Deadly Obsession

by Michael Kerr

  “You think that’s where he’s taken her?” Ken asked through the mouthful of turkey and sprouts he was chewing.

  “I don’t know, Ken. If he feels safe, he might even stash her and report for duty, to act suitably shocked when he’s told about Mike. I’ll give him a call on his mobile. See if he’s still sure enough of his cover to walk into a trap. I’ll get back to you. And Ken, give the OIC of the team the green light to take whatever action he thinks fit. No good trying to negotiate with McBride. He’s one of us. He knows how it works.”

  “I’m on it,” Ken said.

  Jack was good with numbers. He didn’t have Lisa’s eidetic memory, but could see things like phone numbers once and they stuck, if he wanted or needed them to. He ended the call with Ken and tapped in Eddie’s number. Nothing. The killer cop had most likely removed the SIM card and ditched it. All Jack could do was arrange for the location of the mobile to be relayed to him if Eddie had been remiss and just switched it off.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  DAWN heard the policeman being murdered. Each sound he made caused fresh tears to run down her cheeks. How many deaths would she be in part responsible for?

  The metal door screeched up and down again. There was silence, followed by an almost inaudible moaning. Her captor had left. She stretched her jaws, felt the adhesive tape losing its grip on her top lip, and kept working her mouth, opening and closing it until it was free of the impediment.

  “Hello. Can you hear me?” she said, not knowing if the man behind her on the floor was alive or dead.

  “Yeah.” A barely audible and pain-filled reply.

  “I’m Dawn Turner. He plans on taking me to some cottage near Padstow in Cornwall.”

  “Sorry, Dawn. I sh...should have been able to save you from him. I fucked up.”

  “Are you badly hurt?” she said.

  “I...I’m...”

  There was no more. She thought that he had died. She heard footsteps. Closed her mouth behind the loose tape, not wanting to be punished for what he would construe as a transgression. And then that smell again, as she choked on the stinging, mind-numbing fumes.

  It was dark when she came round, but the gloom was not due to being in a windowless building. There was engine noise and music. She was in the rear of a vehicle that was cruising at a steady speed. She felt too hot, and nauseous. Her thoughts were jumbled. The anaesthetic still had a hold, reluctant to loosen its grip. She had the sensation of her brain being a labyrinth of grey, rock tunnels, with banks of fog sluggishly drifting through them, disrupting the process of reasoning. With time, her head cleared. She remembered the room, the voice of a man who she knew was now almost certainly dead. She was being transported, probably across country to the cottage he had mentioned. There was no end to the nightmare. She was lying on her side, totally covered by a blanket or something. It felt rough, was itchy, and smelled of damp wool. She couldn’t move her arms or legs, but the tape over her mouth was still loose, and she worked it down as before and took deep breaths. Didn’t he have the sense to know that being gagged, if she was sick, then she would choke to death on her own vomit?

  The music was a tape or CD. Cher. Probably her greatest hits album. The Shoop Shoop Song had just finished, and Cher was now starting in on If I Could Turn Back Time. If only she could turn it back and somehow avoid becoming this screwball’s fantasy lover.

  “You awake back there, little angel?”

  She froze as the music stopped abruptly and her captor’s voice pierced her thoughts. Seconds passed, and then she felt a hand touch the blanket that covered her face. Fingers reached under it to find the edge of the tape and pull it down to her chin.

  “I know you’re awake, Dawn, so don’t play possum. Are you enjoying the trip?”

  She wanted to say, ‘Go fuck yourself’, but was not brave enough to. Instead she said, “I feel sick.”

  “Hold it down. I don’t want to smell puke all the way to Cornwall. I’ll stop soon and you can get some fresh air and have a drink of water. Okay?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “You’ll do more than try, Dawn. Think of all aspects of life as reward and punishment from hereon in; carrot and stick. You please me, and I treat you like a princess. Step out of line and I come down on you like a ton of bricks. Understand?”

  “Yes.” Arsehole!

