Alex Lake - Killing Kate

‘I guess.’ Kate paused. ‘But nothing about last night feels good. What I remember of it, that is.’

‘It’s not like you.’

‘I know. I feel awful. I can’t believe it. I had way too much to drink. Don’t let me do that again.’

‘We would have stopped you, but you disappeared with that guy.’ She sipped the orange juice. ‘We were worried, Kate, in case he turned out to be some crazy weirdo, but then you texted to say you were OK, so we left you to it.’

‘He was fine. He didn’t do anything, thank God. In fact, it was me who suggested we have sex.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t quite believe it.’

‘Are you going to see him again?’

‘No,’ Kate said. ‘He wanted to, but I can’t face it. He was nice enough, but I’d rather forget it happened.’

‘We’ll have to avoid that club, then. In case he’s in there. And if we’re in other places I suppose we’ll have to keep an eye out for him.’

Kate raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s not the only place we’ll have to keep an eye out for him. Guess where he lives.’

‘Where?’

‘Guess.’

May shrugged. ‘London?’

‘No. Guess again.’

‘Manchester?’

‘Warmer.’

May raised her eyebrows. ‘Somewhere close to us?’

‘Very close.’ Kate sat on the end of the bed. ‘He lives in none other than Moore.’

May leaned forwards, propping herself up on her elbows. ‘You mean Moore? The Moore down the road?’

‘The same.’

‘You are fucking kidding me.’

‘I wish I was.’

‘You’re saying he’s from the same pokey part of the world as us? Did you know him?’

Kate shook her head. ‘No, although he did seem familiar once I knew. I suppose I might have seen him around. He’s older, though, so he wouldn’t necessarily hang out in the places we do.’

‘How much older?’

‘Late thirties. Something like that. I didn’t ask.’

‘Got yourself a sugar daddy,’ May said. ‘Lucky you.’

‘Don’t even joke about it,’ Kate replied. ‘This is not funny. Maybe I’ll be able to laugh about it later, but not now.’

‘What’s he doing here?’

‘Holiday. He’s been here a couple of weeks already, hanging out with some friends.’

‘And you’re not going to see him again?’

‘No,’ Kate said. ‘Definitely not.’

The hotel phone started to ring. May looked up at Kate. ‘Do you think that’s him?’ she said.

‘I hope not,’ Kate replied. ‘I didn’t give him the name of the hotel. Shit, I hope he didn’t follow me here.’

‘I’ll get it,’ May said. ‘If it’s him, I’ll tell him I don’t know you and he’s got the wrong number. OK?’

Kate nodded. ‘OK.’

May reached out and picked up the phone.

‘Hello?’ she said. There was a long pause, then she held out the receiver to Kate. ‘It’s for you,’ she said.

‘Is it him?’

‘No,’ May said, and rolled her eyes. ‘It’s Phil.’

Kate took the receiver from May and put it to her ear.

‘Phil?’ she said. ‘What are you doing? Is something wrong?’

His voice was tense, a note or two higher than usual. ‘I wanted to talk to you. You haven’t been answering your phone. I thought maybe you don’t have reception.’

‘It’s pretty patchy,’ she lied. ‘I saw some missed calls’ – some , she thought, didn’t cover it . There’d been dozens of them – ‘but I haven’t been able to call back.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I understand.’

‘So,’ Kate said. ‘ Is something wrong?’

‘No. I just – I just wanted to talk to you. Check you’re OK.’

‘I’m fine,’ Kate said, her mouth tightening. ‘I’m a big girl, Phil. I can look after myself.’

‘I know, but—’

‘And how did you get this number?’ Kate said.

‘I asked your mum and dad where you’re staying.’

The answer was too quick; she knew Phil and she could tell it was a lie he’d prepared earlier. She wasn’t even sure she’d told her parents where she was staying. It pissed her off; this whole phone call pissed her off. She decided not to let him off the hook.

‘Are you sure?’ she said. ‘I don’t recall telling them the hotel name. In fact, I’m pretty sure I didn’t, now I think about it. So how did you get the number?’

He paused. ‘I called around,’ he said finally.

‘Called around what?’

‘The hotels.’

Kate stared at her reflection in the mirror opposite the bed. ‘You called every hotel in the resort?’

‘No!’ he said, a hint of outrage in his voice that she would suggest he was that desperate. ‘I knew you were staying near the harbour, so I called those hotels and asked to be put through to your room.’

‘Right,’ Kate said. ‘So you called every hotel near the harbour.’ She shook her head, exasperated. Why couldn’t he leave her alone, even for one week? One week, so she could enjoy her holiday.

‘Well, it’s nice to talk, but I’m kind of busy right now,’ Kate said. ‘We’re getting ready to go out for breakfast.’ She looked at Gemma, spread out in a star shape, her cheek pressed against the pillow, her mouth half-open as she snored lightly. ‘May and Gem are by the door.’

May suppressed a snort of laughter. Kate glared at her.

‘I only wanted to chat. I miss you.’

‘Can we talk later?’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go. They’re waiting. And we’re hungry.’

‘Will you call later?’ he said.

‘Sure.’

‘You promise you’ll call?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I promise.’ It was a promise she felt she would be justified in forgiving herself for breaking.

As she put the phone in its cradle, Gemma’s eyes opened.

‘Who was that?’ she said, her voice little more than a croak.

‘Phil,’ Kate said. ‘He tracked me down.’

Gemma frowned. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘I know he’s hurting, but he needs to get over it. And tracking you down like this is – well, it’s kind of fucked up, Kate.’

‘I know,’ Kate said. ‘But he means well. You know Phil, he’s—’

‘Don’t make excuses for him,’ Gemma said. ‘He can’t do this. And you’d think he’d know better, after what happened to Beth.’

There was a long pause. ‘It’s not like that,’ Kate said. ‘Beth was a totally different situation.’

‘We didn’t think so at first, though, did we?’ Gemma said. ‘And things might have worked out a hell of a lot better if we’d paid a bit more attention to how serious it was.’

‘We were young,’ May said. ‘We didn’t know any better.’

‘We do now,’ Gemma said. ‘That’s my point, and Phil needs to know he has to give this a rest.’ She looked at Kate. ‘Anyway, let’s not argue. Forget Phil. Which is something you didn’t seem to have any problem doing last night. Where were you, you dirty slapper?’

Kate reached down and picked up a handful of the clothes that Gemma had strewn around the room. She tossed them to her friend.

‘Put these on and I’ll tell you over breakfast,’ she said. ‘And then let’s go to the beach and enjoy the last few days of this holiday.’

She was back. Phil knew this because he had been waiting for this day to come the entire time she had been gone, had been thinking about her incessantly every minute of every day, had been hard-pressed not to call her on the hour, every hour, contenting himself with a few – well, maybe a few more than a few – phone calls each evening.

None of which she answered, until, desperate, he had tracked her down by calling nearly every hotel in Kalkan, a place which was, it seemed, littered with hotels. It wasn’t very big, looking at it on Google Earth – which he had done at least three or four times every day in the stupid hope that he might see her, even though he was fully aware that Google Earth was not a live feed from a satellite and that the images he was looking at were months or years old – but, small size notwithstanding, there were a lot of hotels.