Heart of Stone: Clytemnestra Stone Series, #2

By R M Nicholls

Ness Stone has changed her face, changed her name, and disappeared. She is undercover working in the office job from hell while investigating her father's murder.

But Karl isn't ready for Ness to disappear. He is her biggest fan, and he's got a few ideas to get her attention. He has planned a series of grisly murders based on the play that gave Ness her name. His obsession might just be the death of her - but he isn't the only one who wants her dead.

Ness wanted to disappear. She might just get her wish. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: R M Nicholls
• Release date: Jan 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524205850

Book preview

WILHELMINA

14th March

Hampstead, London

6.00 am

Wilhelmina Bracken found the first body a few moments after dawn. The tall grass of Parliament Hill parted ahead of her in a long dark furrow, water spraying from the top of each dew-soaked blade. Cleon, her black Labrador, galumphed gloriously through a deep green world just ahead of her, hidden from sight by the grass, stopping to snuffle at some exciting new smell, before moving joyously on to the next discovery.

‘Bill’ Bracken walked behind him, swinging the leash in her hand, following the trail of darker trodden grass behind her dog. The dew soaked through her moleskin trousers, but she was glad to be away from the path. She had never felt at home on a beaten track.

It looked like they were the first up on that part of the Heath this morning. Still, Wilhelmina squinted about, hoping to see Ness. There was no sign of her. Ness’ bed had been empty this morning. That wasn’t so unusual in itself, yet it felt significant. The room appeared tidier than usual. The bed had been made, the clutter removed from the dressing table, no clothes on the floor. It felt somehow empty. Bill remembered that she heard Ness go out late the night before. She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. Ness had always come and gone as she pleased in Bill’s home. The empty bed shouldn’t have worried Bill, but it did. The girl liked to go to train early. Wilhelmina knew that she often came this way to swim in the freezing waters of the Lido as soon as it opened before her run or bike ride. Bill told herself that, at any moment now, she would spot Ness. She would come pounding along the path with the rhythmic pace that marked her out as a practised athlete. So much energy, just like her mother. But not quite, thankfully, not quite exactly like her mother. Wilhelmina had come to a decision about Ness. It was time to tell the girl the truth. A sharp, sudden bark disturbed the still morning air. Cleon had come to a stop about twenty yards ahead. Wilhelmina stopped, too. She turned to look at the London skyline laid out below her, a city of glass towers blazing in the bright morning haze. The path down to the Lido snaked down the hill from her. But then, if she did see Ness, should she tell her? It was unsociably early in the morning for any serious revelations. Maybe tomorrow. Wilhelmina knew that it had been ‘maybe tomorrow’ for too long. At first it was, ‘Not before she’s grown up.’ That had been an easy decision. Yet Ness had been grown up for years now, and still there was always a reason not to talk. Not now, she’s sad, it would be too hard for her to deal with that. Not now, she’s happy, there has been so little happiness in her life it would be a shame to spoil it. Not now, it’s early in the morning. Not now, it’s too late at night. She should tell Ness the truth, but not now. Never now. The right time to tell Ness would be just before the truth killed her. If only Wilhelmina could be sure of when that exact moment would be, but some things can only be seen clearly in hindsight.

What was that dog doing? Probably eating. A true Labrador. Wilhelmina whistled. Cleon barked in reply, but didn’t return. Wilhelmina whistled again, rattling the lead. A deep warning growl. Cleon never growled.

Come on, you daft dog. Biscuit, Cleon. Biscuit. Wilhelmina trod her way along the trail of crushed grass that her dog had left behind. She saw more disturbed grass ahead, but that must have happened in the night before the dew fell. There was a tiny movement in the grass, between her and the place where Cleon whined just out of her sight. A flash of white, something fluttering in the grass, blowing across the tops of the blades. On instinct, she caught it in her hand as it came closer to her. Wilhelmina hated litter on the Heath. The softness of it in her hand surprised her. She expected the rustle of a plastic bag. But it was silk: white silk, torn and stained. A sudden nausea rose in her. Despite a strong intellect, Wilhelmina insisted that she was able to feel sadness in the stones of a house where people had once been unhappy. The chill she felt now was stronger, a deep presentiment of evil. Cleon’s whimpers were close by. Wilhelmina walked slowly, reluctantly, through the grass towards the sound.

