Desire

by Louise Bagshawe

  His readers already knew that part. ‘Can I photograph it?’

  Prem shook his head. ‘In evidence already. Body in morgue,’ he added, before Sam could ask for that. He hadn’t really expected anything else.

  ‘I understand, that’s all sensitive stuff. The crime scene’s been photographed, dusted for fingerprints?’

  ‘Of course,’ Prem said, with a flash of annoyance. ‘Just like America. CSI.’

  Sam doubted that highly. But they probably had dusted for prints. Maybe. And photographed it.

  ‘Then it’s not so important to the investigation. Hey, Lieutenant Songakul, you think I could at least see the crime scene?’ He emphasised at least, making it seem like this was nothing, that Prem had driven a hard bargain. ‘Your guys have already been through it.’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s not allowed.’

  ‘My paper was the honoured guest of Mr Steen at his wedding,’ Sam said piously. ‘He chose us over all other outlets. You really would be fulfilling his wishes by allowing us to take those pictures. Of course we would pay for your time and trouble.’

  Songakul shrugged.

  ‘I would only need five minutes. You can time it.’ Sam gestured to the policeman’s watch. ‘You’d be protected as a source, and I’ll give you five hundred dollars in cash.’

  A broad smile. ‘One thousand.’

  ‘That’s too much.’

  ‘OK then. Maybe CNN pay one thousand.’

  Sam exhaled and shook his head. ‘Goddamn it, Prem. OK, you win.’

  It was so important to let these guys think they’d beaten you. His patsy smiled triumphantly, and beckoned for Sam to follow him inside. He stuck close to the cop, his gaze travelling round the sumptuous fittings of the hotel, forlorn now, all the guests still being questioned in batches in the dining hall. News choppers were buzzing overhead, the other journalists in the rat pack were massing at the borders of the estate. But only Sam Murray was on the inside.

  That was the benefit of being first. His story would hit the newsstands tomorrow. By the time it was leaping off the shelves, the rest of them would have muscled their way in here, threats or bribery, whatever it took. By then Sam would be long gone. The story wasn’t here, after all. She had already moved somewhere else. After he got these snaps done, he would figure out where.

  ‘Here,’ Songakul said, pushing him into the room. ‘Be quick.’

  Sam didn’t need telling twice. His camera was already in his hand, and he fired off shot after shot, the bed, the bloodstains on the curtains, the draperies, the antique rug. He went into the bathroom and photographed that; there were flecks of vomit on the side of the bowl. Who had been sick? The little murderess?

  Turning on his heel, ignoring the hisses that Songakul was sending his way, calling him to come out, Sam methodically started to photograph the non-sexy stuff: the unbroken windows, the sealed doorways, her clothes still hanging in the open closet. You didn’t try to investigate at a time like this, you gathered evidence and went through it later. Something was already prickling in his mind about this, something he didn’t understand. But he would figure it out later.

  ‘You has to go now,’ Songakul insisted. Sam switched his camera to movie mode and shot a little forty-second panorama of the entire room, slowly sweeping over the bed, moving into the bathroom, then the closets, and back again. He clicked the camera off and went over to his contact, who exhaled, glancing warily behind him.

  ‘My money,’ Songakul demanded. Sam produced his wallet and counted out ten hundreds. He could tell the guy was surprised, as they often were, when he actually paid up. Lots of journos didn’t bother, once they’d got what they wanted. But Sam Murray was good for a promise. People were short-sighted. You got that good reputation for paying up, more sources gave you info in the first place. He might need to come back to Lieutenant Prem Songakul.

  ‘Hey, thanks,’ the Thai said.

  Sam handed him a card. His mobile number was scrawled on the back. ‘You get anything good, you ring me. There might be more where that came from.’

  Prem nodded. ‘OK, mister. But you leave now.’

  ‘I’m going. I’ll find my own way out,’ Sam said.

