Breaking Dead: A stylish, edge-of-your-seat crime thriller (The Sophie Kent series) Read online

  I arched an eyebrow. ‘I take it you didn’t know. How much do you know?’

  Liam staggered over to the sofa. ‘I knew Lydia was being paid for sex. I’d heard a rumour months ago but didn’t believe it. Then Lydia saw me flirting with an assistant at Leo Brand’s party. Took me to one side and told me that I was an arsehole, that she never loved me and that she . . . well, that she’d been earning money all the way through our relationship. I couldn’t believe it. I fled the party. But on the way home I saw red and went back to confront her.’

  Liam raked his hands over his face. ‘Lydia told me it was none of my business. Laughed at me, in fact. Told me I was weak for still caring. Then a package arrived for me on Monday. A USB stick. It was one thing her telling me, but seeing it. Jesus.’ Liam’s voice caught and I felt a brief surge of compassion for him. ‘I sank a bottle of Scotch, then bombed round to her house. She refused to let me in. I was sorry I’d ever fallen for her. Yelled it out over and over. When I told Lydia I’d seen the tape, she opened the door.’

  A memory rippled across the surface of my brain. Mrs Smythe’s words: He whispered something over and over. Something about a drape. I’d assumed the word Mrs Smythe heard was rape. But could it have been tape?

  ‘I knew Lydia was spiralling but I didn’t realise quite how much. I was drunk enough to wonder if Lydia had sent me the tape herself.’ He gave a thin laugh when he saw my expression. ‘You don’t know Lydia. It’s the kind of sick game she played. For all I knew, she wanted me to see her with those men. But she swore she never sent me the tape. When I asked why she’d let herself be filmed, she lobbed a picture at my head; it was lucky I ducked. When the police arrived, Lydia begged me not to mention the tape, or anything about the sex ring. I figured she didn’t need the press getting hold of it. And, well,’ Liam drained his glass, ‘I didn’t want the world finding out Lydia had been cheating on me the whole time. So I agreed to stay quiet.’

  I eyed him suspiciously. ‘If you’re telling the truth, why wouldn’t she tell you about the blackmail? I mean, you’d seen the tape. Why hide it?’

  ‘Fuck knows.’ Liam covered his face with his hands. When he looked up it was as though every single torment he’d suffered the past week had taken a chisel and carved its mark into his face. ‘So, Lydia really wanted out?’

  I nodded. ‘She wasn’t the only one. Natalia too. And there are more.’ Liam’s jaw slid downwards. ‘The sex ring films models doing sordid things, then when they want to stop, they blackmail them.’

  ‘Fucking hell.’ Liam pushed himself off the sofa and staggered towards the drinks cabinet. The decanter rattled against his glass. He took a slug, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Is that why they were killed?’

  I didn’t answer. A thought shoved through my foggy brain. ‘How come the police didn’t ask you about the sex ring? They’ve known about it since this morning.’

  Liam stared at me, then shrugged. ‘Maybe they already know who’s behind it.’

  Or maybe they’re building a case against you. I glanced towards the window and shivered.

  Liam gave me an odd look. ‘Sophie, what’s wrong? You seem weird.’

  He reached out and brushed my cheek. For a moment, the room spun.

  I reeled backwards. ‘That part of your pitch, Liam?’

  ‘What the fuck –’

  ‘I’ve listened to you all evening. You talk a good game, but the point I keep coming back to is this: Natalia and Lydia were scared of you.’ I rocked from one foot to the other, as adrenaline and booze coursed through my veins. I felt like a firework that had shot up into the sky and was about to explode. ‘Both were being blackmailed to keep quiet, both were spotted talking to the press, and both were murdered. I mean, humour me here.’

  A muscle tightened in Liam’s jaw but his gaze was steady. ‘Do you think I’m guilty?’

  ‘I think you’re guilty of being an grade-A dick.’ The comment was ridiculous. A snort escaped, then another. Suddenly I was laughing.

  ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’

  ‘Everyone I talk to dies.’ I wiped my eyes as laughter caught in my throat. ‘You’d better watch yourself. Unless you’re the killer, in which case I’m screwed.’

  Liam gripped my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. ‘What is going on?’

  I could feel tears melting out the corner of my eyes. ‘It hurts, doesn’t it? When someone is taken from you. Did you love Lydia? Did you really love her?’

