by Des Ekin
Plick-plick. Plick. Plick-plick.
Hunter still couldn’t identify the noise. At first it sounded like someone snipping flower stems with secateurs, but there was nobody in the adjoining gardens; and anyway, it was too rhythmic. Plick-plick. Plick. Plick-plick. It never varied.
He tried to marshal his thoughts into order, to prepare some sort of mental question-list for his confrontation with Maura Granby, and then gave up. He had no idea what he was going to say to this woman who’d made a lifetime career out of deception and extortion. And anyway, whatever she replied would probably be a lie.
He took a deep breath and rang the doorbell. The multiple chimes rang out with forced cheerfulness in the otherwise silent building – silent except for one repeating sound.
Plick-plick. Plick. Plick-plick.
It seemed to come from within the house, not from outside.
Hunter glanced at Claire and saw that she was biting her lip with anxiety. He’d never seen her so tense before.
‘There’s nobody here,’ she said in a quiet, scared voice. ‘Hunter – let’s just go.’
‘No.’ Hunter shook his head. ‘I’m going to try around the back.’
They walked down the narrow side-entry, squeezing past a couple of bins that reeked of rotten food. They hadn’t been emptied in a while.
Plick-plick. Plick. Plick-plick.
They emerged into the back garden. A rotary clothesline, a few grey concrete slabs forming a patio, a white plastic picnic table, the ubiquitous six-by-eight garden shed.
Hunter rapped loudly on a glass-panelled door. When there was no reply, he cupped his hand over the windowpane and looked inside.
Claire heard his sharp intake of breath and grabbed his arm. ‘What is it?’
‘There’s something wrong here,’ he muttered. ‘Something badly wrong. I’m going to break in.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Hunter,’ she hissed. ‘You’re in enough trouble already. Let’s just go.’
But he was already turning the door handle. To their surprise, it was unlocked.
Plick-plick. Plick. Plick-plick.
The amplified noise hit them just before the smell did.
Hunter touched her elbow and pointed.
‘Look,’ he whispered.
Plick-plick. Plick. Plick-plick.
There was a puddle of water on the tiled floor of the hall, just behind the front door. It was draining away in a steady trickle which ran under the sitting-room door. But the puddle was being constantly replenished by drips of water falling from a damp patch in the plaster ceiling. Heavy droplets kept forming at five separate points, then falling in strict rotation and shattering themselves on the hard tiles.
Plick-plick. Plick. Plick-plick.
‘Oh, my God,’ Claire whispered.
Hunter gestured to Claire to remain in the kitchen while he picked his way past the puddle of greasy water and climbed the stairs.
IAN Arthur dashed breathlessly into Sauvage’s office. ‘We’ve got it,’ he shouted.
The Bear was talking on the phone. ‘Excuse me just one moment, please,’ he said, putting his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Got what?’
‘The location. Where Hotel One’s headed with the girl. Let’s go.’ He yanked Sauvage’s Barbour jacket from the wall-hook and threw it at him.
The Bear shoved the coat aside testily. ‘Where did you get this information?’
‘Wayne. The cop who sent the text message to the girl this morning. He refused point-blank to co-operate until we convinced him that she was in grave danger and that we were trying to protect her. After that, he told us everything. Most importantly, he’s told us where they’re going right now.’
‘Which is?’
Arthur gave an impatient hop. ‘House belonging to Maura Granby, career hooker and serial blackmailer. I’ll tell you all about it on the way. The most important thing is that we get there before Chato Cook does.’
‘SHE’S dead, isn’t she?’ asked Claire. The drops of water had stopped falling from the ceiling.
‘Yes.’
‘Murdered?’
Hunter shook his head. ‘Suicide. She climbed into a hot bath, drank a half-bottle of whiskey, and slashed her wrists with a razor.’ He glanced up at the damp patch on the ceiling. ‘Left the cold tap trickling.’
Claire swallowed hard. She’d opened all the windows, but the stench was still overpowering. ‘How long ago?’
‘Long enough.’ Hunter gave a sudden, loud retch and sat down, looking pale. ‘Excuse me, I’m sorry.’