  He let himself out of the side door. That was where she would have run, surely, because it led to the stairs, and you wouldn’t risk an elevator ride, nowhere to go. He walked Lisa’s route slowly, staring at everything, trying to drink it in, snapping a few shots of the interior of the hotel, Steen’s fantasy wedding setting, just for luck.

  So the stairwell came out on the ground floor, near the gym. He passed by the locker room - empty, of course; nobody had been allowed to work out since they found the body, the same way nobody had been allowed to . . .

  . . . get their passports.

  A wash of adrenaline prickled through his skin. The passport safe was here, in the gym locker room. He’d asked security where his was going to be, when they took it. Not that anybody had seriously worried. If you were a guest of Josh Steen at this exclusive resort, nobody was going to steal your passport. Sam had only asked because back then, he was hoping to get out of this assignment, to file some shitty copy on yet another gala wedding and then get the hell home and play some poker.

  He was used to cutting and running. He needed his passport for that.

  He moved inside the locker room and to the anonymous metal chest they kept the passports in. It had been locked, and only Mr Steen had the key, Bhumibol had told him. Fine, but it wasn’t locked now. The key was in the lock. He tried it - it was open.

  She had taken the key from the bedroom.

  Sam photographed the safe, his heart accelerating, taking a shot of the key in the lock. The Keystone Cops around the building had not even checked the basics. When the FBI got here, they’d put that right.

  He wanted to take the key, but dared not. It would be interfering in a criminal investigation. He could report it to the police and be a hero, but at what cost?

  Sam ran the facts through his mind, processing them like a computer. Lisa had run and she had run with her own passport. But she wasn’t as stupid as they thought; she’d come to this locker, taken somebody else’s passport, and run with that too. Once they figured out whose, they would know how to find her.

  He pulled the edge of his cuffs down, over his fingers, and knocked open the door of the safe, spreading out the passports with his elbow. They were neatly stacked, face up, so you could read the names. He photographed them closely, then carefully put them back and knocked the door shut. They’d be looking for Lisa Costello, but he didn’t intend to leave any of his own prints. If he got as close to her as he planned to, things were going to get awfully muddy.

  His dealings with the law had not been that great. Cops despised guys like him. If they had anything, anything at all, that they could stick him with, they’d do it. Obstruction of justice. Withholding evidence. Interfering in a police investigation. There was no point tempting fate.

  He heard footsteps in the corridor outside. Quick - what was the best way out? There was a door in one wall of the locker room. It led to the lawn outside. And it was ajar.

  If he was right, Lisa Costello would have walked out of that door.

  Sam slipped through it. He glanced down at the grass, to see if he could make out footprints. But there were none, at least not to an untrained eye. The blades had sprung back from the time she had passed across them. It was late afternoon right now. When had she left?

  He started to jog away from the building, thinking hard, putting himself inside her head. When you did his job, you were half a shrink. You had to think like the people you were investigating. You had to anticipate where they’d go, who they’d sleep with, the drugs they needed, their favourite strip club. It had been a long time, for ever really, since he’d investigated anything worse than fraud or possession. How did killers think . . .

  Wrong question. How did a runner think? How did a frightened girl who wanted to get away think? Somebody with
brains - his brief conversation had already convinced him of that. She was no dumb blonde.

  Sam had a handful of facts. He brought them to the front of his mind, going through them like a poker player reading his hand. Lisa had gone to bed drunk, after a big fight. He, Sam, had gone to bed convinced he’d be writing a juicy story about a twenty-four-hour divorce, so yeah, the fight had been pretty major. She had killed Josh. That was one surprise, based on her character so far; Josh Steen was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to Lisa Costello. Sam had already done the tedious legwork on her past: not much of a family, bright at school but rebellious, didn’t want to go to college, had planned to start a small business after her mother died. That hadn’t worked and then she’d done the one thing that changed her life. She’d been desperate for a new start, and she’d come to America.

  There were no stories of drug use or hookerdom or anything juicy the readers would have enjoyed, and plenty of tabloids had looked. This would be the first violent attack on her record.

  So maybe it had been self-defence?

