Kill For It

by Lizzie Fry

Genres: Friendship; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

How far would you go for the thing you want most?
Would you... kill for it?

'Blackly funny, highly inventive and all-too-relatable - a massively entertaining page turner' - FIONA LEITCH

Cat Crawford is not especially good at her job.

Erin Goodman is the woman Cat wants to be when she's older - smart, successful, and the best part? She's earned it - nothing was ever handed to Erin on a plate, or to Cat.

But Erin doesn't notice Cat. Not until something awful happens and Cat, finding herself in the right place at the right time, writes the article that goes viral. Now she's got Erin's attention.

The difference is, Cat knows Erin is onto her. And Cat is more than happy to toy with her colleague, especially if it gets her an even bigger story to report on.

In the game of cat and mouse, there can be only one winner.

Praise for Lizzie Fry:
'A great read . . . you'll be glad you picked up a copy' Independent
'Vivid and urgent . . . immersive and fast-paced' Woman & Home

Release date: August 18, 2022

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 100000

Sample

Nothing ever went her way.

She was used to it by now, of course; all women were. In the workplace most women soon realised they had to shrink themselves, ensure they didn’t take up too much space. Their own needs, goals and ambitions were automatically suspect.

Need to leave early, to fetch your kid? You’re not a team player.

You want to become head of department? But this man with less experience and talent is the more obvious choice.

You think you have what it takes, to become the boss?? HILARIOUS.

It was always thus. A man could share his vision and everyone would be starry eyed, declaring him ‘one to watch’. Any woman who dared step over the line of what society deemed ‘acceptable’ was shot down, talked about behind her back, even called names … at best. Worse than humiliation, that woman could have all her accomplishments stripped away and be sent spiralling back down to the bottom.

Like she had been, now.

She limped along the Bristol streets, careful to keep to the back roads, away from prying eyes, human or CCTV. She could barely keep her eyes open; lethargy infected her bones, threatening to drag her under. She knew it was shock, that she could not afford to succumb. If she fainted in the street, some good Samaritan was bound to find her and take her to hospital.

Then it would all be over for real.

As a young girl, she had never realised her gender would stand in her way. Her heroes had been men as well as women; she’ d seen no reason why she couldn’t be taken as seriously as the former. She’ d bought into the meritocratic idea that if she worked hard enough, she could have whatever she wanted.

It felt like common-sense advice.

She’ d launched from obscurity. She’ d assumed her get-up-and-go would be considered desirable. She’ d figured space would be made available for her, so had done everything she was supposed to. She’ d studied hard in school; got the grades; stayed away from controversy. She’ d been the ultimate good girl, sacrificing partying for studying and ensuring she stayed focused on all her goals.

She concentrated on the terrible pain in her arm to keep herself awake. Had it only been yesterday she had been in that office with the Higher Ups and the lawyers? She’ d finally been granted what she deserved and had worked so hard for. She had left that room recognised and rewarded for her efforts, ready to begin the next chapter.

It had all been snatched out of her grasp.

She knew just who was to blame for this travesty.

And she’ d make her pay.

ERIN

‘What are you doing here?’

I open one eye, fighting the urge to groan as I do so. The blind is drawn, but even the tiny sliver of morning light that pokes its way underneath and into the dim room is too much. I dare not move my head; I know extreme pain or at least greasy nausea will ensue. How much did I have to drink last night?

‘Mummy!’

I blink again, my surroundings swimming into sharp focus around me. Even without my glasses I know I am not in my bedroom, though the room is familiar to me. An excited little face appears in my field of view: Joshua, my nine-year-old son. Already dressed in his school uniform, he crouches down next to my side of the bed. His face is so close to mine I can smell his breath: milk and that sugar-laden crap cereal he loves so much.

Even so, I am delighted to see him, though there’s a niggling sensation in the back of my head. I push it back down and reach out, stroking Joshua’s baby-smooth cheeks and tousling his unruly curls.

‘Hello, baby boy.’

