Single Obsession

by Des Ekin

  ‘I said you’ll like it there, blondie.’ Chato repeated the phrase in a louder voice. ‘Not much furniture. Just one big bed. With two video cameras pointing at it.’

  Hunter took a deep breath, trying to keep calm. It wouldn’t help to fly into a rage. He would save that for the moment when it was time to sink his fist into Cook’s face.

  ‘Ever make a porno flick, blondie?’ Chato persisted. Claire didn’t reply. ‘Well, maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. But you won’t have done anything like this before. This is’ – he hunted for a phrase – ‘specialist stuff. For one select client. We’ve got all the props you could think of – plus a few you’d never think of in your wildest nightmares. Rubber masks, handcuffs, chains. Whips. Razor blades. Piano wire. A welding torch.’ His voice dropped to a murmur. ‘You won’t find us lacking in imagination, blondie. What do you say? Eh? Looking forward to your first starring role in a snuff movie?’

  Claire remained silent, but Hunter could see the cold perspiration glistening on her brow.

  ‘It might take us a couple of days to film enough material for a sixty-minute video,’ Cook continued. ‘But we’ll make sure you don’t get bored.’

  He leaned forward towards Hunter. ‘And, just as a special treat, your boyfriend can watch everything. I owe you that much, Hunter. And after that, we can concentrate on you. I can tell you now, Hunter, that I’ve spent three years lying in my bunk in Mountjoy dreaming up special ways to cause you pain, and I’m gonna take great pleasure in using every … single … bloody … one of them.’

  Each of the final words was accompanied by a savage dig with the shotgun barrel.

  Claire couldn’t hold her breath any more. Her lungs burst with an inhaled sob of terror.

  ‘Good, blondie. That’s good.’ Cook leaned across to her and began smoothing her long hair. Suddenly he twisted it around his fist and yanked viciously. The fist kept twisting until Hunter could hear the roots rip from the scalp.

  ‘Stop it!’ Claire shouted. ‘You’re hurting me!’

  ‘You think this hurts?’ Chato Cook leaned further forward, placed his mouth against her ear and whispered hoarsely, ‘This isn’t pain, blondie. I’ll show you what pain is. Imagine this multiplied a hundred times. Imagine it goes on for forty-eight hours, day and night, without letting up. Then you’ll be getting close to what we’ve got in mind for you.’

  Without warning, he sank his incisors deep into the lobe of her ear. Claire screamed and twisted her head away.

  ‘I like a bird that screams,’ Chato said. ‘Some birds, they just whimper. That’s no good for video.’

  He sat back in his seat.

  ‘Mind you, before we start, we’ll have to do the usual thing to keep our special client happy.’ He began stroking her hair again. ‘Personally, I’d much prefer to keep you as a blonde. But for this role, you’re gonna have to become a redhead.’

  ‘THERE’S a half-yard,’ Chato Cook muttered, as they approached a traffic junction. ‘No moves. No signals to him. I’ll be watching both of you.’

  Half-yard: underworld rhyming slang for guard. Policeman. Hunter glanced carefully into his rear-view mirror and saw a uniformed garda on beat duty walking slowly towards the rear of their car. He looked totally bored.

  The traffic lights were on red. In a minute the policeman would draw level with their car. A desperate plan leaped into Hunter’s head. He knew he couldn’t risk an open signal to the cop – he had no doubt that, if he did, Chato would be crazy enough to carry out his threat and blow him away. But there were other ways of communicating …

  Hunter made sure his handbrake was off and began silently tapping his footbrake lever in a steady rhythm. Three short taps. Three long taps. Three short taps. The only bit of Morse code that every schoolboy knew.

  Three dots, three dashes, three dots.

  SOS.

  He kept doing it, over and over again. He could see the result in the car’s reflection in a shop window. His brake-lights flared briefly three times, then gave three longer flashes, and finished with another three short ones.

  Look this way. Please. Just notice it.

  The garda seemed to pause in his stride, but his face gave nothing away. At that moment, the lights changed to green.

  ‘Drive! What the hell are you waiting for? Drive!’

