Killing Kate. Alex Lake

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       12

      Thirty minutes later there was a knock on the door. Kate pushed the curtains aside and peered through the window: it was May. She let her in and they sat on the couch. May took a canister with a nozzle from her bag and passed it to Kate.

      ‘Mace,’ she said. ‘Be careful with it. And there’s this as well.’ She reached in and pulled out an alarm that looked like a tiny megaphone. ‘Rape alarm. The mace is not exactly legal, so don’t tell anyone where it came from, but if either of us do end up spraying some serial killer with it, I doubt anyone will be bothered about that.’

      Kate pushed the button on the alarm; she jumped back. The sound was deafening. She imagined using it, on a lonely, dark street, the sound echoing into nothing.

      She wouldn’t be on a lonely, dark street anytime soon. Ever, probably.

      ‘You sure you don’t want to stay with us?’ May said. ‘You’re welcome, if you do. I can make up the spare bed.’

      Kate shook her head, in part because she didn’t want to put her friend to the trouble and in part because to run to her house would be to accept that this was real, and once she did that, what came next? Live with May for ever? Move back to her parents’ house? No: she would stay in her home.

      ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said.

      She was, sort of. If waking up every hour at the slightest noise – the creak of a radiator, the pop of floorboards settling, the bark of a neighbour’s dog – and then being unable to get back to sleep because of the adrenaline coursing through her body, was fine, then she was fine.

      At work the next morning her eyes were puffy, dark circles underneath them.

      ‘You OK?’ Gary said, as he sipped his coffee. ‘You look like me. Big night last night? Out giving it fucking large? Hitting the clubs?’

      ‘No,’ she said. ‘I wish. Bad night’s sleep, sadly.’

      She sincerely wished that all she was dealing with was a hangover, and not the prospect of more sleepless, terrified nights. This was a bad time to be newly single. Trust her luck: the moment she broke up with Phil, someone started killing women who looked like her. There would be no boyfriend when she got home from work, no peck on the cheek, no enquires about how her day had been, no cuddling on the sofa, no shared bottle of wine followed by an early bedtime and leisurely sex. No comforting presence next to her in the bed at night.

      Just silence, and insomnia, and a sense of worry, an unsettling feeling that she was vulnerable, and not only when she was home alone. On her way to work that morning she had found herself checking her rear-view mirror as she drove so she could make sure no one was following her. To be on the safe side, she was planning to stop at a supermarket in a different town on the way home. Paranoid, she knew, but she couldn’t help it. Everyone was a potential threat; the world was no longer a safe place. It was going to be a long week.

      And it was, but thankfully, as the week went on, the fear diminished. It didn’t disappear, but normal life intruded and staked a claim on her attention. She, like most people, was a creature of habit. She had her routines: wake up, coffee, toast, upstairs to shower and brush teeth, dress. She did them in that order, every day. It meant she didn’t have to think. She just did. It was easy, reassuring. Most people were like that: it was why, the first time someone stayed in a hotel they were unsettled; the next time, it was familiar, almost like home.

      On Friday afternoon, she was wrapping up a meeting with a client. It had been a difficult few hours. The client had been sued for continuing to make a toaster despite having been given reports that it could catch fire and they were not happy with the work Kate and her colleagues had done. Michaela was there – probably enjoying Kate’s discomfort – along with a woman, Claire, whom she had worked with before, and a man, Nate, who she had seen around, but not met. He was a contract specialist who had been drafted in to answer some specific questions.

      The client had spent most of the meeting pointing out what they considered to be mistakes. At first Kate had gently tried to argue that she had done the best she could, given the circumstances – they were in the wrong and they were going to have to pay a large sum of money – but there was no point. They were upset and, rather than look at themselves, they were blaming their lawyer, and all Kate and her colleagues could do was to take it.

      At the end of the meeting she headed for the coffee machine. She poured herself a cup of black coffee and leaned against the wall. She had not been looking forward to the weekend – she had no plans – but now she was glad it was Friday afternoon. Saturday and Sunday could take care of themselves; all she wanted now was to get out of here and go and have a drink.

      ‘Tough meeting.’ Nate appeared in the doorway. ‘Not the most pleasant bunch.’

      ‘I know,’ Kate said. ‘They were so unreasonable.’

      ‘Ach,’ Nate said. ‘They were pissed off because they’re going to lose. That’s all.’

      ‘I mean, what do they expect from us?’ Kate said. ‘We’re lawyers, not miracle workers. They’re in the wrong: nothing we can do will change that. If they want someone who can do that then they need to go to Hogwarts and see if Harry Potter wants to work for them when he leaves school.’

      Nate laughed. He was thin, with high cheekbones and sharp features. His wore gold-rimmed, delicate glasses, and had an intense, searching gaze. ‘You should have suggested that as a strategy.’

      ‘Right. Michaela would have loved that.’

      He nodded. ‘You have a point. Perhaps better that you kept it to yourself.’

      ‘It’s a shitty case,’ Kate said. ‘How did you get roped in?’

      ‘I asked if I could,’ Nate said. ‘I wanted to work on it.’

      ‘Seriously?’