Single Obsession

by Des Ekin

  HUNTER glanced at his watch. It was 11.30pm. The reception area of the Sunday Hibernian was locked and shrouded in darkness. But he knew that, high in the ramparts of this eminent Victorian-Gothic building, a tiny Scotsman would still be beavering away like a demented gnome, filing pictures and archiving material in the newspaper’s library.

  Angus McIntyre, a middle-aged Glaswegian with receding ginger hair and a pencil-thin moustache, shook Hunter’s hand warmly and invited him up a spiral staircase to his eyrie high above the sleeping city.

  Years ago, in this draughty office, the two men had shared many a bottle of Glenlivet Single Malt into the early hours of the morning after Hunter had finished his night shift for the Hibernian.

  ‘Still burning the midnight oil, Angus?’ Hunter asked, surveying the chaos around him.

  McIntyre shrugged and lifted a pile of bulging brown envelopes off a dusty chair. Photo transparencies fell out of the open mouths of the envelopes and scattered all over the filthy beige carpet. ‘What else can I do?’ he said. ‘They won’t get me an assistant.’

  Hunter smiled and shook his head. Ever since they’d first met, this had been Angus’s perpetual gripe. Even at social functions, when he met total strangers who had nothing to do with newspapers, Angus would still produce the phrase within a few minutes of first introduction. Sometimes Hunter speculated that when he died, Angus’s gravestone would be inscribed: ‘What else could I do? They wouldn’t get me an assistant.’

  What McIntyre would never admit to himself was that he loved his job and hated anyone else interfering in it. He loved presiding over dusty archives of newspaper cuttings and ranks of steel cabinets whose filing system defied logic. He ruled his empire jealously, exploding in frustration if some innocent schoolkid on work experience filed a cutting in the wrong folder or put a photo in the wrong tray.

  Angus had no wife, and no family to speak of. He occasionally spent his nights in a modest flat in Drumcondra, but that wasn’t his real home. This office was.

  But times were changing fast. After years of holding out against new technology, the Hibernian was finally becoming computerised. Cuttings were filed as digital text, photos were kept on hard-disk databases and zip-drives. Already two fearsome-looking Apple G4s sat in the corner, blinking malevolently at Angus, who was terrified of them and refused to touch them.

  Hunter knew it was only a matter of time before the entire archive would fit on a single computer manned by one bright school-leaver, and all of Angus’s fearsome skills at locating obscure photos and cuttings would become redundant. Angus would be given early retirement. His entire office would be gutted and his beloved files dumped in an open skip in the rain. Then, like some life prisoner ending a twenty-five-year sentence, he would walk down that spiral staircase for the last time, into a complex and intimidating world for which he was totally unprepared. The experience would kill him. Hunter had absolutely no doubt of that.

  ‘You shouldn’t spend so much time in here, Angus,’ he said, dusting off the seat. ‘You should get out more. Get a few outside interests. Make a few friends.’

  Angus bristled. He flicked a button on the Sellotaped handle of an electric kettle and wiped two dirty mugs clean with a scrap of A4 paper that he picked up from the floor.

  ‘From what I read in the papers these days, Hunter,’ he said with irritation, ‘you could do with a few lessons in the art of making friends yourself.’

  Hunter shook his head. Angus was impossible to reason with.

  ‘I suppose so,’ he said.

  ‘Anyway, they won’t ever throw me out,’ Angus said defensively. He chucked two teabags into each mug and hurled the hot water over them. ‘They could never teach a computer to do what I do.’

  ‘Angus, we all know you’re the best at what you do. Nobody better. But they can teach computers to do anything. Just prepare yourself for it, that’s all I’m saying.’

  Angus sounded a military tattoo around the edges of the mugs with a spoon as he infused the teabags and poured in the milk. ‘What can I do for you, Hunter?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘I need help. I need your help.’

  Angus relaxed slightly as he sat down opposite Hunter. ‘Well, go on, lad. I haven’t got all night.’

  Hunter produced his stack of photos and explained their background in a well-rehearsed summary. ‘I need to find out who this woman is,’ he explained. ‘I’ve been talking to a cop who’s convinced he saw her photo about three years ago.’

