It was only after he’d shot his load that he realised Katie had stopped breathing, at which point he began frantically shouting at her and shaking her by the shoulders. When that didn’t work, he’d tried slapping her face like they do in the films. Her pretty face seemed frozen in pain and shock, and her bulging blue eyes seemed to be staring up at him accusingly, giving him a bad case of the heebie-jeebies.
Throwing on some clothes, he had run out into the hallway, tearfully shouting for help.
When no one responded, he rushed back inside, hunted around the flat until he found his mobile, and then he’d called for an ambulance. He had stupidly told the 999 operator that he had strangled his girlfriend but hadn’t explained that it had been consensual, done as part of an S&M sex game they were playing. The operator had calmly tried to talk him through performing emergency life support, but he was all over the place, his mind fogged by alcohol, drugs, and shock.
Masters had left the front door ajar when he’d returned, and a few moments later his next-door neighbour, whose slumber had been interrupted by his screaming, came barging in to complain about the noise.
The elderly man had stopped in his tracks, stared aghast at Katie’s naked body sprawled on the bed, and stammered, “Oh my God! You’ve murdered her.”
It was that comment that had caused Masters to go on the run. Up until that point, he’d had every intention of staying with her and explaining to the ambulance crew that Katie’s death had all been a tragic accident. Suddenly, though, it became crystal clear that no one would believe him. With Katie dead, there was no one else who could verify his account, and without a witness to provide corroboration, it looked really, really bad.
Throwing some clothing into a holdall, he had grabbed his Rolex, his car keys, all the cash he had in the flat, and his passport, and then he had fled the scene.
With water streaming off him, and his expensive shoes squelching, Masters ran past some luxury riverside apartments, through a car park and out onto the service road that ran through Rock Channel Quay. He was acutely aware that it would only be a matter of minutes before the police turned up to search for him.
Masters spotted a building that, according to the sign outside, was used by the Sea Cadet Corps. He did a quick loop of the perimeter, checking for open windows or fan lights. If he could find a way to get inside, it would make an ideal spot to hole up in until the morning, at which point he could reassess his options.
The sound of fast-falling footsteps echoing off the concrete floor came as a complete shock. Ducking into the shadows, he spotted three white men in scruffy clothing running along the quay towards him. The two on the outside were holding torches, and the man sandwiched between them seemed to be their leader.
“He came ashore along here,” the man in the middle yelled, indicating for the others to fan out.
They were looking for him, he realised with a sinking heart. The question was, were they cops or private security? Their torch beams crisscrossed each other as they scythed through the darkness, drawing ever nearer. Hardly daring to breathe, Masters stood motionless with his back pressed into the wall.
His pursuers were rapidly closing in on him and Masters calculated that he only had, at best, a few seconds before one of the torch beams lit him up and gave his location away.
Head spinning and heart thumping, Masters took a deep breath and bolted away from the building line, cutting across an almost empty car park that backed onto what he assumed was a small industrial estate. There were a half dozen warehouse type buildings to his immediate left, and another complex of similar interlinked buildings lay just beyond those. Directly in front of him, two rows of heavy goods vehicles had been parked up overnight.
Masters hesitated, trying to decide which way to go for the best. The sound of approaching footsteps forced him to make a quick decision and, on a whim, he ran to his left.
“Oi, You, stop there,” a harsh voice shouted as a beam of light immediately illuminated his fleeing form. He had an ear for accents, and he was pretty confident his challenger was Welsh.
“POLICE! STOP!” the leader of the three men hollered after him, but Masters ignored this and kept running for all he was worth.
As he slipped down the side of the nearest warehouse, he could hear the policeman in charge breathlessly talking into a radio, calling for back up. Somehow, he managed to double back towards the service road, leaving the cops searching the area he had just vacated, but as he stepped away from the building line and into the exit road, a security light came on.
“Where’s that light coming from?” one of his pursuers exclaimed.
“Over there,” another responded, and he heard them break into a collective run.
“Shit,” Masters cursed, making a dash for it and praying that he could get across the service road and back under cover before they reached his current location.
Suddenly, a car was powering along the service road towards him, engine roaring as the driver thrashed it in a low gear. The headlights were on main beam, and they were almost blinding him. He tried to shield his eyes as he ran and, as a result, he cannoned straight into the side of an industrial bin that lay in his blind spot and went flying over the top of it.
Covering ground rapidly, the car did a snazzy handbrake turn and skidded to a halt about fifteen feet away from him, whipping up a large cloud of dust that spiralled outwards