  ‘Sophie, I –’

  ‘And you couldn’t save her. That blows. Of course, you could have killed Lydia, and Natalia, in which case you’re a fucking liar and –’

  Liam grabbed the back of my hair and pulled my face up towards his. ‘Sophie, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll –’

  ‘Kill me? That what you said to the others?’ Liam flinched and I laughed in his face. ‘I found out tonight my brother was murdered. He overdosed three months ago. Except, he didn’t overdose. He was killed.’

  ‘What?’

  I shook my head, tried to wrench myself away, but Liam wouldn’t let go. ‘Get the fuck away from me.’ I slammed into his chest, catching him by surprise. He dropped his hands and took a step back. The air thickened and pulsed and matched the throbbing between my legs.

  It hit me like a falling axe. I charged at Liam, shoved him onto the sofa. Straddled him. Slid my tongue across his. Liam pulled back and looked up at me with eyes, large and blue, pools of ink. ‘Sophie, wait –’

  But I couldn’t wait. The images were coming thick and fast. Ripped skin. Mottled throats. Glassy eyes. Sharp things: scissors, thorns, needles. I squeezed my eyes shut, slammed my mouth into his. Stubble clawed at my chin. My lips burned, but I pushed harder. My hands were on Liam’s shirt, his chest, his belt. When he didn’t respond, I ripped open my blouse, yanked down my bra and pressed his hands against me. Liam buried his head in my neck and I heard a moan. Then he was tearing at my clothes, flipping me underneath him. He groped around for my knickers, but I batted his hand away, snapped the fabric to one side.

  His breath was hot on my face. ‘Are you sure you –’

  I wrapped one hand round the back of his head, moved the other down my body to where he was hesitating, guided him in.

  Natalia, Lydia, Tommy. The images slackened, slowed, stopped. And then there was nothing.

  I kissed the tattoo on Liam’s wrist and swung myself up to sitting, peeling my body away from the leather sofa. I felt Liam’s eyes on me. The air around us smelled dark, wet, like a cave. I reached across Liam, grabbed his glass and took a swig. He pulled me towards him, licking the whisky from my lips. I fumbled with my bra strap, staring down at the floor. The brazenness leaked out of me, along with the stickiness between my legs. My eyes landed on a photograph of Liam and Lydia at a red-carpet event. Lydia’s silver dress fell in pools of iridescent light at her feet. Behind her, Liam, in a navy suit, glared at the camera.

  ‘Where was that taken?’

  ‘Last year’s Met Ball.’ A shudder ran through me as Liam’s lips brushed my neck. ‘Your skin smells of honey.’ He dug his teeth into my bare shoulder and my eyes fluttered closed. ‘Your brother. I’m sorry. What happened?’

  I tried to stand, but Liam pulled me back down.

  ‘I need to go.’

  ‘She flees from me, that sometime did me seek, With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve fucked me and run.’ I gave a thin laugh and Liam leaned back against the sofa. ‘So, it’s OK when you’re the one asking questions.’

  I wrapped my blouse around me. ‘That’s my job.’

  ‘Is sleeping with me part of the job too?’

  My hand made contact with his face before I could stop myself. Liam shoved me to one side and stood up. Buckled his jeans. Padded into the kitchen. I heard the coffee machine spurt and bubble.

  He retur
ned with two mugs and sat down beside me. ‘You’re so tightly wound, Sophie. You always were.’ My hand shook as I lifted the mug to my mouth. Liam’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I know why you left, that night in Oxford. You had no faith in me. You still don’t.’

  ‘You’re pissed at me because I didn’t stick around to get dumped?’

  ‘I’m pissed because you never gave me a chance.’

  The coffee chased all the lightness away and I felt clumsy and irritable. ‘You’d better watch your back, Liam.’

  ‘I’d rather watch yours.’ He ran a finger across my shoulders, sending tingles all the way through me.

  I pushed him away. ‘I’m serious, you fuck. They’re building a case against you. Just because you’ve been released . . .’

  Liam crossed one leg over the other and sighed. ‘You know what they think? That Lydia was my intended victim and I killed Natalia first to make it look as though it was a serial killer. They even think I sent that text to myself from Lydia’s phone. Eat your heart out, Fred West.’

