Cold Kill by David Lawrence Page A

of crime tape has gone and the police have also gone, I thought I’d drop you a line. Throw you a line, you might say. Life-line of sorts.
    I know how you feel. I know why you did what you did. If you want to know more about that – if you want to know more about me – put a card in the message-mart at ‘Store Twenty-Four’ in the North End Road about a missing cat called Nero. Also use the words: ‘Smoky-blue with a white tip to his tail’. Put your email address.
    I hope you don’t mind that I took a look round. Finding you was easy. You just need contacts. I’ve got lots of contacts. The replacement door wasn’t very sturdy. In fact, a number of people had been in before me, but they didn’t find anything to take, of course, because the police had done that. I’m afraid someone pissed in your hallway. Some people are too stupid to live, aren’t they?
    It was a shame they took the photos away but I enjoyed your stories. If you like the fiction you’d like the real-life version even more. You must have been thinking about that, haven’t you? I bet you have.
    I would love to see your photos.
    Can you guess who I am? I was so surprised when I saw Valerie’s name and yours linked in the press. It would be nice to have a chat about Valerie and what you told the police and what they said. You had them guessing for a good long time, I have to hand it to you.
    Valerie. You were following her and the thing is I didn’t know. That’s the odd thing, the really odd thing – I didn’t know.
    Don’t forget the cat’s name is Nero.

15
    There were no roses in Rose Park. Winter roses, summer roses: you’d wait in vain. Maybe there had been once; maybe a rose garden had existed where now there was a scabby acre of grass and four chain-and-tyre swings. Maybe roses had once flourished next to those starved ornamental trees and the tangle of overgrown scrub.
    Rose Park had a bad rep. You could check out the recreational tendencies of those who used the park from the litter of syringes and condoms. Dog-owners from Harefield would bring their pets along for a run and a dump. Now and then, young mothers new to the area might spot the swings and take their kids in, but they never went back. The locals, especially those from the Harefield Estate, used it as a short cut between the shops and the maze of small roads that led in and out of the bull ring.
    That’s why Sophie Simms was walking through. It was a regular route for her and she wouldn’t have worried about Rose Park’s reputation anyway, as it was still light and there were people around in the streets. She was thinking about the guy she had spent the night with: a new guy – she’d been seeing him for a couple of weeks. She liked him, but there were problems, and she was having a little debate with herself.
    He’s good looking but you know he’s into bad stuff.
    Everyone’s into bad stuff.
    No, really bad stuff.
    He’s sweet when he’s on his own.
    Meaning you don’t like his friends.
    I’m not sleeping with his friends.
    It’s drugs and it’s not now and then.
    Good, I could use some drugs.
    Me too. But it’s how deep he’s in. Those Yardie boys
...
    I can keep him clear of those guys.
    You can?
    Sure.
    Tell me how.
    Easy. I’ll never let him –
    Sophie never finished telling herself how, because that was when the light suddenly faded to grey and things around her seemed to fly away. Seemed to scatter. She knew she was falling but didn’t know what had made that happen. There was a noise like a machine in her ears. She registered the pain a moment later, like a shout on the wind. It was bad, it struck every nerve in her body, but in her head it was immense: a red and white explosion too big to allow her to cry out. Then the noise stopped; the pain billowed; the grey became black.
    She went on falling long after she hit the