Howard’s romantic getaway with Daisy wasn’t quite going to plan.
Firstly, Daisy’s boss had called her into work on Thursday. She worked as a personal assistant for some hotshot solicitor who thought she should be at his beck and call, and although Howard had protested, grumbling about it ruining their time away together, Daisy had stuck up for the man, justifying his request. All it had done was cause their first fight.
Eventually they had agreed that Howard would go on ahead to the cabin and she would join him later that evening.
Then just as he was loading up his car, Fern had messaged, demanding to know what was happening with tracking down Rita Works.
Truth was, nothing. Howard had messaged her and the woman hadn’t replied. Hadn’t even read his message from what he could see.
He hadn’t attempted to track her down, wasn’t really that interested, so decided the best course of action would be to ignore Fern.
Big mistake. By the time he had driven to the forest park on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, he had two further messages and three missed calls from her. He checked in, drove his car down to the cabin and parked outside, pleased he had chosen a lot on the outskirts of the park. Although the place was fairly empty – unsurprising given that it was so close to Christmas – the forest location gave that extra layer of privacy. Howard planned to have lots of sex in the hot tub and didn’t want anyone disturbing them.
He hauled his stuff into the cabin, felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and plucked it out, frowning at the new message from Fern.
STOP FUCKING IGNORING ME!
Annoyed, he fired a brief message back.
I’m not ignoring you. Rita hasn’t replied. There’s nothing to tell.
He saw the three dots, indicating that she was typing, his heart sinking. This was not how he had planned for this day to go. He’d had visions of arriving at the cabin with Daisy, stripping her out of her clothes then drinking prosecco in the hot tub. A sparring session with Fern hadn’t featured.
The dots disappeared and he let go of the breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding.
Then the phone rang instead.
Damn it, Fern.
Knowing she wouldn’t stop pestering him, he reluctantly answered the call.
‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’
‘I know.’
‘So why have you been ignoring me?’
‘I haven’t, Fern, honestly. I’ve been driving.’
‘You need to get hold of this Rita Works woman. That was part of the deal. Maybe you should speak to Gary’s mum. She might know who she is.’
‘I can’t right now.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m away.’
‘You’re what?’ She sounded livid, and while that annoyed Howard – because it was none of her damn business how he used his time – his bowels were also knotting. Fern had always scared him a little and confrontational situations like this made him want to go to the toilet. ‘Why the fuck have you gone away when we have this problem to deal with?’
‘It’s a work thing,’ he lied, not yet ready to tell her about Daisy. In a way it was lucky Daisy wasn’t there yet.
‘Really?’
‘Honest, Fern. Really.’ Fuck, she’d better not call his office to check. As he’d had no holiday left, he had called in sick. He needed to talk his way out of this fast before she got him into trouble. ‘Look, I know this is important and I will be back in a couple of days. Why don’t you get Janice on the case? She likes tracking people down.’
That was good. Get Janice to find this Rita woman. She had jumped at the chance to track down Rachel Williams. Which reminded him, he should ask how she was getting on. If he started showing an interest in Fern’s little investigation, she might cut him some slack.
‘How did Janice get on, by the way. Did she manage to find Rach?’
There was a pause. ‘Yes. And she’s dead.’
‘She’s what?’ Howard thought he had misheard her for a moment.
‘She’s dead, Howard. And guess how she died.’
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. ‘Go on.’
‘She burned to death in her car.’
No, he really didn’t want to know. For the first time since all this had started, a ripple of unease stirred in his gut. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘No, I’m not kidding. So that’s Kelly, Gary and Rachel who have all died in fires.’
‘What are the chances of that?’ He muttered the comment more to himself, but Fern must have heard because she huffed down the phone.
‘Are you actually going to take any of this seriously, you idiot? There were six of us there that night and three of us are dead. Someone is doing this intentionally. Those notes we’ve received are no joke.’
She was right. Kelly and Gary he could put down to coincidence, but three of them? That was too much of a stretch. Was someone seriously punishing them for a stupid prank? He didn’t understand how. No one else had been there that night. Well, apart from…
‘Did you talk to Olivia Blake?’
‘I did. And guess what? She’s been receiving notes too.’
‘Really? Why would she get notes? She didn’t do anything.’
‘Beats me.’ Fern was silent for a moment. ‘She has a boyfriend and he seems a little too interested in what is going on. I’m not sure I trust him.’
‘What, why?’ This conversation had Howard’s full attention now. He flopped down on to the sofa, kicked his shoes off and put his feet up on the cushion.
‘He wanted to meet with me and he started asking loads of questions. I can’t be certain, but I think he might know what we did.’
‘How is that possible? No one knows. Just us.’
‘You haven’t blabbed to anyone?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Howard? Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure. I’ve never told anyone what happened, swear on my life.’ It was the truth. It was hardly the kind of thing he wanted people to find out about. They could be so judgemental. ‘What about Janice? Could she have told? She always did have a blabbermouth.’
