The Ladykiller
The Ladykiller
MARTINA COLE
headline
Copyright © 1993 Martina Cole
The right of Martina Cole to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2009
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
eISBN : 978 0 7553 5071 1
This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations
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Table of Contents
Martina Cole is the No. 1 bestselling author of fifteen hugely successful novels. Her most recent novel,
The Business
, was the No. 1 bestselling hardback adult fiction title of 2008 and went straight to No. 1 on the
Sunday Times
hardback bestseller list, as did
Faces
,
Close
and
The Take,
which won the British Book Award for Crime Thriller of the Year.
The Take
has been adapted for Sky One - with remarkable reviews - and
The Runaway
is currently in production.
The Know
was selected by
Richard & Judy
as one of the Top Ten Best Reads of 2003.
Maura’s Game
,
Faceless
and
The Graft
also shot straight to No. 1 on the
Sunday Times
bestseller lists, and total sales of Martina’s novels are now at nearly ten million copies. Martina Cole has a son and daughter and lives in Kent.
Martina Cole is highly acclaimed for her hard-hitting, uncompromising and haunting writing, as well as her incredible success.
Praise for Martina Cole’s bestsellers:
‘A gritty tale that will keep you hooked’
Sun
‘Right from the start, she has enjoyed unqualified approval for her distinctive and powerfully written fiction’
The Times
‘Martina Cole again explores the shady criminal underworld, a setting she is fast making her own’
Sunday Express
‘The queen of hard-hitting crime fiction’
Bella
‘A blinding good read’ Ray Winstone
I dedicate this book to
Les and Christopher
I would like to thank my agent, Darley Anderson, for his faith, his trust and most of all his friendship.
Many thanks to Sergeant Steven Bolger of the Windermere Police Department, Florida, for all his help while I researched this book.
And a little thanks to Julie, for typing and typing and typing.
And a special thanks to my husband and son, they know what for.
Book One
Of all the griefs that harass the distress’d
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest;
Fate never wounds more deep the gen’rous heart,
Than when a blockhead’s insult points the dart
- Samuel Johnson, 1709-84
I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction
- Isaiah, 48:10
Prologue
‘All I asked you to do was take off your muddy shoes. For Christ’s sake, George, are you thick or something? Can’t you even take in the most simple thing?’
Elaine Markham looked at her husband’s expressionless face and fought down an urge to slam her fist into it. She could feel herself gritting her teeth and made a conscious effort to relax. Once more her eyes went to the wet mud all over her kitchen floor.
Sighing heavily, she took out the floor cloth from underneath the kitchen sink, slammed the cupboard door shut and began to fill a plastic bowl with water. George Markham watched his wife as she sprinkled some Flash into the water. Sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs, he began to remove his gardening shoes, careful not to let any more mud or dirt fall on the pristine floor.
Elaine turned from the sink with the bowl of water and shrieked at him: ‘Can’t you do that on a piece of newspaper? Are you so stupid you can’t even think of doing a simple thing like that?’
George stared at his wife for a few seconds, chewing on his bottom lip.
‘I’m sorry, Elaine.’ His voice was low and bewildered. The sound of it made his wife screw her eyes up tight.
Pulling off his shoes, George went to the kitchen door and dropped them outside. Shutting the door carefully, he turned back to his wife.
‘Give me that, Elaine. I’ll clean up the mess.’ He smiled at her sadly, causing her breathing to become laboured. She shook her head in irritation.
‘No. You’ll only make it worse. By God, George, no wonder you can’t get on at work. It’s a wonder they even allow you to go there every day.’ She put the bowl of steaming water on the floor and knelt down. As she began washing the floor she was still complaining.
‘Honestly, you’re enough to drive a person up the bloody wall. You can’t do anything . . .
anything
. . . without ballsing it up in some way. Look at last week . . .’
George watched his wife’s ample buttocks moving under her apron as she worked and talked. The rolls of fat around her hips were shuddering alarmingly as she scrubbed at the floor. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself getting up from his seat and kicking her as hard as he could in the rump, sending her and the bowl of water flying. The fantasy made him smile to himself.
‘What are you grinning at?’ He brought himself back to the present with difficulty and focused on Elaine’s face. She was staring at him over her shoulder, her bright green eye-shadow and ruby red lips lurid in the glare from the strip light.
