Page 71 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

Because sometimes men believe what they want to believe.

And right now Richard Stone wants to believe that two beautiful young sisters are standing at his gate, begging to be let inside.

‘You may as well come in then, seeing as you’re here,’ he says.

And then the gate opens, revealing a long driveway leading to the steel door and those huge glass windows.

‘Remember we have to wipe the footage,’ I tell Antoinette as we make our way up to the house, sprinklers on the manicured lawns misting us with drops of water. Normally I’d be pissed off and worry about my hair frizzing, but it’s actually quite a nice relief after the heat of the day.

‘Wipe the footage. Got it,’ Antoinette replies. I sneak a look at her. Her eyes are focused on the door and I can see her chest rising and falling as she breathes. There’s an almost electric charge bouncing off her and I wonder if I’m the same. There’s something so perfect, so almost sensual about this moment. The moment leading up to killing a man. Knowing we’re about to make the world a safer place for women. Knowing we’re about to serve a justice that would go unpunished otherwise.

‘You good?’

Antoinette looks at me and smiles. ‘So good. I can’t wait to make him pay for what he did to Agnes.’

It’s Richard Stone himself who answers the door, which I’m slightly surprised by. I’d have imagined a man of his standing to have an army of staff to do the grunt work like answering the door. I really should’ve thought about that before rushing out here. But then again, I suppose he doesn’t want any witnesses if he’s spent the day groping young actresses.

‘Hello,’ he says as the door opens. He’s not a large man but it’s apparent that he takes care of himself. He’s wearing a T-shirt, which shows off relatively toned biceps, and a pair of grey joggers. Objectively, he’s not a bad-looking man for someone his age, which I would say is around mid-fifties. He has a full head of hair but I suppose anyone with money can buy themselves a hairline. ‘I’m so sorry but I didn’t have this meeting in my diary. I can only offer my full and wholehearted apologies.’

‘No problem,’ I say with a little giggle. ‘We really appreciate you seeing us anyway.’

‘Yes,’ Antoinette echoes. ‘We really appreciate it.’

‘Well, let’s get you inside,’ Richard Stone says. ‘Can’t have two lovely young things like you standing on the doorstep all night.’

Things?

I can’t wait to kill this guy.

So the plan Antoinette and I hurriedly put together is that we’ll overpower Stone, strangle him and stage it to look like a suicide. We’re hoping to get access to his phone so we can send out a confessional email to some news outlets saying how he couldn’t live with himself after everything he’s done to young women. It’s a great plan because not only do we get to kill him, but his reputation and legacy also get ruined. Perfect. His eyes are all over both of us and I just know he’s thinking it won’t be long until it’s his hands doing the roaming of our bodies.

‘Come in, come in.’ He stands back to let us inside the house and into an entrance hall the size of a classroom. It smells like wealth, which is a really hard scent to describe. It’s a sort of combination of expensive room fragrances, leather and fucking money.

‘Wow,’ I say and make my eyes go huge as I pretend to take in the vastness of the entryway. ‘Your house is amazing.’ It’s too showy, too gauche but I think I’m doing a good job of appearing impressed by it.

Antoinette catches on. ‘Yes, oh my God, it’s so big.’

Richard Stone pulls a face that is meant to say ‘what? This old thing?’

‘Are those Oscars?’ Antoinette manages to make her voice crack so convincingly on the words ‘Oscars’ that I think she should be awarded her own for this performance.

Richard Stone gives a small laugh, the laugh of a humble man who barely notices the two Academy Awards sitting on a console table in his fucking massive hallway. ‘Well, yes, I didn’t really know where else to put them,’ he says in a voice that was born in East London but has been toned and honed after three decades in LA. ‘No one really talks about the best place to keep your Oscars.’ He laughs again and I’m going to enjoy killing him oh so much.

‘Come through,’ he’s saying now, walking ahead of us. ‘I’ll get you both settled and sort you some drinks.’

‘Do we need to take our shoes off?’ Antoinette asks, her face a picture of innocence. Richard Stone stares at her blankly for a moment.

‘What?’

‘Shoes.’ Antoinette points at her feet. ‘I don’t want to be walking muck all on your nice clean floors.’ She’s gone full Eliza Doolittle now and I have to give her a little nudge.

‘Tone it down,’ I whisper. ‘We’re not in a George Bernard Shaw play.’

‘Oh right, no don’t worry about shoes,’ Richard Stone is saying. ‘Someone will clean it tomorrow anyway.’ I bristle as I think about how this man is the kind of man who does whatever he likes, safe in the knowledge that someone will be along at some point to clean it all up.

Not this time, motherfucker.

He leads us through the house, which is honestly enough to get my entire step quota in for the day, to an open-plan living room that is no doubt one of many reception rooms. The floors are a walnut-coloured wood and Stone guides us to a sitting area consisting of gigantic sectional cream sofas in butter-soft leather.