Bad Read online

  Also by Chloé Esposito

  Mad

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2018 by Chloé J. Esposito

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  Published simultaneously in the UK by Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Random House

  DUTTON and the D colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  has been applied for.

  ISBN: 9781101986028 (hardcover)

  ISBN: 9781101986042 (eBook)

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Lisa

  Vengeance is mine, I will repay.

  Romans 12:19, King James Bible

  Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.

  Hamlet, William Shakespeare

  Love is my religion – I could die for that.

  John Keats

  Contents

  Also by Chloé Esposito

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Disclaimer

  DAY ONE: The Traitor

  DAY TWO: The Thief

  DAY THREE: The Puppy

  DAY FOUR: The Nun

  DAY FIVE: The Hooker

  DAY SIX: The Cop

  DAY SEVEN: The One

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Disclaimer

  There’s something you should know before we go any further: last week was mad. That’s an understatement really. I had the best sex of my life. I discovered a penchant for guns. Now everyone thinks I’m my identical twin (because she died and I stole her life). Several people expired.

  I wouldn’t say it was out of character; it’s not like I’m a fucking saint. But until last week I wasn’t a killer. I was just like you. Sure, there were petty crimes: shoplifting, arson, embezzlement. But otherwise, I did what you do: I bottled it up and drank. I worked in classified advertising. I had a flat in N19. I hadn’t murdered anyone (although it had crossed my mind). I wasn’t involved with the Mafia. Interpol wasn’t on my ass. But a lot can change in a few short days and I guess this is now the new me.

  My head’s still spinning. I don’t know where to start. I should probably start at the very beginning, but all I can think about is the end and Nino breaking my heart.

  It all began last week with an accident.

  It wasn’t my fault. Not really, you see. So do me a favour, don’t judge.

  My twin is the reason I went to Sicily. Beth was desperate for me to come. Paid for my flights and everything. She lured me with free champagne and the promise of some sun. I wouldn’t normally have gone. I know better than anyone that hanging out with my thunder-twat twin is water torture at best. But I’d just been fired for watching porn and my dickhead flatmates threw me out. It was Sicily or a cardboard box. So stupidly I trusted her, and off I went.

  Bad plan.

  When I arrived at her villa in Taormina the place was magnificent. I’m talking Condé Nast Traveller porn. The most fuck you of fuck-you cribs. Sixteenth-century landscaped gardens, marble statues, fountains, flowers. And the swimming pool . . . you can’t even imagine. Of course I was jealous. Wouldn’t you be?

  And then there was Beth’s baby, Ernesto. The kid she had with Ambrogio. If only you’d seen him. He looked like me. He could have been mine. Should have been. ‘Ma ma,’ he called me. ‘Ma ma ma.’

  It was more than I could take.

  My eyes turned monster-green.

  Then Beth told me why she had invited me. She didn’t just miss me. Ha. As if. She asked if I would swap places with her so she could go out for a night. She didn’t want Ambrogio to notice. I knew something funny was up. I never should have agreed to it, but she bribed me with golden Prada sandals, so what’s a girl to do? I waited and waited, all dressed up like Beth, until it was almost midnight. When she finally reappeared we had a terrible fight.

  We were standing by the edge of the pool and somehow – I don’t know how – she slipped.

  She cracked her head on the tiles and disappeared under the water.

  Air bubbles

  and then

  nothing.

  I know.

  I know what you’re thinking.

  I should have jumped in and saved her.

  But you don’t know how I’ve suffered.

  So I let her die and stole her life.

  I stole her clothes. I stole her son. I stole her fucking husband. I stole her millions and her villa. It should have been mine anyway. Ambrogio didn’t notice a thing (at least not at first).

  It was better than winning the lottery.

  All of my wildest dreams had come true.

  It turned out that Ambrogio was in the mob and had some interesting friends. His partners, Nino and Domenico, are hitmen in Cosa Nostra. They helped us bury my sister’s corpse in a hole in a nearby wood.

  Everything was looking peachy.

  They all thought the corpse was me.

  But the reason my twin had wanted me to swap places was so she could escape the mob. She didn’t want her precious son to end up with a bullet in his head. She wanted to leave Ambrogio and elope with her lover, Salvatore. The two lovebirds were plotting to kill me and leave the island for good. Beth thought a body (my dead body) was the only way that they wouldn’t come after her. What. A. Bitch. What a fucking snake. But, at the very last minute, Salvatore refused to help her murder me.

  Alvie: one. Beth: nil.

  In your face.

  But then I slept with Ambrogio and, reader, I had to fake it. It was like throwing a twig down the Channel Tunnel. ‘Micro-cock’ is kind. Oh, the years I’d wasted fantasizing about my sister’s guy . . .

  He knew it was me straight away.

  He chased me through the night. I ran for my life. I thought he would kill me, so I did it first. I smashed in his head with a rock.

  I ran to Salvatore’s villa when Ambrogio died. I told him it was self-defence, and it kind of was, in a way. Salvo, thinking I was Beth, helped me dispose of Ambrogio’s corpse. We lost him over the edge of a cliff. Made it look like suicide.

