Deadly Obsession

by Michael Kerr

  “I watched her testify once at the Bailey. She’s sexy, but scary as hell. Is she consulting on this?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Why do you find her scary?”

  “She’s driven, smart as an Armani suit, and a shrink. I don’t like women who are too clever, or who can outguess me. She’s like a Polygraph with a pulse. I hear that nothing gets past her.”

  “Let’s hope she can pick up on this guy, then, and see an angle we might not have thought about.”

  “When is she due?”

  “About three. Put all the paperwork together, Mike, while I finish up making this dump fit for human habitation. Then we’ll go for a pint and get back in time to pipe her on board.”

  “You rate her?”

  “The chief does. She works with these animals every day; talks to them and gets to know what motivates them to rape and kill. Our job is done when we put them out of business. That’s when hers begins.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE doors hissed shut and the train jerked away from the platform to almost at once be devoured by the black maw of the waiting tunnel. The rush was almost over and there were now a few seats available. She took one near the door, to sit straight-backed, open a paperback book and begin to read.

  He settled to face her, snatching glances over the top of his Evening News. She was a vision of loveliness. Her plush dark hair shone like silk, and her smooth features were symmetrical. If a computer was programmed to produce the perfect female face, then surely this would be it. Balance, congruity and harmony personified. She was his new girl. She belonged to him, though didn’t know it, yet, but soon would.

  Penny Douglas wholly fit his criteria. Every inch of her lithe frame was a delight. And she was single, and lived alone in a third-floor flat of a terrace property in Stratford.

  She looked up from her book, glanced left and right along the carriage, then across at him. Their eyes almost met. He adopted a thousand-yard-stare over her left shoulder, where he could see his own face reflected back from the dark window.

  When she got off the tube, he followed, but stayed well back. There was no need to even keep her in sight. She would walk to Leyton Road, and maybe stop at the Paki shop and pick up some milk and a few other items. He knew everything about her; had been in her flat and constructed her life to date from the contents. Her parents lived in Spain, and she was not in a relationship. Her two closest friends were co-workers at the insurance office on Clerkenwell Road, where she had been employed for over four years. She went out every Friday evening, sometimes to the movies, or to a concert, and occasionally for a meal. He was her salvation, although she was yet to appreciate that. He would make inroads into her dreary life, to save her from a mundane and pointless existence.

  So far, he had only contacted her by letter. In the first one he sent, he explicitly warned her that if she went to the police, or even told her friends, then she would, by doing so, be totally responsible for the consequences. He could recall every word he had typed:

  My dear Penny,

  Let’s just call me a secret admirer. I wish you no harm. I just need to let you

  know that I find you beautiful and irresistible. I intend to write to you on a

  regular basis, and hope that you will treat me in the same way you would a pen

  friend.

  You are wondering if you know me. The answer is no, not yet. What you do

  need to know is that you must not do anything silly, like contacting the police.

  There is absolutely no need to, and I will know if you do. I am not breaking any

  law by writing to you. Think of all the unsolicited mail that you receive. Just

  regard me as the founder of the Penny Douglas Appreciation Society, or Fan

  Club. You should be flattered. Did you ever write to one of your favourite pop

  stars? When I was a boy I sent a letter to the actor, Harrison Ford, asking for

  his autograph. Call me naïve, but I expected him to send me a signed glossy

  8x10 photograph, maybe of him dressed as Han Solo or Indiana Jones. After

  the weeks turned to months, I realised that he was not going to reply.

  I don’t watch any of his movies now. I hate to say it, but I hope he gets cancer

  and dies.

  I’d better say goodnight, Penny. It’s getting late, and I have to be up early. I’ll

  write again, soon. Please don’t be angry at me for contacting you.

  Take care, and sleep well.

  Love, Jerry xxx

  He chuckled. He had written to her almost every day over a two month period. Had followed her at every given opportunity, and seen how nervous she had become as the content of his letters became more personal. She was in fear of him, and was too scared to go to the authorities. He had programmed…groomed her to believe that he knew her every move. She was his to control and manipulate. He would now test her, to see if she was sufficiently conditioned to follow his instructions.

  Penny unlocked her mailbox and, hesitating, looked about her, wondering if she was being watched. An old man with an overweight dog on a lead walked by. They were both limping, and she could hear the pair of them wheezing in tandem. There was no one else in sight. Her heart hammered as she pulled open the small door and reached in to remove the contents. She locked the box, jiggled the keys to find the Yale, opened the front door and hurried into the house, to rush up the stairs to her third floor flat and engage the security chain and the two recently fitted bolts behind her. She felt under siege.

  Tossing the letters onto the kitchen table, Penny slipped her shoes off and went through to the bedroom to get changed. She hung her damp coat on the wardrobe door. Stripped down to her bra and panties, sighing at the pleasure removing her tights elicited, before pulling on a sweater and jeans and going back through to the small kitchen, to switch on the kettle before picking up the first of three envelopes. It was from her mother in Spain. She would read it later. The second envelope was of more immediate concern. She used a fingernail to rip the top open, and removed and unfolded the single sheet. The bold print was double-spaced:

  My darling Penny,

  I’m hard for you. You cannot imagine how desirable I find you. Do you feel the same? Do you want me? Of course you do. Maybe we’ll get it together, and sooner rather than later. Would you believe that the thought of meeting you makes me very nervous? As long as you behave and cooperate, I may just keep our special relationship as it is, though. I know you’d prefer it that way.

