It Should Have Been Me Read online

  Contents

  I couldn’t believe . . .

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  For Sue Kenyon, who makes it all possible, and Jim Wall, avid reader of crime fiction, with love.

  I couldn’t believe it. I thought I’d seen a ghost. But here you are. Living, breathing, laughing. The same bright halo of hair, that taunting look you always had. My brain is confused – I tell myself it isn’t possible – but my body knows it’s you. Oh yes! The thrill of it, the arousal. I still want you, that much is clear.

  And I started to wonder. Can we turn back the clock? Changing the past, correcting the mistakes of our youth, surely that would be true mastery?

  When serendipity comes it’s easy to falter, to fuss over the details, baulk at the risks. But without danger life becomes banal and pointless. Until I saw you I didn’t realize how bored I was. I woke up and I knew.

  You belong to me, you always have.

  Now I’ll prove it.

  PROLOGUE

  22 May 2000

  She needed more coffee to stay awake, which was easy enough to get, plus a ton more time, which wasn’t. The amount of caffeine already humming through her veins was giving her palpitations. It was an odd sensation, her heart thumping against her ribcage and drumming home the message: stupid, stupid, stupid. Seven tequila shots on the night before exams started? She struggled to remember. It could’ve been more than seven. And for what? Some puerile student drinking game. What had possessed her? She didn’t even like tequila and all the coffee she’d drunk since had done little to mask the sour afterburn still fizzing in her gullet.

  The glass cafetière stood empty on her desk – a present from Mum and Dad the previous autumn, when she was a fresher and full of resolutions about how hard she was going to work at uni, how she’d graduate with a First. But in the helter-skelter of the last two terms that ambition had been squeezed out by all the urgent demands of student life. Bad habits had ambushed her. Now she feared she’d left it all too late; the threat of retakes in the summer loomed, not to mention parental disappointment. And Sarah was the golden child, she didn’t want to disappoint anyone.

  Working in the early hours was sometimes easier, fewer distractions, but she needed to shanghai her jittery brain, get the cuffs on and force it to concentrate. Think, think, think. Her fingertips hovered over the keyboard. The blue-tinted light from the laptop was drilling into her retinas. Another cigarette would help. She picked up the packet. Smoking kills – yeah, she got that. But not until you were old, like maybe fifty. In the meantime, she was relying on the nicotine to help her focus.

  The block she lived in was on the edge of campus and faced the dark spectral hillside behind the university. One of the most exciting places in the country to study, or so the prospectus had bragged. Perched on the edge of the South Downs it had a dreamy quality, an otherworldliness, which appealed to Sarah. She liked to leave her blinds open at night and stare out into the inky blackness. It calmed her, gave her some respite. Perhaps other students would see her, watch her, pervy boys even, but she didn’t care. Let them look. Being at uni was great but also way more stressful than she’d expected. You always had to be on. Full on. Clothes, hair, attitude. Each day was a performance, with relentless competition for the leading role. And judgement was swift. It wasn’t hard to be labelled a loser.

  The essay was way overdue, a piece of practical criticism, which was part of the continuous assessment for the year and constituted 10 per cent of the final exam mark. If she worked all night she’d probably make it, though she was unsure how impressive her efforts would be. Dr Haliburton was a raddled old dyke and easy enough to charm in a seminar, but this was different.

  The poem was about a snake, called, unoriginally she thought, Snake. But she couldn’t say that. Haliburton wouldn’t buy it because it was D. H. Lawrence. This meant the choice of title had to be freighted with meaning and not simply because he too was nursing a hangover and couldn’t come up with anything better.

  She read it through for the fourth time. Snake comes for a drink at a water trough, stupid dude gets all wound up because he can’t decide whether to whack it or not and he feels guilty. She preferred Kaa, the python in Jungle Book with the super-sexy voice. Trust in me! She wondered about putting that in, a bit of pop-culture; Haliburton might think that was cool. On the other hand, she might not.

  Glancing at her bedside clock she was surprised to see it was nearly 2 a.m. There was an acrid taste in her mouth. She drew on the cigarette but that made it worse. As she forced her eyes back to the screen the font seemed to jump and weave. Maybe she needed glasses; that would be a total pain. What she definitely needed was more coffee.

  There were eight rooms in the block – she lived at the top – with a shared kitchen on the middle floor. As she padded down the stairs she felt a whoosh of cold air rushing up from below. Some genius had left the outer door open – again!