  “That’s, yes, I understand, Eddie. Say it.”

  “Yes, I understand, Eddie.”

  “Good girl. I think this might just work out. But you’re going to need to convince me that I can trust you. Bear in mind that you are on probation. Fail to conform to all the rules and you get to be dead. Your life really is in your own hands. I won’t tolerate being fucked about.”

  He left her face clear. Concentrated on driving. He liked the Ford Explorer. Being high up with plenty of space made driving a pleasure.

  After leaving Out of Sight Services, Eddie had driven west, out through Hammersmith towards the M4, stopping to steal the 4x4 from a leafy street in Chiswick, and then again to trade plates with an Audi parked on the deserted forecourt of a garage that was closed. He had no worries. If anyone had appeared and seen him breaking into the vehicle, transferring Dawn, or then changing the plates, he would have just shot them. Nothing or no one was going to stop him making good his escape. Once out in the sticks he would leave the motorway and change vehicles and plates again. For now he was ahead of the game, as usual. He knew procedure. It was slow. Ponytail would no doubt eventually get off his arse and look for Mike. He should have taken the time to stop, kill the guy and lock the place up. That had been an oversight. No matter. The police would find Mike and the old man, and Supercop Ryder would put it all together, once it was established that they couldn’t locate good old Eddie McBride. He’d left his albums and diary for the shock value that they would generate. His detailed description of brutal murder would make for a hell of a book, and who knows, even a blockbuster movie. He had seen Seven starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, about a serial killer chillingly portrayed by Kevin Spacey. The woman’s head in a FedEx box at the end was a real attention-getter. Now that was what he called entertainment. Ryder would be totally pissed off when the pieces fell into place and he faced the fact that he had been working alongside the Mimic from day one. Ha! He now even knew where Danny Ryder was, thanks to Mike being so forthcoming under duress. The boy’s head being sent special delivery to his father would really hit the spot. But first things first. Dawn was the priority. Once she was at the cottage and as snug as a bug in a rug, he would consider his options.

  He turned the volume on the CD player back up. Cher was telling him that ‘We all sleep alone’. Not any more he wouldn’t. His days of sleeping in a single bed in a shitty basement flat were history. He had his dream lover to snuggle up to from now on.

  Heavy rain began to lance down almost horizontally. He clicked the wipers on to high speed and they traversed the windscreen like demented metronomes, and still barely coped with the deluge. He slowed to fifty, drove for another hour, then pulled off into a service area not far from Hungerford: a town renowned and remembered for the day that a local man had gone berserk and started shooting people. Just a nutter who had lost the plot and had himself a little kill fest before turning the gun on himself. Strange how some creeps with a death wish needed to take a few strangers with them.

  Parking in a spot well away from the few other vehicles that were bunched as close to the entrance doors as it was possible to get, he turned off the lights and switched off the engine. Drawing his handgun, he climbed into the spacious rear of the vehicle to sit next to Dawn.

  “See the gun, angel?” he said, pulling the blanket back and holding it in front of her face, then stroking her cheek lightly with the barrel. “I’m going to remove the cuffs and the tape, and then we’ll go inside for something to eat and drink. How does that sound?”

  “Good,” Dawn said.

  He used a knife to cut the tape binding her ankles, and unlocked his
police issue handcuffs from her wrists and pocketed them.

  Sitting up slowly, Dawn rubbed her bruised wrists. Saw that his finger was tight on the trigger of the pistol. She had watched him shoot people with it. Knew his capabilities, and was well aware that since her attack on him and subsequent failed attempt to escape, he would be prepared for any sudden move.

  “I want you to act as if we’re husband and wife,” he said. “Nice and relaxed. If you blow it and try anything dumb, then it won’t just be you who I kill.” He waggled the gun. “This is a Glock. It holds seventeen bullets in the mag. You will be the cause of sixteen deaths besides your own if you give me any trouble. Would you want to be the cause of innocent men, women, children and babies being massacred?”

  She shook her head.

  “Say it.”

