PROLOGUE
Thank you for reading this book. Please join our mailing list for free Kindle crime thriller, detective and mystery books, and new releases.
CLICK HERE TO GET MORE LOVELY BOOK DEALS
The first time I see her is in the minimart — one of those places with the prefix ‘Metro’ or ‘Central’ to make it sound cosmopolitan and sexy. Go to a city centre minimart around lunchtime and you’ll find it’s just humming with hotties.
She’s stand-out gorgeous. Nice hair — touchable hair. Blonde. Skirt suit in a girly colour — lilac or mauve. She’s wearing a blouse with a wavy chiffon edge in a vee. God, I want to ruffle that chiffon! She bends over the freezer and I stand to her left, looking down the vee. She is a looker — I mean Playboy centrefold — the real deal.
Now I have her all to myself. She looks at me with her big Bambi eyes. She’s even sexier by candlelight — I’ve got the place rigged out like a Meatloaf video — “I Would Do Anything for Love” — and there’s nothing she won’t do for me. Maybe she’s a bit woozy from the bump on the head, because she doesn’t struggle against the restraints — doesn’t even look all that scared, yet. I’ve been following her for so long I feel she should know me, and knowing me, she should be very scared. We’ve shared train carriages and supermarket queues, I’ve been with her in bars and restaurants, trailed her walks through the park and sat for long nights with her, reading by lamplight. I know her cat is named Oscar, she visits her mother in Stockport every Sunday, she dates occasionally, but isn’t desperate to share her bed or her bathroom with a man on a permanent basis.
I tell her this, see a glimmer of fear, like the dip and flare of a candle flame. Then I pick up the taser and she begins to understand just how much trouble she’s in. It’s fully charged, but I’m not ready to use it, yet, so I set it down and switch to the knife, holding it lightly to her throat, applying just enough pressure so she can feel the bite. She holds her breath, leans back, trying to avoid the blade, but she’s bound tight to the pillar — there’s nowhere to go. A tear brims on her lower lid and I see the whites of her eyes. This is more like it.
A wisp of hair trembles over her eye — her whole body is shaking.
Now she’s exactly where I want her — I own her — body, soul and mind. I am her worst nightmare.
I lean in close and whisper, ‘This game has endless possibilities, doesn’t it?’
CHAPTER 1
October
Tasha McCorkindale liked her corner pitch. For flagging down a taxi or catching passing custom, the corner was the strategic place to be. The massive sandstone cathedral opposite her was built on an outcrop above the sheer face of what was first a quarry, then a cemetery, but was now a garden, tenanted by the wealthy dead of the Victorian age, and haunted at night by drug addicts and prostitutes looking to score according to their individual needs.
When a storm blew in off the Mersey, the wind would scream up Duke Street and scramble over the quarry wall — slice you two ways to the bone. But tonight was one of those rare October nights in Liverpool when the air was so warm it seemed to curl up like a cat and purr sweetly at your feet. It was still and soft, loaded with the fragrance of leaf mulch and salty ships at anchor.
Hayley, ten yards down the terrace from Tasha, straightened up from her slouch and called out, ‘Got the time, lad?’
A man swerved, stepping into the road to avoid her. Aw, a shy guy. He was wearing sunglasses, although it was dark as sin under the privet hedge and the canopy of trees in front of Gambier Terrace.
Tasha fluffed the fur of her stole and sighed to attract his attention. He hesitated and she stepped into the light.
‘Too hot to sleep, isn’t it?’ she said, her voice low and husky. She dipped her head and lifted a long hank of hair from her neck.
He grunted and she heard the animal ecstasy of lust in it.
‘How much?’ he said, and she smiled, moving to slip her arm through his. He tensed and she reached across and patted his chest to soothe him.
He paid her — less than she was worth, but evidently more than he’d expected — and they walked on.
I might paint him. In sepia tones, or Lucozade-orange and tar-black. I’ll call it Shades of Night, or Blind Lust.
‘Where’s your car, hon?’ They had already crossed the main road, into the continuation of Hope Street, and were heading towards the Catholic cathedral.
‘This way.’ He turned right into Back Canning Street.
It was little more than an alleyway, but money had been spent on the Georgian houses in recent years, so the perimeter walls were solid and neatly pointed. At the corner of Back Hope Street, one of the business properties had carved a car park out of a section of garden, and three cars stood on the gravel.
‘Here?’ she said.
He indicated the narrower alley, just wide enough for one car to trundle along its stone setts. Even the back streets in this part of town had undergone the heritage treatment, and a single faux-Victorian lamp post cast a pinkish glow onto a saloon car parked beneath it.
‘There,’ he said, taking out a key fob.
She quirked an eyebrow. Not so very shy, then?
He walked fast, clamping his left elbow close to his side to trap her arm, as if afraid she might change her mind. Tasha’s heel caught in an uneven paving sett and her ankle twisted under her. He took her weight easily, and grabbed her right wrist with his free hand, saving her from a fall. They were facing each other now.
‘Eager to get on your knees are you, love?’
Something in his tone made her heart jump sideways in her chest and she said, ‘You can let go of me, now.’
He frowned, startled by the emergence of rounded vowels, and a slight plumminess in her accent: her street persona had slipped.
‘You taking the piss?’
She eased free of him. This was a man who would be quick to take offence, and Tasha knew from experience that kind was the most dangerous. ‘Look,’ she said, reverting to her street voice. ‘It’s late. My feller’ll be wondering where I’ve got to. Let’s say I give you your money back and we call it quits?’ She felt in her pocket for the money and offered it to him.
He stared at the notes as if she’d spat on them. ‘And the rest.’
Her heart did that sideways jump again. Not good. This is not good. ‘That’s all of it.’ She held out the money.
‘I’ve been watching you,’ he said. ‘You’ve had five punters at sixty quid a dip. That makes three hundred, plus my original stake.’
They were thirty yards from Hope Street. Another twenty from where the other girls were working. No way could she run in three-inch stilettos. Scream? Yeah, and who’s going to gallop to your rescue, Tasha? Not a single window was lit in the houses around her. The locals had long since stopped noticing the sounds of night-time rut in this part of the city. Feeling the pulse in her throat, Tasha opened her clutch bag and drew out the notes. Her hand shook slightly but her voice sounded steady enough. ‘You can have the cash,’ she said. ‘Just don’t hurt me.’
He smiled. ‘Aw . . . but that’s the best part.’