  Hunter had no choice but to obey. He drove off, as slowly as he dared, monitoring the policeman’s distant figure in the mirror. Was it wishful thinking? Or was the cop really taking out a communication device and raising it to his mouth?

  Ten minutes later they hit the M50 at the Santry entrance and increased speed to 70mph on the motorway, heading towards the west city. As they passed the tower-block flats at Ballymun, Hunter noticed a battered red van overtaking them at surprising speed. Behind them, an ancient Ford Transit sat on their tail.

  ‘Take the N2 exit,’ said Chato Cook. ‘Northwards.’

  Hunter obeyed, signalling well in advance of the exit ramp. The red van ahead of them took the same route, but, to Chato’s obvious relief, the Ford Transit remained on the ring road.

  They left the Dublin suburbs and entered the rolling green countryside of County Meath. The red van sped off into the distance. Around the next corner they found themselves stuck behind an English-registered camping van with two swaying bicycles mounted on the roof-rack. It was driven by a woman wearing a sleeveless green bodywarmer and a spotted headscarf.

  Chato Cook turned around several times to check the traffic directly behind them. The only thing he could see was a filthy red truck that had been behind them for the past few miles.

  After driving for around half an hour, they corkscrewed downhill towards the village of Slane. A river lay between them and the township. The main road crossed a long, narrow stone bridge, just wide enough to take a one-way stream of traffic.

  The lights showed green as they descended into the valley, giving them a clear run across the bridge. Cook relaxed, then stiffened as the signal changed to red and the British camper ahead of them stopped. The truck eased to a halt behind them, just a little too close.

  They were at the lowest point of the valley now, parallel to the river and at right angles to the bridge. There was a high wall to their left. On the right was a smaller brick wall, about two feet high, enclosing a picnic area that swept all the way down to the river.

  ‘Oh, Jesus. Come on,’ Cook fumed impatiently at the red light. He didn’t seem to notice that the flow of oncoming traffic had ceased. Glancing in his wing mirror, Hunter could see beyond the bulk of the truck, and he realised that there was no more traffic coming from behind, either.

  They were alone on the road: the camper and the truck, with Claire’s Fiat Brava sandwiched tightly between them.

  For a second Hunter toyed with the possibility of leaping out of the door and making a run for it. But he knew he’d be either dead or crippled before he even hit the ground.

  Ahead of them, the woman in the camper van seemed to be having trouble with directions. Unfolding a large road-map, she began tracing the route with her finger. Then she jumped out of the van and scurried back down the road towards them, still clutching the map, an apologetic smile on her face.

  ‘Oh, holy shit,’ said Cook. He rammed the shotgun barrel hard into Hunter’s back. ‘Just get rid of her. Tell her you don’t know. You’re a stranger here yourself. Okay?’

  Hunter said nothing.

  ‘Okay?’ Another vicious dig with the shotgun.

  ‘Okay, okay.’

  The woman was a pleasant-faced platinum-blonde in her early forties. She began talking a long time before she reached the car. ‘Look, I’m most awfully sorry,’ she sang out in a Sloane Ranger accent, ‘but I’ve totally lost my way and since we’re obviously not going anywhere fast, I just wondered if you’d be an absolute pet and …’

  ‘Tell her,’ muttered Cook. He prodded the shotgun. ‘Now.’

  The woman stopped just ahead of Hunter’s door. He rolled down the wind
ow.

  It was only then that Chato seemed to realise something wasn’t right. Perhaps it was the sudden tension in the woman’s lean, fit body, or the glint in her grey eyes; perhaps it was the total silence in the air as traffic ceased to flow in either direction; perhaps it was the realisation that the traffic lights were never going to change.

  Across the river, a helicopter burst out of the woodlands around Slane Castle.

  The woman dropped the map to reveal a Smith & Wesson semi-automatic pistol in her hand.

  ‘Police!’ she yelled. ‘Emergency Response Unit. Chato, set your weapon slowly on the floor. Raise your hands and get out.’

  Chato didn’t move.

  Hunter felt the barrel of the sawn-off shotgun dig into his back. His hands tightened on the steering-wheel.

  Claire began muttering softly to herself. It took a few seconds before Hunter realised she was whispering a prayer.