  How did you enjoy the concert last Friday evening? I brushed past you during the intermission, and could smell the Opium perfume you wear. Do you shave, Penny? I hope not. Pubic hair is so natural. I am not taken with the plucked

  chicken look of some women’s crotches. Though maybe a Brazilian bikini wax might suit you. Do you know what that is? I’ll tell you. You lie on your back naked – at least from the waist down – with your legs wide open, and a beautician then spreads warm wax around your private parts, waits for it to set, and then rips it off, taking the hair with it. You can opt to have a strip left, front and centre. That sounds like a fun thing for us to do to each other. Take a few seconds to imagine the scene. Can you visualise me…

  Penny dropped the letter. She made a cup of tea with shaking hands before sitting at the table. She began to cry. How could she be in this situation? At first she had thought it was her office manager, Terry Phelps, who was writing to her. Terry was a shy individual, who she knew fancied her. He was middle-aged, married with grown-up children, and was, she believed, going through whatever the male menopause might be, if such a condition actually existed. She should not have presumed it was him. Once the tone and language in the letters became offensive, she should have gone to the police. But the anonymous writer made it clear that she would be putting herself at great risk if she divulged their secret relationship. She picked up the note by its very edges, loathe to touch it, and continued reading:

  ...in th
at position? I want you to go to your bedroom window, Penny. Now.

  Take off all your clothes and let me see you in your birthday suit. Do it, or much

  as I don’t want to, I’ll be forced to hurt you. Isn’t bearing all for a minute less

  painful than being beaten or raped, or worse? I’M WAITING! Don’t disappoint

  me and ruin what we have together, angel. And don’t even think of phoning the

  police. They wouldn’t catch me, and then you would be in great danger.

  Love, Jerry xxx

  She went to the phone, picked up, held it for a few agonising seconds, then slammed it down, hurting her hand. What could the police do? Nothing. They certainly wouldn’t put her under round-the-clock protection for the rest of her life. And even if they did catch him, then what? No one got locked up for sending letters. She would be at his mercy.

  She went into the bedroom, drew back the curtains and looked out, down to the scrubby patch of wasteland at the rear of the row of terrace. Was he really out there, crouched in the darkness behind one of the bushes? It was too dark to see anything.

  Fear overcame the sense of outrage. She woodenly removed her sweater, reached up behind her back and unhooked her bra. Quickly undid her jeans, pushing them and her panties down to bunch above her knees. She then stood like a statue and counted to sixty under her breath, before grasping the curtains and drawing them together. The floor show was over. She dropped onto the bed, hugged herself and rocked backwards and forwards. Where would it end? Her life was no longer her own, because some perverted peeping tom was not only watching her, but controlling her actions. There had to be a way to get rid of him. Like a leech, the bastard had latched on to her, and she didn’t have anything to burn him off with. Unless...

  Dressing quickly, she pulled on a coat and grabbed her handbag before rushing from the flat, down the stairs and out into the street. If she could turn the tables and follow him, then he may lead her back to wherever he lived. If she knew his identity, she would be able to come up with a plan.

  Making her way around the side of the end house in her row, down the alley, Penny knelt behind an abandoned, burnt out car and waited.

  The street lights had illuminated her as she climbed up the steps and paused to open her mailbox. He had ducked back behind a tall hedge as she looked about her, to light a cigarette and wait until he heard the door slam. She was spooked, fearful of her own shadow. The pressure was getting to her. He was working her like a fucking marionette; moulding her mind in much the same way a skilled potter turned a piece from a ball of clay.

  He walked quickly to the gloomy and deserted area behind the houses, which had once been the yard of a now defunct haulage company. The derelict, flat-roofed single-storey office was now without doors or windows. The damp brickwork was overlaid in graffiti; a nursery for kids to practise their aerosol art, before moving on to public buildings, motorway bridges, statues and any surface that they could make their mark on, like animals scenting their territory. It was moronic, he thought. What satisfaction they got was beyond his comprehension. There were far better ways to express yourself. Though as a teenager he had gone through a period of using indelible markers to write and draw his fantasies on the walls of toilet stalls. That had been when he needed to release his frustration, before formulating how best to achieve greater fulfilment. He was not gay, but had not been disinclined to a little harmless union with mainly older men, who frequented toilets to get their rocks off by employing the hand, mouth or anus of a willing partner. His view had always been, ‘don’t knock it till you’ve tried it’. It wasn’t only money that made the world go round, but the combination of money, sex and power. You only had to look at such figures as the one-time American president John F Kennedy to appreciate that. By all accounts, JFK had been a sex addict, who screwed starlets and prostitutes alike. He needed pussy the way a fish needs water. Maybe if he’d been trailer-trash instead of being born into a well-heeled dynasty, then he would have been a serial rapist. Who knows? Being privileged, he had always had it on tap. What you are will out, given the right circumstances. Breeding and social status cannot dampen an overactive libido, or control impulses that will not be denied.

