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  Luca Veste is a writer of Italian and Scouse heritage, married with two young daughters. He studied psychology and criminology at university in Liverpool.

  Find out more at www.LucaVeste.com or follow @LucaVeste on Twitter and Facebook.

  Also by Luca Veste

  Dead Gone

  The Dying Place

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2015

  A CBS COMPANY

  Copyright © Luca Veste, 2015

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Luca Veste to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  London

  WC1X 8HB

  www.simonandschuster.co.uk

  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-4137-9

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-4138-6

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset in the UK by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd are committed to sourcing paper that is made from wood grown in sustainable forests and supports the Forest Stewardship Council, the leading international forest certification organisation. Our books displaying the FSC logo are printed on FSC certified paper.

  For my parents. All of them.

  Thank you.

  A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love

  Max Muller

  Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies

  Aristotle

  Even psychopaths have emotions if you dig deep enough. Then again, maybe not . . . I gave up on love and happiness a long time ago

  Richard Ramirez

  Contents

  Chloe and Joe

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Love

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Fate

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Greg

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Hannah

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Greg and Hannah

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Violence

  Part Two

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Normality

  Adam

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Media

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Part Three

  Will and Carly

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Left Behind

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Truth

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Number Four

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  After

  Acknowledgements

  Chloe and Joe

  She watched him die.

  She did nothing, as the man she supposedly loved took his final breath. Knowing that she would have to live with that inaction for whatever time she had left.

  She told herself there wasn’t much she could have done anyway. She could only watch as the realisation hit him, filmy eyes locking with hers. A single word dropping from his mouth, before it dissolved into nothingness and he began to fade away.

  She had simply stared at him, soft tears rolling down her cheeks as she watched him convulse. Saw him fight with a diminishing strength, his muscular, fit body amounting to little in the end. A growing horror building inside her as the final gurgles of breath left his body. The effort of keeping her eyes open exhausting her.

  She didn’t try to move, to try to help him. The desire to do so obliterated by his words.

  The knowledge that she had wanted this was driven to the back of her mind. Only the thought of what was going to happen next. Whether she would die or be let go.

  She was glad he went first.

  She was glad he had died looking her in the eye, knowing she had wanted it to happen.

  She was glad that he’d died knowing that she was happy that he was gone.

  It hadn’t started out like that.

  They were famous, away from that room. Celebrities. Everything she’d ever wanted to be. Chloe Morrison. Famous for no reason other than for being famous.

  Chloe was taken second, after Joe, and only because of what she had been shown. Joe, tied to a chair, beaten and bloodied. She hadn’t thought of herself or her family. Only him and the danger he was in.

  She knew what people thought of her – that she had an elevated sense of self-worth. She had a reputation for getting what she wanted, when she wanted it. That she believed she deserved the attention, based purely on who she was.

  It wasn’t completely true. Not all of it.

  Joe had been central to her life. It didn’t matter if she spent hours making herself look ‘right’, presenting the flawless version of herself to the world. The spray tans and endless hair and make-up sessions. The rumours of plastic surgery to explain the way her body looked in tight-fitting clothes. To Chloe, that was all just part of the celebrity game. One she had wilfully taken a role in.

  She had sought fame. She had a need to be famous. To be noticed. Without the talent or skill for it to be in music or sports, or even a vile personality. There was only one way.

  Reality TV.

  Chloe had thought the only way to get on one of those programmes was to either turn posh and move to Chelsea, or pretend to be from Newcastle and become more willing to piss the bed in front of a camera. That was until she saw the advert on Twitter, asking for girls from Liverpool to audition for a new reality show that was being made. She’d slept in her rollers and turned up along with hundreds of others a few weeks later, prepared to be as glam and gorgeous as possible, knowing that she had to be more real to stand out in the crowd.

  The first time they’d met was at the auditions. She’d thought he was good-looking, if a bit full of himself. It was clear the producers on the show had plans, pairing them off a few times before filming began. It had made them comfortable together, giving them better on-screen chemistry. She’d found out Joe played for a lower division football team she’d heard of in passing. Played on her side of the water, on the Wirral. Not that she was pretending to be anything other than a proper Scouser at that point.

  That had been almost two years ago. Since then, her life had changed in every single way she could have dreamed of. She was known. People stopped her in the street, asking for a selfie – the ne
w autograph. She’d become the queen of the fake smile. People would tell her how funny she was, how real she was. How they’d known from day one that she and Joe would end up together. How happy they were that Chloe and Joe had fallen in love. How they just knew ChloJoe were going to be together forever.