  ‘In the criminal-records file, you mean?’

  Hunter shook his head. ‘No, that’s what I assumed he was going to tell me. But she’s not in the police files. He’s certain of that.’

  ‘Where, then?’

  ‘Here. He thinks he saw her photo in the Sunday Hibernian. On the back page of your Lifestyle section.’

  Angus sat upright. ‘No, that can’t be right. That’s our gossip page. You’d never see criminals or drug addicts there. It’s all celebrities. Popular singers. Stars of the silver screen. Society folks at their snooty champagne receptions. Millionaires spotted out on the town with their wee fancy-women.’ He snorted with disapproval.

  Hunter nodded wearily and tried to drink Angus’s densely stewed tea. ‘I know. I pointed that out to the cop. But he was absolutely sure he’d seen her on that page. He never forgets a face.’

  He gave up on the tea, and set down the mug. ‘Now I need to find the article he’s talking about. And I want to know how I can do it without having to scan through every individual issue for the past three years.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Angus uncertainly. ‘If you had a name for this lassie, I would have it in my filing cabinets. I could dig it out for you within five minutes. Three, even.’

  ‘Sorry. The name is what I need to find out, Angus.’

  ‘A date, then? Even a rough date?’

  Hunter shook his head again. ‘That’s the problem. I don’t have anything at all to go on.’ He hesitated. Then, feeling as though he was betraying an old friend, he pointed at the two Apple G4s. ‘What about the computers?’

  Angus looked irritated. ‘Oh, it would be in there, somewhere,’ he said dismissively. ‘All the issues of the Sunday Hibernian for the past five years have been archived in there. But nobody uses that system. It’s a white elephant.’

  ‘Do you mind if I try?’

  ‘Go ahead.’ Angus sprang to his feet with genuine annoyance. ‘But mark my words, it’s a waste of time.’

  He peered suspiciously at the first computer and pressed its on-off switch in a stabbing motion, rapidly retracting his hand as though he feared it would give him an electric shock.

  ‘We’re not supposed to let outsiders near this thing. So what I’m going to do, Hunter, is I’m going to the toilet for a wee bowel motion and a read of the paper. If anyone catches you, I didn’t know anything about this. You sneaked in. Right?’

  Hunter looked at his watch. ‘It’s after midnight. Is anyone likely to walk in on me?’

  ‘Only one person. And that’s the person I’m worried about. Cormac Falcarragh, our so-called political correspondent.’ Angus snorted through the mouth as only Scotsmen can do. ‘More like a mouthpiece for Joseph Valentia’s Fascist Party, if you ask me. You know he hates your guts after what you did to his hero?’

  ‘I’m all too aware of that.’ Hunter pulled a chair over to the computer. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’re not involved in any way.’

  As Angus left for the toilets, clutching the colour supplement from yesterday’s Sunday Times, Hunter peered into the computer archives and felt his spirits sink as he realised the sheer scale of this undertaking.

  Without any references to search by, he would have to go through every single issue of the Sunday Hibernian, one by one. Three years, fifty-two issues a year, making a hundred and fifty-six weeks at, say, four minutes each … Even working constantly without a break, the checking process could take him until eight or nine the following morning.

>   Stunned by the enormity of the task, he sat back and stared at the monitor. Its inquiring cursor flashed almost mockingly at him. This was pointless. He’d never do it in time.

  He opened up the computer’s search engine and, without much hope, keyed in the words ‘Mags Jackson’. Nothing. He tried ‘Margaret Jackson’ and found only a ninety-year-old Lotto winner. He tried ‘M. Jackson’ and found 1165 references to Michael Jackson the singer.

  Nothing else for it. It was time to get down to work. The hard way.

  He summoned up the first edition of November three years ago, and read through it, first checking the photos and then, just to be sure, scanning all the text as well. Nothing.

  Keeping his own photos on the desk beside him for easy reference, he worked on through the back issues. But weariness was setting in, and he felt his eyelids growing heavy as the radiation from the screen roasted his eyes like toast before an open fire.