‘Nothing . . . Nothing, love.’ He sounded confused.
‘Just piss off, George. Out of my sight.’
He continued to stare at his wife. He watched as her strong arms and hands wrung out the floor cloth, her fingers squeezing until every last drop of water was gone. He wished he was squeezing Elaine’s neck. Instead he went towards the back door.
‘Where are you going now?’ Her voice was high and querulous.
George stared at her.
‘I still have some things to do in the shed.’
Elaine rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
‘Well, why on earth did you come in in the first place? Messing up the floor, causing all this.’ She spread her arms in a gesture of wonderment.
‘I just wanted a cup of tea. But I can see that you’re busy . . .’
He made a hasty exit from the kitchen and pulled on his gardening shoes again outside the back door. Elaine stared at the closed door for a few seconds. As always after she had ‘been at’ George, as she termed it to herself, she felt guilty. Guilty and flat. He was just so useless. Over the years, his placid acceptance of their way of life had driven her mad. Sighing, she carried on washing the floor.
Inside his shed, George bolted the wooden door and leant against it for a few moments, the sweat cold on his forehead. Licking his lips, he closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply.
One of these days Elaine was going to get a shock. She was going to open her mouth once too often. He could feel the hammering of his heart against his ribs and placed his hand over it as if to quell the movement.
He turned from the door and walked to the opposite end of his shed. Pulling a pile of gardening magazines from an old school desk, he opened the top. Inside the desk were a couple of scruffy jumpers - his gardening jumpers. Taking these out, he smiled. Underneath them were his books. His
real
books, with real women in them. Women who did not nag and chide and want. Women who just lay passively and smiled. Whatever you might do to them.
He picked up the top book. On the cover was a young girl of about twenty. Her arms were tied behind her back and she had a leather collar around her neck. Her long golden blond hair lay across her shoulders and partially obscured her breasts. A man’s hand was pulling her head backwards, his hairy maleness messing up the girl’s lovely locks. She was smiling.
George stared at the picture for a while. His small, even teeth just showed beneath his lips in a slight smile. Licking his lips again, he sat in his chair. He opened the magazine slowly as if for the first time, wanting to savour the pleasure of every picture.
He looked at the girl in front of him, a different girl this time. Oriental-looking, with tiny pointed breasts and a curtain of black hair. She was on all fours; the leather strap around her neck was attached to her feet. If she struggled against it, you could see that she would choke to death. A man was behind her. He wore a black leather mask and was about to plunge his erect penis into the girl’s anus. Her back was arched and she was looking at the camera, a smile of beatific pleasure plastered across her face.
George sighed with contentment. He slowly looked through the magazine, pausing here and there to hold the book away from him, to see the pictures from a different angle. He could feel the familiar sense of excitement building up inside. He pushed his hand into the crease of the chair. He felt around for a second, then his hand found what he was looking for. He drew out an army knife, then, placing the magazine carefully across his knees, he pulled the knife out from its cover. It was a large knife with a seven-inch serrated blade. He turned it around in the sunshine that was streaming through the window, watching it glinting. He looked down at the girl in the centrefold of the magazine. Her face was looking up at him in a mixture of agony and ecstasy as a hooded man ejaculated into her face, the semen running down her chin and on to her breasts.
Carefully and precisely, George began to dismember her. He drew the knife across her throat, slitting the paper. Then he began to tear at her breasts and vagina. All the time she watched him. Smiling at him. Encouraging him. He could feel his erection building, could feel the cold sweat under his arms and across his back. He began to hack at the magazine, pushing the knife into the paper. He heard the rush in his ears as if he was swimming underwater and then the graceful, almost euphoric waves of the orgasm as it reached its crescendo.
George lay back in the comfortable old chair, his breathing coming in small gasps, his heartbeat gradually returning to normal. He closed his eyes and gradually the sounds and sights of the day came back to him.
He could hear his neighbour’s strimmer outside his shed. Could hear the children next door playing in their paddling pool. Their high-pitched baby laughter drifted into his consciousness. A bead of salty sweat dripped into his eyes and he blinked it away. He shook his head slowly and looked down at his lap. That was when he saw the blood.
He blinked rapidly for a few seconds. The girl was covered in blood. The body that he had slashed to pieces was slowly being stained crimson. George stared.
