Obsession

by Susan Lewis

  Angelique hadn’t known who the father was either. She told Cristos that. ‘It could be any one of you,’ she’d spat, ‘and what the hell do I care anyway. But the whole world is gonna think it’s yours Cristos. Everyone’s gonna know what you’ve done to me, you bastard.’ Her move to the window had been so fast that neither Cristos nor Robarts had chance even to grab her clothing before she threw herself from the balcony into the gardens fourteen floors below.

  It was Robarts who had found the suicide note beside the hotel bed. In it she had announced to the world that the baby was Cristos’s. That he had refused to marry her, even though she was carrying his child, and because of it, she was going to kill herself.

  The rumour and speculation that followed her death was intolerable. The press just wouldn’t let up. A bellhop had confirmed seeing Cristos going into Angelique’s room before she’d died, but the fact that Hank Robarts was there too was never divulged. It was all part of the convoluted cover-up to save the senator’s good name. But the police had made it clear in a statement they issued to the press that as far as they were concerned Cristos Bennati had no charge to answer.

  Maybe not, at least not so far as the suicide was concerned, but for Cristos the guilt and grief he felt inside was so torturous that at times it was as though it might strangle him. He missed her real bad, not only because he had loved her, but because he had got so used to sharing his life with her. But what hurt more than anything else was the way she had turned on him at the end. Why in God’s name should she have done that?

  He guessed he would never know the answer to that, any more than he would ever be able to find out just how Luke Fitzpatrick had managed to learn so much about the case. But Fitzpatrick hadn’t known everything, he’d been missing one vital piece of information – that Hank Robarts had been in the hotel room that night too.

  Just what Fitzpatrick had been planning to do with the information he’d gathered was a mystery Cristos had no interest in solving. He guessed it had something to do with blackmail, though if he really thought about it he had to admit that there was something about Fitzpatrick’s last visit that had smacked of something more than that. He had started by letting Cristos know that he knew Cristos had been in the room with Angelique when she died. Well that was common knowledge, not that Cristos had even bothered to point that out. But then Fitzpatrick had gotten onto the subject of children, using sly remarks and innuendo, but all the same letting Cristos know that he had somehow found out about the baby. That was when Cristos had punched him so hard he’d gone into the pool. Cristos had waited then for the blackmail threat, but it hadn’t come. If anything Fitzpatrick had appeared contrite, but Cristos wasn’t fooled. It was as though Fitzpatrick was using his knowledge to show Cristos which of them held the power. But the power for what?

  Cristos didn’t even want to know. There had always been something unhealthy about Fitzpatrick, and theirs was an association Cristos had tried to break off many times over the years. Fitzpatrick had never let go, kept turning up like the proverbial bad penny. Well this was the last. Fitzpatrick could find some other poor bastard to manipulate, extort, destroy or whatever sick game he was about these days, because if he were ever to come in swinging distance of Cristos again, then after the stunt he’d tried to pull over Angelique, Cristos might just murder the sonofabitch.

  – 12 –

  PHILLIP DENBY WAS in his office. Luke was facing him across the mahogany desk, sipping the coffee Pam had just brought in. The sudden intensity of late summer meant that both men were in shirt sleeves, though Phillip’s were long, as befitted a man in his position. The sash window behind him had been raised, though no idle breeze found its way into the room, just the roar of City traffic four floors below.

  Neither man had spoken yet, but already there was an unmistakable tension beginning to build. Luke seemed at ease with it. Phillip, however, despite his efforts to appear composed, was sweating profusely.

  He waited until Luke had replaced his china cup in the saucer, then with his eyes still focused on the cup, said, ‘I’ve had Jack Watkins, the Labour MP, in here.’

  ‘Oh?’ Luke said with mild surprise.

  Phillip ran a finger around his collar. ‘He says you’re … That you’re … Well, he wants us to take the prostitute’s allegations concerning him out of the programme.’

  Luke nodded thoughtfully. ‘I see. Well, you can put his mind at rest and tell him it’s as good as done.’