  ‘Come on, Chato,’ the cop shouted rapidly, clearly. ‘We’ve got six expert snipers. They’ve each got a clear shot at the centre of your skull from a distance of ten yards. They can’t miss.’

  Hunter glanced around. Several men clad in black jumpsuits and balaclavas had slithered into position from behind the low wall. They had Heckler & Koch automatic assault rifles, some already mounted on shooting-rests.

  Chato did not respond.

  The woman’s voice dropped, became reasoning, persuasive.

  ‘Don’t do it, Chato. Play along, and all we’ll hit you for is possession of a shotgun. That’s all. It’s no big deal. It’s certainly not worth dying for.’

  There was a long, long silence. Hunter felt the sweat trickle down the side of his face.

  It was quiet – so quiet that he could clearly hear the birds singing in the trees on the other side of the river. Could that be a cuckoo? he wondered ridiculously. Or was it the wrong time of year for cuckoos? He imagined the click of the hammers and the roar of the shotgun behind his back. The sudden blaze of pain. Or maybe there would be no pain at all …

  No, not a cuckoo. It was one of those pigeon things. What were they called?

  ‘It’s all over, Chato. Just drop the weapon …’

  Hunter felt his own teeth gnaw at the inside of his cheek, so hard it hurt.

  A collared dove. That was it. A collared dove.

  ‘Chato – don’t do it!’

  In the silence, he heard the shotgun hammer click softly into position.

  ‘Go!’ yelled the undercover cop.

  Then the entire universe exploded in noise.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  EMMA sipped her camomile tea and smiled encouragingly at Charlotte Valentia. ‘Just take your time,’ she said quietly. ‘Relax. There’s no hurry.’

  But inside, she was panicking. No hurry? she thought. With only a few hours to go before the deadline?

  Charley wiped her eyes with a grey-looking handkerchief. ‘I’m sorry, Dr Macaulay. I’ll be all right in a minute.’

  ‘Call me Emma. And it’s okay to cry. You’ve been through a lot. You’re entitled to let your defences down a little.’

  She studied the other woman curiously. Charley Valentia was wearing a heavy hand-knit pullover over a long denim skirt and heavy Russian-peasant boots. The soft light of the oil lamp gave her pallid skin a slightly healthier glow and lent her hard, chiselled features a softness they’d never had in real life. She was hardly recognisable as the tough, leather-jacketed street girl who’d approached Emma in the lecture hall, an eternity ago.

  Which wasn’t really surprising, Emma thought to herself, because she was a totally different person. That night Charley Valentia, talented actress and heiress to a fortune, had put on the performance of her life.

  ‘I’ve lost it, Doctor,’ Charley said, ignoring Emma’s invitation to call her by her first name. ‘My head’s all over the place. I can’t get it together.’

  ‘You were just telling me,’ Emma prompted patiently, ‘about the arrangement you made with your father.’

  Arrangement, she thought. What a polite word for a conspiracy to defraud.

  Charley dabbed her eyes again. ‘I’ve been on hard drugs for years,’ she said. ‘Ever since … well, ever since I dropped out of acting a few years ago.’

  ‘Why? Why did you drop out?’

  ‘There was a crisis in my life – you don’t want to know. I’ll tell you about it sometime. But I’ve always loved the stage … you know, the buzz you get from a live audience. There’s nothing like it. I think maybe heroin filled that gap for me. Does that sound stupid?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. But I need to know about the arrangement, Charley.’

  ‘I’m coming to that. It’s part of the same story.’

  ‘Sorry. Go on.’ Emma lifted the Chinese teapot and poured her some more camomile tea. Jens had left, and they were alone. A night mist had descended across Christiania.

  ‘When my father realised I had a serious drug problem,’ Charley said, ‘he made a deal with me. We were living in the States at the time. He didn’t want any scandal, so he offered to give me a damn good monthly allowance – enough to fund my habit. Only condition was that I had to quit America, live in Europe and keep a low profile.’

