The Ghosts of London Read online

  Suddenly I feel something reach around my waist, pulling me to one side and slamming me against the wet brick wall. I let out a gasp before turning to see a dark figure lunging at me, and seconds later I feel a sharp pain in my belly as the blade of a knife rips through my flesh, slices past my gut and scrapes against the side of my spine. I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out as I feel hot blood flowing through my stomach.

  "Bitch," the figure rasps, before twisting the blade and then pulling it out.

  I try to push him away, but I end up grabbing his shoulders and trying to hold myself up.

  Seconds later, he stabs me again, this time higher up. I feel the blade scratch against my ribs before sliding through and puncturing one of my lungs. Before I can react, he pulls the blade out and buries it deep in my chest again, this time directly through my heart. I try to hold tight to his shoulders as my legs give way, but he keeps the knife firmly embedded in my chest as he slowly lowers me down onto the soaking ground.

  I reach up to his face, my fingers scratching at his rain-soaked skin. It's too dark to see anything, but I swear to God, I can feel him smiling. He's enjoying this.

  With no further warning, he pulls the knife out and then slashes it across my neck. I feel blood flowing out, and finally I realize that there's no way I'm going to survive this. I try to speak, to ask him why he's doing this, but I end up simply letting my head droop. Blood has started to pour into the back of my mouth, and I let out a slow, deep guttural growl as I feel the knife slice through my neck a couple more times.

  Suddenly I catch his scent, and I realize who this is. I should have known.

  The last thing I feel, as my life drains away with the blood, is the guy letting go of me, and I'm pretty sure he's turning and running away. The only part of my body that I can still move is my left hand, but all I can do is run my fingers through the cold, muddy puddle that has begun to fill with thick, warm swirls of blood. Even that sensation begins to fade, until finally I slip into the familiar arms of death. The last thought that passes through my mind is a very simple one: This time, I have to try to remember everything.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Katie

  Just as my head drops and I'm about to fall asleep, I sit up suddenly.

  For a fraction of a second, I see a pale, almost colorless female face staring straight at me, but as soon as I blink the image is gone.

  There's a sharp, jolting sensation in my chest, like an injection of pure fear and panic. I take a series of brief, tense breaths as I try to calm down, but deep in my heart there's a feeling that something is very, very wrong. Still sitting on the floor of the underpass, I stare at the opposite wall and try to work out what the hell could be making me feel this way.

  I look around.

  There's no-one else here.

  Heavy rain is still falling outside. I'm not a superstitious person, but I swear to God, I feel as if somewhere, something awful has just happened.

  Part Two

  Live Girls

  Chapter One

  Rachel

  I'm woken by the alarm.

  Reaching out and grabbing my phone, I flick through the menus and set it to silent, before rolling over and looking at the window. I always sleep with the blinds up, which means that the natural light of morning can wake me. Today, however, things are a little different, and I need to stir myself a earlier. There's still plenty of rain on the window, but the worst of the storm seems to have passed and as I sit up, I feel strangely calm and relaxed.

  I reach my arms out and stretch.

  And that's when I remember being murdered last night.

  I take a deep breath, reliving every terrifying moment: the man pushing me against the wall; the sensation of the knife slicing into my body again and again; the hot blood flowing down my body from the gaping wound in my neck; the lifeless sleep; and then, finally, the moment when my dead eye began to blink again. Reaching down, I lift my t-shirt and take a look at my belly, which of course is completely undamaged. The skin looks smooth and soft; hell, for a thirty-four-year-old woman, it's a goddamn miracle.

  Once again, everything seems to have been healed, and once again I can't remember how I got home.

  Climbing out of bed, I make my way slowly, achingly to the bathroom. I try to run some hot water, but all that comes out is more of the same brownish liquid. Instead of letting myself get even dirtier, I spit on my palms and then rub the saliva all over my hands, before using a towel to wipe off the last of Alexander Medion's dried sperm. I know I spend far too long cleaning myself, but the truth is, I can feel every particle, every atom of dirt nestling against my skin, and I'm convinced that if I leave them long enough, they'll start to grow and spread. Besides, the ritual of washing myself this intensely is, itself, very calming. I just need the goddamn water in this city to start running again. It's been almost a week since the problems started, and sometimes I feel as if I'm drowning in mud.

  I flinch as I feel it again: the cold blade slicing into my body and striking my spine.

  Looking at my reflection, I see the look of fear in my eyes, and I wait for a change. After a few seconds, however, I realize that nothing's going to happen. It's just me, Rachel Banks, standing in my bathroom, just after 6am, washing my hands with furious intensity. This isn't the first time I've woken up like this, and it won't be the last. In fact, sometimes I feel as if I'm destined to live like this forever.

  I take another deep breath.

  There's no point dwelling on things. I'm due at work in less than an hour and a half, and the morning commute is usually hell. My hands don't feel clean, not remotely, but I figure I'll just have to hope that the oils I use for my clients today will help to get rid of any contaminants. After drying my hands, I pull my t-shirt off and stare at myself topless for a moment. There's not a mark on my body; it's almost as if nothing happened last night.

  But it did. I was murdered again.