  Then I slept with Salvatore. Two hundred pounds of sculpted muscle? I couldn’t help myself. But he noticed I didn’t have a Caesarean scar on my stomach like Beth.

  Busted again.

  I couldn’t trust him to keep my secret. There was way too much at stake. So I went to Ambrogio’s partner, Nino, and told him that Salvo had killed his boss. Nino was sexy. Nino was loyal. He said that Ambrogio was like a brother to him.

  So that did the trick.

  Nino murdered Salvatore and then I slept with Nino too.

  I am going to be honest with you.

  He was the best human man that I’ve ever slept with (and there have been a few). I dreamed of becoming an assassin at Nino’s side. His partn
er. His bride.

  I thought I’d found The One.

  We came up with a plan to work together and make ourselves a fortune. We decided to flog a Caravaggio, some priceless art that Ambrogio had. The buyer was a dodgy priest who worked for the Sicilian mob. But the bastard claimed that the painting was fake. He wasn’t going to give us the money.

  So I killed him as well.

  We escaped to London in Ambrogio’s Lambo with two million euros in a suitcase.

  It doesn’t give me any pleasure to tell you that Nino was a mistake.

  When we got to the Ritz he stole the car. He stole the fucking case.

  I know I may never see Nino again. But, if I do, I promise you that all of hell will break loose.

  YESTERDAY

  Sunday, 30 August 2015

  Tuscany, Italy

  I watch the road through the rose-tinted windscreen. Tarmac shimmers in mirage-heat: a molten river of quicksilver. It feels like we’re sailing, not driving. The sky is wide and impossibly blue, as blue as Damian Lewis’s eyes or the Italian rugby team’s home strip. I’ve never seen skies as blue as this, except for in movies. The olive groves, the rolling hills, the stunning Tuscan landscape, all dazzle as though they are freshly painted oils squeezed from the tube.

  The hot leather seat sticks to my skin. These tiny Balenciaga hot pants barely cover my lips. A bead of sweat slides down my chest and snakes down in between my breasts. I take a swig of warm Prosecco. It’s easily forty degrees.

  ‘Want some?’ I ask. I pass Nino the bottle.

  He shakes his head, ‘Niente.’

  I grip the steering wheel tightly and study my scuffed-up fingernails. I need a manicure. The baby pink has all chipped off and the dried blood underneath the tips has turned an ugly rusty red. My sister’s fuck-off diamond ring glints like a tiny bomb.

  TayTay’s playing on the radio. ‘Out of the Woods’. I love that song. I turn it up and sing along. The bassline feels like sex. I check my reflection in the rear-view. I look good in Beth’s Gucci shades. I suit her clothes. I suit this life.

  Nino passes me a cig and I sigh out smoke.

  Now we’re so fast we’re not sailing, we’re flying, speeding along at over 180. I watch the needle on the speedometer flicker, faster, faster. THIS IS THE FUCKING LIFE.

  I blast the horn just for the hell of it.

  ‘Betta, shut the fuck up.’

  Betta, Betta, always fucking Betta.

  I’m getting sick of being my sister, but Nino thinks I’m his dead boss’s wife. If I tell him I’m the other twin, I’ll risk everything. Risk my life. He might start asking difficult questions, like if I was involved in Ambrogio’s murder. Better to keep on being Betta. Better to play along.

  Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.

  I’m a bona fide black widow.

  We’re heading north out of Tuscany. Towards the lakes and the Swiss border. Through Provence, Bourgogne, Picardy and, finally, London. Away from Taormina. Away from my sister. Away from the cops and the copious corpses. Away from the guilt. The fear. The sleepless nights. So. Many. Dead. I stretch my arms up overhead, love that delicious release in my shoulders and neck, the sweet drugs coursing through my veins, that feel-good glow in my head. The aftertaste of coke drip-dripping down the back of my nose to my throat. I smile at Nino, lick numb lips. I can still taste him from our last kiss: his salty tongue, the Marlboro Red. I can smell the aftershave he’s wearing and his sexy sweat. I can smell the money, stashed away in the priest’s old leather suitcase. I get a rush just thinking about it. It makes me so wet . . .

  ‘Do you know how rich we are?’

  ‘Two million euros,’ Nino says. He grabs the worn brown Gucci case and smooths the cracked leather. ‘Allora? How long is that gonna last?’

  ‘We can make some more,’ I say. ‘Nino, baby, we are immortal. We make a great team. Don’t you think?’

  We’re leaving the cops and the mobsters behind us, our future before us, bold and bright. Alvie and Nino together for ever, killing and fucking and fucking and killing.

  ‘Hey,’ I say, ‘do you wanna pull over? I feel like some roadside fun.’

  He nods.

  I turn down a country lane and kill the engine dead. Nino gets out and opens my door. Offers his hand for me to take. We walk round to the front of the car then Nino undresses me.