  ‘Well, you’ve certainly kept your side of the bargain.’ Emma glanced around the hut. Home for this millionaire’s daughter was basically a one-room shed, with a single curtained-off bed in one corner and a tiny gas hob in the other. It smelled of damp clothing, incense and kerosene. The walls were festooned with hanging crystals, dream-catchers and all the other apparatus of the Chinese art of feng shui. Each of the four walls had its own directional image – a dragon, a turtle, a tiger and a phoenix. Over the front door, a wind-chime tinkled bravely in a bone-chilling draught that was creeping through a dozen crevices. A cheap paraffin heater fought a losing battle against the icy cold.

  ‘I know.’ Charley followed her gaze. ‘It’s not exactly the Plaza Suite, is it? But it’s home, Doctor. I’m surrounded by people who think the way I do. People who can empathise with what I’m going through, even if they don’t tolerate hard drugs. People who don’t think I’m street-dirt just because I’ve got a heroin habit.’

  Emma was beginning to understand. ‘And once you’ve got used to this sort of life, you couldn’t live anywhere else?’

  ‘Got it, Doctor. I could never face the outside world again. It’s like a sanctuary – a convent, almost. A nunnery for losers.’

  ‘And everything was fine until your father threatened to pull the plug on you.’

  ‘Yes.’ Charley blew her nose again. ‘By that time he’d moved to Ireland and become something big in politics there. He told me someone was putting the screws on him and he needed my help to fight back with something that … well, that wasn’t totally legit. If I went along with it, and then disappeared back into the shadows again, he’d double my allowance and make sure I was able to fund my habit for the rest of my life.’

  ‘And if you didn’t?’

  ‘He’d arrange it so that I’d be evicted from Christiania for breaking the hard-drug rule. He can do that. He can do anything.’

  ‘And then?’

  She shrugged miserably. ‘Then he would stop the payments so I’d have to scavenge on the streets like every other low-life junkie. I’ve seen people like that, Doctor, and they don’t last long on the streets around Istedgade.’

  ‘He’d do that? To his own daughter?’

  ‘I told you. He’s capable of anything.’ Charley drained her cup of camomile tea. ‘So I asked him what he wanted me to do. It seemed real easy – I had to pose as a hooker and feed a fake story to a journalist. Like duh. I laughed out loud and said sure, no big deal. I’ve never had any love for reporters, not since they wrote a load of garbage about me a few years ago. And, to be honest, part of me liked the challenge of acting again. I could do a convincing hooker, no problem.’

  Emma stared at her. ‘But it wasn’t just a role, Charley. You were being asked to be an acces
sory to murder.’

  ‘I didn’t realise that until later. At first I thought it was just a grudge thing between my father and this publisher guy. But in the end, I didn’t make the decision, Doctor. This did.’

  She pulled up her sleeve and pointed to the needle-marks on her arm.

  ‘My father had stopped my last payment – just to concentrate my mind and give me a sample of what was to come. My friendly local pusher stopped giving me credit after three days. Then, just as I was in the middle of the dry heaves, my father phoned me. Wanting to know if I had made up my mind.’

  Within an hour, cash had been wired to American Express and a seriously strung-out Charley was feeling the ice-cold ecstasy of a needle in her arm once more.

  After her first meeting with Emma, Charley had begun to hate herself for what she was doing. And when she read the full horrific details of the brutal attack on Kate Spain, she felt like the lowest scum on earth. But by that stage, she was involved in the conspiracy up to her neck. It was much too late to turn back.

  Even so, she’d been unable to hide her distress, and her bitter sob of entreaty to Hunter – ‘Don’t let him get away with it’ – had been absolutely genuine.

  Now, as she sat in this squalid Christiania hut, owning up, her tears of remorse were allowed to flow freely for the first time.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ Emma asked after a decent interval.

  ‘I told you. Because I was frightened and strung-out.’

  ‘No, I mean why are you being so honest and open with me? After all the deception, why were you so keen to tell me the truth?’

  Charlotte Valentia dried her eyes and looked at Emma directly for the first time.

  ‘Because I’m dying, Doctor,’ she said.

  MARK Tobey rushed up to the transfer desk at Dulles International Airport in Washington. His forehead was damp with sweat and his wet shirt was clinging to his back.

  ‘We’re booked on the charter flight to Dublin, Ireland,’ he said, his breath emerging in hoarse gasps. ‘According to the monitor, it’s not due to take off for another ten minutes.’