ANIMOTKOOL

It started out like any other day.

A dull and wet Monday morning in London, yet I felt great.

Here I am twenty five years old and ready to take on the world.

I left my apartment and grabbed a taxi into Knightsbridge to meet up with my business assistant Tomas for coffee and cigarettes before we headed into work together.

Tomas was there when I arrived, dark, handsome and Russian he had settled himself at one of the outside tables and already had two steaming cups of coffee in front of him.

Giving him a kiss on both cheeks I settled down and the two of us smoked, drank and bitched our way through our weekends and a host of Z-List celebrities that happened to fall victim to our waspish sense of humour.

I love Tomas, after Millie, Helen and Cassie he ranks as my best friend and confidante ... if only he was heterosexual he would be perfect!

As it was only nine thirty when we arrived at my Amanda, Oh! flagship store on New Bond Street it was still closed up and Tomas took out his keys to let us in.

'That's funny the alarms not on, those boys on the night shift, if they could just keep their hands off each other and on the job in hand !' Tomas muttered as much to himself than as to me as we entered.

With that we heard the sound of glass smashing on the second level mezzanine floor ... Tomas and I looked at each other before racing for the stairs. Now, although I'm pretty fit I couldn't keep up with the six foot two frame of Tomas and he strided ahead of me.

We reached the top of the stairs and to my surprise I could see the back of a tall woman, dressed in black opening the door to my office through the broken, smoked glass window that she had apparently just broken to gain entry.

Seconds after she entered Tomas reached the door and wrenched it open before running in himself. Before I could get there the door slammed shut and I grabbed at the handle frantically turning it in my hand to try and gain entry myself.

For some reason it seemed to jam, only giving and swinging open when I leant back and kicked it three, four, five times with my knee length leather boots.

Once in I could see Tomas lying on the floor, a red stiletto heel was embedded into his chest, a pool of blood was spreading around him on the floor.

The window at the rear of the office was open to the fire escape, it appears that our intruder had already escaped through here.

I grabbed the phone off my desk and called an ambulance before sitting down on the floor beside Tomas and stroking his hair.

'It's going to be alright' I said, 'It's going to be alright...'

Within minutes the store was filled with paramedics and police, noise, motion and light.

'I think he's going to be OK', said one of the paramedics as they wheeled Tomas out, 'he's a lucky fella, if you hadn't been with him it would have been fatal'.

I went with Tomas to the hospital and spent most of the day there, drinking copious amounts of vending machine coffee and jumping to my feet every time a nurse or doctor passed, hoping for news.

Millie and Cassie arrived around lunchtime and I needed to have them with me more than ever. I couldn't loose Tomas, not after Emmanuel ... what was I going to do?

Fortunately by mid-afternoon my wait came to an end, a young Asian doctor gave me the news I had been praying for ... although Tomas had lost a lot of blood the heel of the shoe had missed his heart by inches ... all he needed was some rest and he would be OK.

I felt my knees buckle, but held back the tears ... the paparazzi were already here, I couldn't let them see me in a moment of weakness.

After seeing Tomas and showering him with kisses, I called my driver and the girls and I left the hospital through the laundry department at the back.

'I think we should go to Amanda, Oh!', Cassie said to me, 'there's something you should see.'

Once there we made our way through the Police guards and tape and into the main store. I hadn't seen it earlier, too distracted by finding out who had broken in.

On the glass floor to ceiling mirrors at the rear was a picture of me stuck to them... my eyes had been gouged out leaving black holes and across my body the word ANIMOTKOOL was scrawled in red.

'What does it mean ... what's going on ... ?

'Come on', said Millie, 'Let's get you home', she lead me out to my car.

'Don't worry', said Cassie, 'I'll find out who did this ... I promise.'