Kittycat

One evening, unwilling to go home and face another tense night with Peter, always on the edge of a row, Catherine went for a walk in the twilight -- at 4.30 in the afternoon! -- in St James's Park. As she wandered aimlessly beside the lake, she saw a young black woman striding determinedly towards her. The woman looked vaguely familiar, but Catherine couldn't place her. She was in her early 20s, tall, maybe as much as six feet, and put Catherine in mind of a spider -- skinny body and long arms and legs. Hair cropped close to her skull, eyebrows plucked almost to non-existence, her face would have been pretty but for the ugly bruise which discoloured one of her exquisite cheekbones.

The woman stopped in front of Catherine and stood, challengingly, with her hands on her hips. Then she spoke. "You've got to help me. Tell him to leave me alone."

She was obviously referring to Sonny -- what other black men did Catherine know? With a shock she realised where she'd seen the girl before -- in the front room of that gaff they'd raided the night she first met Sonny, hunched silently in a chair with tears rolling slowly down her cheeks, clutching a small child to her. Catherine said, "You're his girlfriend -- the artist, right?" What was her name? It started with B.

The girl provided it herself. "I'm Belinda, and I'm not his girlfriend, I'm his fucking slave." She did not have the faux Jamaican twang Sonny affected, her accent was pure South London. "He comes round and fucks me whenever he wants, knocks me around now and then, and never gives me a penny for me or my little girl."

Catherine wasn't clear why the girl was there, or what she wanted from her. "Well, er, Belinda, if you don't like it why don't you just leave him?"

The girl laughed, humourlessly. "Don't you think I've tried? He always finds me and drags me back. Last time he beat me so bad I couldn't walk for three days. If I try it again he'll kill me, I know he will. And I'm terrified he'll hurt my baby. Look, I know you're sleeping with him, he loves telling me what he's done to you, and how you're gagging for him. Please, convince him he doesn't need me anymore, tell him to let me go. Please."

Catherine stared in astonishment at her. "Belinda, if you know Sonny at all, you know neither I nor anybody else can tell him what to do. I'm sorry, I can't help you."

She started to move away, but the girl restrained her with a surprisingly strong hand on her shoulder. "You could stop him. You could get something on him easy, bang him up, then he'd be out of both of our lives. Do you really enjoy the way he humiliates you?" She saw the look on Catherine's face. "But you won't do anything, will you? You're an old white woman, and you like having a big black stud too much, no matter what you have to do to keep him. I wonder what your old man would think of that? And your bosses?"

Catherine turned on her, masking her fear at the woman's thinly veiled threat with simulated anger. "Who do you think they'd believe, you silly little cow? You're forgetting who you're dealing with. I wonder how many times you've been charged with soliciting, with possession? Maybe I'll check. Never mind Sonny, I could get you locked away for ten years in a blink of the eye. And Social Services could have your kid in care so fast you wouldn't know what's hit you. So don't threaten me, and don't come near me again."

The dismay in the woman's eyes told Catherine her guesses about her past had hit close to the truth. As she stalked off, ignoring the curious stares of people around her, Belinda screamed after her, "I'll get you. I'll get both of you, you fucking old bitch!"

Catherine saw Sonny two evenings later, but she didn't mention the encounter to him. She believed that he probably would kill Belinda if it suited him; and her. She was too scared to wonder what he would do if she told him she wanted to end their affair. That evening Sonny seemed more sexually wound up than ever before in her short experience. He hardly let her get through the door of the flat before he started ripping her clothes off, shredding her blouse, breaking the clasp of her bra. Catherine was frightened, yet at the same time incredibly aroused by his passion.

