Let’s face it, boys, nobody’s going to miss her.’

  ‘Look, you did this,’ the horse tells The Wolf, his voice sounding nasal as it filters down the long nose of the mask. ‘This is your problem.’ He holds his hands up, taking a step backwards. Shaking his head. ‘I’m off. I’m not getting involved. We were supposed to come here for a bit of fun. Let off some steam. But this . . .? You’re on your own, bud. I’ve got a family. A reputation . . .’

  The bulldog pulls his foreskin back over his deflating penis, his doggy head cocked to one side as he contemplates the girl. His disbelief is audible in the high pitch of his speech. ‘The only way this disappears is if she disappears. You’re going to have to get rid of her. What are you going to do with her body?’

  The Wolf turns to him. ‘What am I going to do with it? You mean, what are we going to do? We’re all in this together, remember?’

  As the others start to back away from the body and the camera, covering themselves with cushions and items of clothing that they’d discarded gleefully only minutes earlier, The Wolf moves with stealth into the kitchen. He reappears, carrying a butcher’s knife block and a roll of black bin liners. Sets the block down onto the coffee table, knocking the girl’s things to the floor. He pulls out a meat cleaver and a bread knife, staring down at the glinting blades through the eyeholes of his wolfish mask. Still bearing a sizeable, angry erection.

  ‘I know exactly how to get rid of this little problem.’

  The film clip ends.

  The appeal of watching it over and over again in the privacy of his office never wanes, though he knows that it is now on the Dark Net for every Tom, Dick and Harry to savour too, provided they can get themselves beyond the paywall. Masturbating himself slowly, gripping the rosewood tabletop of his desk with his free hand, he muses that it makes him some sort of celebrity. He certainly feels like one, every time that piece of footage flickers into life on his laptop’s screen. He is The Wolf. Everyone else is an incidental character in that unfolding drama ; that perfect world, where he was the King of Everything in a penthouse in West London.

  When the footage runs out, it freezes mid frame with an outstretched palm in close-up. His hand. He’d turned to Stan’s cameraman, telling him to switch it off and destroy the film. Except the money-grubbing moron had done no such thing. At Stan’s suggestion, to compensate for the lost income from his dead whore, he’d uploaded it onto the net instead where it could be monetised. At first, The Wolf had felt like the skies were about to collapse in on him. But they hadn’t. He has nothing to fear from the authorities or that scumbag, Stan. Time has elapsed, and still, nobody knows who was responsible for the appearance of the mystery girl, bagged in pieces in the butcher’s bin along with the other rotten meat. A broken Russian doll.

  Cleaning himself up, he now prepares for another day as a man of unimpeachable standing. He is honourable and trustworthy and liked, just as his father was. They do not know about his starring role as The Wolf. That knowledge remains a secret which he is certain will be carried to the graves of all concerned. In those fleeting minutes captured on film, he will forever more be God’s own emissary on earth, dispensing judgement and death according to his whim.

  He tucks himself back in, washes his hands and checks his reflection in the mirror. All is silent but for his footfalls and the persistent voice in his head that not even the clip can drown out :

  ‘No thanks. You’re not what I’m looking for.’

  Her voice on a deafening loop. The time she rejected him and humiliated him publicly. But that is nothing compared to the gargantuan lie she has been telling for more than a decade. The woman he pictures in his mind’s eye has committed the ultimate act of betrayal. She has stolen from him in the worst way imaginable. But he will have his revenge.

  The Wolf is watching her. He is hungry. And waiting.

  CHAPTER 1

  Bev

  ‘Balls to Dr Mo and his group-therapy cobblers,’ she said, savouring the sight of the object of her desire. Endorphins fizzed in her bloodstream. The rush of a conquest was always a narcotic, numbing the jab, jab, jab of her conscience that insisted she was derailing her own fast-train back to a future worth having. With a quick glance up the double-parked street of elegant Edwardian brick terraces, she negotiated a traffic hump. The car shuddered and her teeth clacked. OK, perhaps she was going a little too fast. Eyes back on the prize. ‘Oh, Mama. I cannot wait to get you home and rip off your—’

  When the 4x4 ploughed into her at speed, Beverley Saunders’ little VW Polo lurched improbably to the right, missing the parked Audi on the opposite side of the road by only inches.

  Her airbag inflated immediately.

  ‘Jesuf pft.’ A muffled outcry was all she could manage until the bag deflated, leaving her gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckled, shaking hands. Stunned, she stared at the bag that now looked like an oversized, spent johnny. ‘What bastard . . .?’