  Phillip’s eyes shifted back to the coffee tray. He knew only too well why Watkins’ request had been granted so readily – Luke had only the day before received twenty thousand pounds for his co-operation. Twenty thousand pounds that Phillip himself had been forced to give the MP. If he hadn’t then, with nothing else to lose, Watkins had threatened to report the extortion to the police, and Phillip was in no position to let that happen. Naturally Luke had known that, just as he had known that in the end it would be Phillip who would pay the money. But that wasn’t the real issue here, and both men knew it.

  ‘Incidentally,’ Luke said chattily, ‘we’re transmitting the programme tomorrow night.’

  Phillip’s face was suddenly so taut and pale that it seemed he might be suffocating.

  Luke shrugged. ‘Just thought you’d like to know,’ he said. ‘Annalise and Corrie have done a great job on it. Corrie in particular.’

  Phillip waited for Luke to tell him that he knew who Corrie was, but Luke didn’t. ‘Of course,’ he went on, ‘the main emphasis of the programme is on whether or not brothels should be legalized, but there’s a powerful piece on the whores who have been murdered. The police are hoping that someone will come forward after the programme. What do you say? Do you think anyone will?’

  He showed no surprise at all when Phillip slumped forward onto his desk and started to sob. ‘For Christ’s sake, Luke,’ he choked, ‘I didn’t do it. I swear to God, I had nothing to do with it. I told you, I visited them. I had sex with them, but I didn’t kill them. As God is my witness, I didn’t kill them.’

  Luke shook his head, as though confused, then helped himself to more coffee. ‘I don’t recall ever saying that you did, Phillip,’ he said. ‘Now, try to pull yourself together, there’s a good chap. After all, I’m sure you don’t want Pam to know about this, now do you?’

  ‘There’s nothing to know,’ Phillip cried, beating his hands against the desk.

  Luke sighed. ‘I’d like to believe you, Phillip,’ he responded sadly, ‘really I would. And I’m trying. But how on earth do you explain the fact that you were the last trick every one of them had before they died?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know,’ Phillip spluttered. ‘But I didn’t kill them. You’ve got to believe me, Luke, I didn’t kill them.’

  ‘Then who did?’

  ‘I don’t know! I wasn’t with them when they died. I was with them before, I admit that. I paid them, I … I tied them up even, but I didn’t … Oh God!’ He clutched his hands to his head and started to shake it. ‘I didn’t mean them any harm,’ he cried. ‘I only wanted … I wanted …’

  ‘Yes? What did you want?’ Luke prompted, calmly.

  ‘For mercy’s sake, leave me alone,’ Phillip begged.

  ‘What you wanted,’ Luke continued, as though Phillip hadn’t spoken, ‘was to punish Octavia, wasn’t it? You want to make her suffer for the way she’s emasculated you, but you don’t have the balls to do it.’ He grinned at the neatness of that. ‘So instead, you take yourself off to a whore,’ he concluded.

  ‘No! No!’ Phillip sobbed. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Then what was it like?’

  ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ Phillip cried. ‘I’ve told you a thousand times, they were alive when I left them.’

  ‘Then why don’t you go to the police and tell them that? They’re men of the world. I’m sure they’ll understand why you spray your wife’s favourite perfume over a hooker before you tie her up and screw her.’

 
Phillip’s breath froze in his lungs, and as he looked back at Luke a blinding terror started to seep into his eyes.

  Luke merely smiled and shrugged. ‘The investigating officer is a friend of mine,’ he explained. ‘He told me, just the other day, that the forensic experts have now identified the perfume on each of the bodies. They’re withholding the information from the public of course, they have to do that to sort out the headcases who keep confessing. Anyway, it would appear that it’s the same brand of perfume as Octavia favours. Now isn’t that a coincidence?’

  Phillip was trembling so hard he could barely speak. ‘No, no,’ he mumbled. ‘You’re lying. You’re making it up …’ His eyes were darting about the room, as if seeking some means of escape. Finally they settled again on Luke and he flinched, as though Luke had struck him. ‘All right,’ he whispered, ‘I did spray them with perfume, but I didn’t kill them.’