  “I won’t do anything that would put anyone at risk.”

  “It’ll be your call. You know that I’ll do it. Bear in mind that there’s always an easy way and a hard way.”

  He told her to get out of the 4x4. She obeyed. Her legs were weak, and her right thigh cramped up. She massaged the muscle. He waited, then followed her across to the brightly lit entrance. They walked past a shop that sold everything travellers’ might need. Found the main cafeteria and went over to the stacks of brown plastic trays, to take one each and move along the counter. Eddie ordered a mixed grill from a dough-faced girl with piggy eyes, a double chin and a stud through the side of her pug nose. Dawn just picked up a sandwich without even looking to see what the filling was. She had no intention of eating it. Just the smell of the food was making her feel ill. They both got coffee, and at the register Eddie paid for the overpriced food and drink with cash.

  “Over there,” he said, nodding towards a table in the corner, near an expanse of rain-drenched plate glass.

  Dawn sipped at her coffee without adding milk or sugar. She knew that the gun was in a side pocket of the car coat he had found in the 4x4 and was now wearing. But it might as well have been pressed to her forehead. She looked about her. There was a young couple, with a baby in a pushchair; a tired looking man wearing a crumpled suit and reading a newspaper, and a middle-aged couple who were talking quietly, holding hands across a table. She had the feeling that they were not married. Something about the look in their eyes. Were both of them playing away from home? Or maybe this was a new romance between two people who had for one reason or another ended up alone and were starting to live again. She wanted to run, to get away from him, but he was without any compassion. She had the almost irresistible urge to throw the hot coffee in his face, giving her the precious seconds needed to make it out of the cafeteria. She could be lost to him in the rain and darkness, to find a place to hide and be safe. But she couldn’t, because the sound of shots would ring in her ears as he gunned down everyone about him and turned the service area into an abattoir. She would not be able to live with that on her conscience, and knew that he knew it. He was relaxed, enjoying his food. His threats were as binding as the steel handcuffs and duct tape had been.

  “Why?” she said to him.

  He paused and took a noisy sip of his coffee before answering. “Why is not something I dwell on,” he said. “Why does anybody do anything? Everyone marches to a different drumbeat, Dawn. As we speak people are making love, war, sleeping, eating, and doing everything imaginable. I don’t know what motivates anyone to do what they do. Why do you pursue a career in acting? Isn’t it totally absurd to pretend to be a fictitious character? What point can you find in make-believe? Surely that’s what kids do, and grow out of.”

  “It doesn’t harm anyone.”

  “That makes it no more or less valid. The world is full of harm. I’m just a small contributor to the misfortunes that take place every minute of every day.”

  “But―”

  “Shut the fuck up. I don’t have to justify myself to you, or to anyone. We all make choices and follow our needs and dreams. I choose to do what I do, and don’t let right, wrong, or any other meaningless principles get in the way. I have needs. If you’ve got an itch, you scratch it. If you’re hungry, you eat. We all see the world differently. What I do is no big deal.”

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” Dawn said.

  He grinned. “You think I’m stupid? You want to write a message on a mirror with soap. Or if there’s anyone else inside, tell them to call the police.”

  “No, really. I―”

  “Whatever you need to do, you can do it in the bushes at the edge of the car park when we’ve finished our meal.”

  She stopped talking, finished her coffee and squinted through the window, trying to look past the reflections. A police car slid past, its tyres throwing up spray. Maybe they knew what he was driving. They might come inside. And do what? He would shoot them down without a second’s hesitation.

  “Come on,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he got up. “Let’s get back on the road. We’ve got a lot of miles to cover.”

  Back in the vehicle, after she’d tried to pee among rhododendrons that bordered the property, but couldn’t, due to his keeping her in sight, he told her to reach over with her right hand and grasp the padded handhold of the door. She obeyed, and he cuffed her to it. Things were looking up. At least she had been upgraded from being kept in the rear under a blanket and unable to move.