  When the door opened behind him, he didn’t even turn around.

  ‘Not having much luck, I’m afraid,’ he muttered. ‘This is going to take all night.’

  The reply was a shout of anger.

  ‘Hunter? What the hell are you doing here?’

  Hunter’s shoulders tensed in anger as he recognised Cormac Falcarragh’s voice, then slumped in despair. Of all the lousy luck. He’d been caught in the act. He had no defence. This was Falcarragh’s home ground, and Hunter was a trespasser with no rights whatever. There was no point in being polite, no point in asking for favours from this man.

  He turned around slowly in the revolving chair. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t believe me,’ he said, ‘if I told you I was just a hallucination from your whiskey-addled brain?’

  ‘You have absolutely no right to be here,’ said Falcarragh, his face glowing even redder with fury. ‘Where’s Angus? This is the final straw. This time he’s gone too far. He’ll lose his job over this.’

  ‘Steady on,’ Hunter admonished him mildly. ‘Angus knows absolutely nothing about this. I think you’ll find him in the loo – I got bored waiting for him to come out, and I started the job by myself. So unless having a crap is a sacking offence these days …’

  Falcarragh seemed slightly cowed by Hunter’s self-assurance, but he went back on the attack. ‘What the bloody hell are you doing, anyway?’ he demanded, staring over his shoulder at the screen. ‘Sabotaging our computer system? Or is this just a last-ditch bid to dig up more dirt on Joseph Valentia before tomorrow night?’ He strode across to the desk and grabbed the photos from beside the computer. ‘Oh, my God. Not content with libelling Valentia, you’re trying to smear his family as well? Is there nothing you won’t stoop to?’

  He flung the photos back on the desk. ‘You’re a wanted man, Hunter,’ he said. ‘I’m going to call the police and have you arrested.’

  ‘You could. But you might want to check with your editor first.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Hunter said nothing. He was bluffing, but he knew Falcarragh wouldn’t risk phoning the police if it meant blowing some big exclusive lined up by his editor.

  He decided to up the ante. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need privacy for this job. And I’ve got better things to do than waste time talking to people who irritate me.’

  He turned back to the computer, praying that Falcarragh wouldn’t call his bluff.

  For a few seconds, Falcarragh stood there uncertainly. Hunter could understand his dilemma. Falcarragh didn’t believe him, and yet he didn’t want to awaken his editor at this time of night to check.

  ‘We can settle this with one five-minute phone call,’ Falcarragh said at last.

  ‘That’s right. You can.’

  ‘I can and I will. And if I’m right, Hunter – you’ll be going to jail, and this time you’ll be staying there.’

  He stormed out of the office and slammed the door. A cardboard folder wafted down from a top shelf, and dust that had lain undisturbed for aeons rose in a graceful cloud and settled gently over the room.

  Hunter took a deep breath and attacked the keyboard again. He knew he had only a few more minutes’ grace. But he couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t get Falcarragh out of his mind.

  He sat for a few moments, staring at the monitor in near-despair. The conversation with Falcarragh kept replaying itself in his brain, despite all his efforts to block it out.

  ‘Not content with libelling Valentia, you’re trying to smear his family as well?’

  Suddenly Hunter froze.

  The photos.

  Falcarragh had been looking at his photos when he’d said that.

  Hunter picked up the first picture and stared at the face of the mystery woman, thinking the unthinkable. Then he lifted his hands to the computer and, touching its keyboard as cautiously as though it were made of fine bone china, summoned up the search engine and keyed in the name of Valentia.

  There were thousands of matches. Far too many. He keyed in ‘Joseph Valentia’ and was rewarded with 172 matches. After a few moments of searching, he selected one entry dating back thirty-five months.

  The screen faded and then filled with the article he’d requested. It was part of a back-page gossip column that had provided mild diversion to a nation on a cold winter Sunday three years ago.

  By luck or coincidence, the picture accompanying the article had caught the young woman at exactly the same angle as the photo taken three years later in the corridor of Street Talk magazine. She even had the same look of nervous concentration. There was absolutely no doubt: this was the same person who’d called at his office and used the name of Mags Jackson.