  ‘OK, if you say you didn’t, then you didn’t. I’m prepared to believe you. But have you considered that you might be suffering from some kind of black-out while you’re chopping them up. That could serve you quite considerably in your defence,’ he suggested helpfully. Then he shrugged again. ‘Or it could be that you know only too well what you’re doing, but just don’t want to admit it. I can understand that. I mean, I’ve seen what happened to them, and if I were you I wouldn’t want anyone to know what an animal I was either.’

  Phillip regarded him with heavy, fearful eyes. ‘What are you going to do?’ he whispered eventually.

  ‘Do?’ Luke repeated, seeming surprised by the question. He cocked his head to one side and thought for a moment or two, then said, as though musing aloud, ‘Just imagine what a sensation it would cause if it came out that the daughters of the very man who was with the prostitutes during their last hours had researched and produced the programme designed to help catch him. In fact, one could almost say that they would be guilty of screwing their own father.’ He laughed at that, apparently liking the pun, but Phillip could only stare at him in mindless terror.

  ‘Luke,’ he said at last. ‘I’ll do anything. Anything you want, but for God’s sake don’t tell Annalise or Corrie what you know.’

  ‘Ah, so we’re admitting that Corrie’s our daughter now, are we? Good. By the way, she didn’t deserve the way you treated her when she came to see you. She told me all about it, you know. Of course she didn’t know then that I knew you.’

  ‘Just leave them alone, Luke, I’m begging you to leave them alone. Take Octavia, if that’s what you want, but please, for pity’s sake don’t do anything to harm my daughters.’

  ‘It’s my guess that the fathers of those hookers probably felt much the same way about their daughters. That is,’ he added, ‘if any of them ever had a father. Still, let’s address this little matter of Octavia, shall we, because that’s where all this stems from, isn’t it? I mean the fact that she whores around with your colleagues, yet can hardly stand you to touch her. She even screws them in your bed, doesn’t she? I’ve often wondered why she felt the need to do that, but we both know what a bitch she is – it probably gives her an extra kick. Anyway, the point is, divorce is out of the question, if you even attempt it she’s going to inform all those poor unsuspecting wives of where their husbands spend their free afternoons. That wouldn’t leave you in any too healthy a position, now would it? But all the same, you want to be rid of her, and believe you me, Phillip, I can understand that. The problem is, you just can’t bring yourself to do what it would take to get her out of your life for good. After all, the finger of suspicion would point straight at you if anything were to happen to her, wouldn’t it? With a whore, a professional whore that is, you thought you’d get away with it. So you vent your frustration, your hatred I should call it, on an innocent woman.’

  Phillip was crying again. The tears of desperation streamed unchecked down his face, and he was sobbing so hard he could hardly catch his breath. ‘Luke, please, what more do you want from me? Already you’re sleeping with my wife and both of my daughters, just tell me what more it’ll take. I told you, I’ll do anything.’

  Luke pondered this for a moment, then suddenly his face lit up, as though he had only now come up with his price. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said, ‘you can quit hiring thugs to beat me up. That’s what you can do.’

  Phillip stared at him helplessly. He knew already that this wasn’t enough, that the price was going to be far, far higher than that. ‘I’ll do it,’ he mumbled.

  Luke stood up. ‘Good. Now, all that I have to decide is whether or not to do my duty as a law abiding citizen and inform the police of what I know. I might, but there again I might not. As a matter of fact I’m in a position to do you a great favour, but I haven’t decided yet whether or not I will.’ He walked to the door, pulled it open so that Pam could hear every word he was saying, then turned back to Phillip. ‘So long, old friend,’ he smiled cheerily, ‘and try not to slash up any more hookers, won’t you?’

  Corrie was about to explode with fury. ‘What?’ she screamed at the editor. ‘He told you to do what?’

  Keith, the editor, didn’t much like being shouted at like this, so it was in a disgruntled voice that he repeated what Luke had told him on the telephone the night before. ‘I have to take out all references to the MP Watkins.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Don’t ask me! I just do as I’m told.’

