Alex Lake - Killing Kate

This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollins Publishers 2016

Copyright © Alex Lake 2016

Alex Lake asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover design by Cherie Chapman © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016

Cover photographs © Mark Owen / Arcangel (girl); Neil Holden / Arcangel (bridge); Shutterstock.com(all other images)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Source ISBN: 9780008199715

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2016 ISBN: 9780008199722

Version: 2019-08-29

To TMC-G

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue: The Fab Four

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Part One: Interlude

Five Years Earlier

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Part Two

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Part Two: Interlude

Five Years Earlier

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Part Three

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Later

One Year Later

Keep Reading …

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Alex Lake

About the Publisher

They had once been four.

Kate, May, Gemma, and Beth. The Fab Four, their parents called them, with an affectionate nod to the original Fab Four from Liverpool and a wry nod to the fact that their teenage daughters happened to agree that they really were, after all, pretty damn fab.

Four best friends, from their first days at infant school, through the wide-eyed years of junior school and the drama of high school and then on to university and their fledgling careers. Along the way there were fashion fads and music crazes, first kisses and last kisses, tears (lots) and laughter (even more). All of it added layer upon layer to their deepening and – it seemed – eternal friendship.

And then, without warning, it all changed.

Looking back, Kate could pinpoint the night she noticed – they all noticed – that it was going wrong. She had no idea at the time quite how wrong it was going, or how quickly, but she had known that something was not as it should have been.

When she fully understood what it was, however, it was too late.

Beth was already lost.

She had to get out of there.

There were many thoughts going round in her head – confusion, regret, shame – but that was the overriding one.

She needed to leave. That instant. Kate Armstrong wanted to be anywhere other than where she found herself.

Leaving, though, was complicated by the fact that the man whose bed she was in – what was his name? Rick? Mike? Mack? Shit, she couldn’t even remember that – was not there. His side of the bed was empty. Which meant that the option of sneaking out quietly was not available. He was up and about, somewhere in his Turkish holiday apartment, and she would have to face him before she could flee.

Unless there was a window. She knew that leaving that way was unorthodox, maybe even desperate, but she was desperate. He might think it was odd when he came in and she was gone, the window wide open, but she didn’t really care.

She sat up in the bed, making sure that the sheets were pulled up over her naked torso – God, she was naked, naked in a stranger’s bed – and looked around. Her vision was milky – the result of leaving in her contact lenses overnight – and her eyes itched, but she could see through a window that the apartment was not on the ground floor. There were branches of a tree of some kind she did not recognize right outside the window.

So that was that. She would have to face him. Rick or Mike or Mack.

It was Mike , she thought, details of the evening coming back to her. He was called Mike, and she’d met him in a nightclub. She was buying drinks for her friends, May and Gemma, at the bar when some perma-tanned Italian had sidled up behind her and put his arms around her waist, pressing the crotch of his white linen trousers into her bum. He’d muttered something unintelligible – or Italian, at any rate – into her ear and then she’d tried to wriggle free.

She’d managed to turn to face him and he grinned in what she assumed he thought was a charming way, then put his hand on her hip.

Which was when the guy – Mike – showed up.

Hi , he said. He put a hand on her shoulder and smiled. Sorry I’m late .

She had no idea who he was, but she knew what he was doing. He’d seen her struggling and had come over to help.

No problem , she said, as though she knew him well. I was getting some drinks. What are you having?

A beer. He looked at the Italian. Who’s your friend?

No one. We just met. She raised an eyebrow and gave her assailant a little wave. Arrivederci.