She smelt the blood before she saw the body. Cleon nuzzled the girl’s feet, as if trying to wake her. Her long hair been combed, fanned out above her head, and placed carefully on top of the blood-soaked mud. She lay face up, naked, arched backwards over a fallen tree as if she lay on a sacrificial altar. Her eyes were open, but empty. Her mouth was gagged with red cloth and then the gag itself was bound over by a thick rope, drawn so tight that the purplish flesh of her cheeks bulged above it. Her mouth was forced wide open by the rope into a permanent rictus scream. The white flesh of her neck had been slashed. Flaps of pale dead skin protruded from her neck and Wilhelmina saw the poor girl’s windpipe exposed. Wilhelmina fought the urge to take her own coat off to cover the girl. If she hadn’t prosecuted so many criminal cases as a barrister she wouldn’t have been able to hold herself back. Her brain told her not to contaminate the evidence, but her strong sense of decency was outraged. Then something that moved quickly at the edge of her field of vision caught her attention. She looked up, her heart pounding, and saw a deer. It ran across Parliament Hill, streaking in the direction of Highgate pond, as if it had dogs on its tail. Iphigenia, she whispered. And only then did she realise that the girl looked exactly like Ness.

CLYTEMNESTRA

Three Weeks Later

4th April

San Bernardino, California

10.00 am

I did not like the face I saw in the mirror.

You must be so happy, Ness, the nurse purred. You’re pretty now.

Oh yes, I was pretty. The lyrics to that Sex Pistols song were running through my mind, Pretty Vacant. American teeth, bleached blonde hair, collagen in my lips and cheekbones. Not to mention a slight change to my facial expressions, thanks to the merest nuance of Botox. I’m too young to have wrinkles; the Botox simply changed the way my face moved. It gave me a serene appearance that was completely at odds with my personality. The Botox changed my face more effectively than the fillers. I didn’t look like I had a single thought in my dumb little head. Yep, I was pretty vacant. That was the soundtrack to my new look.

I knew that I ought to be grateful to Benjamin Christ. Not many people would have been able to hook me up with an unregistered plastic surgeon to change my face temporarily on the quiet. My lawyer had convenient friends.

Where’d he find you? I asked the nurse. She looked offended; I had spoiled the illusion. She wanted to pretend that this was some exclusive Beverly Hills clinic rather than a disused dentist’s office on the outskirts of San Bernardino.

I’ve been working exclusively with Dr. Rubin for ten years, she said, speaking his name with a warmth that suggested a more-than-professional relationship.

Well, Dr. Rubin had been in California State Prison for two of those years, serving time for involuntary manslaughter, after a liposuction went fatally awry. This nurse must have seen some lean times. Yet she looked expensive. Her face was impeccably made up, not a single grey showing in her hair. Some women know how to keep up appearances.

He came in at that moment, with a smile that colour matched his white coat to perfection. He appeared every inch the successful plastic surgeon, just as he must have looked before his incarceration. It was almost depressing to see how my money had transformed him. I don’t like to believe that money can fix everything, but, for some people, perhaps it does.

Our first consultation had been at a halfway house. He had smelled like a vagrant. At that meeting I noticed, with trepidation, that his hands were a little shakier than I would ideally like in a surgeon who was about to start work on my face. Ben had assured me that Dr. Rubin had been the best, and that he could be again if he had a few hundred thousand dollars in his account. Ben had been right. Dr. Rubin was back to his old self, bedside manner intact, even if he didn’t have an actual license to practice medicine. There was no residual tremor as he injected my face with human protein and deadly poison. The results looked almost natural. Most important for me, he would never tell anyone that he had worked on me. Not unless he wanted to go straight back to prison.

No-one in Los Angeles would recognise this brand new face. The paparazzi made my life hell while I stayed with Wilhelmina Bracken in London. One bloodsucker even photographed me while I ran on the Heath at six in the morning on Christmas Day. There was a deep frost that morning. I hope that he caught a cold, but I doubt that he did. The world is short on natural justice.

I was safe now. No supermarket tabloid magazine would pay for a photograph of this face. I had managed to sneak out of Wilhelmina Bracken’s house in Hampstead during the night unseen. Benjamin Christ had arranged a private jet so that there would be no danger of my fellow passengers Tweeting my whereabouts.

That morning, as I walked from my hotel to meet Dr. Rubin, I had passed a row of news stands. My old face was plastered all over the covers of the magazines. Ness Left London Without A Visit To Her Father’s Grave - Feeling Guilty? Where To Next For Billionaire Fugitive?

