Peter James - Looking Good Dead

‘Stop calling me that!’

‘What do you want me to call you? The bonk at the end of the universe?’

Grinning, he said, ‘That would be fine. Otherwise, just Roy would be fine too.’

She tilted her glass to her mouth, then leaned across, kissed him sensuously on his mouth, and pushed a whisky-flavoured ice cube in through his lips. ‘Roy! It’s a great name. Why did your parents call you Roy?’

‘I never asked.’

‘Why not?’

He shrugged. ‘It never occurred to me.’

‘And you’re a detective? I thought you queried everything.’

‘Why did your parents call you Cleo?’

‘Because…’ She gave a little giggle. ‘Actually, I’m embarrassed to say, it was because my mother’s favourite novels were The Alexandria Quartet. I was named after one of the characters – Clea – except my father spelled it wrong in the church register. He put an “o” on the end instead of an “a” – and it stuck.’

‘I’ve never heard of The Alexandria Quartet.’

‘Come on, you must have read them!’

‘I must have had a deprived childhood.’

‘Or a missspent one?’

‘Could you play poker when you were twelve?’

‘That’s what I mean! God, you need educating! The Alexandria Quartet were four novels written by Lawrence Durrell – beautiful stories, all interlinked. Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive and Clea.’

‘They must be if…’

‘If what?’

‘If they resulted in you.’

Then his phone rang again. And this time he answered it – very reluctantly.

Two minutes later, even more reluctantly, he was standing by the bed hurriedly and clumsily pulling his socks on.

‘You scare easily, don’t you, Kellie?’

Dazzled by the light in her eyes, Kellie squirmed against the bonds holding her, trying to move back in her chair, trying to move away from the wriggling legs of the hideous black beetle the fat, squat American was holding up to her face.

‘Nooooo! Please nooooooooo!’

‘Just one of my pets.’ He leered.

‘What do you want from me? What do you want?’

Suddenly he removed the beetle, and was holding out the neck of a vodka bottle. ‘Drinkies?’

She turned her head away. Shaking. From terror. From hunger. From withdrawal. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

‘I know you want a drink, Kellie. Have some, it’ll make you feel so much better.’

She desperately craved that bottle, wanted to take the neck in her mouth and gulp it down. But she was determined not to give him the satisfaction. Out of the corner of her eye, in the glare of the light, she could still see the wriggling legs.

‘Have one little sip.’

‘I want my children,’ she said.

‘I think you want the vodka more.’

‘Fuck you!’

She saw a shadow, then felt a fierce slap on her cheek. She cried out in pain.

‘I’m not taking any shit from a little bitch – do you understand me?’

‘Fuck you!’

The next blow was so hard it knocked Kellie and the chair over sideways. She crashed with an agonizing jar onto the rock-hard floor; pain shot through her arm, her shoulder, right along her body. She burst into tears. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she sobbed. ‘What do you want from me? WHAT DO YOU WANT?’

‘How about a little obedience?’ He held the beetle up to her face, so close she could smell its sour odour. She felt its feet scratch her skin.

‘Noooooooooo!’ She writhed, rolling across the floor with the chair, crashing, banging, every bone in her body hurting. ‘Nooo, nooo, nooo!’ her breathing getting faster, gulping down air, hysterical. She felt a sudden wave of anger against Tom. Where was he? Why hadn’t he come to find her, rescue her?

Then she lay still – spent, staring up into dazzling light, and darkness. ‘Please,’ she pleaded. ‘I don’t know who you are. I just want my children. My husband. Please let me go.’

This must be something to do with the email Tom had seen, that he had gone to the police with, she was certain. ‘Why am I here?’ she asked, as if for confirmation.

Silence.

‘Are you angry with me?’ she whimpered.

His voice was gentle suddenly. ‘Only because you are misbehaving, Kellie. I’d just like you to cooperate.’

‘Then un-fucking-tie me!’

‘I don’t think that’s really possible at the moment.’

She closed her eyes, trying desperately to think clearly, to fight the terrible craving for alcohol. For just one tiny sip of that Stoli. But she was not going to give this fat American the satisfaction. Never, no way in hell, no way, never, never, never.

Then the craving took over her brain.

‘Please can I have a drink now?’ she asked.

Moments later the bottle was inside her lips and she was greedily gulping the liquid down. Its effect on her was almost instant. God, it felt good. Maybe she was wrong about this man – maybe he was kind after all.

‘That’s good, Kellie! Keep drinking. That’s really good, isn’t it?’

She nodded in gratitude.

‘See! All I want to do is be nice to you. You be nice to me, and I’ll be nice to you. Any part of that you don’t understand?’

She shook her head. Then felt bereft, suddenly, as he abruptly pulled the bottle away.

And suddenly she was thinking clearly again. And every scary movie she had ever seen started playing in her mind simultaneously. Who the hell was this man? A serial killer? What was he going to do to her? Fear squirmed like some wild creature loose inside her. Was she going to be raped? Tortured?

I’m going to die, here, in the darkness, without ever seeing Jessica or Max or Tom again.

How did you deal with a person like this? In films she had seen prisoners trying to establish a relationship, a bond, with their captors. It made it much harder for them to harm you if they got to know you a little.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

‘I don’t think you need to concern yourself about that, Kellie.’

‘I’d like to know.’

‘I’m going to leave you now for a little while. With a bit of luck, your husband will be joining you soon.’

‘Tom?’

‘You got it!’

‘Tom’s coming?’

‘Tom’s coming. You don’t want him to see you lying on the floor like that, do you?’

She shook her head.

‘I’ll get you sat upright. Want you to look good for the camera!’

‘Camera?’

‘Uh huh.’

Feeling a little drunk, she asked, her voice slurring, ‘Sshwhy camera?’

‘You’re going to be a star!’

At 1.25 a.m. there was a sudden burst of Jay-Z as Glenn Branson’s mobile phone rang in his bedroom. Hurriedly shooting his arm out, to answer it and silence the bloody thing before it woke Ari, he knocked over the glass of water on his bedside table, and sent the phone and his alarm clock thudding to the floor.

He sprang out of bed in the darkness, his brain a little scrambled, and scrabbled under the chair beside the table where the phone had fallen, the music getting louder. He finally grabbed hold of it and thumbed the answer button. ‘DS Branson,’ he said, as hushed as he could, crouching as if somehow that would make his voice even quieter.

It was Tom Bryce, and he sounded terrible. ‘Detective Sergeant Branson, I’m sorry to call you so late.’

‘No, no worries, Tom – just hold-’

‘For Chrissake!’ Ari said. ‘You arrive home after midnight and wake me up, and now you’re waking me up again. I think we should consider separate bedrooms.’ Then she pointedly turned over away from him.

Great way to start the week, Branson thought gloomily, heading out of the room. He carried the phone into their bright orange bathroom and closed the door.