Joshua grins. ‘It’s eight o’clock.’

We’ve slept in. I startle as there’s a sudden explosion of noise and movement as someone sits up in the bed beside me. He hits his head on the overhanging eaves in the attic bedroom. He almost swears but manages to stop himself in time. The bed shakes like we’re on a ship, making me groan as my hangover kicks in. Flashes of memory come with it: bottles of red and white; laughing, sitting on the sofa and looking through old pictures.

As I turn, I see my ex-husband David, who rubs the top of his skull with a furious gaze in those steely blue eyes of his, like it’s my fault he half-brained himself. Then I remember.

I was supposed to leave before our sons got up.

‘We both fell asleep,’ I say, defensive as ever.

‘We don’t have time for this right now.’

David grabs the throw off the bed and wraps it around his naked body so Joshua doesn’t see. He disappears into the en suite. It doesn’t matter anyway; Joshua only has eyes for me. Self-conscious, I pull the duvet up to my neck. I’m naked underneath too.

‘Are you taking us to school, Mum?’

I hesitate, my eye on the clock next to the bed. It kills me to see Joshua’s hopeful expression and disappoint him. I have to get into work for nine. I am also loath to overstay my welcome any more than I already have with David.

I’d never meant to stay over; I’d not even meant to come over at all. If Joshua hadn’t left his PE kit in the back of my car, I wouldn’t have had to return it the previous evening. A flush of resentment surges through me next: I never asked to stay for that drink (or ten), David had offered. I’d tried to leave at least twice before things got out of control. It was him who’d put the moves on me, too.

Damn, I’m weak.

‘I can’t today. How about I take you on Thursday?’

Joshua seems to deflate. Perhaps he doesn’t remember it being any different, but he knows our set up is not ‘normal’. Usually it’s the dad who leaves the homestead after divorce, but not in our case. It had seemed the sensible thing at the time – I earned more than David – but I’d completely underestimated how much I would miss my boys. Though I see them several times a week, it’s not the same as living with them every day.

Ten minutes later, I’ve gathered my clothes, changed in the bathroom and kissed Joshua goodbye. Sniffing my blouse’s armpit, I decide to take a detour back to my basement flat to shower and change. Our eldest, Dylan, had rolled his eyes when he’d seen me creeping back downstairs in the same outfit I’d worn the night before. If a self-involved fourteen-year-old can spot ‘The Walk of Shame’ a mile off, I can’t risk the rest of the office noticing too. It’s a new job; I’m still trying to make a good impression.

I make it back to my basement flat as fast as I dare for a Tuesday rush hour in Bristol; it feels like time is collapsing around me like a house of cards. I race down the steps, run through to the skanky box that calls itself a bathroom and jump in the shower. The water is cold which makes me swear and gnash my teeth but helps me keep up my rocket-like pace.

Casting an anxious eye at the clock, I dress and brush my teeth at the speed of light. Stumbling out of the bathroom, I pull a boot on. I hop around, finding the other abandoned underneath the breakfast bar.

Behind the scenes of my life, rushing around like a headless chicken is typical. My personal life might be a disaster, but I always think of my professional life as being the ultimate stage play: on the actual boards, everything’s perfect and going according to plan. There’s great lighting above me, fantastic scenery behind me. I look fabulous. I say my lines and do whatever I need to do to earn respect, money and to get ahead.

People fall for the charade, every time.

Grabbing my keys and my bag, I run for the door. Almost falling to one knee up the concrete stairs, I career upwards, nearly colliding with someone sitting at the top.

‘Shit!’

It’s one of the young lads from the student house on top of my basement. They’re not much older than Dylan: maybe nineteen or twenty. With hooded, sleepy eyes, this one’s dark hair is in disarray, his clothes crumpled; it’s obvious he’s been out all night. I know his name is Asif, but only because I get all his post downstairs. He’s laconic and laid-back; he’s also an A1 wind-up merchant.

