When I open my eyes, I smell sweet liquor and taste metal. My teeth pinch my swollen tongue and there’s a sharp pain behind my eyes.
But it’s nothing compared to the pain in my hands, a burning, which makes me look to them first, before I can take in anything else. There’s rope, tightly wound around my wrists and tied down to the arm of a wooden chair. A deep red shoots across the veins in my hands.
‘Grace,’ a voice whispers.
I look up. A glaring light shines directly onto me, tickling the parting of my hair. I try to speak, but my tongue seems penned in by my teeth, and my jaw is tight and sore.
‘Don’t speak,’ the voice says. I blink, trying to focus on anything but the glaring light, and see an outline shift slightly.
‘Mark?’ I say, but the words never leave my throat.
‘Welcome to The Golden Key.’ There’s a gentle clang of metal. ‘You must be a member, if you had one of these.’
Something swings like a pendulum in front of the light, inches from my face. I try to shake my head, but a sharp pain bursts up my neck.
‘I’m guessing this isn’t yours.’
‘Katy?’ I whisper.
‘Do you know what this is? Where you are? Because I could never figure out if you were as clever as your daughter. Or as stupid.’
I try to shake my head.
‘You’re in my club. It’s exclusively for members, but I’m making an exception just this once. No, that’s a lie, I’ve made a few exceptions over the years.’
‘No,’ I breathe.
‘The thing is, I really value my privacy, and as someone in the public eye, I think I’m entitled to a little bit of that, don’t you? And if I want to unwind and relax with a glass of whisky and some close friends, I should be allowed to, don’t you think?’
He leans forward, his eyes bloodshot and angry in the periphery of the light.
‘Katy didn’t seem to think so. She invented a sick little story about me and some of my close friends, and she – can you believe this? – threatened me with it.’
I lick my lips and try to move my legs, but they’re numb.
‘Katy?’ I say.
‘Yes, Katy. She was a bitch, not the sort of girl that would usually be invited to my establishment, but she was pretty. If only she wasn’t so bitter.’
‘Where?’
‘Where is Katy? Well, isn’t that the million-dollar question.’ He slides something across the table. ‘She did her homework, I’ll give her that, she would have made a brilliant journalist, but she was always bending the truth to fit her agenda. I thought I’d gotten rid of all her lies, but there was one left.’ He crosses his legs and takes a sip of something, letting out a deep sigh, his breath hitting my cheeks. ‘I couldn’t let her present a false narrative to the world. That wouldn’t be very professional of me, would it?’
‘Where is she?’
He leans forward, his hair tickling my forehead. I look down, unable to see the darkness in his eyes again. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘But my best bet is the bottom of the River Avon.’
‘No,’ I cry.
‘I’m afraid so. She was just a silly girl that got herself in way too deep, and she drowned in it.’
‘What – did – you – do?’
‘Me? I did nothing. But my clients, my members, my friends.’ He leans back. ‘They need to be kept happy, safe, this is a sanctuary for them to escape the world.’ He pauses. ‘And Katy was about to ruin that, or try to, at least.’
‘The police…’ I whisper.
‘The police?’ He laughs, slapping his leg, taking another sip from his glass. ‘Who do you think my clients are? This is The Golden Key, Grace. The Golden Fucking Key. The most exclusive club in England. And some little girl with hopes of being a journalist was going to try and spread misinformation about some very important people.’ He sighs, disappointedly. ‘What is it you think I run here? A gentleman’s club?’ He laughs. ‘She tried to get people to back her up, collected statements, her little folder of hate, because she was jealous and wanted something to be true, something that wasn’t. I destroyed the USB by the way, the one you entrusted to Peter, he didn’t put up much of a fight.’
‘What did you do to her?’
‘Me? I did nothing, I just handed her over to someone who would. I don’t get my hands dirty like that. See, Katy had in her head that we used this little club of ours to abuse women, but I assured her it was all consensual. But no, she persisted, said that women were coming forward, that she had evidence.’
‘AMA.’
‘AMA,’ he repeats back. ‘But Annie just remembered it wrong. Needed a little … reminding. I think what happened to Katy served as a pretty solid reminder.’
‘If…’ I say, swallowing hard.
‘Here,’ Mark says, reaching forward suddenly. He grabs my jaw, his fingers digging into my cheeks and he pulls my mouth open. Glass clashes against my teeth as my mouth fills with cold water. I swallow, choking, as he lets go.
‘Others,’ I whisper.
‘Are there others?’ He leans forward and I catch a glint of his white teeth smiling at me. ‘I think Katy is our little poster child of what happens when you spread lies. Now, I know this is very hard for you to take in, that Katy is indeed dead, but Grace, you are also going to die.’
‘She…’ I splutter.
‘You’ve caused quite a few problems for me. A few of my clients are quite worked up over the whole affair. But I wasn’t honest with them like I’m being with you. Katy had names, and that’s when she really pissed me off. Annie was one thing; she came here for drinks all giddy and excited about meeting celebrities and got drunk and blacked out and invented a whole situation that didn’t happen. But the names … once someone is accused of something like abusing women, do you think they can make a comeback from that? No, their name is sullied for ever. Katy didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation. She was playing games, but this was no game. I told her she couldn’t make those sorts of accusations without proper evidence and do you know what she told me?’
‘Katy,’ I sob.
‘She told me that she wouldn’t rest until I was in prison, and do you know what, Grace? I believed her. That’s why you’re here, because your daughter made a stupid mistake ten years ago. She couldn’t just let something be.’
‘She did what was right,’ I say.
‘I’m sorry, Grace, but that’s enough story time for tonight. You’ve made me cancel on some very important clients and they’re going to be pissed, but at least I’ve finally gotten to the root of the problem, and that is you.’
I try to speak, but my head lolls back and forth. Nails dig into the sides of my lips and crawl into my mouth, forcing it open, and more water slides straight down my throat. Mark pulls his fingers away and pushes me forward and backwards as I choke and splutter.
‘You really are nothing like her. I don’t know where you’ll end up, maybe right next to her body, maybe miles away in a remote woodland somewhere. Who knows, it’s not really my problem. Someone is on the way to collect your body.’
I close my eyes, desperately trying to swallow, but the breath in my chest stops altogether.
‘Breathe, Mum’ Katy says. She places a hand on mine. ‘Just breathe.’
‘Katy,’ I sob.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ she whispers. ‘I’m so proud of you.’
‘I got myself into trouble, too much trouble.’
‘I don’t think it was worth it,’ she laughs. ‘But someone will get him one day, someone will get all of them, and we’ll be together, watching.’
‘I’d like that.’
I smile, wrapping my fingers around Katy’s hand for the last time.