  He hunkered down in the murk of a doorway and waited, loathe to venture deeper into the foul-smelling building. This was a place where people shot-up, fucked, and voided their bladders and bowels: where vagrants slept and rats and cockroaches ruled the dark hours.

  He trained the compact Tasco binoculars on her bedroom window. The field glasses weighed in at just seven ounces, had powerful 8x21 optics, and were not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes.

  The bedroom light came on for a couple of minutes, and was then switched off. It was too soon yet for her to have read his letter. Without conscious intention, his right hand drifted down to the zip of his chinos.

  The light came on again. She would have read his instructions now, become aroused by them, and be eager to display her gorgeous body to him. There. Her magnificent, magnified image filled the narrow field of vision. She undressed and stood straight. He gasped. She was truly a living work of art. Her breasts were uplifted, tipped with large, dusky pink buds, and the triangle of hair at the fork of her creamy thighs was a dense thicket.

  She reached out, ending the peepshow by tugging the curtains together. Closing his eyes, he let the paroxysms brought on by the joint stimulation of Penny and his feverishly animated hand run their course, then zippered up and lit another cigarette. She was now totally under his control. Had she defied him, then he would have had to kill her. But she had not disappointed him. It was time to move on to the next stage. He would not write to her again. He wanted to hear her voice. And she would want to talk to him. He would steal a mobile and call her the following evening. Maybe they could meet soon and develop a temporary, meaningful relationship. Was he capable of that? He didn’t know.

  Penny saw the faint red glow of a cigarette end brighten the darkness. Every muscle in her body locked. What if he had seen her? She could not have moved to save her life. She was as transfixed as a rabbit in the path of an oncoming car’s headlights.

  He walked towards her, emerging from the gloom with his head cast down, to toss the cigarette end away and put his hands in the pockets of a dark fleece. He drew level with the car that she cringed behind, and just walked on by it along the alley towards the street.

  Relief surged through her. For a small eternity she had felt totally vulnerable, fully expecting him to stop and confront her. Could she go through with it? She had no choice. This might be the only chance she would ever have to end this sick game.

  She kept him in sight, hanging back as far as she dare. If he spotted her, then she would run to the nearest pub, restaurant, garage, or any well-lit place where there were other people. He was a skulking little pervert, who would not want to risk capture. Mercifully, he did not turn to look back, or break stride. He had no reason to envisage any form of retaliation.

  What a night! It had measured up to all expectation, which was a rare occurrence. He took the tube to Moorgate, changed to the Northern line and got off at East Finchley. Throughout the journey he had been too preoccupied with thoughts of Penny to notice that she was on board, watching him from the next carriage.

  It began to rain heavily as he walked through back streets to his flat. It was an inconvenience not to be able to use his car. But cars were of no use when following someone like Penny, who relied on public transport.

  By the time he descended the steps that led from the pavement down to his door he was soaked to the skin, but felt refreshed and energised. He determined to have a hot shower, look through his photo albums of past conquests, and then enjoy a Scotch and hit the sack. Maybe he would take a sleeping pill. He was still high, and didn’t think he would be able to sleep without one.

  Penny felt a sense of unmitigated accomplishment. She had been quick-witted and clever enough to formulate a plan and follow it through successfully. This was
a reprisal against her tormentor. She watched him vanish below street level. It was somehow fitting that he lived underground like a furtive, burrowing animal. But what now? She waited and thought it through, hardly aware of the rain matting her hair and dripping from her nose and chin. Knowledge is power. She had some leverage. She walked passed the house to see the number. With his address, she could find his name from the electoral role. His hold over her had been his anonymity. Unmasked, he would be rendered impotent. It was what action to take now that needed mulling over.

  On the way back home, Penny came up with a plan. The object was to off load him and get her life back. That he would in all probability continue to terrorise other women was not her problem. She was no martyr. She would write to him, inform him that she knew his identity, and let him know that if he bothered her again, then she would have no choice but to go to the police with his name and address, and all the letters that he had sent to her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ONE armed officer at the barrier checked Lisa’s ID and ticked her off a list on the clipboard he carried. Another asked her to pull the boot release, and looked inside, before he and his colleague returned to the small gate house, for one of them to punch the button that raised the yellow and black-striped steel bar. Even gaining access to the visitors’ car park was almost a trial by fire. In this age of global terrorism, most of the slack had been taken up. Elevated levels of security were now the norm. The world was becoming ever smaller and increasingly more volatile. The oh-one attack on the World Trade Center and the suicide bombings in London four years later were just two of many more high-profile atrocities in several other countries, and the ongoing threat of escalation affected everyone’s lives to a greater or lesser extent.

  As Lisa exited the car, a plainclothes detective – who she had met before – angled across the car park and raised a hand in greeting.

  “DS Mike Hewson,” he said. “The boss, uh, DI Ryder asked me to escort you up to his office.”