  On the show, cameras had followed every move they’d made. The ‘first’ meeting in the house they’d all had to share. The first date. The first kiss. The first time they’d said the words ‘I love you’ to each other. Granted, that had been in the middle of a nightclub, shouted over music, which wasn’t all that romantic. They’d had to go back and dub it over, so it could be heard properly on TV. Saying it over and over in a sound booth into a microphone had kind of stripped away the romance of it, but she’d tried her best. Even if it was the weirdest thing she’d ever done.

  The sex was awful, but she had all the time in the world to make that better. The proposal episode of the show had millions of viewers. She’d known beforehand, of course, but had to act as if it was all a surprise to her. It wouldn’t matter. She was going to be a bride.

  Then, just like that, she was bound to a chair, on what had, at first, been just a normal Friday. Darkness and the smell of rotting wood. A room in a boarded-up house, somewhere she didn’t know. Joe was opposite her, breathing in short bursts as he sobbed quietly. A man almost blending into the black, his voice a whisper in her ear.

  ‘Secrets and lies. That’s why we’re here. They’re wrong. Everyone knows that. So many relationships have these secrets and lies going on within them. And now here you both are. The ultimate celebrity couple . . . until another one comes along to replace you. Even the two of you can’t escape what is real. The veneer of celebrity, everyone looking up to you. All these impressionable young minds you pollute with your lies. I’m talking real lies. Real secrets. You disgust me.’

  Chloe heard the words through a fog of confusion, aware of the voice speaking directly to her and Joe. She wasn’t able to focus on form or being. Just the words and the puzzling mix of them.

  ‘Say we have a relationship as public as yours. One that is in the news all the time, in every glossy magazine, every tabloid, every celebrity blog . . . one would think there could be no secrets. No lies. Everything out in the open, for us all to enjoy.’

  The man moved closer to Chloe. ‘But we know that’s not true, don’t we?’

  Chloe shook her head, slowly, the room spinning as she did so. She tried to speak, before remembering the duct tape plastered across her mouth.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be removing it soon,’ the man said. ‘This would be no fun if you couldn’t speak to each other.’

  Chloe looked across at Joe as his head slumped forward onto his chest. Tried to catch his eye, but he wasn’t moving.

  ‘Chloe,’ the man said after a few more seconds of silence. ‘I want you to tell each other everything. All the secrets you have kept from each other. Then we’ll see how I feel. Do you understand?’

  She began to feel a little more clear-headed; the mist lifted and her focus returned. She rocked her head side to side, almost losing it again.

  ‘Oh, Chloe. From what little I know about you, I don’t think you could hide a single thought in that thick little brain of yours. No, I’m guessing you’re an open book with little old Joe here. I bet he knows everything you’re about to say before you’ve said it. Probably because it’ll be about shopping or exposing yourself in some magazine.’

  Chloe could feel herself shaking, the duct tape binding her hands together straining against her wrists.

  ‘Chloe, you have to listen now. Do you understand? I think Joe has something he wants to tell you.’

  It wasn’t quick in coming.

  When it did, she had stopped shaking through fear. Forgotten about the man in the room, what he’d done to make Joe tell her the truth. There was only her and Joe.

  And anger. For everything he’d said. Everything he’d done to her.

  A few minutes later, she watched him die. Watched as the man curled a piece of rope around Joe’s neck, and choked him to death.

  Chloe had wanted it to happen.

  She was pleased that it had. That he’d got what he deserved.

  ‘Now, Chloe,’ the man said, coming down to his haunches as he got close to her. She could feel his hot breath on her neck, as he whispered in her ear. ‘It’s time for you to go to sleep.’

  Part One

  @scousemum38

  Have you heard about that Chloe and Joe from that shit Liverpool show?

  @kezza11990

  Yeah. Just read it. Bet they’ve just gone off on holiday somewhere.

  @EchoNews

  BREAKING – ‘ChloJoe’ missing. More information here – bit.ly/576fb5 #ChloJoe

  @Gizmod87

  *Waits for ‘exclusive’ beach pictures*

  @Insert_Name_Here_22

  Ugh. I hope they are found in ditch somewhere #realitytvisshit

  @ScouseanProud_8

  They give us a bad name anyway. Hope they don’t come back.

  @ScouseanProud_8

  Both wools anyway. Sod ’em.

  @Fayz20

  I reckon they’ve gone off and got married. #fairytale #newshow

  @HELsBELs98

  Shes a slag anyway. Hope hes found someone better. #Joeishot

  Chapter One

  He hadn’t seen anything like this for a long time. An authentic confession to murder. No ifs and buts. No I didn’t really mean it, it was all just a terrible accident. Simply a total and utter acceptance of the facts and what seemed like genuine remorse.