  I turned to face Liam just as he adjusted his smile. I shivered and slipped away from him. ‘I really do have to go.’

  I was slipping on my shoes when Liam came up behind me. He stopped inches away, as if there was an invisible force field between us. ‘The sex ring. You’re not running the story, are you?’

  I sighed, but didn’t turn round. ‘What do you think?’

  Liam pressed himself against me. ‘It will blow her reputation out of the water.’

  I spun round to face him. ‘Keeping it secret is letting them win. It’s letting her killer win. Nothing can bring Lydia back, but we can show the world the choices she had to make. And anyway,’ I fell back on every reporter’s most hackneyed explanation, ‘the story might encourage other victims to come forward.’

  Liam gave me a cool look, then drifted over to the oak table and grabbed his phone. ‘I’m calling you a cab.’

  Five minutes later, Liam walked me to the front door. When he bent down to kiss me goodbye, his lashes felt like tiny spiders crawling on my cheek.

  27

  A loud thumping noise pulled me out of the cloudy seconds between sleeping and waking, and I crashed to the surface. It was a few seconds before I twigged the thumping noise was my pulse. I lay there waiting for my heart rate to slow, but it didn’t. I forced myself into the shower. Hot water flooded the soreness between my legs. My cheeks burned with memory. I yanked the temperature dial round to cold and let the icy water wash me clean.

  Tommy was murdered. Three small words that filled my head with noise. I sat down on the bath and let the words swirl around me, curious to know where they’d take me. Violet was right. As twisted as it sounded, I did feel a sense of relief knowing that Tommy hadn’t chosen to die.

  I got dressed, bolted down a bowl of cereal, then switched on the news. The acid colours and shrill voices sharpened my hangover, so I turned it off. The Juliets story still hadn’t run, which meant Rowley wasn’t confident it was watertight. I reached for my phone to update Kate about the two-killer bombshell and spotted a text from Melissa. Hi, Sophie! Found diary! Man who turned up at Mands’ house was called Bairstow. John Bairstow. Melissa (W-C)

  I chucked my bowl in the sink and wandered through to my office.

  I searched for John Bairstow online, but nothing obvious came up. On a hunch, I called Detective Inspector Rob Birch. Rob was short and wiry, with black hair and a grin that belonged on a more handsome face. We first met face down on a pavement in Hackney, following an explosion in a block of flats that catapulted us fifteen feet into the air. I fractured my wrist but considered it a small price to pay for an intro to a decent inside source.

  Rob didn’t ask why I was searching for John Bairstow, and I didn’t tell him. It took less than a minute for him to find a match.

  ‘Yeah, there’s a John Bairstow who was convicted of rape in March 1988. Served four years at HMP Liverpool.’ Adrenaline rocketed through my veins. ‘Looks like the victim was seventeen-year-old Ariel Butters from Kent, but before you ask, no, I can’t give out her details.’

  I thanked Rob and hung up. A quick search on the electoral roll gave me her address in Edenbridge.

  Forty-five minutes later I was sitting in a South West train carriage that stank of burgers and BO. As the train slipped out of Victoria Station, my phone pinged with an email from DI Weatherly. I whipped open my laptop and clicked on the attachment. He hadn’t just scanned his notes, he’d included local newspaper cuttings, statements, post-mortem photos and crime-scene photos. I slurped my muddy tea and opened the crime-scene photos.

  Amanda Barnes was on her stomach, her head and shoulders hidden under a thick hedgerow. Her feet were bare; her pink trainers lay next to her. Amanda’s polka-dot nightdress had ridden up above her hips. The next photo cropped into her hands, half buried in the leaves.

  I bit down on the polystyrene cup and moved on to the post-mortem photographs. The hedgerow had sliced Amanda’s face to ribbons and one eye was half closed in a lazy wink. Her throat was dotted with red marks, like smears of strawberry jam. The detail shots showed faded bruises around her wrists, cigarette burns on her breasts, her shoulders, her neck. The report stated cause of death was asphyxiation. Traces of Preludin were found in her system, but friends stated Amanda was taking it to lose weight.