  Ducking
into the kitchen she filled the kettle, slotted it on the base and clicked it on. Then she trotted downstairs to close the door. The outside security light was activated by a motion sensor but the nerd – he did mechanical engineering – who lived on the ground floor and went to bed at ten, said it kept him awake, so he’d removed the bulb. Sarah slammed the outer door shut; with any luck it would wake the nerd up.

  She returned to the kitchen, spooned ground coffee into the cafetière and was filling it with boiling water when she heard a footfall on the stair; it must be one of her roommates going to the loo. She put her head round the doorjamb with the intention of scaring them. But there was no one there. Then she caught a whiff, chemical and cloying, of the sharp body-spray flogged to young blokes with the promise they’d be irresistible.

  Carrying the coffee, she headed back up to her room. Two more paracetamol plus a couple of mugs of this should finally kick her synapses into gear.

  As soon as she pushed open the door she saw him. He was standing there, arms folded, wearing a Bill Clinton carnival mask. This was the last straw.

  ‘Oh what! Like I don’t know who you are?’

  The baby-faced features of the 42nd President of the United States grinned back at her.

  ‘You’re up late.’

  ‘Really. Well spotted.’ She made no attempt to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Coffee smells nice.’ He was fiddling with the pen on her desk, twiddling it in his tapered fingers. She had to admit there was something compelling about him.

  She sighed. ‘Look, you might not be bothered, but exams start tomorrow, plus I’ve got a paper to hand in, so—’

  ‘C’mon. Bit of relaxation. It’ll help your concentration.’ He pushed the carnival mask up on to his forehead and smiled. Not a handsome face, too weaselly, but that body: definitely hot.

  ‘It won’t. This will.’ She pointed to the coffee.

  ‘That’s disappointing.’

  ‘Well, it is what it is.’

  Standing with his hands on his hips, skinny jeans, tight T-shirt emphasizing his biceps, she could feel the pheromones. He was looking straight at her and it gave her that lovely fluttery feeling. Considering her overall queasy condition this hint of arousal surprised her.

  Picking up the cafetière, she poured herself a mug. ‘You need to go.’

  He started to chuckle. ‘You think I don’t know, don’t you?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘You can’t keep avoiding me.’

  Their eyes met, she managed to stare him down but it took effort. How could he know? There was no way. It wasn’t possible.

  ‘I’m not avoiding you.’ The denial rang hollow even to her. ‘But you act as if you’ve got some kind of right here. I’ve told you I need to work, but you want sex and my needs don’t matter. It’s all about what you want.’

  ‘What I want? That’s rich.’ He shook his head; he didn’t like to be denied and she could see the anger bubbling up. He had a temper, she’d glimpsed it before. But if anything, it made him more attractive.

  ‘I’ve got work to do. I need you to go.’

  ‘Don’t pull this feminist shit on me, Sarah. It’s always about what you want. You want to be the one who’s in control. You crook your little finger, all the boys come running. Then you take your pick.’

  ‘Just go, will you?’

  ‘Or what?’

  ‘You need me to spell it out for you?’

  ‘You’ll cry rape?’

  ‘Don’t tempt me.’ She cradled the mug in both hands.

  He tilted his head and laughed. But the eyes narrowed. ‘You’d do it too, wouldn’t you? If only to spite me.’

  Placing the coffee on the desk, she fixed him with a mocking stare. She’d had enough. A cracking headache didn’t improve things. ‘No means no. N.O. Okay?’ Her delivery was slow and deliberate, as if she were lecturing a child. ‘Now go!’

  The move was so swift it took her entirely by surprise. A well-practised right hook smashed into her face, the force of which sent her sprawling backwards, her skull smacking against the wall before she landed spreadeagled on the bed.

  Head spinning, jaw shattered, mouth filling with blood, she stared up at him in total shock.

  He leaned over her. Now his pulse was racing, heart thumping too. ‘Here’s some news for you, Sarah Boden: you don’t say no to me. You think you get to choose? You don’t get to choose. I’m the one who chooses. Okay?’

  She wasn’t listening. Her attention was focused on pain, on regaining her balance. Hands desperately flailing, she tried to grab the desk for support. Blood oozed from her mouth, dripped from her chin.

  He watched her struggle for a moment. His anger abated and he felt awkward. The punch had been much harder than he’d intended. Picking up a T-shirt from the chair he sat beside her on the bed and tried to staunch the bleeding. She slapped his hand away.

  ‘C’mon. It was an accident. Let me help you—’

  She spluttered, a strangulated gurgle was the only reply she could manage. But her eyes bored into his, full of fury and loathing. She was trying desperately to scramble to her feet, to escape him.

