Face Value

Chapter One

Be not deceived with the first appearance of things, for show is not substance.

 

Old English Proverb

1

Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire

IT wasn't the prettiest place to die. But then again, where is? She was taking a shortcut through unfamiliar territory. He was running an illegal errand on ground he called his own. Neither would have wanted the alleyway, with its vandalised streetlights and graffiti-covered hoardings, to be their final view of life. But we don't often get what we want.

She saw him first. The lone surviving streetlamp dropped a pool of weak yellow light that was just enough to reveal him rounding the corner, fifty yards away on the opposite side of the road. Despite the mild July night he was hunched over, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his green nylon bomber jacket. Strands of straggly blond hair shielded a thin, cratered face. The Doc Martin boots, visible under too-short jeans, made no noise against the uneven, fractured footpath. Save for the lack of a skinhead haircut, he looked like he had stepped out of a documentary on right-wing hooliganism.

In the moment that she thought to turn around and go a different way he looked up, alerted by the click of her stiletto heels. As their eyes met he smiled and sneered simultaneously, his features distorting like a grotesque skull. She knew that turning away was no longer an option.

He took his hands out of his pockets. She could see the left was empty but the right seemed to be concealing something. Steadying her pace she shifted the chain-link strap of her clutch bag from across her body so that it rested on her left shoulder.

He quickened his step and crossed the street. She moved into the middle of the footpath and kept walking, watching. He was a couple of inches taller than her and as he came closer she could see he was thin and sinewy. Not a bodybuilder by any means but he looked strong, agile, quick. Like an urban fox, thinner than it should be but capable, furtive, vicious.

When he was a few yards away she grasped her clutch bag, letting the chain fall from her shoulder and moved to her right to avoid him. He blocked her. She stopped walking and stepped left, placing herself back in the middle of the path. He stepped to his right, directly in front of her again. She stood still and tried to be polite.

"I'm sorry. Please, after you," she said and extended her left arm to indicate where he should step.

He ignored her and stepped forward, within touching distance. She smelt the mix of cigarettes and body odour laced with an underlying stench of stale beer. He was pale, almost vampiric. His sunken cheeks cowered under narrowed eyes that were dulled, hooded and rimmed with a harsh, sore redness. Pock marks had joined to form craters, valleys and crevices etched into his face. His lips were cracked and looked dry yet as he spoke spittle flew from his mouth. It hit her face. She didn't reach to wipe it away.

"I don't fink so." His accent was rough-edged London. He looked down at her and smirked. "I'm gonna enjoy this. Fancy a fuck?" His speed of movement surprised her. His right hand came up and elaborately flicked a butterfly knife open. Its four-inch blade shone briefly in the dim light. He held it just inches from her chest whilst his left hand thrust forward and caught her by the throat. She gagged at the force of his grip and began to feel him applying upward pressure. He was trying to lift her off the ground. She heard a voice from long ago.