Deadly Obsession

by Nigel May

  ‘So you shot him? Killed him instead?’

  The vein running down Grant’s temple raised angrily as he yelled, his eyes red and bulging. ‘I’ve told you that wasn’t the plan. Do you not see how easy that would have been? I needed to do something much more genius. I wanted to make him hurt like I was hurting. I liked Laura, more than any other woman I’ve been with. She had something about her. I thought I’d found my equal, but she didn’t want us to carry on. She fell under Riley’s spell and she left me. My agent wouldn’t let me go public with her, said that it was better for me to be single and available to my fans. Laura hated that, so the decision to leave was easy. She went running into his arms like an imbecilic man-hungry fool!’

  Amy could see Grant’s finger twitching at the trigger of the gun. She knew that she was staring at death.

  ‘But why all this ...? Everything you’ve put me through. Why kill them?’

  ‘It should have been you. I came to the club to kill you. To make Riley suffer. Despite him not being able to keep his cock in his trousers you were always his number one. I needed to make him realise I meant business and that he couldn't mess with me. Not with my professional life and certainly not with my personal life. That he couldn't play God. He’d made me feel a failure yet again just like my parents used to, time and time again. Relentlessly telling me how pathetic I was.’ Grant repeatedly banged the barrel of the weapon against his forehead. The force left a red pressure stain.

  ‘He took Laura, so I had to take you. He didn't love her. He used her, like all men did, apart from me. Laura thought she was happy being single and shagging everything with a pulse, but I was the only one who made her happy.’

  Amy couldn’t help but feel that perhaps Grant was right. Maybe behind all of Laura’s bold, brash exterior was a sad little girl who just wanted to be loved. But she just didn’t know how.

  ‘Stealing Laura away was just another swipe at me. I could have tried some Grant Wilson magic on you, schmoozed you into my bed to try and get even, but you’re not the type, are you? Dedicated to your man. So I decided to kill you. I had the gun prepared and ready. It was easy to fool you all on the night at the Club, pretend I was drunk and drugged from all that crap Lily gave me. I didn’t take any of it. I’m an actor for fuck’s sake. It was easy to play drug-fucked and run past you like I was freaking out amid the chaos of the shooting. I needed to keep my wits about me if I was going to make my plan work, and have a steady aim of the gun to kill you. But Laura saw me with it and tried to stop me. I aimed at you and she put herself in the way. Took the bullet for you. She saved your miserable fucking life and gave her own. I killed Laura, the woman I wanted to spend my life with before Riley snatched her. I killed her.’ It was now Grant who was crying, thick floods of tears running down his face.

  An assortment of emotions boiled within Amy. Laura had betrayed her with Riley yet she had chosen to take the bullet for her. A selfless act that had cost Laura her own life. She may have killed their friendship with her adulterous actions, but every breath that Amy had taken since that fateful night had been thanks to Laura.

  ‘I watched her die. I couldn’t take it. It should have been Riley set to suffer, not me again. So I killed him too. It was simple, the club was in uproar, panic everywhere. I went to his booth and shot him. Stupid black bloke tried to stop it so I shot him too. Then I ran as fast as I could and dumped the gun in the nearest canal. It was easy for me to get away with it, especially when everyone started saying it was a mob killing. Your husband had a load of enemies. Even the police were scared to investigate too much in case they started some gangland warfare. It was all hushed-up and I was scot-free. Winner. Which left me to concentrate on making you suffer again.’

  ‘But why do that to me? Hadn’t I suffered enough? I’d lost both my husband and my best friend.’ The description of Laura sounded somewhat hollow given what she now knew about her. Their friendship had now so clearly always been a one way street.

  ‘I could have left it there but it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t the complete picture. You needed to know what had happened. So call it my dramatic flair, Amy, I needed to complete the story. The thrill is always in the chase. To use an acting term, I didn’t feel that my little production was “in the can” yet, so I decided to resurrect Riley from the grave. I’d shot the fucker’s face off so he was hardly recognisable when the police carted him off was he? We all knew he was dead, really, but I just had to sow a seed of doubt in your vulnerable little mind and hope that you took it, and that was so, so easy. Which is why I wrote the letters.’

