Single Obsession

by Des Ekin

  ‘Now Valentia is talking about housing low-income single mothers in “welfare centres” and making them earn their keep through “productivity programmes”,’ he said. ‘If you translate that into English, he’s talking about a return to the nineteenth-century workhouse.’

  ‘The man’s crazy. The electorate will never stand for that.’

  Mark snorted. ‘Hunter, you know as well as I do that Valentia’s seat is as safe as houses. They love him in the constituency of Athmore. He’s brought them jobs and prosperity and self-esteem. And as if that wasn’t enough, he’s patron of a charity called Camp Valentia which takes deprived kids on holiday to summer camp.’ He paused for another rest. ‘What did he get last election? Double the votes he needed? He’s home and dry. “Unassailable” is the word the commentators use. Hunter, there aren’t many certainties in this life, but Joseph Valentia’s re-election is one of them.’

  ‘RIGHT, let’s get down to work,’ Hunter told Mark Tobey. ‘I’ll check out Mags Jackson. And I’ll also make a few inquiries about Valentia’s car, the Corolla he was supposed to be driving that night. I’ve got the registration number.’

  Mark nodded. ‘And I’ve got some pretty good contacts among the cops in County Athmore,’ he offered. ‘I’ll get on to them and find out what’s happened to Mags Jackson’s original statement – the one testifying how she saw Valentia picking up Kate Spain.’

  ‘Okay. We’ll touch base later and compare notes.’

  He sat down at his office desk. Mark didn’t leave.

  ‘I hate to impose, Hunter,’ he said awkwardly, ‘but could you possibly advance me some cash until payday? It’s just …’

  ‘No problem.’ Hunter handed him a fifty, wondering how Mark could be so perpetually broke on his generous salary.

  Mark thanked him profusely. Turning to leave, he bumped into Martin Slade, the photographer.

  ‘Hunter, I’ve got to talk to you,’ said Martin, pushing past with unconscious aggression. ‘It’s about this new digital camera.’

  ‘Some other time, Martin,’ said Hunter. His phone began to ring. ‘I’ve got too much on my plate at the moment.’

  ‘Please yourself.’ Martin shrugged with annoyance and walked away.

  Alone in his office, Hunter picked up the phone.

  ‘Hunter.’

  ‘Hi, Hunter. It’s Emma.’

  ‘Emma! I was hoping you’d phone. I’ve just talked to Mags Jackson.’

  ‘And what did you think?’

  ‘I think she’s a very gutsy lady. And I think her story needs investigating. I’m going to pull out all the stops on this one.’

  ‘Well, that’s more than the police are going to do.’

  She told him about her experience with Sergeant George Arkwright.

  ‘I don’t know why, but the man just gave me the creeps,’ she confessed. ‘I reckon he’s in Valentia’s pocket. I also think he resents me stirring things up.’

  ‘Well, just make sure you use your handbrake at every junction from now on.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Seriously, Emma, be very careful. You’ve done your bit now. Keep a low profile.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll leave it up to you.’

  ‘I mean it, Emma.’

  ‘I know you do, Hunter. Thanks.’

  She cut the connection. For a long time, Hunter stared at the handset, wondering why he had such a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.

  HE’D first met Emma nearly four years ago. She was a gifted psychiatrist who’d dreamed up a new twist on the Minnesota Method for treating alcoholics; he was a struggling journalist whose talent for investigative reporting was eclipsed by his talent for getting twisted.

  They’d had absolutely nothing in common – she liked Mozart and Tai Chi, he liked Chelsea FC and restoring classic 1960s motor scooters – so it had come as a surprise to everyone when their friendship escalated rapidly into a full-scale love affair.

  It was Emma who’d convinced him that he had a drinking problem. Within six months, thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous, he was sober and feeling fitter and healthier than he’d felt for years. True, there’d been a few bad moments. But with the help of friends and work colleagues – especially Claire, who seemed to know almost instinctively when he was at breaking point – he’d always managed to pull through.

  It had all seemed so promising; for the life of him, Hunter couldn’t understand why things had gone so wrong between himself and Emma.