  Flushed through with adrenaline, she applied her handbrake, punched her hazard warning lights into life and stepped out of the car. The culprit was looking down at her from the elevated vantage point of an Overfinch Range Rover. Staring directly at Bev open-mouthed as though she couldn’t quite believe what had just come to pass.

  Bev took in the devastation wrought on her beloved little VW by the unforgiving bulk of this pimped-up Chelsea Tractor – or rather, Hale Tractor in this overpriced pocket of Cheshire. Enraged, she marched up to the driver’s side window of the 4x4, expecting to find some washed up soap actress or footballer’s wife.

  ‘Get out of the fucking car, lady!’ she yelled.

  The woman raised her hand to her mouth, but otherwise didn’t move.

  She didn’t seem to be a celebrity, but Bev knew her type well. High blonde ponytail. Pearl earrings. Expensive-looking fur gilet that showed off the owner’s reed-like arms, accented with a shitty taupe silk scarf that chimed in perfect harmony with the Farrow and Ball-painted doors and window frames of the surrounding houses. Rocks on those bony fingers that could fund a developing country. That much she could see through the glass.

  ‘Entitled shitbag. I’m talking to you!’

  Bev eyed the stoved-in passenger side of her Polo, noticing how the tyre was facing inwards at an untenable angle. A flicker of guilt strobed at the back of her mind, telling her that a crash was karmic payback for being weak. But that didn’t excuse this stupid cow. She thumped the bonnet of the Range Rover.

  ‘You killed my car!’

  Shutters were twitching either side of the street. Cleaners and nannies peered out at the scene, no doubt making morality judgements as Bev cursed and the blonde finally emerged, tugging at the ties of her gilet.

  ‘I’m so, so sorry. My foot slipped and I just shot out.’ The blonde looked back regretfully at the give-way markings on the road.

  ‘I take it you’re not hurt.’ Bev eyed the pristine white Range Rover. It didn’t have a single dent in it. Naturally. And those gleaming black alloys were intact. Naturally. Only the Polo looked like it had been in a fight with Godzilla. ‘Details!’ Her heartbeat was thunderous as she proffered the brown envelope from a recent, terrifying HMRC communiqué and a pencil she’d stolen from IKEA. ‘I think we’ve got to call the police, get a reference number or something, but first, we exchange details.’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’ The blonde dithered, clearly looking for something to lean on. Op
ted for her bonnet. She wrote, ‘Angela Fitzwilliam’ in a shaky hand.

  The crash threatened to send Bev careening to the rock bottom of a cliff face she had already been struggling to cling to, let alone scale. She was just about to subject the woman to another tirade of expletives, when the guilt flickered on again ; brighter and steadier, this time, like a searchlight shining on her shortcomings. She privately acknowledged that she hadn’t really been paying attention either. Too busy staring at the extremely rare, mint origami kit she’d bought off the old guy in Rusholme. A moment of eBay madness, indulging in the very compulsion she had sworn she would eschew. Dr Mo would remind her that she had taken four steps backwards in the board game of her life, sliding down yet another damned snake at a point where she’d hoped to climb the next ladder. Well, the self-appointed saviour of the obsessive, the compulsive and the habitually disorderly would have to damn well find out first.

  Maybe she was equally to blame for being unobservant. But this woman looked loaded. She could almost certainly afford to lose her no claims bonus and pay the excess. Bev, on the other hand, had a stack of unopened bills waiting on the side in her crappy flat, not to mention the tax demand. Screw it.

  ‘So, you admit, it was your fault?’

  The woman closed her large, deep-set eyes and held up hands that were beautifully manicured. ‘Oh, absolutely. Mine entirely.’

  A fixed-up car, a month or two of lovely physio, being pummelled with warm oils by some beefcake – the nearest Bev would get to a massage now that she was permanently broke. A couple of grand in damages would clear some of those debts. Bish, bash, bosh. Bev mentally rubbed her hands together and thanked God for silver linings.

  Driving the Polo back to the flat was a challenge. She crawled along at 5mph, rehearsing what she would say to her insurer on the phone : The other driver wasn’t watching where she was going ; my car’s had it ; will her insurance pay for a quality hire car? Can I have an Alfa Romeo please?

  Barely managing to turn into Sophie’s gravelled driveway before her car breathed its last, Bev balked at the sight of the Range Rover already parked up outside the detached Victorian villa. A white Overfinch with black alloys. All thoughts of retiring to her mildewed basement to console herself with the rare origami contraband were long, long gone.