  ‘But it was Riley’s writing, I know it was ...’ spluttered Amy.

  ‘I’m an artist, Amy, a master of my craft,’ stated Grant, pushing his tears across his face. ‘I can copy people, play a part. I knew Riley’s handwriting inside out. I had seen it every day at school, I even have books and production programmes from school signed from classmates and I had Riley’s bragging handwritten notes that he wrote to me to gloat about Laura. Copying his writing was no problem. Plus I had six months to perfect every ... how shall I put it? I was able to perfect my writing skills. The letters were easy. As was grabbing a stack of junk mail and sticking it all through your London letter box with the second letter when I turned up at your flat. I just had to make sure that you actually believed that what I’d written could be true. Compiling a list of suspects who would want to kill him off was simple. I just picked a few random names from low-life deadbeats at The Kitty Kat, adding mine in for dramatic effect. That way I knew that if you did believe the letter, even for the merest moment, you would work your way through the cast list, including me. Nearly everybody seems to have a reason to dislike Riley, it was the simplest thing in the world to compile a script of shady characters.’

  ‘You set the whole thing up? But so many people have been involved. And so many of them are dead because of your pathological jealousy and fear of failure. It's pathetic.’

  ‘Not all my fault. Jemima did herself in, I didn’t know she was fucking that Winston bloke. Shit happens. She was screwed up obviously.’

  ‘And Lily ...?’

  ‘That was unfortunate, but she had to go. She knew too much. She caught me sticking a knife into myself in that back alley. A beautiful moment to put Riley as public enemy number one. When you play a doctor you know exactly where a blade can pierce your body without any danger of actually dying.’

  ‘She saw you? But you were chasing Riley. I saw him. He was there.’

  ‘All smoke and mirrors, Amy. Classic drama and legerdemain. What you saw was a man I hired. Thuggish thirty-somethings with your husband’s build are easy to come by in this city, especially if you pay them well enough. He was so wrapped up against the cold all you saw was what you thought was Riley. Who spotted him first? Yep, me ... but then I knew exactly where he was going to be, didn’t I? It was sowing another seed.’

  ‘But Lily didn't need to die ...’

  ‘Wrong place, wrong time. She shouldn’t have been there, shouldn’t have chased after me and shouldn’t have seen me stabbing myself. But she did ... and became ultra fucking cocky and tried to blackmail me. Invited me to her house thinking I’d quake in my boots if she threatened to tell you I’d lied about Riley stabbing me and cough up some cash. So she had to go. You finding her was a stroke of luck. It all added to your suffering. Just like hiring someone to fire some bullets at you outside the church where your parents are buried. You told me where you were going, so I made a few calls and paid someone to scare you. All part of the game.’

  ‘You’re a fucking cold-hearted callous bastard, Grant, and you’ll rot in hell for all this.’

  ‘But I won’t, will I? No-one will find out. Only you know. It was me who nearly ran you down outside Eruption in a hire car. I just wanted to scare you. I’ve been following you pretty much since the first letter. I brought the second one with me to your flat and coming back to the hotel to deliver the note telling you to come here was a doddle.’


  ‘But this was our place – mine and Riley's – the cottage and the waterfall. Riley wouldn’t have told you about this place. How did you know about it?’

  Grant swaggered closer to Amy, the gun only inches from her face, the rush of the water as it headed towards the falls bubbling behind him. Another smile painted itself across Grant’s now ugly features, but it wasn’t one of friendship, it was one of complacency.