  Emma seemed to be in love with him – she said so often enough – but each time he’d hinted at a longer-term relationship, she’d become strangely quiet and withdrawn.

  When she became pregnant with Robbie after a passionate weekend in Paris, Hunter had taken her to their favourite Dublin restaurant and proposed marriage. She had stunned him by turning him down flat.

  She hadn’t even been able to give him a credible reason. Instead she’d fobbed him off with excuses. She wasn’t ready for commitment yet. She was too busy setting up her new clinic. She couldn’t leave Passage North, and his work lay in Dublin.

  After that … well, they just seemed to drift apart. It was just one of those things. He was busy rebuilding his damaged career in Dublin, and she was hundreds of miles away, juggling the demanding roles of clinic director and mother.

  Instinctively he’d known that there must be some other reason, but she’d never told him what it was. Perhaps if he’d been prepared to wait, Emma’s hectic work schedule might have eased up, and her attitude to him might have changed.

  Perhaps.

  He would never know.

  Because in just over a year’s time, he married someone else.

  Chapter Four

  ‘YOUR wife phoned.’

  Hunter looked up abruptly from his desk. Claire’s head was poking around the doorway, her smile brightening up an office that was growing dimmer by the second in the encroaching dusk of the winter afternoon.

  ‘She wanted to remind you about your dinner party tonight. It starts at eight and Jill would like you to be back home by seven.’

  ‘Okay.’ Hunter had forgotten all about it.

  ‘If you leave early you could fit a meeting in first. There’s one in Rathmines at six.’

  Claire never used the term ‘AA meeting’, it was always just ‘a meeting’. She was one of the few people who realised how important these regular support sessions were to Hunter in his never-ending struggle against alcohol.

  ‘Thanks, Claire. I’ll try to make it. By the way, could you ask Mark to step in? Tell him it’s important. I’ve just made a major breakthrough on the Valentia story.’

  She nodded and left. Seconds later, Mark burst into the office. He made to give Hunter a high five, swung wildly at the upraised hand, and deliberately missed. ‘Breakthrough? Same on my end. Let’s hear your news first.’

  ‘I checked out Mags Jackson. She’s kosher. She’s on the electoral register. She’s got an electricity account, a bank account and a building-society account. She’s officially registered as the tenant of the flat at Ardee Terrace. That’s the main bedsitter zone in Passage North – nurses, students, office workers.’

  ‘Fits the bill so far.’

  ‘Her mobile phone is registered to Margaret Jackson at the same address, and according to the data on her supermarket loyalty card, she eats chicken nuggets and her favourite deodorant is Impulse Solar.’

  ‘I’m impressed.’

  ‘You haven’t heard the best bit yet.’

  ‘It gets better?’

  Hunter nodded. ‘I confirmed the car.’

  ‘You what?’ Mark looked incredulous.

  ‘The car that picked up Kate Spain. I’ve linked it to the Valentia family.’

  Mark sat down, lifted a sheet of bubble-wrap from an empty cardboard box, and began popping the bubbles rapidly. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘First I traced the registration number to the rental company. That was the easy bit. I phoned them up, bluffed my way a bit, and fo
und out that Valentia’s wife, Ruth, hired the car at Shannon Airport on 19 October. It stayed out until 26 October.’

  Mark’s hands were moving across the bubble-wrap like frantic rodents in a maze, seeking out intact bubbles of plastic, popping them, moving on. ‘So Joseph Valentia would have had access to the car during that crucial period.’

  ‘Seems so. And I also checked his official diary for the night in question. No formal State duties. He was on a night off.’

  For a few moments there was total silence, interrupted only by the pop of bubble-wrap. Mark seemed hesitant to talk about his own findings. Then:

  ‘I talked to an old contact of mine, a most highly placed garda source in the northwest,’ he said slowly. ‘It seems Mags Jackson’s telling the truth.’ He raised a hand and began pointing, one by one, to his gaunt fingers. ‘She did go to the police station in Passage North. She did give a full statement outlining all the details of the abduction. She did identify Valentia as the man in the car. Just like she said.’

  ‘What date did she give them?’

  ‘Exactly the date she gave us: Friday, October 20. And I’ve checked – there were no reliable sightings of Kate Spain after that date.’