Not even giving her time to get to the bed he pushed her down on the couch and quickly stripped. Catherine sprawled watching him, half on the couch, half on the floor, her legs wide open, almost feeling her juices running down her thighs, she was so turned on. Sonny's erection looked absolutely enormous tonight. With one big, powerful hand he grabbed her armpit and flipped her over onto her stomach. For a few seconds he palpated her slit with his fingers then his prick surged into her. As he thrust at her with an urgency bordering on frenzy, his huge scrotum slapping against her with every thrust, Catherine thought he had never gone quite so deep before, each stroke stretching her already well-exercised cunt wider and wider. Sonny's hands gripped her tits, squeezing them quite painfully, his fingernails digging into her flesh. His teeth sank into the nape of her neck. The nylon carpet burned her knees as they slid back and forth with the sheer strength of his thrusts. He came, but simply carried on fucking her, growling with each stroke. Catherine lost track of how long it went on for, but as she experienced her most intense orgasm in a while she buried her head in the cushion of the couch and screamed with all her remaining strength.

After that overture she had assumed they would spend a few hours fucking and sucking on the bed, but even as she recovered her breath, rolling onto her back on the carpet, Sonny was dragging his clothes back on. "Come on woman, get dressed, I got tings to do." He didn't offer her a shirt and, too intimidated to ask, she simply buttoned her overcoat over her naked breasts, stuffing the ruined bra and blouse on her bag along with her tights and knickers. On the drive back her aching cunt pulsated as if Sonny was still inside her, and her breasts throbbed from his assault on them. At her apartment she didn't get the usual deep-thrusting kiss and grope, he simply stopped the car and said, "I'll call you, Kittycat."

Scuttling inside Catherine immediately stripped and had a long, luxurious shower. Peter obviously wasn't home -- must be at his whore's place. While she was showering the 'phone rang, but she left it for the machine to pick up. Then she applied some lotion to her sore breasts, slipped on a dressing gown and, her pussy still aching, walked gingerly to the 'phone. There were three messages, and she was just about to listen to them when the doorbell rang. Not a simple polite ring -- someone had their finger jammed on the button, and didn't intend to release it. It could only be one person. She pressed the intercom and asked "What, do you want to come up?"

The hesitant reply took her by surprise. "Ma'am, this is Detective Chief Inspector Donohue from Soho Central. I do need to come up if you don't mind." Catherine immediately pressed the button. Steve Donohue was an old mate from Hendon Police College, in fact a drunken one-night stand many, many years before. His formality clearly meant he had junior officers with him. Something in his voice put Catherine on her guard. Oh shit, that little bitch Belinda hadn't really shopped her over Sonny had she? Perhaps they'd been tailing her. The moment she opened the door the look on Steve Donohue's face made her heart stop for a moment. Even though she'd done little operational policing, she knew that look. It was the look every copper got when they were about to tell a member of the public the worst possible news about a loved one. "Evening Ma'am, can we come in please? You might want to sit down."

He was accompanied by a young uniformed woman constable, fairly standard when a male officer was about to do what Donohue was about to. Her voice suddenly choked with emotion, Catherine said, "Let's cut the usual crap Steve. What's happened to Peter?"

Donohue gathered himself for a moment. "Ma'am...Cathy...I'm so sorry. He...it's the worst. He was stabbed. They took him to Middlesex Hospital, but he was gone before they put him in the ambulance." Catherine's mind suddenly refused to work. She couldn't summon a single thought into her head. She let her arms slip to her side, her hands resting on the couch, and her dressing gown slipped open, revealing the inner swell of her breasts and the first curls of her pubes. Donohue quietly averted his eyes, but Catherine realised the WPC was staring, her face turning crimson. Maybe she was a dyke. After a moment the young woman moved to sit next to Catherine and delicately pulled the gown closed, tightening the knotted belt.

Catherine realised she had to say something. "Can I see him?"

Steve stood, apparently relieved the moment was over. "Of course, we need a formal ID. He's in the morgue at the hospital. Cathy, we've already got a couple of suspects in custody, it's looking open and shut." She quickly dressed, pulling on the suede skirt she'd worn earlier in the evening -- the one Sonny had dragged off her -- and a roll-neck jumper, together with fresh bra and pants. The WPC held her arm down the flight of stairs to the front door of the building, and into the unmarked car, as if she was a frail old woman about to faint at any moment.