‘Janice would never do that.’
Oh nice. So Fern trusts Janice, but she doubts me. ‘Well, I never told either. So what does this bloke, Olivia’s boyfriend, know? What has he said?’
‘It was just some of the questions he was asking. He says he knows something happened that night, but I don’t know if he is bluffing. He’s an ex-police officer. I don’t like that.’
‘Oh.’ Howard wasn’t sure he liked that either. Although he had been all about going to the police initially, he had thought better about it over the past couple of days.
‘He may try to talk to you too. His name is Noah Keen. If he does approach you, I need you to promise you won’t say a word.’
‘I won’t say anything.’
‘You promise, Howard?’
‘I promise.’
The conversation had him unsettled for the rest of the afternoon, the revelation that Rachel was also dead knocking it home that maybe this was more serious than he had been taking it. Fern had told him that Rachel had been briefly married and her surname had been Colton. He spent a little time googling her, reading about what had happened, trying to convince himself that maybe it really had been a tragic accident. But deep down he knew that wasn’t true.
In isolation it was an accident; but put together with Kelly’s death and Gary’s murder, plus the notes they had all received, it suggested they were all in danger.
Howard didn’t like that one little bit.
He toyed with driving back to Norwich, calling off the getaway with Daisy, but he loathed losing the money he had shelled out for the cabin, even if he had got a cheap deal on it because of the time of year. Deciding to make the most of it, he unpacked. It was only just gone 4.30, and knowing that Daisy wouldn’t be with him for at least another couple of hours, he opened one of the bottles of prosecco he had brought with him, and took it out to the hot tub.
It was already dark, the surrounding woodland looking more spooky than romantic, and he put on the outside lights, before quickly shedding his towel robe, nipples hardening in the cool air before he sunk into the hot bubbles of the tub. He pulled up a favourite playlist on his mobile, slipped in earphones and, taking a healthy swig of prosecco, ordered himself to relax.
It was all going to be okay.
He must have drifted off, because he awoke with a start, bubbles from the hot tub up his nose, as he spluttered the mouthful of foamy water he had swallowed.
What an idiot! He could have drowned.
He felt for the plastic seat, eyes blinking furiously as he struggled to pull himself up.
Firm hands were suddenly on his shoulders, shoving hard, and he fell forward again.
What the fuck?
Before he could even register what was happening, that someone was with him, there was a pressure on his head, pushing down as he tried to break to the surface.
Howard’s arms and legs flailed as he started to choke, his lungs desperate for air, panic taking over as his brain registered that someone was doing this to him on purpose.
Someone was trying to kill him.
As he took in more gulps of water, fought frantically against his attacker, desperate to free himself, his body started to convulse. And then there was just blackness.
Howard’s first realisation was that he wasn’t dead. Somehow he had survived being drowned. The second realisation was that he was really bloody cold. Scrub that. He was freezing. Every part of him was like ice and he was shivering uncontrollably, teeth chattering. Or at least they would be if there wasn’t something preventing them from touching.
His head was pounding and for a moment he thought he was going to be sick. He needed to lie down, wanted to curl up and try to get warm. His limbs weren’t working though: something was forcing him into this standing position. As awareness gradually came back, he understood why. He was tied to a tree. Wrists yanked back, metal digging into them, legs spread wide, cuffs cutting into his ankles, and rough bark cutting into his back. Something was pressing against his head, pushing it back against the tree, forcing him to look straight ahead, but casting his eyes downwards he could see enough to understand he was naked.
Panic taking over, he screamed, the sound coming out as little more than a mumble, and he realised the reason why his teeth weren’t chattering was because there was something roughly pressed between them. Some kind of rough cloth that tasted chemically, like petrol, had been forced into his mouth.
He struggled like a madman to free himself, felt the pain of metal cutting into flesh, blood dripping down into his eyes from whatever was holding his head in place.
And then, holy fuck, if he wasn’t frightened enough, something moved in the shadows up ahead. Was that a figure heading towards him through the trees?
He almost passed out from the fear as it came closer, the plain white mask illuminated in the darkness, a can of something in one gloved hand.
‘Please, please don’t do this.’ The words that were clearer in his head, were caught up in the gag, seeming less coherent, but the figure tipped its head to one side as it regarded him, seeming for a moment to consider, before shaking its head.
And then the lid was off the can, the unmistakable smell of petrol trickling on the ground around him, over his feet and his legs, over his cock and up his belly, the last of the can splashing onto his hair and his face.
He attempted to scream again, salty tears mingling with the petrol, rolling down his cheeks and dampening the gag.
This could not be happening. He could not die like this.
The figure reached into a pocket, pulled a box of matches out, flicked one alight, and he lost control of his bladder as he saw the flame, the screaming in his head intensifying.
But then the flame went out and the figure laughed.
He recognised the sound. Blinked in horror as the figure removed its mask and smiled at him.
It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.
‘Surprise, Howard. Now, are you comfortable? We have a lot to discuss before we get to the main event.’