  Hunter felt his pulse quicken with tension. ‘And what happened next?’

  ‘The statement was printed up and sent to the superintendent in charge of the inquiry. And guess what? Two days later, they had a high-level visit from a couple of spooky-looking fellas in suits.’

  He fell silent and resumed popping, more slowly this time.

  ‘And?’ Hunter was impatient.

  ‘And nothing. And that’s all. The statement disappeared, it was never mentioned again, and the detective sergeant who took it, George Arkwright, swears he never met Mags Jackson in his life. My contact says everyone is secretly furious about it. They reckon it’s high-level political interference in police affairs.’

  ‘But they can’t do that. Not these days.’

  Mark jerked his head dismissively. ‘Hunter, they can do anything they damn well want. They’re the Government.’

  ‘So there’s no evidence that Mags’s statement ever existed?’

  Mark gave a reptilian grin. ‘I didn’t say that. My man was astute enough to take a photocopy before it went AWOL.’ He stood up again and helped himself to a cup of mineral water. ‘He read it to me over the phone. It’s dynamite. It’s all there, exactly as Mags described it to you. And it’s all been suppressed, for no other reason than that it would make the Government lose the election.’

  ‘I find that hard to accept, Mark. I don’t believe even Orla Byrne would cover up a murder.’

  ‘But she didn’t know it was a murder at that stage,’ Mark argued. ‘She probably thought Valentia had just been caught out in an embarrassing leg-over situation with a girl who’d skedaddled to England or something. A minor scandal – why not cover it up until after the election? Now she’s got a corpse on her conscience and it’s too late to admit the truth.’

  Hunter nodded. ‘Yes, that certainly sounds more plausible. Big question: will your police contact testify to all this in court?’

  ‘Voluntarily, no. But he says he’ll have no objection if we subpoena him to give evidence alongside other high-rankers. Once he’s in the witness box he’d be duty-bound to tell the truth.’

  ‘Can’t ask him to do more than that.’ Hunter opened another notebook. ‘Let’s take a look at the other two missing women.’

  Mark stopped popping for a second. ‘What other two missing women?’ he asked quietly.

  Hunter stared at him. He suddenly remembered that he hadn’t told Mark anything about the three-murder theory – only about the Kate Spain case.

  ‘I’ll fill you in later,’ he promised, glancing out the window of his room towards the main office area. ‘Addison’s just arrived.’

  ‘Jesus,’ moaned Mark. ‘I’m out of here.’

  He threw the mangled bubble-wrap into the dustbin and scuttled away like a startled stick insect.

  IT wasn’t hard to spot Simon Addison. In fact, it would have been nearly impossible to miss him. He was tall – around six foot three – and with his long surf-bleached hair, Navajo desert jacket, faded jeans and leather cowboy boots, he looked like a time traveller from the Woodstock Festival of Peace and Love. As usual, the publisher and sole owner of Street Talk magazine was doing his favourite impersonation, of a brain-dead hippie searching vaguely for his stash.

  The phrase ‘spaced-out’ might have been coined for Simon Addison, but Hunter knew better than most people that this was simply a role he adopted for his amusement. Addison had a mind as sharply focused as a surgical laser, a genius for business, and a ruthless determination never to lose a penny of the millions he’d amassed in the past twenty years.

  Addison drifted vaguely towards Claire, sat down on a corner of her desk, and began flirting with her in a tired Bond–Moneypenny routine.

  ‘Thanks all the same, Mr Addison,’ Claire was saying politely, with her inscrutable smile, ‘but, as I’ve already told you, I don’t drink.’

  ‘Well,’ said Addison, running his fingers through her long fair hair, ‘we’ll have to teach you, then, won’t we?’

  ‘I don’t want to learn, thank you,’ said Claire, the smile fading only slightly, ‘and please don’t put your hand there.’

  ‘Simon?’ Hunter’s voice shattered the uneasy silence. ‘Can I have a word, please?’

  Addison glared at him. ‘In a minute, Hunter, okay?’

  ‘It’s urgent, Simon.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Addison disentangled himself. ‘See you later, babe.’