  I scrolled through the rest of the case files. Pages and pages of statements: Amanda’s distraught mother, Clare; Melissa Wakefield-Channing and three other schoolfriends testified to Michael Farrow’s obsession with his stepdaughter and the change in Amanda’s behaviour. There was a statement from the last teacher to see Amanda alive and from the jogger who discovered Amanda’s body.

  Then there were photographs of the evidence collected. Michael Farrow’s white Nike trainers caked with mud. A small brown envelope containing pictures of Amanda at different ages, all with her face scratched out. The caption read: exhibit H found under floorboards in suspect’s bedroom. Next to it, scribbled in red pen were the words: scratches on A’s face linked to scratched photos? At one stage, Weatherly had entertained the theory that Amanda’s cuts weren’t accidental. Nowhere in the report was there any mention of John Bairstow.

  As the train pulled into Redhill Station my phone rang. ‘Yes?’

  ‘What happened with Liam?’ Mack’s voice rumbled down the phone.

  My cheeks flared. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Did you get a quote?’

  ‘I . . . I thought I was dealing with Kate on this.’

  ‘Kate’s busy. Did you get Liam on board or not?’

  I rested my head against the window as the train jerked forward. When I slapped Mack round the face, I didn’t actually think I’d have to work with him again. ‘He wouldn’t go on the record.’

  The conductor’s tinny voice came over the tannoy, announcing the next station. ‘Where the hell are you?’ I filled Mack in with all the energy of a flat Coke, knowing he wouldn’t go for it. ‘What’s this got to do with the Juliets?’

  I opened my mouth to make up some bullshit, to buy myself time, but what was the point? ‘Possibly nothing. I don’t know yet.’

  ‘Kent, we’re up to our eyes in this story. Rahid is drawing a blank with the pixellated perverts on that tape, and no hotel employees are talking. We need more evidence or Legal won’t let us run the story.’

  I glimpsed a flash of white as the train sailed through frost-covered fields, and felt myself grow heavy with doubt. ‘I have a hunch, Mack. There are too many coincidences.’

  ‘Amanda’s killer committed suicide. It’s a dead end. But what would I know, I’m the idiot who couldn’t break a story if it landed on my dick, right?’

  ‘Mack –’

  ‘Don’t you think you should be doing as you’re told, given your latest fuck-up? Whatever Rowley told you, I still run this team . . .’ I tuned him out and scrolled back through the crime-scene photos. Amanda’s slim feet, the leaves caught on her nightdress,
the tiny white buds on the branches of the hedgerow. I zoomed into the photograph. White flowers, black jagged branches, long dark thorns. My breath caught in my throat.

  Amanda Barnes was hidden under a blackthorn tree.

  The taxi wound its way through identikit streets that were named after Shakespearean characters: Ophelia Drive, Hamlet Close, Viola Crescent. The developer must have hoped they would lend grandeur to the housing estate, but it still resembled a cheap film set.

  Number 10 Oberon Way stood at the end of a deserted cul-de-sac. A plain two-up, two-down with a fuzz of lawn and a wind chime hanging over the front door. I told the taxi to wait, then rang the doorbell – a synthesised Big Ben chime – and rehearsed my pitch. A curtain twitched, then the door swung open, revealing an overweight woman in stonewashed jeans and a shapeless grey shirt, clutching a phone to her chest. A pretty face that was on the turn. Large hazel eyes marred by bags; a jawline that was heading south and straggly blonde hair that had long grown past its happy length.

  ‘Are you Ariel Butters?’

  She chewed her lip, smearing pearly pink lipstick across her teeth. ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘My name is Sophie Kent. I’m a reporter with The London Herald. I want to ask a few questions about John Bairstow.’

  Ariel frowned and the deep lines almost split her brow in two. She lowered her voice into the phone. ‘Rach, I’m going to have to call you back.’

  I followed her into the kitchen and noticed her surreptitiously wipe off her lipstick with her palm. A lemony smell in the air. A scatter of voices from the retro radio in the corner. A mop languishing against the fridge.

  ‘Ignore the floor. I’ve got to start again.’ She gestured with a bloated hand towards a trail of small, black footprints. ‘Bloody cat.’

  Ariel’s shoes clacked across the kitchen floor. I was startled to see she was wearing fluffy marabou heels. A shoe that screams peroxide curls, fast glamour and vintage Hollywood. She caught me staring and kicked them off, where they settled like pink clouds on the wet linoleum.