They drove in silence to the hospital. Catherine felt very strange. Peter had been a total shit, screwing his skinny girlfriend behind her back, and she hadn't been the first either. Catherine had told herself more than once that it was only his behaviour that had driven her into Sonny's bed. But he didn't deserve to die for it, nobody did, especially violently. Yet she seemed unable to summon tears, even any real feelings of regret. It was the shock, she told herself, that would all come later. In the meantime, the thought kept running through her head, unbidden and unwanted, that she had avoided the messy and costly divorce that would have been inevitable eventually, she would get to keep both the flat and their lovely house in Sussex, she would be getting a widow's pension, plus a lump sum of three times Peter's quite considerable salary...As the car turned through the gates of the hospital, she heard herself ask, to her own surprise, "You said you've got someone, what are the details?"

Donohue hesitated, clearly thinking Catherine shouldn't be bothering herself with that at this point. Then he said, "It happened around ten past six. The knife was still in his chest, it's quite distinctive, a big horn handle, with 'Sonny' engraved into the blade." For the second time in half an hour Catherine's heart stopped. She'd seen that knife, Sonny occasionally left it lying around his flat. Donohue was still talking. "I'm guessing he only left it because he got disturbed. It took place in an unlit alleyway, a few yards from where his car was parked. It appears he left the home of a, er, co-worker, and was going to the car when he was stabbed. The area's not great for CCTV coverage, but we've got images of a tall IC3 in a leather jacket following him into the alley. Not possible from the pictures to make out the ID, just the race."

Catherine interrupted him as the car drew to a halt. "About ten past six, you said. How can you be so sure of the time?" That was almost the exact time that Sonny had been tearing off her blouse at his flat. "We know he left his, erm, associate's flat at five past, and a bag lady found the body at twenty past. Put that together with the CCTV, it's pretty exact."

Catherine's head was in a whirl. "There's no need to be discreet Steve, I know he was fucking that woman. How did you get onto the suspects so quickly?"

Trying to cover his embarrassment, Donohue continued, "Well, when we went through his personal effects we found a folded list of names and addresses, headed 'Sonny Anderson's known associates and business addresses'. Anderson's a well known villain, into all sorts, he's just been lucky -- until now. We reckon Peter must have been investigating him and got careless. As we speak, we've got blokes out raiding some of the addresses, reckon we'll pull in a nice haul of contraband." Suddenly panicking, Catherine tried to think desperately whether she'd ever let anything at Sonny's apartment that could be traced back to her. Donohue continued, "We called round to the flat Anderson shares with his girlfriend, and they were in bed together. But there was a sheath with no knife in it, and a leather jacket smothered in blood. It's gone for DNA testing but I reckon we've got him bang to rights as it were. We pulled them both in to be on the safe side. Anderson's saying nothing, the girl's turned on him, claims he'd only been there ten minutes, and that he was agitated when he arrived. His clothes were still warm, and so was his car engine." Catherine listened in stunned disbelief. So Sonny had screwed her -- virtually assaulted her -- then gone straight round to spend the night with Belinda.

In the morgue she stared at the white, deathly face of her dead husband. He actually looked quite peaceful. Even then she couldn't summon up any real emotion. She could feel the WPC staring at her, obviously thinking what a cold, hard bitch she was. Donohue started to ask if Catherine had anyone she could stay with, but she stopped him. "Steve, let me come back to the nick with you. I don't want to sit in on the interview with Anderson, obviously that can't happen, I'd just like to observe it. Please? As a favour to an old friend?"