  My cheek slams hard into hot metal, singeing on the bonnet. My hot pants are down around my feet. Nino’s hands are on my tits. God, I love my badass boyfriend. I know it’s only been a week, but I feel like I’ve known him for ever. I stretch my arms up over my head and claw the shiny scarlet paint. His body’s heavy, pressing down into my dripping, naked back. I feel his heart pound through his chest, his stubble sharp against my neck. His skin is scorching, sizzling. I can taste salt and sex.

  He pounds me pounds me pounds me.

  ‘Nino, Nino, Nino,’ I say.

  I wish he would say ‘Alvie’.

  We come together. I see red. Our bodies jerking, shaking. For a split-second we’re not here – we’re in a different universe. I have no sense of who I am; Nino and I are one. The French call this la petite mort, ‘the little death’ or something. Like part of me has died inside. But I’ve never felt so alive. So what the hell do they know?

  Then we crash back down to Earth. Back to reality. But you know what? That’s pretty cool. Right now, I dig being me. Nino pulls out and I stand up, dizzy, spinning and light-headed. I hear his boots crunch into gravel. I hear him sighing, ‘Betta.’ I reach down for my hot pants and pull them back up sticky legs. I lean against the Lambo and watch him spark up a fag.

  ‘Where have you been all my life?’ he says.

  ‘Waiting for you,’ I say.

  His fingers brush my bottom lip.

  I look into his eyes.

  All this . . . all this feels like a dream. I feel safe. I feel wanted for the first time in my life. Being here right now with him . . . I’ve never felt like this before. It’s almost too good to be true.

  DAY ONE:

  The Traitor

  Chapter One

  TODAY

  Monday, 31 August 2015

  Ritz Hotel, St James’s, London

  I can just hear Beth now:

  ‘Alvie? Why are you vomiting in the sink?’

  Because I’m shitting in the toilet.

  ‘What, at the same time?’

  Yeah, at the same time. It’s called alcohol poisoning. It’s super exciting. You should try it sometime. Bitch.

  I crank my heavy eyelids open, just a crack. I’m blinded by Daz-ad brilliant white: the porcelain bowl. I close them again; that hurt. I rest my cheek on the cold, hard rim and ride the waves of nausea. I am a surfer acing barrels in Hawaii, gliding over swell and crashing into white water. Oh no, here it comes, again. I vomit what’s left of my dwindling stomach acid again and again and again.

  ‘I’LL GET YOU FOR THIS, NINO. THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT.’

  Gin, wine, vodka martini, carrots (weird, I didn’t eat any carrots?). My breath echoes around the inside of the bowl. My head pounds and spins.

  ‘I’m never drinking

  Ever again. This time I

  mean it.’ Whatever.

  My first haiku of the day . . .

  Genius, Alvie, you’ve still got it. Who cares if no-one likes my poems? Keats wasn’t appreciated in his lifetime. Beth always said I was wasting my time, but I don’t do it for the critics.

  I finally flop face down on the floor. The bathroom tiles rise up to meet me and smack me – WHACK – on the side of the head.

  Did I actually just fall off the toilet?

  My mouth floods with blood from a cut on my lip. I feel like death, but at least I’m not dead – eating burgers on the john like Elvis Presley. My body shivers on
the black and white tiles. Urgh, what’s that? Oh, it’s me. BO mixed with Toilet Duck or ocean-breeze bleach. I’m naked apart from Beth’s diamond necklace. I crawl, commando, like an infantry soldier, on to the warm and fluffy bath mat: my desert island in a hostile sea. I’m in a slick-looking en-suite bathroom made entirely of marble and glass. Everything’s shiny. Everything’s new. There’s a hot tub and a walk-in shower big enough for two. I lie on my back and stare at the shower. I’d like to get in, but I’m not sure I’d make it . . .

  There’s a hiss as a tiny white plug-in air freshener spritzes the room with synthetic magnolia. My eye is caught by the widescreen TV hanging up on the wall. I grab the remote and turn it on. I have a vague feeling I should check out the news, a strange sensation in the pit of my stomach that isn’t alcohol-related; let’s just call it a hunch . . .

  An unflattering picture of me at Beth’s wedding.

  I turn up the volume to max.

  ‘The body of a woman, believed to be that of British citizen, Alvina Knightly, twenty-five, was discovered this morning in a wood near Taormina, Sicily. Our Italian correspondent, Romeo D’Alba, reports.’

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,

  Fuck. THIS. SHIT. IS. BAD.

  Technically that’s still a haiku. It’s not Shakespeare, but I’m really hungover. You can’t expect me to do my best work at a time like this.

  My cigarettes are by the sink; I spark up and suck on a Marlboro. I didn’t think they’d find her body, at least not so soon. Am I screwed?

  But they don’t know who it is.

  A balding man in a beige suit stands among oak trees and chestnuts, holding a microphone just below his wobbly double chin. (How the hell did he get on TV? He looks like a Scotch egg.) He gestures behind him to a clearing in the woods, waving a white flabby hand. A hole in the ground cut off by police tape, a heap of earth and a ton of bricks, piles of rubble, smashed-up concrete: my twin sister’s grave.