Killer Reads
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First published in Great Britain by Cutting Edge Press 2013
This ebook edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Eve Seymour 2017
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Eve Seymour asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN: 9780008271527
Ebook Edition © November 2017
Version 2017-09-21
Female blowflies can scent the moment of death. I donât understand how this works. But like the blowfly, I had a premonition that the woman Iâd come to kill was already dead. I sensed it from the moment I slipped into the darkened room.
Yet I couldnât be certain.
Senses alive, I crossed the floor without sound. Silence is important in this wicked game. And preparation. Iâd memorised the precise location of the wardrobe and dressing table and the rocking chair that crouched in the corner. Iâd charted the distance from the doorway to the bed: four point eight seven metres. A man my height and build with a smooth gait and a size eight shoe should cover it in less than six seconds. Basic law of motion. I had no fear of interruption. On entry Iâd double-locked the front door.
The room was November cold. I could smell booze, brandy at a guess, the fainter scent of expensive perfume almost entirely smothered. When watching her Iâd noticed the target appreciated expensive clothes, good quality shoes. She was particularly fond of a charcoal-coloured leather jacket. Personally I never wear leather for a job. It makes too much noise. Iâm a clean, crisply ironed open neck dress-shirt with jeans and loafers kind of guy. When flush I buy my suits from Cad and the Dandy, Canary Wharf.
She lay on her back, one limp arm hanging down. Light from a fading four oâclock moon illuminated her face, neck and the fleshy slope of her shoulders. I leaned over â my eyes are pretty quick at adjusting to night vision â and stretched out a hand towards her, the same hand that would have smothered and suffocated and extinguished life. The cool skin felt inert against the latex of the surgical glove. No breath. No movement. No pulse.
Did I feel cheated? No. Was I angry? No way. I was confused and bunched up with alarm. I had been sent to kill her. Chances were so had someone else. And maybe theyâd come for the same reason. Not easily fazed, something coiled slowly in the pit of my stomach.
I crouched down beside her. In death she neither looked serene nor at peace. Her mouth was ajar as if she were mid-snore. Marionette lines ran from each corner to her chin like two deep incisions. The blonde hair splayed across the pillow, dark at the roots, indicated a woman who once cared about her appearance but had lost interest. To establish the rigidity of her flesh, I touched her mouth and jaw. There was some stiffness but not much. There were no visible signs of violence that I could see. No vomit or bruises. No broken nails. No lacerations. I suppressed an involuntary shudder, an earlier memory threatening to erupt. This was now, I reminded myself, not then, not with the blood on the wall andâ¦
Part of me wondered if by strange coincidence sheâd died from natural causes. Unusual, not impossible, but as a general rule people in middle age donât succumb with the same unexpected haste as those in the first flush of fickle youth. There was, of course, another possibility.