He was obviously very dubious about it, but bowed to the emotional blackmail. When they arrived Belinda was standing in the corridor outside the interview rooms, waiting to be taken in. Catherine turned to Donohue. "Look Steve, you reckon you've got a good case against Anderson, and there's only one person on the CCTV. I know Belinda slightly, she might respond better to me. Let me have just a minute alone with her, off the record. Okay?" Steve Donohue shuffled his feet, clearly unhappy. Catherine pressed the point. "Okay Steve?"

A look of anger on his face, the detective chief inspector stared into her eyes and growled, "Okay ma'am." Catherine stepped forward and took the sullen, silent, woman by the elbow. As she lead her towards the interview room Sonny appeared at the other end of the corridor, cuffed to a burly sergeant. Even at that glimpse of him Catherine felt her pussy twitch. When he saw the two women together, for a moment his face darkened in fury. Then, shockingly, he started to chuckle. Within seconds he was openly laughing, shaking his head, his dreads flying around his face.

Catherine motioned the girl to sit, and she slumped in a rickety wooden chair on one side of a plain wooden table. Catherine leaned against the wall, her arms folded, and asked simply, "Why did you kill my husband?"

For a moment Belinda looked panic-stricken, then tried for anger, before her face slipped into malicious resignation. "This ain't being recorded, is it? So it's just you and me, yeah?" This was one of the small interview rooms which didn't have a two-way mirror for observation. "Okay, I thought it'd tick all my boxes in one go. If I can frame that bastard" -- she jerked her thumb towards the neighbouring room -- "I'll get him out of my life. You'll lose your husband and your biiig blaaaack stud. And Sonny-boy's only alibi is that he was fucking you at the time, so he either says it and your life's over, or he keeps schtum and's got no alibi. They might even believe you're in it together. And just to make sure the plods got off on the right foot I slipped a little typed note in your man's coat pocket"

Catherine nodded slowly. It was quite clever, in its own vicious little way. And it had just got even better. She understood Sonny's burst of laughter -- he had, fortuitously, seen the two women together, and must suspect that they had planned the whole thing between them. As if to confirm it, there was a rap on the door, and Steve Donohue poked his head in. "A word, ma'am?"

Catherine stepped out of the room and took in the look of grim satisfaction on her colleague's face. "He's admitted it Cathy, confessed to the murder. But he says his artist friend in there was in on it with him. Says she was waiting at the other end of the alley for him, standing lookout."

Catherine thought for a moment. She opened the door to the small interview room and stepped into the doorway before answering. "Well, it's nice to know that Anderson's held his hands up for the murder, but Belinda couldn't possibly be involved. She was with me at the exact time Peter was killed. I spent, oh, over an hour with her. She was Peter's source for some of the goods on Anderson, and I was trying to get a bit more out of her. You'll find confirmation of that on Peter's PC at home." At least, they would after Catherine had put it there, with Belinda's help.

Belinda had heard every word. As a surprised Donohue closed the door behind her Belinda stared at her, totally bewildered. "Why'd you do that?"

Catherine shrugged. "I need Sonny out of my life too, and I won't get a better opportunity. And Peter was about to leave me for the little cow he was screwing. I figure you're as much a victim in this as he is and, well, I reckon I owe you. Between us we ought to be able to sew this up completely."

A slow smile spread across Belinda's face. "I reckon I owe you too, now." Catherine's gasped as she felt the woman's toes stroke against her bare ankle. "I'm sorry I called you an old woman, I can see what Sonny saw in you. You're an attractive lady. And from what Sonny says, you're a tigress in bed too." Her eyes were locked on Catherine's. Catherine's eyes closed, and she shuddered, as Belinda slumped down in her chair and her toes stroked across the older woman's calf, reached her knee. "Tell me Assistant Commissioner -- or can I call you Kittycat? -- have you ever posed nude? Those big tits of your would look great in clay." As the toes started to caress the inside of her thigh, Catherine's breath deepened, she felt her skin heating, and a familiar welcome wetness pooling between her legs.