  Except no cries for help, and no marks on the victim, his Thai informants had told him.

  Something didn’t fit, but there was no time to analyse it yet. On the road, on the hunt, there was always plenty of time. Just the facts right now. So she’d gone whacky from the fight, killed him. Presumably she must have passed out, because she’d called reception in the morning and put on a cheerful voice to ask them not to come to the room.

  That had bought her crucial hours.

  It required smarts, a cool head under extreme pressure. She must have passed out, because otherwise she would have run right after she killed him instead of waiting until the morning and calling downstairs.

  He nodded to himself, slotting the pieces around like a jigsaw puzzle. Events were starting to play in his head, like a movie.

  As he jogged, he saw where he was headed: to the edge of the estate. Lots of cars out there now, local reporters, tourists, sightseers, news media. When she got here this morning there would have been none of it, just a cab rank.

  He slowed and turned, away from the gates. He would walk out a different way, around a jogging path, and emerge some little distance up the road, then walk back to the gates from behind, like the rest of the crowd. If he just emerged from the estate there would be a forest of cameras in his face, microphones under his nose. It was important not to become the story yourself.

  Besides which, he’d thought he recognised the silhouette of Neil Gatins from the National Enquirer. Gatins knew Sam pretty well and was eaten up with jealousy over his stories. He might tail Sam to glom on to the inside track.

  Nobody was going to ruin this. It was the million-dollar dream.

  There were plenty of cabs still, ferrying the journalists and gawkers in and out of town. Sam moved along the jog path till he was a respectable distance from the throng. There were several cars lined up. He went up to the head of the queue; nobody looked twice at him.

  ‘Where going?’ the guy said, as Sam slid into the back seat.

  Somebody had asked Lisa Costello the same question. She’d taken a passport and she wouldn’t have thought too much. In Thailand they executed people. She would have been desperate to get off the peninsula.

  ‘The airport,’ Sam said.

  The client waited at home and started to sweat.

  It had been a mistake, a goddamn mistake, all of it. Not that Josh didn’t deserve it, the dirty bastard. And not that anybody gave a damn about some gold-digging Limey waitress who cut their friends dead at parties. She could go to hell. The money was gonna be theirs, not hers - the revenge was going to be theirs too. This hit was for both of them.

  They’d both worked for this money all their lives, in different ways. And big, bad Josh Steen had skimmed it off the top. Getting rich from other people’s work. The family’s work. That was theft. So fuck him. Fuck him with a golden dagger. The client sniggered.

  Yeah, but none of that changed this clusterfuck Felix was in now, right? The freaking English whore had run away and the cops hadn’t got her yet. And the TV - they were all over it like a rash. The client was prepared for that, but not to this extent. That goddamned hitman had been so sure of himself . . .

  The cops were blaming Lisa, but that wasn’t enough. The worst thing was that the case was still in the news, always in the news, every fucking minute, in the car on the way to the office, in the house, on the cell phone news updates. The client didn’t believe in God, or ghosts, but damn, it was like fucking Josh Steen was fucking haunting them.

  Their house was a gorgeous three-acre mansion in La Canada Flintridge, one of LA’s most expensive neighbourhoods, and not obvious and brash like Beverly Hills or Bel Air. They had central air, central vac, three maids, a cook, and a pool boy - and the studio provided a chauffeur. Their kids were at the exclusive private schools, there were the country club memberships, designer wardrobes. But the family was deep in debt. The money was big, but not big enough to support their tastes. Josh’s will was locked in probate. The girl was running around. The story was all over the news. The client couldn’t sleep right. This fucking thing was causing a rash.

  The girl should be dead, the case closed. Then maybe there would be some sleep. Once the fucking story was off the news.

  The client fretted. Maybe if somebody was hired to kill Lisa and Felix. But no, that was gonna be too complicated. If one more person knew who was behind Josh’s death, that was one more to blackmail you. Plus, if the next killer failed, Felix would come after them. And Felix didn’t miss.