  ‘Oh I have the lovely Genevieve to thank for that. She made this final scene for me. I never knew this place existed. I would have been quite happy to kill you off in some dirty backstreet, but you’d be amazed at what a drunk woman can let slip. Riley used to pay for this place and bring her here too. I confronted her and she told me everything. She’s just a loose-lipped old lush who was banging your husband too. Those weekends you thought he was away on business, well he was on the job ... nuts-deep in Genevieve here at the cottage. She used to organise it, so I knew who to go to for the key, where to leave it, all about this place. How he called it 'your place'. I even saw the suit I laid out on the bed at the cottage in a photo at Genevieve’s shop. Good brand, easy to buy another one just like it. He was wearing it in the photo. Her and Riley looking all cosy. Nice touch I thought, leaving the suit on the bed, even laying it out like he used to do with his clothes at school all the time. Old habits die hard, I figured. I wanted to keep you guessing right until this moment.’

  Grant held out his arms in full stretch, his actions horribly triumphant. ‘I thought this would be the perfect setting for your ultimate demise. Poor Amy, so distraught about losing Laura and Riley and finding poor Lily, comes to the place where Riley used to bring her for weekends of love-making and decides to shoot herself. The flowing waters run red with the blood from a poor, helpless suicide. I’ll come to your funeral and cry at your graveside, a bunch of monkshood flowers clutched in my hands. They signify treachery, did you know that? That’s why I sent a bunch to Lily’s funeral. It seemed kind of apt.’

  ‘You disgust me. You take something as precious as life so lightly. Families, lives have been ripped apart because of you. Even if you kill me here, someday you’ll get what you fucking deserve. I know it ...’

  ‘All I know is that you’re the reason Laura is dead. You should have taken that bullet, not her. She could have been mine again. But she stupidly chose to save you. So now you have to die too. I need to finish off what I started six months ago.’

  79

  Now, 2015

  * * *

  Grant pushed the tip of the barrel of the gun against the side of Amy’s head. There was an iciness about it. Amy knew that it might be the last thing she ever felt.

  ‘But I’m not ready to die ...’ There was defiance in Amy’s words. Inside she was broken, every fibre of her being crushed by Grant’s confession, but if she was going to lose her life at the waterfall then there was no way she was submitting without a fight.

  She stared into Grant’s face – a face that only days before she had found so handsome, yet all she could see now was a monster. Women across the country would have moved mountains to be that close to the TV heartthrob of their dreams, but Amy would rather have been anywhere than just inches from the face of Grant Wilson at that moment.

  ‘... So go to Hell ...’ said Amy, her voice calm and without waver. As she spoke she drew her knee up as swiftly as she could, connecting squarely with Grant’s groin. She prayed that as Grant doubled in pain, the contact would not make him squeeze the trigger. She cowered, expecting the sound heralding her own demise. Nothing came. It was the slim opportunity she needed. Catching Grant off guard she slammed her body against his, using all of her might to push him towards the water.

  Grant stumbled backwards, hands clutching his crotch as the pain in his groin shot through his body. ‘You fucking bitch!’ he cried, swinging the gun back towards Amy. As he squeezed the trigger, one of his feet slid on a wet rock beneath him. The bullet fired into the air.

  Amy watched as Grant’s body fell towards the water, his foot twisting on the rock and giving way underneath him. The edge of the river, although not great in depth, hid a myriad of rocks and stones underneath its surface. As Grant landed with a splash, the back of his head smashed against one of the rocks. A trickle of scarlet leaked away from the underside of the actor’s skull and flowed with the current of the stream. His hand unclenched, allowing the gun to fall from his grasp into the water. Amy watched as it sank beneath the surface.

  For what seemed like an eternity, Amy was unable to move, the truth of all that had happened saturating her brain. The only noise around her came from the gushing of the river. She watched as Grant’s body, apparently lifeless, was taken by the current and moved towards the edge of the waterfall. Within seconds it had toppled over the spray of water lining the horizon of the river and disappeared.

  Carefully retracing her steps down the path by the riverside she found herself at the edge of the waters below. A body lay face down in the water, a thicker stream of deep red blood flowing from the burst at the back of his skull. There was no mistaking the body this time. It was Grant and he was definitely dead.