  Hunter sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. When he’d set out that evening, he had hoped to identify this woman as a small-time criminal, or perhaps as a professional con artist.

  But he’d been wrong. So very, very wrong.

  Instead, he found himself looking at a photo of Charlotte Valentia – Joseph Valentia’s daughter.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  AT exactly the same time, Emma Macaulay was stepping out of a taxi into the breathtaking cold of a Copenhagen winter. A light, powdery snow was falling from an iron-grey sky, gently dusting the trees and wooden rooftops of the Tivoli Gardens.

  She paid the taxi-driver for the ride from the airport and watched him drive off, leaving a wake of parallel black ribbons on the white roadway. The streets of the Danish capital were practically deserted, apart from a couple of shivering customers at the hot-dog stands in the Radhuspladsen. A painfully sharp wind swept in from the north, scything straight through Emma’s thin woollen coat, and she was already beginning to wish she’d dressed more sensibly.

  The journey had been a nightmare of tightly knit air connections, starting in Dublin and taking in Manchester, Stockholm and, finally, Copenhagen. It had involved several heart-stopping dashes between airport terminals, but it had been the only way to get to Denmark quickly.

  Only one full day left, she thought: one day to take this folder of photos and drag them around from travel agent to travel agent, hoping that at least one of them would recognise the woman who’d been sold a ticket on a direct flight from Copenhagen to Dublin.

  She knew it was a long shot, but it had been enough to make her pack her bags immediately after Hunter’s phone call and drive all the way to Dublin, using her mobile to patch together the series of flights that would take her to this ice-gripped city.

  She’d taken Robbie with her as far as Dublin – there was no way she was going to leave him in Passage North after the threat to his life. Instead, she had entrusted him to the care of his Auntie Ann for a couple of days. Robbie doted on his Auntie Ann and she on him, so it was a treat for both of them. And, more importantly, he would be totally safe.

  The Hotel Kong Frederick, in fashionable Vester Voldgade, was comfortable and welcoming. Emma’s room was on the top floor of the building, commanding a magnificent view of the spires and towers of the ancient city. From her window she could see right across t
he Tivoli, beyond which lay the red lights of grim and seedy Istedgade. She drew the curtains, switched on the television and listened to MTV while she raided the minibar for a Toblerone and tried to calm her turbulent nerves with a cognac.

  Then, with the clock showing 2.45am, she opened the classified phone book and set to work calculating a workable itinerary of city-centre travel agents, with the aid of a street map. There were dozens of travel shops – and that wasn’t even counting the ones in the outer suburbs. And what if the travel agents refused to help? Or the assistant who’d sold the woman the ticket happened to be off duty? Or if it had been ordered by phone or over the Net?

  Emma tossed her list aside in frustration. What was she doing here? What lunatic impulse had brought her to Copenhagen when she’d no reason to assume that the fake Mags Jackson was based in Denmark? Or, even if she was, that she’d returned home from Ireland at all?

  Call it intuition. Call it a hunch. But Emma had a feeling, that was all; she owed it to herself and Hunter to follow it through. And she knew this was one job she could do better than Hunter – after all, if anyone could get a drug addict to talk, she could. No amount of pleading on the phone, no amount of e-mails would have half the chance of success of a personal approach.

  Yet still, it was a chance in a million, and she was working against the clock. Valentia’s deadline didn’t matter all that much to Emma, but it mattered a lot to Hunter, and that was enough. She hated to sit around helplessly while he was being pursued around the streets like a common criminal.

  Besides, Valentia had taken away her job, threatened her child, and sent a thug into her house – her own house! – in what was obviously a bid to intimidate her into silence. It had become personal.

  Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to pick up the phone book again and keep checking, co-ordinating and listing names and addresses of shops.

  But, however much she tried to concentrate, the tiny letters on the page became fuzzy, and the lines on the street map swirled before her eyes. And at around 3.30am, Emma fell asleep fully clothed on the bed, clutching her uncompleted list in one hand and her pencil in the other, as MTV continued to pump rock videos, unheard, into the stuffy and overheated hotel room.