  ‘Well I take it you did point out that it’s the most powerful stuff we have.’

  ‘It’s not my job,’ Keith retorted.

  ‘And what about the interview?’

  ‘That has to go too, he said.’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ Corrie seethed. ‘I just don’t fucking believe it. He’s destroying the programme and we transmit tonight! What the hell are we going to put in its place? We haven’t got anything else like it! Does Annalise know about this?’

  Keith shrugged. ‘She was in here earlier, I told her.’

  ‘Well what did she say?’

  ‘That I should go ahead and cut it out.’

  ‘Then why didn’t she tell me?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Keith answered through gritted teeth. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with it.’

  ‘Corrie!’

  She spun round to find Alan Fox standing at the door.

  ‘I think you’d better come out here,’ Fox said, ‘there’s something going on you should know about.’

  ‘Damn right, there is!’ Corrie snapped. ‘Have you heard what Luke’s done to our programme?’

  ‘Whatever he’s done isn’t going to make a lot of difference now,’ Fox replied. ‘Come and see.’

  Still fuming, Corrie followed him back into the office and over to the PA machines. Everyone was grouped round, but made way for Corrie when they saw her coming.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she muttered, as she read what was coming over the wire. She leaned in closer. ‘Oh my God!’ she said again. ‘This is incredible!’ She waited for the message to finish then ripped it off the machine, her heart beating such a wild rhythm she was panting for breath. ‘Where’s Annalise?’ she said, her eyes still glued to the page in disbelief.

  ‘Here I am!’ Annalise cried, sailing in through the door.

  Corrie passed her the PA message. ‘They’ve caught the murderer,’ she said. ‘They have him in custody!’

  ‘What!’ Annalise gasped, her eyes racing over the page. ‘Bloody hell! When did this come in?’

  ‘Just,’ Corrie answered.

  ‘Well it changes everything – and we transmit tonight.’

  ‘Precisely. So we’d better get our skates on.’

  Both of them immediately moved to the phones. ‘Who are you calling?’ Annalise asked.

  ‘Chelsea Police Station, see if Radcliffe will give us an interview.’

  ‘Great. I’ll get onto Felicity, tell her we need her.’

  ‘Anything I can do?’ another researcher asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Corrie answered. ‘G
et onto Scotland Yard press office, see what other information they’re giving out. Try, if you can, to get the name and address of the man they’ve arrested.’

  ‘You got it,’ the researcher answered.

  ‘Awaiting instructions,’ Perkin called out.

  ‘Stand by to rewrite the entire script,’ Annalise yelled.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Bob Churchill asked, walking into the office at that moment.

  Quickly Alan Fox filled him in.

  ‘All right, get to it,’ Bob said to the production manager. ‘Line them up a crew, a car, a telephone. Any luck with Chelsea Police yet, Corrie?’ he added when she put the phone down.

  ‘Yeah, eleven o’clock, Radcliffe will give us first crack. They’re doing a press conference at midday though, so it’ll still be on the news before we hit the air.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. What do we know about this guy?’

  ‘Nothing yet. We’re working on it.’ She turned to the other researcher.

  ‘All lines are busy right now,’ Jennifer told her. ‘I’ll keep trying.’

  ‘How are you doing with Felicity?’ she asked Annalise.

  ‘She’s not there, I left a message on her answerphone.’

  ‘Shit!’ Corrie said, slapping her forehead. ‘She’s got an audition today. We’ll never get hold of her. Anyway, let’s get onto Carol, we want the prostitutes’ reaction to this. Shit! What are we going to do about Felicity?’

  ‘Alan, you’ll have to do the interview,’ Bob said.

  ‘Can’t,’ Alan answered. ‘I’m already booked out today with another crew.’

  ‘This is an emergency.’

  ‘Hands off!’ Cindy, Alan’s producer, yelled. ‘I’ve moved heaven and earth getting this interview lined up with the Archbishop of Canterbury. It’s today or not at all.’

  ‘All right,’ Bob winced. ‘Where are the other reporters?’

  ‘All out,’ the production manager answered.