  Epilogue

  Ward 44 came off air and all further production ceased forthwith as soon as the news of Grant’s death broke. It was never reported exactly how Grant had died. The newspapers said it must have been a horrible accident, the actor slipping to his death at a remote waterfall where he had taken some much needed time to relax away from his busy filming schedule.

  There was no weapon found at the scene, Amy had made sure of that, returning to the top of the falls and fishing the gun out of the water. She had disposed of it accordingly after returning to the cottage, grabbing her suitcase and locking the closed door behind her.

  She had been careful to wipe away any fingerprints on anything she had touched at the cottage. She wanted nothing to link her to the scene where Grant had, as she saw it, rightfully died.

  Having left the cottage, she walked to the train station, not wanting to call a taxi. It was a good two miles, but the journey passed quickly, Amy’s mind still crammed with every hideous detail. She was back at her flat in London within hours.

  Grant’s body was not discovered until a few days later by the man renting out the cottage. When the key wasn’t returned he headed there to see what had happened. The near-frozen body of Grant Wilson was found washed up along the riverbank. Amy didn’t attend his funeral.

  * * *

  The Rich family home was put up for sale by Caitlyn Rich. After the death of Lily and the disappearance of her husband, Caitlyn had no reason to keep the house. She hated everything it stood for and couldn’t bear to sleep under the same roof where her daughter had so brutally died. If Adam had been there to argue with her, she wouldn’t have changed her mind. It was made up, the house was to be sold.

  Three months later, when Adam still hadn’t been seen, Caitlyn closed the doors on the house for the final time, having sold it to a footballer and his faux-blonde girlfriend. Caitlyn had already set up home with Jona in London, a place that was already filling up with her prized mosaic statues. Some things would never change.

  Caitlyn filed for divorce from Adam, having to sign an affidavit swearing that she didn’t know the location of her absentee spouse. She didn’t. Even after the divorce was made official, Adam Rich never reappeared. He seemed to have simply fallen off the earth.

  * * *

  The only person who knew where Adam had ended up was Jarrett Smith. Not that he would ever tell. He was just elated that justice had finally been served for the killing of his son.

  Manchester was now Jarrett’s for the taking. The criminal wanted to expand and securing Dirty Cash gave him the perfect opportunity. After the death of both Tommy and Jemima Hearn, the ownership of the casino reverted back to Amy, thanks to a clause that Riley had inserted into the contract when Adam signed the building over to him in order to keep the details of Weston Smith’s death a secret. With Tommy and Jemima childless
, the ownership reverted to Adam, who had signed it over to Riley. As Riley was now dead, the entire building went automatically to his widow, namely Amy.

  The shell that had once been the location of all her dreams, The Kitty Kat Club, was hers again. She didn’t want it, it held too much painful history, and Jarrett Smith was the perfect buyer, offering her above the asking price. He wanted the building in order to undertake some renovations before making it the base for his Manchester operations. Amy knew that this meant digging up the floor and searching for Weston’s remains and part of her felt that he had every right to do so. Why should anybody, no matter how corrupt they are, not be allowed the chance to give their only offspring a proper burial? The signing of the contract passing the building to Jarrett was the only time Amy returned to Manchester.

  * * *

  Genevieve’s business went from strength to strength, with a chain of Eruption stores doing just that – erupting across the country. In the months after finding out that Emily’s father was indeed dead, Genevieve was determined to make sure that she could cater for her daughter’s every need on her own. She took control of her life and started to attend AA meetings, willing herself to jettison the demons of drink that so often ruled her.

  Emily continued to live with her grandma at first while Genevieve stood back on her own two feet and kicked the booze. A year on and the three generations of women were living together in a palatial house deep in rural Cheshire. It was the perfect place for Genevieve to employ a nanny, cook and maid to look after Emily when the demands of her ever-growing and increasingly lucrative fashion empire became too great and took her on trips across the globe, ably assisted by her ever loyal Meifeng. It was all paid for with her own money. There were to be no childcare payments and Genevieve knew that she would never allow herself to feel beholden to anyone else’s cash handouts again.