  Better never to speak to Felix again, but there was no choice. The client went back inside the house, trembling a little, and picked up the phone.

  Sam made his decision. He’d call Kevin in the bungalow and tell him to pick up the computer and ship his stuff home. There was no time to go back. Those American media giants were fast; they’d be inside the complex within the hour, and Sam had to stay ahead of the pack. He had his passport, his credit card and his phone. Anything else he could buy.

  Kevin was awake.

  ‘Where the hell are you, dude? You know what’s going on?’

  ‘All sorted while you were asleep. Go get pictures,’ Sam said, and relayed his instructions. Kevin snorted, but he was used to being Sam’s dogsbody. He knew what kind of a story they were in.

  ‘OK. On my way,’ he said, when Sam was done.

  ‘Wait. Not yet. I want a couple of things emailed to my phone.’

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘Send my notes on Lisa Costello as an RTF file. And send me the complete guest list, it’s right there on the desktop. All the names.’

  ‘Done.’

  ‘And tell Rich I’m going to the airport and I want the open limit on my credit card maintained all month.’

  ‘You lucky bastard,’ Kevin said.

  You don’t know how lucky, Sam thought and hung up. He didn’t feel guilty, though. Kevin had an ex-wife, kids and a girlfriend back home, a nice little house in Pasadena with swings in the back yard and a Mercedes in the garage. His life had some purpose, some meaning. Sam’s did not.

  He was not going to miss his chance to change that.

  As the cab hurtled towards Phuket International, Kevin emailed through the data. Sam read the list, mentally separating out the women, trying to recall names. There were about twenty to thirty she could actually have used, women roughly her own age. And he guessed she would have wanted a British or Australian passport, to avoid questions about her accent. Now he had sliced a guest list of hundreds down to about fifteen names.

  A pen and a piece of paper would have been good, but there was nothing to write on. He would have to do this in his head, like mental arithmetic. Kate Wilson, Emily Berry, Penny Chisholm . . . all had dark hair; Lola Sanchez would look too Hispanic; how about Janet Parks, though? She was English and Lisa’s build. Her hair was a little dark, but she’d been drunk, and he knew Lisa had seen her drunk. Drunks woke up slowl
y and didn’t notice they’d been robbed. At least not until it was way too late. Janet’s thoughts wouldn’t have turned to her passport for several long, painful hours.

  Of course Lisa would have wanted to get out, but there were a couple of things she’d have been forced to think through. Like what she took with her, like ringing the hotel reception. And which passport to steal.

  He tapped on his screen, pulling up his photo album. There were the passports, fanned out in rows. Another couple of taps and he had blown up the pixel sizes, and now he could read the names.

  Janet Parks’s wasn’t there.

  He looked again. It was definitely missing.

  They were pulling up outside the airport now. It was sleek and rich-looking, delightfully anonymous and Western. She would have been relieved to get here. He climbed out and paid the driver, then walked inside the terminal, his phone already to his ear, calling a number he hadn’t had to use in years.

  ‘Craig Gordon,’ his contact said, sounding half asleep.

  ‘This is Sam Murray.’

  ‘What the hell do you want?’

  The weariness, the contempt in that voice stung him. Craig Gordon had been one of his closest friends in the academy. When he’d dropped out, at first they’d stayed in touch. Later, Craig grew sick of Sam’s degeneracy, the drinking, the whores. Sam was gambling away more in a week than Craig earned in a month. And Sam was tailing celebrities with a camera, while Craig was tracking drug dealers and terrorists and risking his life.

  But they used each other intermittently, all the same. Sam had good info on prostitution rings and drug buyers; and in return for calling him whenever he needed to, Craig sometimes gave him a car registration or a flight manifest, all strictly illegal, and very common.

  Sam had not made use of Craig for quite some time, all the same. He could no longer bear the sound of revulsion when he spoke to him. Because Craig thought Sam could have been a hell of a lot more. And his was one of the few opinions Sam still cared about.

  ‘Flight data,’ he said.

  ‘Forget it. You can’t have it.’