  Chapter Two

  Katie

  "You were here last night," says the guy who's emptying a bin in the internet cafe. "Got something urgent on, have you?"

  Stopping in the doorway, I pause. The truth is, I hadn't expected anyone to notice me. I have a vague memory that I saw this guy - youngish, with tanned skin and a mass of curly black hair - when I was here last night, but I wasn't much in the mood for small-talk then, and I'm not now either.

  "Relax," he adds with a smile. "We're friendly here. If you need any help, just ask."

  I smile politely, before turning and heading to the same computer I used last night. Dropping my backpack into a chair, I take a seat and sort through my coins, all the while aware that the guy is very much in my line of sight, and he seems to be glancing over at me with annoying regularity.

  "You need change?" he asks suddenly. "I can change notes at the counter, or you can pay by card."

  "No," I reply, slipping a coin into the slot. "Thanks."

  As he heads back over to the counter at the other end of the room, I load up my email, convinced that Rachel must have replied by now. My heart sinks, however, when I see that there's no message from her, and when I check the email I sent last night, I see that she hasn't even read it. I sit back, trying to quell the sense of panic in my gut while making a few quick mental calculations. I have enough coins to check my mail half a dozen more times during the day, but I haven't got enough money to find somewhere to sleep tonight. Then again, I keep telling myself that Rachel has to check her mail at some point.

  I just need to stay calm.

  With four minutes of time left on this session, I decide to take my mind off things by checking the news. Unfortunately, the main story seems to be about a girl who died after going into the river a few nights ago after she'd had an argument with her boyfriend. Figuring that I really don't need to be reading about people dying in horrible ways in London right now, I click through to another story, this time about a new dam project that was supposed to revolutionize the Thames, but which is a
pparently causing major problems. As the clock gets close to zero, I close the page and end the session, before getting to my feet and heading to the door.

  "Seeya later, maybe," the guy calls out from the counter.

  I glance at him, momentarily shocked by the fact that he seems to have noticed, and then I manage a faint, mumbled "Bye" before heading out the door into the brightening morning. I have almost no money, and nowhere to go, but I'm convinced that Rachel will get back to me sooner or later. For now, I just need to find a way to kill some time before coming back after lunch to check my email. She has to reply eventually. If she doesn't, I'm totally screwed.

  Chapter Three

  Rachel

  "Are you sure?" Maria asks. "You don't look okay."

  "Thanks for the compliment," I mutter, flicking through the diary until I reach today's appointments. I scan the list of names, mentally checking off the ones I've done before and noting a couple of new clients. "I was up late," I add, scribbling some notes on a piece of paper so that I can get the day planned. "I had to go and attend to someone, remember?"

  "How'd it go?" she asks. "Is Mr. Medion still... you know..." She smiles, like a child who's about to say a naughty word. "Kinky," she adds.

  "I can't remember the last time I met someone who wasn't kinky," I reply, passing the diary back to her. "That's all I seem to get these days. A steady stream of kink through the door."

  "Your first client has delayed until tomorrow," she replies. "He called about half an hour ago to say that he can't make it in this morning. Something about flooding over in the East End. With all that rain last night, I guess the river just burst its banks."

  "Great," I reply, feeling a shiver run through my body. "That's all we need. Diseased water flowing through the streets."

  "What's wrong?" she asks. "Didn't you get a big enough tip last night?"

  "There's nothing wrong," I tell her for the hundredth time. "Just because I'm not singing happy songs and skipping to work, it doesn't mean anything's wrong. Can't you just let me get on with things without demanding that I slap a fake smile on my face?"

  She stares at me, as if she's shocked by my outburst.

  "I mean, fuck," I continue, "I smile for the clients. Isn't that enough?"

  With that, I turn and head through to my room, where the massage table is all laid out just as I left it last night. At least when I'm in my little room, I feel as if I'm in control. Pinning my notes to the wall, I cross out the first client's name and see that Mr. Moorgrave is coming in at eleven. He's a short, balding man who likes a happy ending to his massages, although he never, ever discusses the fact. As soon as I'm done, I always wipe the mess up and he gets dressed as if nothing untoward happened. I guess it's his way of rationalizing the fact that he basically pays for sexual favors.

  With a little time to kill, I pull my laptop off the shelf and open it up. I try to check my emails, but the servers seem to be down, so I click through to check the latest news, and the top story turns out to be about some party-girl who ended up freezing to death in the river. I scroll through the details, stopping at the bottom of the page to check a box-out that shows just how many people have died in the Thames over the past few months. To say that there's been some bad luck would be a massive understatement; people seem to be falling in on an almost daily basis, which just makes me even more glad that I've got a natural aversion to going near the river. It's almost as if the Thames is angry.

  Pausing for a moment, I realize that I can taste blood.

  I take a deep breath, and the sensation passes.

  "Knock knock," says a voice at the door, and I turn to find that Carmella has come through to find me. It's rare to get an actual visit from the boss; she usually just phones when something's wrong and otherwise keeps away, and this must be the first time she's actually walked through the door in almost a year. Something's either very wrong or very right, and it's hard to tell which from her broad, fake smile.