‘You okay?’ She looked at him with concern.
‘Yes. I’m fine.’
Claire handed him a glass of water. ‘Did she leave a note or anything?’ she asked practically.
Hunter shook his head. ‘No. Nothing at all. That was the first thing I searched for.’
‘Then how can you be sure it was suicide?’
‘I can’t. You’re right. We’ll have to wait for the postmortem.’
He stood up, went to the door and took several deep breaths of fresh air. ‘Okay, let’s get to work,’ he said. ‘We don’t have much time.’
‘To do what?’ Claire’s face fell. She was already outside, ready to leave.
‘To look for evidence. Evidence that Maura Granby was blackmailing Valentia.’ He glanced around. ‘There’s no safe that I can see. No filing cabinet. So let’s start with the obvious hiding-places.’
‘Which are?’
Hunter paused on his way to the hall. ‘I once interviewed a professional burglar,’ he explained. ‘He told me that nearly everyone uses the same secret hiding-places in a house. The same clever ideas, as though nobody’s ever thought of them before. But they’re the first places a burglar will look for cash or hidden jewellery.’
‘What sort of places?’ Claire was puzzled.
‘Inside the framework of a chest of drawers, usually under the bottom drawer. Fake butter-holder in the fridge. Inside the tube of a new toilet-roll set aside on a bathroom shelf. Hidden behind toys at the very back of the top shelf in a child’s wardrobe.’ He shrugged. ‘The cops know all about these hidey-holes, too. They’re the first places they look when they’re doing a drugs search.’
Claire said nothing. She’d always kept her best antique gold necklace hidden inside the tube of a new toilet-roll on her own bathroom shelf.
‘I’ll look in the fridge and the sitting-room,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave you to check upstairs.’
For once, Hunter’s luck was in. As soon as he pulled out the bottom drawer of Maura Granby’s bedside locker, he found a cheap plastic wallet tucked under the woodwork. It was bulging with important documents – passport, driving licence, birth certificate, bank books.
He dashed downstairs and emptied the contents on to the kitchen table.
‘Help me sort through this lot,’ he said to Claire. ‘We’re looking for bank statements, receipts, any sort of financial records.’
‘How about these?’ Claire dragged out a bundle of documents held together by a thin elastic band.
‘Bank statements? How recent are they?’
Claire straightened them out. ‘Bang up to date.’ She ran her fingernail down the list of transactions and pursed her lips in a silent whistle. ‘Overdrawn, overdrawn, overdrawn, up until Tuesday, 24 October. In goes a cheque for a thousand and suddenly she’s healthily in the black.’
Hunter stiffened as he stared over her shoulder. ‘24 October. That’s only a few days after Kate Spain went missing.’
Claire nodded. ‘Just long enough for her to put the bite on him.’ Her finger continued to run down the list. ‘Heyhey. We’ve got another thousand lodged on the following Tuesday, 31 October. Now she’s become very well-off. And, let’s see …’ She picked up the next statement. ‘Yes, another thousand on the next Tuesday, 7 November. We have a pattern here.’
‘What about the following Tuesday? The fourteenth?’
‘Dum-da-dum.’ Claire hummed impatiently as she searche
d downwards. ‘Yes. A fourth lodgement. Four grand in total … Hang on.’ Her brow furrowed suddenly. ‘Yet nothing at all went in on the following Tuesday, 21 November. The payments just dried up.’
Hunter examined the document. ‘Where were these lodgements coming from?’
Claire shook her head. ‘Doesn’t say.’
Hunter grabbed a sheaf of papers and began frantically sorting through them. He knew they were running out of time. After a few minutes he stood stock-still, staring disbelievingly at a printed letterhead.
‘My God, Claire,’ he breathed at last. ‘We … have … got it!’
He flung his arms around her. ‘Look,’ he whispered. ‘Look at this. Four headed payment slips addressed to Ms Maura Granby. Each one for a thousand. Repayments for unspecified “consultancy work”. And paid to her by Valentia’s political party.’ Hunter clutched the invoices protectively to his chest and grinned. ‘At last we’ve got it. We’ve got proof that Valentia was paying off Maura Granby!’