I have been famous, ever since my father died and left me his multi-billion-dollar fortune. I wish I was famous for being rich, or even famous as an athlete. I finished with the best time of any British woman to ever compete at the Iron Man Triathlon in Hawaii. No mean achievement, considering that I competed at Kona only months after getting stabbed through the shoulder by a serial killer.

The media implied that I murdered my father and my ex-boyfriend, among others. I’m innocent, and I’ve never been arrested, but that doesn’t bother the Press. According to them I wanted my father’s money. The public believes that I got away with murder. They think I’m on a lifelong vacation, but I’ve been spending the past three years hunting my father’s real killer.

I didn’t like the look of my new face, but at least it wasn’t my own. My own face is a burden. Everyone recognises it. Face of an angel, heart of a killer, that’s one of the newspapers’ favourite phrases when they talk about me.

Well, Miss Clytemnestra Stone. You’re looking fabulous. Are you happy? Dr. Rubin’s game show host’s grin gleamed at maximum wattage. Everyone wanted me to be happy today. It was like Disney World, only with medical grade drugs.

Yep. I asked for different. I look different. You’ll be able to change me back?

But you look so lovely, said the nurse plaintively. And people won’t recognise you any more, you’ll be free to get on with your life.

All these procedures are temporary. They’ll wear off in their own time, the doctor told me. Your lawyer insisted on that. I can’t say exactly how long the collagen will last. I would have liked to have done a hyaluronic filler. Those can last up to six months, but Benjamin Christ insisted on something more short term. Dr. Rubin sounded a little petulant. I imagined the tone of voice in which Ben told the doctor exactly what to do.

Anyway, the effects will fade gradually over the next three months, but it varies from patient to patient.

That’s fine. I only need to look different for a few weeks and I’m going to use make-up, too.

If you want to come back for hyaluronic once the collagen has worn off, it’s possible. But there will naturally be another fee.

I shrugged. If everything worked out and I managed to prove my innocence, then my own face might not be such a burden. If it went badly, then the size of my lips would be the concern of the funeral director when he dressed my corpse. I would be beyond such worries. Ben has settled my account already, I believe.

Mr. Christ has been so helpful, the nurse said.

It’s pronounced ‘Krisst’, Dr. Rubin corrected her.

Yep, I concurred. Rhymes with ‘fist’. And with ‘permanently pissed’, when used in the American sense.

How appropriate. Dr. Rubin’s smile looked a little strained. Benjamin Christ, pronounced to rhyme with fist. Yes, he’s taken care of everything for you. He’s been exceedingly concerned for your welfare throughout. I do hope that he’s happy with the results. I’ll show you out, Miss Stone, or should I call you?

Jones. Sara Jones.

It’s a pleasure to be the first person to meet you, Miss Jones. Enjoy your new life.

I was late for my make-up lesson. As I stepped outside I put on my giant sunglasses.

My eyes are a distinctive shape, difficult to alter, and Ben had refused to let Dr. Rubin even make the attempt to change them. Instead Ben found an ex-Hollywood make- up artist who could teach me a few tricks. Ben said that we could rely on his silence. That meant that Ben knew a dirty secret about him. He has something on everyone in Hollywood. When my film star ex-boyfriend was murdered last year, Ben kept me out of prison. That wasn’t an unusual day at the office for Ben. If a pop star found himself in bed with a dead hooker, his first call would be to Benjamin Christ. Everyone knows Ben as the go-to guy for famous people, especially if they’re guilty. These days he mostly works for me. I’m high maintenance. Ben once called me the ‘Martini girl of murder.’ Anytime, any place, anywhere, there I’ll be, next to a freshly slaughtered corpse, with a surprised look on my face. Unfortunately I never realise that I’m looking for trouble, until just after I’ve found it.

The Californian sunshine felt good on my skin. I had been cooped up in a hotel while Ben arranged my new identity. Usually I run a mile or so every day, even when I’m not in training for a triathlon. Being stuck indoors had given me a bad case of cabin fever.

Finally I could start my mission, the whole reason I had put myself through this. With my new identity, I could confront my father’s killer at last. I knew who he was. I had even had dinner with him last year, before I found out that he killed my father. He had called himself Lucky Joe when we met. I also knew that he was a ‘ghost’, with at least three identities that I was aware of and probably a dozen that I wasn’t. He would be nearly impossible to find and he would disappear the second that he saw me come for him. But he wasn’t going to see me come for him, not with this face. Lucky Joe is the key to my innocence.