  "I'm just setting up," I mutter, closing my laptop and heading over to the oil-burner.

  "I spoke to Alexander Medion this morning," she replies. "He's very pleased with you, Rachel, and he wants to book a lot more sessions. Frankly, I couldn't get him off the phone. He went into excruciating detail about your most admirable qualities. He was extremely complimentary about your tits."

  "He must be very easily impressed," I tell her, a little annoyed at the thought that they've been talking about me.

  "Well, anyway," she continues, "he liked 'em, and he wants to see and feel a whole lot more or you."

  "That's great," I reply, trying to sound more enthusiastic than I feel. "I'd rather see him during the day, though. I don't like seeing clients at night, it just..." I pause as I try to come up with a suitable explanation. "I just don't like it," I continue. "You know that."

  "I'll see what I can do," she says with a smile, "but when you're dealing with a man like Alexander, it's best just to give him what he wants. You know, he could easily decide to take his largesse and go spend it somewhere else." She pauses, and for a moment she seems happy to watch as I unfold some towels. "Having said that," she continues eventually, "I think he's really taken with you, babe, so he might be willing to bend a little. He told me you're the first girl who's ever really dug her nails deep into his back during sex the way he wanted."

  I turn to her. "What?" I ask after a moment.

  "Good going," she replies with a wink.

  "No," I reply, "I mean... what are you talking about? Nails?"

  "Meow," she adds with a grin. "I never saw you as the rough kitty kinda type, Rachel."

  I pause, trying to make sense of this conversation. I gave Alexander a hand-job last night, and then I let him shag me, but there was no nail-digging. If anything, it was surprisingly tame and by-the-books sex. At the same time, there's no reason why Alexander would make this stuff up, which can only mean one thing...

  "What's wrong?" Carmella asks. "You look white as a sheet."

  "What else did he say?" I ask.

  "You want a fucking transcript of the conversation, babe?"

  "If you have one."

  "Just that you really pushed all the right buttons," she continues. "Well, that's not exactly how he phrased it, but you get the idea. I've sent a few girls to him in the past, and he's never really been satisfied. He always used to call up the next day and complain, but with you..." She pauses, and finally a genuine-looking smile breaks across her face. "Well, I just wanted to come down personally and tell you that you're doing a great job, babe. In fact, I've been thinking that maybe we should re-think the way you work. There's no point having you give cheap massages to any old guy who wanders in off the street, not if you're as good as Alexander claims. I mean, hell, if the guy's willing to pay a grand for a quick fuck, why the hell should you spend your days giving fifty quid wanks?" Stepping over to me, she reaches out and takes my hands, holding them up so she can examine them.

  "I don't know what..." Pausing, I try to find the right words, but I can't quite think of anything to say.

  "I wish I knew how you do it," she says, before letting go and taking a step back.

  "I'm not..." I pause again.

  "We'll talk about it some other time," she adds. "For now, carry on as normal and I'll get in touch when I've worked out some more dates with Alexander. This could be your shot at the big time, though, babe, so take a little advice from me and grab it with both hands. You can make a lot of money by pleasing the right man in the right way, and there's no shame in a little customer satisfaction. Hell, you could end up as his personal concubine!"

  I open my mouth to argue with her, but before I can get a word out she turns and marches back through to the reception area, leaving me standing in total shock. The thought of somehow becoming Alexander Medion's private masseuse is hardly appealing, although the money would certainly come in handy. Of more concern, though, is the fact that I seem to have done several things last night that I don't remember. I thought I'd mana
ged to get a handle on the strange events that plague my life, but this is something new. Is it possible that I had rough, nail-digging sex with Medion and don't remember it? If taht's the case, what else don't I remember?

  Looking down at my hands, I realize that they're starting to tremble. I glance at the mirror and see an apprehensive expression in my eyes. I think it might be happening again.

  Chapter Four

  Katie

  "Isn't there anything cheaper?" I ask, feeling intensely embarrassed as I stand at the counter.

  "What's wrong?" he asks. "You think twenty pence is too much for a cup of tea?"

  Forcing a smile, I hand over one of my last remaining coins. Given the state of my finances, I really can't afford to splash out, but at the same time I'm convinced that Rachel's going to get in touch soon. I watch as the guy drops the coin into his cash register with disdain, before he heads over to the sink and starts making a cup of tea for me. I swear to God, I never thought that my trip to London would end up like this, and I don't even dare to think about what might happen to me if Rachel doesn't show up soon. I can't just start a new life here without help, but at the same time, I can't go home either.

  "Here," the guy says, sliding the plastic cup over to me. "Enjoy, but once you finish, you have to buy another one or you've gotta leave. This isn't a social center."

  Without saying anything, I take the cup and carry it across the cold cafe until I reach a seat over by the window. This is clearly not a very popular place, and I can understand why: the owner's about as friendly as a lightning strike, and the other customers all look to be a bunch of homeless people who've come in to feel normal for a few minutes. Glancing about at them, I can't help but shiver at the thought that these people have nowhere to live and no-one to help them, and after a moment I realize that if I'm not careful, I could end up the same way.