Until Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

arm for Kelly to go first. Kelly opened the door next to her bedroom as Christos watched her from the corridor. ‘It must look chaotic to you, but it’s very well ordered to me,’ Kelly said. Her small talk was a way of keeping a lid on her nerves.
    The middle of the room was dominated by a large trestle table on which lay a half-finished papier-mâché mask, paint pots, brushes and tubes of paint. There was a paint-spattered office chair on wheels, and a dressmaker’s dummy stood in the corner by one of the windows. A sewing machine sat on a chest of drawers in the other corner. Opposite the windows along the wall was a series of deep shelves that held bales of fabric, piles of newspapers, prototypes of mask models, ‘look books’ and scraps of papers that were inspirations for designs.
    A man probably just a few years older than Georgie came into the studio. ‘I’m Mo Khan.’ He nodded towards the view. ‘It must be hard to work when you could look at that all day,’ he said, staring out of the window.
    Kelly didn’t reply. The view was south from this room, the morning still and sullen. She could see the London Eye where Christos had proposed and she had cried with joy and accepted. To the left were the fantastical pointed tips of the Royal Courts of Justice, as remote and unhelpful to her current situation as Sleeping Beauty’s fairytale castle, surrounded by thorns. Kelly knew all the weight of the law and people’s good intentions were on her side, the police, the courts, women’s refuges, social services. And it all meant nothing. They couldn’t stop the fear, they couldn’t stop Christos exercising his power and using his money. The law worked too slowly to help her escape. She had visited her doctor for depression, she had been prescribed pills. It would be too easy for him to make her look like an unfit mother. And the fear that pressed down every waking hour was that he would take away her children. She had lost one child for ever; she would endure anything to cling to the remaining two.
    ‘This is quite a production you have here.’ Georgie was looking round the room, assessing, judging.
    ‘I make masks and sometimes puppets for theatre shows.’
    ‘That sounds interesting. Did you train in that?’
    Kelly swallowed, keen to steer the conversation in another direction. ‘I’m largely self-taught. Papier-mâché is my speciality. It’s great for making larger masks as it’s light yet strong and you can build it up really well. It’s very flexible too. That’s why I keep so much newspaper in here.’
    ‘Do you have a laptop?’
    Kelly shook her head and saw Georgie looking at the blinking green light in the corner.
    ‘There are a lot of cameras in this flat.’
    ‘I want to protect my family.’ Christos’s voice seemed to boom as he entered the room.
    ‘From what?’ asked Georgie. She turned towards him, her large eyes holding him in a steady gaze.
    Kelly gripped the edge of the trestle table, torn between fascination that this woman could so casually defy Christos and fear that it would end very badly for her. She didn’t know what Christos really did in the course of his business, but she had been given a glimpse. Six months ago he had taken her with him in the car one evening to the docks. He’d had a meeting with someone. He had ordered her to sit in the car with the driver and he had got out with another man. They had met a third, younger man and had walked partly round a corner. A conversation had begun, which after a couple of minutes had turned into a lot of shouting that had ended when Christos had picked up an iron bar and pummelled the young man across the shoulders and then around the head. Christos’s friend had laughed. The young man had crumpled to the floor and stayed there as her husband and his mate had walked calmly back to the car. Christos got in next to her, the tangy scent of sweat and adrenalin rising from him and lifted a hand to her head. He let out a