The only lead I have is a law firm, the one where my lawyer, Benjamin Christ, works. I know that Lucky Joe had been a client of theirs at one time. If I went there with my own face, I would be spotted immediately. My arrival in L.A. would be in the newspapers and Lucky Joe would go underground. The lead could so easily evaporate, as so many others have before it. Others might think it extreme to change my face. People who like themselves don’t do this kind of thing. Ben had advised me against it from the beginning, but I didn’t see that it was such a big deal. I didn’t like this new face, but I had grown to dislike my own face even more.

Ben’s red Ferrari stood alone in an empty parking lot under the shade of a sadly windblown patch of palm trees. I could see that he was shouting at someone on his phone. That was hardly unusual for Ben. He’s my lawyer and he shouts at people on my behalf a lot and sometimes he shouts for recreation just to keep his hand in. He shouts at me, too. That’s how he shows affection.

There weren’t many people around to see me, but it wasn’t isolated. Ben had picked the location with his usual care. It was a non-residential area, a scattering of low-built businesses and chain restaurants, far from the city centre. Three empty dusty cars were parked at the square close to Ben’s Ferrari, outside the lonely looking Jack In The Box restaurant across the road. No-one had followed us. A few slack-jawed cautionary tales were sitting in the window booth of the donut shop a few yards away. They gazed blankly through the dark plate glass at me as I walked to the car. They looked like avid readers of the tabloid press, but I saw no flash of recognition on any of their faces. I didn’t look like Clytemnestra Stone any more. They were staring at the Ferrari, out of place in this neighbourhood. The smell of hot fried sugary dough drifted across the wide empty space of the car park.

The hills around San Bernardino were greenish-gray in the morning haze. I turned my face up to the cloudless blue sky, like a prisoner on her exercise break. Then I opened the car door, started to get in, and nearly sat on the polished Oxford Brogues that Ben had placed in the passenger seat. He likes to be barefoot, and right now his white hairy feet tapped nervously on the pedals of the car as if he were a church organ player. I scooped the shoes onto the floor then quickly placed them together neatly before I sat down. Ben has a thing about his shoes. I’ve learned not to kick them aside. I don’t like to hurt Ben’s feelings. I frequently do hurt his feelings, but not because I enjoy it. He hung up the call and looked straight at me. I wondered what I could possibly have done wrong this time.

Ness, I mean, Sara, there’s a problem. You’ve been found dead. Wilhelmina Bracken found your body on Hampstead Heath three weeks ago.

But I’m­

Alive, yes. Let’s not spend too long on the blindingly obvious, kid. So when they finally check dental records and DNA, the British police are going to realise that it’s not you. That’s if they haven’t already.

But, three weeks. That means­

Glad to see you’re keeping up. I’ll check on the timings, but if it was exactly three weeks then you’ll be in the clear. You’d have been on your flight then.

No, that wasn’t what I meant. Three weeks... Why did Bill only call you now?

Wilhelmina Bracken must suspect that you’re with me, or she wouldn’t have called at all. She can’t stand me. In the meantime, Wilhelmina has identified the body. It’s been kept out of the papers, which is curious to me. You’ve been front page news for the past four years. Your death should be on every channel, every newspaper, but there’s nothing. Total blackout. Wilhelmina left me one voice mail to say that she found you dead, and now she’s not answering her phone. My guess is that she’s sulking. You trusted me instead of her and she can’t stand it.

I decided not to rise to that. Why would Wilhelmina say that I was dead? Oh, but Ben, what if she actually does think that it’s true? Oh, God, Ben. I have to contact her.

Ben snorted in exasperation. Are you kidding me? You’ve got your new face.You’ve got your ID­a clean ID with Social Security number, US passport, and paper trail. That alone cost a fortune. Ness, if you had wanted to blow a hundred thousand dollars, we could have gone to Vegas. It would have been a lot more fun than to get your face cut. I’ve prepared the ground for you to move into the firm. It’s all in place, Ness. And it’s cost you more than anyone can afford to spend twice, even you. So you’re dead. So what? When you think about it, it’s strangely convenient. You wanted to disappear, didn’t you?

So I should just allow Auntie Bill to think that I’m dead? I know that you don’t like her but­

Ness, are you even listening to me? Who is that body?