  As he watched her he realized the sad truth: this vengeful harpy was about to ruin his life. She wouldn’t hesitate, even though it was clearly her fault because she’d provoked him. But who would pay any heed to that? His career prospects, the life he’d meticulously planned, he could lose it all. And he didn’t feel he deserved that.

  Once she was out of that door he’d lose control of the situation. She’d backed him into a corner. Once again she’d robbed him of choice.

  Taking a deep breath, he shoved her back down on the bed, placed his knee on her chest and his hands round her windpipe. Then he slowly throttled her.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  January 2017

  Detective Constable Jo Boden was crouched in the corner of the surveillance vehicle. Her knees were stiff, her whole body numb with cold; it had been a long night. Sitting in the dark, watching, waiting, this was her least favourite part of the job. Around midnight a blanket of freezing fog had descended on the city. Peering out, little was visible beyond the sulphurous haze of the street lamps. They were scheduled to go in at 5 a.m. but the chatter on the comms suggested some kind of hiccup.

  She’d been partnered with the new bloke, Darryl; he was cocksure and she didn’t rate him. But Boden kept her opinions to herself. It wasn’t easy. He was pressing all her buttons. She could see that beneath the bravado he was nervous – his first big op on the squad – but when he spoke to her his gaze tended to stray to her tits, which was just annoying.

  They were in an alley in Catford tucked round the corner from the target premises. Jo had joined the grandly titled Human Exploitation and Organized Crime Command, part of the Met’s Specialist Crime Directorate, the previous spring. She’d spent most of the summer in fuggy vans in London’s piss-stinking back alleys. Parked up between the bins, the rusting white goods and rotting mattresses in a miasma of dogshit and flies, she was learning that surveillance was a game of patience. And Jo Boden was not patient. She’d taken and passed her sergeant’s exams at the earliest opportunity. But promotion was dependent on vacancies arising. The logjam in the lower ranks showed no signs of easing. Cuts made it worse. So she was stuck; occasionally it was exciting but a lot of the time she was bored.

  The current operation was against Albanian human traffickers who ran a lucrative sideline in underage prostitutes both male and female. The kids were between twelve and fourteen and had been picked up in the migrant camps of Calais and lured with the promise of safe passage to the UK. They were then separated from any siblings or friends and kept under lock and key in a number of residential properties across London.

  However, the place they were hitting this morning was more than a brothel, it was the ramshackle headquarters of this particular clan. The Kelmendi family had bought the yard and warehouse from a S
outh London removals firm who’d gone bust in the recession of 2008. The signage of the old company, paint peeling, still hung above the roll-up garage doors. The yard, overgrown with weeds and drifts of rubbish, had a semi-derelict air. But a tip-off from an informant on the inside had prompted two weeks of visual surveillance and revealed plenty of activity. Fejzi Kelmendi, the nominal head of the family and already subject to a European Arrest Warrant, was thought to be hiding out in North Cyprus. But for the rest of the gang it seemed to be business as usual.

  Jo stretched her long legs out in front of her and clicked her phone on to check the time. For a few seconds Darryl was illuminated in its eerie beam. He had a good physique, lean and muscular, which was always top of her list. If she met him in a bar she might be tempted. But sex with colleagues was taboo in her book; it always led to trouble and complications.

  Being a young and ambitious female officer in an organization which played lip service to equality meant treading a careful path. Office banter, sexist jokes and innuendo obliged her to be a good sport, one of the lads. But there was an unspoken rule that you broke at your peril. Unless you planned to marry him, it was best to never get involved. No officer wanted to say ma’am to a boss who everyone regarded as a slag. Better if they assumed you were a dyke. Better still if they simply didn’t know.

  Audio bugs had been planted by sneaking on to the roof of the building three days previously; since then they’d been listening in. A tiny camera, positioned precariously on a skylight, had worked at first, but had got shifted out of alignment, probably by roosting pigeons. Going up a second time to fix it had been judged too risky. The Kelmendis ran a tight ship and were vigilant about their security. They always used burners and it had proved impossible to get a trace on any of their phones. So the audio recording was probably going to be a vital piece of evidence.

  Darryl had positioned himself on the stool in front of the monitor at the beginning of their shift and he hadn’t budged. He played a lot of computer games and seemed to assume this gave him superior competence with any technical kit. Jo couldn’t have cared less, even though she had far more experience. Much of the chat was in Albanian so the audio feed was being streamed directly to the ops room where they had translation facilities.