‘All right, Karen,’ he says in a London accent so low it sounds like it belongs to someone else, ‘keep your knickers on.’

My nostrils flare; he always calls me this. ‘My name is Erin. I’m late for work!’

He puts a hand-rolled cigarette in his mouth and lights it, expelling a puff of smoke that seems to envelop both of us. Jealousy pierces through me. I haven’t smoked in twenty years, but I would kill for one right now.

‘Aren’t you a good little worker bee,’ Asif drawls, ‘or should I say drone?’

This again. I know Asif’s type: supposedly anti-capitalist to the bone, he wears a Che Guevara T-shirt and thinks he’s invented socialism. The fact the T-shirts are mass-produced in sweat shops seems to escape him.

‘Some of us have to work for a living.’

Asif’s chuckle falls on my back as I scurry towards my car, parked further down the road. As I get in, my heart is thumping erratically.

The clock reads nine. I’m going to be late now, whatever I do. I sit at the wheel for a moment so I can compose myself. I take a deep breath in through my nose and out of my mouth. My calm lasts for all of thirty seconds.

I jump as my mobile rings; DAVID is emblazoned on the display. I stare at it for a second, my heart buoyant, before punching the button on my phone for loudspeaker as I reverse out.

‘Hello, lover.’ The smile is evident in my voice.

‘Seriously, Erin? I can’t believe you let the boys see you.’

My calm evaporates and injustice sticks in my throat. Before I can reply, he continues his barrage.

‘I can’t believe you sometimes. Have you any idea what it was like, trying to answer all Joshua’s questions after you left? Now Dylan is in a foul mood too. We agreed we mustn’t get the boys’ hopes up.’

I interrupt him. ‘I didn’t force you to sleep with me. In fact, you came on to me.’

David tuts. ‘It doesn’t matter, anyway. Last night was a mistake.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

‘Don’t I?’ David declares, the bitterness in his voice as clear as the January sunlight caressing the Bristol skyline. ‘Maybe I think a night of sex is not enough recompense for having to deal with your mess.’

‘My mess?’ I can hardly believe my ears. ‘We both slept in. Not just me!’

I don’t have time for a full-blown row, so tell David I have to go. I cut him off before he can say anything more, savouring the win, even though it’s petty. I need one after this morning and I haven’t even got to the office yet.

I count to ten as I take the roundabout. I travel past the concrete monstrosities and the modern, shiny chrome and glass buildings on the way to the university. I take the next left and park up in the underground car park at Queens Mead Tower, where my new job is.

None of the morning’s strains show on my face or in my body language as I stride into the glass atrium of Carmine Media. The interior is a stark contrast to the building’s ornate façade: bar our offices on the top floor the whole place is a building site. I greet people pleasantly as I go, even the security men or interns. It’s an old habit, but I am struck by the way people at Carmine regard me like I am some kind of visiting angel just for remembering them. That figures. They’re used to being ignored at best.

Media people can be such elitist arseholes sometimes. I’d begun way down the industry pecking order at the Bristol Journal Group in sales and subscriptions. One particularly delightful line manager used to flick spitwads at all of us with his ruler. Another had a ‘no coffee’ rule until you closed a sale. When she noticed several of us didn’t care about this or brought our own Thermos flasks, she upped the ante and said no loo breaks.

With this hell still fresh in my mind years later, I take an interest in workers below me, no matter who they are. I enquire after people’s children or cats or plants.

It’s the little things.

The Bristol Journal Group is no more, officially: it’s been absorbed into the Carmine Media collective like the Borg from Star Trek. Once upon a time, the Bristol Journal had been the paper everyone read in the city and its surrounding towns and villages. The internet started killing off the group’s circulation years ago, with social media sounding its death knell late last year. I’d been limbering up for redundancy and what that would mean for me and my (estranged) family when Hugh Carmine had appeared with an offer we couldn’t refuse.