I was immediately ashamed. I didn’t like to think that I was hardened to murder, but I hadn’t even wondered who the girl was. I had only worried about my Auntie Bill’s feelings, and about how this would affect my mission. About myself, in other words. The dead girl wasn’t a friend of mine, because I don’t have any friends. She wasn’t a family member, because I don’t have any family. The closest thing I have to family is Auntie Bill, who was an old friend of my mother. This couldn’t be the body of anyone I cared about. But that was no excuse. I don’t know, I replied. Someone who looks like me, but I can’t think of anyone. I don’t have a sister or a cousin or anything.

Right. But this girl is wearing a toe tag with your name on it. She can’t just look a little like you. Wilhelmina found the body on the Heath, checked your room, found you gone, and then called the police to tell them that she had found you dead. It must have occurred to her that you were trying to disappear. I am sure she knows that it wasn’t you. She knows you too well to make that kind of mistake. Maybe she saw that you had disappeared and thought that she was helping you to fake your own death.

You think that Bill was protecting me? She knows that I would never kill anyone. She would never think that of me.

Keep telling yourself that, kid. So who did kill this girl? Did they believe that they were killing you? Or did they know that she wasn’t you, but for some reason they made her look like you? The killer could be sending you a message.

I nodded dumbly. There were people out there who wanted me dead. If this girl had been killed in my place, then I was partly responsible for her death. That was worse, even than Wilhelmina grieving and not knowing that I was alive. An innocent girl was dead because of me. I had been sent messages before. That was another reason that I felt relieved to change my identity. Ever since my father’s murder, I have received these messages wherever I have been in the world. They were always in the form of hearts. A Love Heart sweet or an embroidered cushion in the shape of a heart. The messages are creepy, You’re Mine, Your Heart Belongs To Me. Stalker stuff. I had assumed that they came from one of my fans. I have these deluded fans who think that a billionaire murderess is somehow sexy. I read somewhere about guys who sent marriage proposals to female serial killers. Those are my fans. That’s the type of person who I appeal to. They think I am a killer and that they are my psycho soulmates.

But the hearts are a different matter. Last year I met a guy who was sent a heart. A pig’s heart covered in maggots. He is in a shallow grave in Hawaii now, another unsolved missing person case with my name at the top of the list of suspects. Ben said that the hearts were a warning to people who hadn’t paid their debts. A little nod to Shylock in ‘The Merchant of Venice’. They plan to carve out a pound of my fair flesh and tear it from my ribcage if I don’t pay them. Trouble is, I don’t know what I owe, or how to contact them. This murder on the Heath could be another message. A dead girl with my name. It was guaranteed to get my attention. You’re going to look into it, right? And check that Bill’s okay? You’re right, I don’t want all of this to be for nothing, I gestured at my face to indicate ‘this’ and Ben started to laugh. I pulled a face at him. It’s all very well for you. You haven’t been turned into a human Barbie doll.

Oh, come on, it’s not so bad. He was trying to disguise a snicker now, but he wasn’t trying very hard. Big pout, blank expression, you look like every heterosexual man’s dream. Or so I understand. Don’t worry about Wilhelmina, I’m on it. We’re late for your make-up lesson. Time to see what Sara Jones really looks like.

CLYTEMNESTRA

5th April

Century City, Los Angeles

9.00 am

Ben had found an apartment for me. It was in Century City just west of Beverly Hills, walking distance to ‘Klein & Partners’. That was the law firm where I would work undercover as his PA. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the area. I had thought that there might be more indication of its role in cinema history, since it used to be the Twentieth Century Fox back lots. It looked like any commercial centre, with endless office towers and only an occasional block of nondescript apartments. My new home was a neutral apartment on the first floor. The manicured communal gardens were landscaped in a pastiche of the neoclassic style. It boasted a white stone ‘marble’ bridge over the ornamental pool, formal trimmed hedges, and sprinklers that pumped endlessly to keep the grass an expensive shade of lush green.

It had a few other important points in its favour. The building had an open staircase. Covered stairwells provide cover for someone to lie in wait for me. Ground floor apartments make it too easy for someone to climb through my window. If I am on the top floor and I hear someone break through the door, I have a slow and risky climb out of the window. The apartment itself had plain beige carpet in the bedroom with terracotta tile everywhere else, white painted walls and hardly any furniture because I did not see the point of buying much. It had all the character of a beauty pageant finalist and cost me 2.5 million dollars, which smarted a little.

I