  He drove for another forty minutes without saying a word, and then came off the motorway at junction 16 and struck west, then south on the A3102. After only a mile or so he left it and took a side road that led to a small out-of-the-way village. On the outskirts he selected an open gateway and pulled in, up a winding drive to a secluded, detached residence that he pegged as being pre-war, and probably owned by an elderly couple. Funny how more often than not the location and type of property was a strong pointer to the approximate age and status of the people who lived in it. It was a regal house, set in well tended and mature grounds.

  Leaving Dawn in the 4x4, he put his finger to his lips, clearly intimating that she was to preserve the silence.

  The rain had stopped, and the country air smelled clean and fresh, as if the downpour had purified it. He went up to the door and pressed the porcelain bell push with his thumb. The resulting sombre chime strengthened his conviction that the house owners would be old farts, easy to handle. All he wanted from them was their car, any money they might have, and their lives.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  THEY needed to keep a lid on it. Eddie might still think that he was above suspicion and just walk in of his own volition. Jack didn’t believe that it would happen, but the remote chance of the smug bastard turning up in his role as detective meant that he had to brief the team, tell them the full story, and impress on them that just one knowing look or wrong move would give Eddie reason to panic. He needed to feel safe amongst them and not be given the chance to draw his gun and turn the squad room into a war zone. Lisa was positive that he would not allow himself to be taken without a fight. And Eddie was a trained and highly competent marksman with a handgun.

  Ken came into Jack’s office. He poured himself coffee. Had to keep his hands busy, and didn’t want to sit down. His knee was crippling him, even though he’d taken a double dose of pain killers.

  “He isn’t at his place,” Ken said to Jack and Lisa. “Two techies went into the flat above his, dressed as workmen. They used a listening device and were positive no one was in. The stuff they use can pick up the sound of a cockroach creeping about. The response unit stormed the place.”

  “Why?” Jack said.

  “In case Dawn was inside. He could have topped her, or drugged her. We have to be proactive. He’s over the edge, killing indiscriminately. We can’t afford to sit on our arses and hope he leads us to him. We need to find him, and quick.”

  “We will,” Jack said. “He’s feeling as free as a bird. He doesn’t know that Mike lived long enough to talk, or ID him by writing his name on the floor of that lockup. He’ll probably be on his wa
y to Cornwall, and Dawn will be with him.”

  Ken wasn’t convinced: “What if he knew that Mike was still alive? He could have fed him with what he wanted us to think. He could be anywhere.”

  Jack thought about it and said, “No, Ken. By all rights Mike should have been dead before anyone got to him. He somehow held on. I choose to believe that McBride has a cottage somewhere near Padstow, and is heading for it now. He’s cutting his losses and doing a vanishing act.”

  “What are your thoughts on it?” Ken said, addressing the question to Lisa.

  “That Jack’s right. And you’re not looking for Eddie McBride now. If he has a property in Cornwall, then it will be owned or rented under another name. As a police officer he will have covered all eventualities and created another identity that will hold up to all but the most rigorous investigation. In this age of computers he will have manufactured an alias with a solid background. He will have effectively dropped off the planet.”

  “Someone knows him and what he looks like,” Ken said. “We can plaster his face all over the newspapers and TV.”

  “No,” Jack said. “He’d just kill Dawn and take off again. If Lisa is right, then he’ll no doubt have a passport in another name. He could go anywhere in the world.”

  Ken’s shoulders slumped. He eased himself into a chair, stretched his complaining leg out straight and leaned forward to massage his knee and said, “How do you want to play it, Jack?”

  “Taking it that we won’t find a trail at his flat, I intend to go after him. I’ll find him in Cornwall and do whatever it takes to get Dawn back and finish it.”

  “And just how the hell do you expect to do that?”

  “Find the cottage near Padstow. It will be remote, away from other houses. And the electoral role will narrow it down to where any single men live.”

  “Not if he’s only moved in recently.”

  “I’ll still be able to eliminate most households, where families or couples live. I’ll find him, Ken, believe me.”