Peter James: Dead Like You

Nobody would notice, she thought, if she escaped now.

She struggled across the room, weaving through the sea of people, and slipped out into the corridor. She felt a cold draught of air and smelt sweet cigarette smoke. God, how she could do with a fag right now!

She headed along the corridor, which was almost deserted, turned right and walked along into the hotel foyer, then crossed over to the lifts. She pressed the button and, when the door opened, stepped in and pressed the button for the fifth floor.

Hopefully, they’d all be too drunk to notice her absence. Maybe she should have drunk more too and then she’d have been in a better party mood. She was feeling stone cold sober and could easily have driven home, but she’d paid for a room for the night and her stuff was in there. Perhaps she’d call up some champagne from room service, watch a movie and get quietly smashed on her own.

As she stepped out of the lift, she pulled her plastic room key-card out of her silver lamé Chanel evening bag – a copy she’d bought in Dubai on a trip there with Nigel two years ago – and made her way along the corridor.

She noticed a slender blonde woman – in her forties, she guessed – a short distance ahead. She was wearing a full-length, high-necked evening dress with long sleeves and appeared to be struggling to open her door. As she drew level with her, the woman, who was extremely drunk, turned to her and slurred, ‘I can’t get this sodding thing in. Do you know how they work?’ She held out her key-card.

‘I think you have to slip it in and then out quite quickly,’ Nicola said.

‘I’ve tried that.’

‘Let me try for you.’

Nicola, helpfully, took the card and slipped it into the slot. As she pulled it out, she saw a green light and heard a click.

Almost instantaneously, she felt something damp pressed across her face. There was a sweet smell in her nostrils and her eyes felt as if they were burning. She felt a crashing blow on the back of her neck. Felt herself stumbling forward. Then the carpet slammed into her face.

Thursday 25 December

Rachael Ryan heard the snap of the man’s belt buckle in the darkness. A clank. The rustle of clothes. The sound of his breathing – rapid, feral. She had a blinding pain in her head.

‘Please don’t hurt me,’ she begged. ‘Please don’t.’

The van was rocking in the frequent gusts of wind outside and occasionally a vehicle passed, bright white light strobing through the interior from its headlamps, as terror strobed through her. It was in those moments that she could see him most clearly. The black mask tight over his head, with tiny slits for his eyes, nostrils and mouth. The baggy jeans and the tracksuit top. The small, curved knife that he gripped in his left, gloved hand, the knife he said he would blind her with if she shouted out or tried to get away.

A musty odour, like old sacks, rose from whatever thin bedding she was lying on. It mingled with the faint smell of old plastic upholstery and the sharper reek of leaking diesel oil.

She saw his trousers come down. Stared at his white underpants, his lean, smooth legs. He pushed his pants down. Saw his small penis, thin and stumpy like the head of a snake. Saw him rummage in his pocket with his right hand and pull something out which glinted. A square foil packet. He sliced it open with his knife, breathing even harder and squeezed something out. A condom.

Her brain was racing with wild thoughts. A condom? Was he being considerate? If he was considerate enough to use a condom, would he really use his knife on her?

‘We’re going to get the rubber on,’ he panted. ‘They can get DNA now. They can get you from DNA. I’m not leaving you a present for the police. Make me hard.’

She shuddered with revulsion as the head of the snake moved closer to her lips and saw his face suddenly lit up brightly again as another car passed. There were people outside. She heard voices in the street. Laughter. If she could just make a noise – bang on the side of the van, scream – someone would come, someone would stop him.

She wondered for a moment whether she should just try to arouse him, to make him come, then maybe he would let her go and he would disappear. But she felt too much revulsion, too much anger – and too much doubt.

Now she could hear his breathing getting even deeper. Hear him grunting. See that he was touching himself. He was just a pervert, just a weirdo fucking pervert and this was not going to happen to her!

And suddenly, fuelled by the courage from the alcohol inside her, she grabbed his sweaty, hairless scrotum and crushed his balls in both hands as hard as she could. Then, as he recoiled, gasping in pain, she tore the hood off his head and jammed her fingers into his eyes, both eyes, trying to gouge them out with her nails, screaming as loudly as she could.

Except, in her terror, as if she were trying to scream in a nightmare, only a faint croak came out instead.

Then she felt a crashing blow on the side of her head.

‘You bitch!’

He smashed his fist into her again. The mask of pain and fury that was his face, all blurred, was inches from her own. She felt the fist again, then again.

Everything swam around her.

And suddenly she felt her panties being pulled off, and then he was entering her. She tried to move back, to push away, but he had her pinned.

This is not me. This is not my body.

She felt totally detached from herself. For an instant she wondered if this was a nightmare from which she could not wake. Lights flashed inside her skull. Then fused.

Thursday 1 January

Today was New Year’s Day. And the tide was in!

Yac liked it best when the tide was in. He knew the tide was in because he could feel his home moving, rising, gently rocking. Home was a Humber keel coaler called Tom Newbound, painted blue and white. He did not know why the boat had been given that name, but it was owned by a woman called Jo, who was a district nurse, and her husband, Howard, who was a carpenter. Yac had driven them home one night in his taxi and they had been kind to him. Subsequently they’d become his best friends. He adored the boat, loved to hang about on it and to help Joe with painting, or varnishing, or generally cleaning her up.

Then one day they told him they were going to live in Goa in India for a while, they did not know how long. Yac was upset at losing his friends and his visits to the boat. But they told him they wanted someone to look after their houseboat, and their cat, for them.

Yac had been here for two years now. Just before Christmas he’d had a phone call from them, telling him they were going to stay for another year at least.

Which meant he could stay here for another year at least, which made him very happy. And he had a prize from last night, a new pair of shoes, which also made him very happy…

Red leather shoes. Beautifully curved with six straps and a buckle and six-inch stilettos.

They lay on the floor beside his bunk. He had learned nautical terms. It was a bed, really, but on a ship it was called a bunk. Just like the way the toilet wasn’t called a toilet, but the heads.

He could navigate from here to any port in the UK – he had memorized all the Admiralty charts. Except the boat had no engine. One day he would like to have a boat of his own, with an engine, and then he would sail to all those places that he had stored inside his head. Uh-huh.

Bosun nuzzled his hand, which was hanging over the side of his bunk. Bosun, the big, slinky ginger tom, was the boss here. The true master of this boat. Yac knew that the cat regarded him as its servant. Yac didn’t mind. The cat had never thrown up in his taxi, like some people had.