  Detective Inspector David Murphy let his size thirteen shoes slide off his feet a little and scratched at the closely shorn beard on his face.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  The man sitting in front of him didn’t gasp in shock, but moved back in his chair a little.

  ‘Wh . . . what do you mean? I’m telling you I killed her. Stabbed her right in the chest, here,’ the man said, hitting his heart for effect.

  ‘I’m not buying it,’ Murphy said, letting his eyes drift round interview room two. It needed a new paint job. The white walls where now a faded, almost grey colour.

  ‘I’m just trying to be helpful here,’ the man said, almost pleading. ‘I’m doing the right thing, aren’t I? I mean, it must have been me who did it. It has to be. I hear her voice sometimes and I have to tell someone what I did so she’ll stop. That’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, it would be. If a word of it was true,’ Murphy replied. ‘The problem is I don’t think any of what you’ve told us since you sat down in here is the truth. Is it, Keith?’

  A long sigh came from beside Murphy. DS Laura Rossi becoming bored of the exchange, he guessed. ‘Tell us again.’

  Keith took a deep breath and began to speak.

  ‘We were seeing each other, me and Amy. We’re like boyfriend and girlfriend. We talk about everything. Spend loads of time with each other. Have been for a few months . . .’

  ‘See, that’s the first problem, Keith,’ Murphy said, attempting to keep a smile from his face. ‘Boyfriend and girlfriend?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Murphy shook his head and tried to hold the laughter in. That this guy could have any chance with Amy was ridiculous. Amy was just about to turn nineteen, a fresh-faced beauty with her pick of men. Keith was in his forties, with a pock-marked face scarred by teenage acne that had yet to disappear. The grease from his hair alone was enough to keep the local chippy in business for a good few weeks. That was before you considered other ‘issues’.

  ‘Go on,’ Murphy said with a wave of his hand.

  ‘We must have got into an argument, like, and I had hold of a knife. I did it. Stuck it right in her chest. Sometimes people argue with me and they won’t stop. They just go on and on, so I have to stop them somehow. I see knives and I put them in their chest and they go away for a bit. Then they come back some time later and start up
with me again. So, that’ll be how it happened. I can see it, all in here.’ He paused a second, but then pointed to his head.

  ‘Go back a minute,’ Rossi said, writing down notes as Keith spoke. ‘Slower this time. You’ve been seeing Amy for a few months, right?’

  ‘Yeah. I have, honest. I know it sounds weird, right, but she liked me. Always speaking to me nicely, smiling and saying sweet things to me.’

  Murphy made a noise, somewhere between a snort and a laugh. Rossi ignored him and continued talking.

  ‘Why do you think no one close to Amy would mention you, Keith? Because this is the first time we’ve heard your name mentioned.’

  Keith looked off to his left. ‘I . . . I don’t know. Maybe she never told anyone about us.’

  ‘You’ve been together for a few months in your words and she doesn’t tell anyone?’

  ‘Must be.’

  Murphy pictured Amy walking hand in hand round town with this guy, laughing with him, gazing into his eyes . . . it was ridiculous.

  ‘How did you meet her?’

  ‘I went into the shop where she worked. It’s over the road from my flat. It’s on the ground floor, so I’m level with the street. I like that. I used to go in every morning for the paper and other stuff. Then, I’d wait until she was definitely on shift. Got to know her pattern and that. We hit it off straight away, honest. She was so nice to me. Always smiled as soon as I went in there. Then, I practised at home asking her out. Over and over again and she always said yes. So . . . so, I did it. I asked her. I definitely did. I think I did.’

  Murphy shook his head and looked away. Muttered ‘Christ’ under his breath and checked the time.

  ‘What happened after you say you stabbed her?’

  Keith glanced at Rossi before averting his eyes from her stare. Murphy watched him, trying to work out why he thought he had done something like this.

  ‘Well, when you stab someone, they bleed a lot. I’ve seen it on telly and that. In films, they stab people and there’s blood everywhere. So, I wou . . . couldn’t stop the bleeding, but she wouldn’t be breathing anyway by then. If you stab someone in the chest, they die really quickly. It happens in loads of films and TV programmes. I have bin bags in my house, so I must’ve wrapped her up. I would have done it nicely though. Then I took her home. Carried her there all by myself. From the shop. There must have been a lot of blood there, so can you say sorry for me? I don’t remember cleaning it up, so it must have been all over the place. I don’t know. I haven’t been in there since.’