‘At least until 21 November. That’s when the payments dried up.’ Claire frowned. ‘I wonder why?’
‘The twenty-first.’ Hunter knew the date was relevant, but he couldn’t remember why. He tried to force his revving brain to slow down and think clearly. ‘That was the day Maura Granby went to Naomi with her story.’
‘So after he stopped paying her, she decided to carry out whatever threat she’d made.’
Hunter nodded. ‘Which was to tell her story to the newspapers.’
‘Only by that time nobody would believe her.’ Claire’s eyes were shining.
‘Because …’
‘Because a week before that, Valentia had already sent a decoy to us.’
‘His daughter. A trained actress. Posing as a prostitute from Passage North.’
‘And telling us exactly the same story but with a slightly different date – a date for which he had a flawless alibi.’
Hunter rubbed his eyes with his hand. ‘Let’s get this straight,’ he said. ‘Kate Spain really did go missing on the night the cops said she did – 21 October. Maura Granby witnessed Valentia abducting her. She put the bite on him right away, and for a while he played along.’
Claire nodded vigorously. ‘But he realised she’d never give up. So all the time, he was dreaming up the perfect way out. He got his daughter Charley to approach Emma, knowing she would refer the story to you at Street Talk.’
‘And why did he choose Street Talk? Simple. Because he knew Simon Addison would never resist the chance of ruining his old rival.’
‘Because he knew Simon would take risks and cut corners to get the story out,’ agreed Claire.
‘As my old news editor used to say, there’s nothing more dangerous than a story you want to be true.’
‘So Charley used the name and address of Mags Jackson, a real-life librarian,’ Claire said thoughtfully, as though retracing the moves in a chess game. ‘Valentia chose her because she was about the same age, and she happened to be abroad on holiday for two weeks – and as chairman of the Library Board, he’d have access to all the staff records. And he had no trouble getting his hands on a few identifying documents.’
‘He knew I’d check her out,’ Hunter added. ‘So he made sure I’d discover there was a real person named Mags Jackson. But it would make me look all the more insane when she returned from holiday and turned out to be someone completely different. She was an innocent party. She genuinely knew nothing about it.’
‘What a scam,’ breathed Claire, in grudging admiration. ‘Charley feeds you the wrong abduction date – 20 October instead of 21 October – so that her father can provide a perfect alibi and refute everything you write.’
‘And he makes sure that our story appears before Maura Granby’s. By the time Granby gets around to visiting a newspaper office, by the time any journalist has a chance to check her out …’
‘Your story has been thoroughly discredited,’ Claire said. ‘And nobody believes Maura Granby, because they think she’s the same crazy woman who went to Street Talk.’
‘If they think she exists at all. Remember, she’s gone to ground, and so has Charley. In the meantime, Valentia is threatening to sue all around him. Every media outlet in the land is running scared. Every reporter is told to lay off the story – even the ones who want to take it further.’
‘But hang on.’ Claire was frowning again. ‘What was to stop Granby going straight to the police and testifying against Valentia in a murder trial?’
Hunter shook his head. ‘She wouldn’t have. She was more interested in blackmail than in justice. She must have had some real hold over him.’
Claire looked towards the wet ceiling. ‘She obviously realised that Valentia had outmanoeuvred her, and she was afraid of the consequences. She knew she’d reached the end of the road.’
‘What Valentia didn’t reckon on,’ said Hunter, pacing the floor, ‘was that I’d sit up all night doing research on people who’d disappeared. And that Emma would go to the police with evidence linking Valentia to the other missing women.’
‘So he hired Chato Cook to scare her off and let the script develop as he’d written it.’
‘But that didn’t work. Then Cook became too enthusiastic and broke into Emma’s house, which Valentia had never intended him to do. So Chato lost his job and went ballistic.’
‘The ultimate loose cannon.’
‘Okay.’ Hunter glanced at his watch. ‘We’ve finally got our evidence. Let’s gather up this paperwork and take it to the authorities. There’s enough here to show that Valentia has a lot of explaining to do.’