  He followed Hunter into the office. ‘Hunter, man,’ he said chidingly, ‘you got to learn not to interrupt a cat when he’s making a move on a chick. She was just starting to come round.’

  Addison had been born and raised in Navan, County Meath, but Hunter had never heard him speak in any form of Irish accent. He switched, regularly and schizophrenically, between LA cool and rock-star Cockney.

  ‘Simon, I’ve mentioned this to you before,’ said Hunter. ‘You just can’t do that sort of thing these days.’

  Addison was genuinely bewildered. ‘Why not?’ he asked.

  Hunter sighed in exasperation. In the end he plumped for the argument that would carry most weight with Addison.

  ‘Because she could sue and it would cost you a shitload of money,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ said Addison. He looked out sourly at Claire, who was operating the office switchboard and reading a well-thumbed copy of Bertrand Russell’s Wisdom of the Western World in between calls. ‘Can’t you get her any work to do?’ he demanded.

  Hunter smiled. ‘She is working, Simon. She’s operating the switch.’

  ‘Big deal,’ said Addison. ‘She’s studying again, isn’t she? I don’t pay her to study for her Master’s in my goddamn time.’

  He sat down and swung his hand-crafted boots up on to Hunter’s desk.

  Hunter sighed. ‘We’ve been through all this before, Simon. Claire set up a computer system that saves you about ten grand a year, and she’s mastered it so well that her day’s work takes only a few hours. After that, she operates the switch. Why shouldn’t she study in between calls?’

  ‘If she’s so goddamn smart, then why’s she working as an office secretary?’

  ‘Because she wants it that way. She had a high-pressure job in information technology, but she hated it. She says she wants to work to live, not live to work. So she downshifted.’

  ‘All the more reason why she should chill out and join me for a glass of wine, like I asked. What’s the chick’s problem?’

  Hunter calmed himself by walking over to the water-dispenser and helping himself to some Ballygowan. ‘Claire’s never taken alcohol, Simon,’ he said. ‘Never has. Never will.’

  Addison didn’t seem to be listening. ‘Hey,’ he said finally, ‘it’s like in that Phil Lynott song: “If that chick don’t wanna know, forget her”.’


  He sang the words of the old Thin Lizzy classic in perfect pitch, his voice filled with pure soul. Addison hadn’t lost the gift that had propelled him to the top of the rock charts in the 1970s. It had been a short-lived career, but Simon had shrewdly anticipated the rise of the Green movement and invested all his earnings in an American company that recycled sewerage into farm fertiliser. The move had made him a millionaire several times over.

  Street Talk magazine had been born out of pure vanity. As long as it existed, Simon could go to parties and describe himself as a magazine publisher instead of a processor of human excrement.

  ‘You said you wanted to talk to me, Hunter,’ he said slowly. ‘Now I wanna talk to you. We’ve gotta get some magic into the old mag, you know what I’m saying? We haven’t exactly been cutting the mustard lately, have we? Hey, I’m not pointing the finger at you personally here – although, to be honest, a lot of people are.’

  Hunter took a long sip of the ice-cold mineral water and counted to ten.

  ‘People say, chuck ’im aht,’ Addison continued, his accent unconsciously shifting from Californian to Cockney. ‘People say, get rid of ’im, get in some of the bright new blokes coming up, why don’t you get somebody ’oo’s got ’is finger on the pulse?’

  Under the shaggy rock-star fringe, his ski-tanned face frowned as though seriously contemplating the prospect. Then, on cue, it brightened again. ‘But I tell them, naah!’

  The accent smoothly shifted from Hammersmith to Harlem. ‘I tell them, Hunter’s mah main man,’ Addison rapped. ‘He’s gonna stay, because I got faith in mah man, know what I’m saying here? I got faith in mah man. At least until I see how he performs in the tenth-anniversary issue.’

  He let the implied threat hang in the air.

  ‘Circulation’s still going up, Simon,’ Hunter reminded him. ‘Advertising levels are better than ever.’

  ‘Sure, Hunter, sure.’ Addison waved these irrelevances aside. ‘Now, what dramatic stories have we got cooking in the old oven? Surprise me. Amaze me.’