I weave my way through the cubicles, grateful that no one appears to realise I’m late; one of the few benefits of working in an office with hundreds of people, instead of fewer than fifty. Various faces pop up over the walls to greet me. I smile and wave, remembering the countless hours I’d spent behind similar cubicles, grafting my way out like a miner in the dark. Those were not the days.

I make it to my office on the far side and close the door, breathing a sigh of relief. The office is small, but mine. Unlike my flat, which permanently looks like a Sharknado has swirled through it, this space is immaculate. Airy and light, the lack of furniture, books and papers makes it seem bigger. I can see right across Bristol: streets and car parks, rows of multi-coloured houses and murals, construction sites, shopping malls and multistorey apartment buildings.

On the desk, a little wooden block with my name carved on it: Erin Goodman. It’s one of the last things David bought for me, before our marriage went tits up. I run my fingertip across the grooves of the carved letters.

There’s a bold knock at the door. I don’t call ‘come in’ because the knock’s owner appears over the threshold straight away, as ever: John.

‘All right, maid.’

A dyed-in-the-wool Bristolian, John stands in my office, hands on his narrow hips, chewing gum. His fly is unzipped. I don’t tell him. I’m not tall, but everything about John is tiny, like he’s been shrunk by a miniaturising gun. He is bursting with energy, positively crackling with it. If life was a cartoon, he would have wavy lines all around him constantly.

‘Hello, John, sorry I was late.’

‘Were you?’

John flicks a hand at me; he couldn’t care less now. Once upon a time he’d roasted latecomers but now, on the brink of retirement, he’s mellowed out.

‘What can I do for you?’

He grins. ‘I got a favour to ask.’

Uh oh.

I’ve been working for John for so long I know that phrase from his lips can mean literally anything. Forty hours of extra unpaid work on a project, perhaps; or maybe he’ll ask you to phone his wife Bobbi with some bogus excuse about why he has to stay at the office. I brace myself for whatever it is.

‘There’s a girl crying in the toilets. Can you deal with that?’

I blink. ‘A little girl? However did she get past security?’

John laughs and clicks two finger guns at me. ‘You’re right. I mean “woman”, of course. One of ours, apparently. Y’see, this is why you’re good for me, Erin. Keep me on my toes. Anyway, can you sort it? Thanks, you’re a star!’

With that, he breezes back out of my office. Irritated at being stuck with an obvious babysitting job, I sit and stare into nothing for a moment, trying to channel out the noise in my head. Not for the first time, I wonder if I’d been right to follow John to Carmine Media. Though I made rapid progress up the career ladder at the Bristol Journal, in recent years I’ve stalled. Maybe I keep bumping my head on the glass ceiling because I’ve gone as far as I can go? It’s not like I don’t have transferable skills. I could start my own business, be self-employed like David. Set my own hours. See more of the boys. Except …

… No steady pay cheque.

… Not enough money for the mortgage AND rent.

… Most new businesses lose money in their first few years.

… My maintenance payments for the boys would have to go down.

Sighing, I pull myself to my feet, grabbing my handbag. Time to sort out whoever is crying in the toilets.

I know just how she feels.

CAT

Once she heard the last of the other employees get bored of calling to her and shuffle back out, Cat emerged from the toilet stall. She regarded her image in the mirror. She couldn’t have let any of them see her like this. She looked a right state. Tear tracks down her face; the mascara she’d taken pains to apply this morning was ruined; her cheeks were red and puffy. She looked like she’d been punched in the face.

‘She who dares wins.’

Cat conjured the words into being for her reflection and felt the weight fall from her shoulders. Those words were a promise to herself, but also a reminder of what she was fighting for. She’d had dreams of being an investigative reporter, holding politicians, corporations and institutions to account. She would be an avenging angel, known for being tough-talking, but fair. Men would flock to her, bewitched by her charm and mystique; women would want to be her. Because, obviously.