Claire was gathering up the bank statements and payment slips. Then, suddenly, she froze. Her face turned pale. As though obeying some silent gesture of instruction, she passed the papers over Hunter’s shoulder.
Hunter, who had his back to the door, stiffened as he became aware of a looming presence behind him. Glancing into the kitchen mirror above her shoulder, he could see the reflection of a man’s face. The exclamation-point birthmark was clearly visible.
‘Hello, Chato,’ he said, without turning around.
The gangster didn’t reply. Hunter heard a rustle of paper as Cook glanced through the vital pieces of evidence.
‘Turn around, Hunter,’ he said at last. ‘I want you to see this.’
Hunter slowly turned. Any notions of attack or escape were abruptly shelved when he saw that Chato was aiming a shotgun directly at his chest. The twin barrels had been shortened to a brutal stub. If he were to fire the gun at this range, the blast would rip Hunter apart from head to toe.
‘See what, Chato?’ Hunter tried to keep his voice calm.
Cook shoved the gun directly under Hunter’s chin and pushed him across the kitchen towards the gas cooker.
‘See your hopes go up in smoke,’ he said.
He placed the four payment slips on top of a gas ring, flicked on the auto-ignition, and grunted with satisfaction as they burst into flame.
He thrust his face forward until it was only an inch from Hunter’s, and savoured the despair in Hunter’s eyes as the only existing record of Valentia’s involvement with Maura Granby was transformed into blackened flakes of ash.
‘THIS gun’s aimed directly at the base of your spine,’ Cook said. ‘If I fire it through the car seat, it’ll leave a six-inch hole in your lower back. Even if you survive, you’ll spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair.’
‘I get the picture,’ Hunter said. He turned the ignition key and Claire’s Fiat Brava purred into life. ‘Where do you want me to drive to?’
‘Just drive.’ Cook, sitting directly behind Hunter, thrust the sawn-off shotgun viciously forward so that he would feel the barrel against his spine. He turned to Claire, in the passenger seat. ‘And listen, blondie – don’t get any notions of waving for help or jumping out at traffic lights. You do anything like that, anything at all, and you’ll be spoon-feeding your boyfriend in the rehab unit.’
The car left Maura
Granby’s cul-de-sac and eased out on to the main road that led through the housing estate. Hunter noticed Chato’s Honda motorbike abandoned two streets away.
‘We don’t have much petrol,’ Hunter pointed out. ‘Is your magical mystery tour likely to last for long?’
‘Just leave that for me to worry about.’ Chato listened for a moment. ‘Leave the main road. Right now, Hunter. Into this side-road. Now, park behind the removal lorry.’
‘But –’
‘Just do it!’
Hunter parked in the shadow of a giant removal truck and sighed inwardly as he understood the reason for the manoeuvre. Cook’s keen ears had picked up a police siren in the distance. As they sat there, a convoy of garda patrol cars flew past at high speed, sirens shrieking and blue lights flashing.
‘How’s that for timing, eh?’ Chato shoved the gun painfully into Hunter’s back. ‘That was your only hope of rescue, Hunter. Gone up in smoke, just like your evidence. Now drive. Fast.’
Hunter accelerated hard and felt the pressure of the shotgun barrel ease as Cook was thrust backwards. ‘Which way?’ he asked as they reached the main entrance to the estate.
‘Left. Towards the M50 ring road.’
Hunter obeyed. If Cook was taking the ring road, it might indicate he was going out of town. If so, they’d have to stop for petrol at some stage. That would be his only chance.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked again.
Cook appeared to relax. ‘We’re all going to my little place in the country,’ he said.
‘And where’s that?’
There was the flick of a lighter as Cook lit a cigarette. ‘You’ll like it there, blondie,’ he said to Claire. ‘It’s just a small place, but it’s real peaceful. Two miles away from the nearest road, three miles from the nearest farm. In the middle of an old quarry. You can make all the noise you like, and the neighbours will never hear.’
Claire stared forward into the traffic, refusing to let him see the naked fear that was in her eyes.