It hadn’t worked out that way. Cat slumped against the toilet wall, her optimism fading as quickly as it had appeared. Working in the cubical farm at Carmine Media was not her dream job. When she accepted the position, she thought she would be Lois Lane, filing scoops and falling in love with a dashing investigative reporter. In reality, she had no friends and was rewriting press releases when she wasn’t making tea. She hadn’t even left the office on an assignment in weeks and even that had just been to cover a bloody school fete because no one else wanted to do it.

Worse than that, though, Cat was out of her depth. She’d completely underestimated the classism that was shot through British professional society like words through a stick of rock. She could never hope to compete with Oxbridge graduates and old-school luvvies. She lacked polish, which in turned affected her self-esteem.

No one said anything, but it was obvious: the sudden lulls in conversation, the glances between other workers. Cat didn’t understand their in-jokes, nods or winks; nor could she bond with colleagues by talking about expensive holidays or going drinking and buying huge rounds. She was working class to the bone. Everyone in the office could see it even without an X ray.

As this thought occurred, steely resolve bloomed in Cat’s chest. Okay, journalism wasn’t like she imagined. But she could still do this, make her parents proud. Hell, she might even make Lawrence proud.

‘One of those days, isn’t it?’ a soft voice said behind her.

Cat turned, ready to bawl out whoever had slipped so noiselessly into the ladies. Her eyes grew wide when she took in who it was. Wearing a cashmere sweater, a mid-length A-line skirt, high heel boots and a concerned expression, she was immaculate. More than that, her reputation preceded her.

Erin frikkin’ Goodman!

Cat already knew everything there was to know about Erin. When she had joined, barely six weeks earlier, Cat had been excited to see a woman in a senior position; Carmine was notoriously male-centric in most of its leadership roles. Cat worshipped Erin from afar across the office, bringing her coffee with stars in her eyes. Erin always thanked her with a beaming smile.

‘Cat, isn’t it?’ Erin smiled, pulling a wad of tissue from a dispenser on the wall and proffering it to her.

‘That’s right.’ Cat couldn’t believe she’d remembered her name.

Erin raised a single eyebrow. ‘Man trouble?’

Cat fought the urge to stab herself in the eye with the mascara wand. If only her problems were as simple as Lawrence being a dick. She couldn’t get into it now, no harm going with it.

‘That easy to tell, huh?’

To be fair to Erin, the day had started with Lawrence ripping the duvet off her and telling her to fuck off because they were finished again. He’d shouted in her face that she was a user, a gold-digger and a whore. He’d reminded her yet again that he owned the flat (a graduation present from Mummy and Daddy) and could chuck her out any time he wanted.

Cat had been stung, especially since she paid for all the utilities, food and pretty much anything else Lawrence wanted, including weed. She was tired of walking on eggshells around him for fear of being homeless, but she knew she could not afford such a nice building on her own. She’d end up in some backstreet dive if she went it alone, or worse: a house share like an overgrown student. She’d worked so hard to get where she was and she couldn’t take a step backwards.

That morning wasn’t the first time Lawrence had finished with her in the eight years they’d been together, or even the last few months. Cat missed the mild-mannered, self-assured young man she’d met at university. Now Lawrence’s self-pity and general misanthropy were getting out of control. He spent most of his time hanging round the flat, making conspiracy theory-based TikToks, watching television with the cat and gaming. Still, that was an improvement on last year when he wrote and self-published a mildly racist book that failed spectacularly to get the negative attention he craved. It sold four copies, one of which was returned to Amazon. It currently languished on the site with a single one-star rating.

Erin tilted her head at Cat. ‘You have “that” look. You know the one.’

Cat did.

Erin sniffed and grimaced. Cat noticed the smell of urine and old pine air freshener in the toilets for the first time.

‘How about a drink?’

Habit made Cat check her watch. Lawrence always got extra-antsy if she wasn’t in before six without calling first. Despite it feeling like the day must be almost over, she’d been in work for less than three hours.

‘It’s not even eleven.’

Erin copped Cat a conspiratorial wink. ‘Let’s call it a work brunch?’

Her make-up repaired, Cat slunk back to her desk. . .