A Deadly Compulsion (26 page)

Jim heard Laura talking, and knowing that they were now safe, and that only the clean-up remained, he passed out, relinquishing his grasp on the willpower that had kept him going while there was a threat of danger.  He acquiesced, allowing his multiple injuries – including a mild concussion – to overpower him.

LEO
was
not
dead.  He was near to it, but still conscious, and had heard everything, but was unable to move as he had looked up into Jim Elliott’s face.  He could not even blink, and knew that he must have appeared to be beyond help, which in fact – although still hanging on to life by a very slender and fraying thread – he was.

With supreme effort Leo moved his head a fraction to the left and let gravity take over, to pull his cheek down to rest on the ground.  He saw Parfitt knelt next to something that he thought should have been hidden from sight, swathed in bandages and securely locked away in a sarcophagus in the bowels of a pyramid, or deeply entombed below the sandy earth in the Valley of the Kings.  The naked killer cradled the shrunken head of the leathery figure; a bizarre and chilling sight, as the man stroked the blonde wig – that sat askew on its skull – and stared into the gleaming artificial eyes, before bobbing his head to kiss pinched lips, that appeared to be stitched or wired together.

Leo shuddered inwardly as Parfitt raised his head, nodded, and began a one-sided conversation with the abomination.

“Yes, Mummy, I will,” Hugh said.  “They’ll both pay for what they’ve done to us. We’ll get away from here.  And in a few weeks time when it’s safe, we’ll visit Laura and kill her.  The Yank can live.  Losing her will be his punishment.”

Leo concentrated.  He now had reason to not just let go and drift into oblivion, but to live long enough to make a difference.  He withdrew into himself, cleared his mind of every thought except for a determined intent to move his right hand.  At first there was nothing.  He had no control over his body, which was without sensation, somehow separate from him, beyond his ability to communicate with and direct with instructions from his brain.  It was as though he were trying to employ psychic powers or telekinesis to move some inert, remote object.  He reached into hidden depths that he had never before plumbed, and willed his limp, unresponsive, perfidious limb to obey direction.  And with a hitherto unimaginable focus of thought, he broke through, felt a twinge, then a rush of warmth and feeling as blood was pumped back into his arm to prickle and tingle painfully, coursing down the length of it to the tips of his fingers.  He fisted the hand in triumph, before slowly easing it into the side pocket of his jacket and carefully gripping the old, gold-plated Calibre lighter that Sheila had given him as an anniversary present, what now seemed like a lifetime ago.  Withdrawing it, he wished that he could have one last fag, safe now in the knowledge that he would not survive this day to fall prey to lung cancer, heart disease, or any other warning made by EEC Council Directive on every pack of cigarettes.

Letting his hand rest on the tinder-dry covering of the barn floor, Leo summoned up the strength of both body and spirit to accomplish what he knew would be his final act.  Flicking the lighter’s wheel with his thumb, he felt the heat from the flame, and offered it to the bed of straw, conscious of the fact that he was in essence putting a torch to his own funeral pyre.  The initial crackle of igniting grain stalks became a greedy roar that was almost music to his ears.  And then a wall of flame erupted next to him, taking hold of his wet clothes; steam coalescing with smoke as the searing heat swept over him and raced to all corners of the barn.

Leo had read many accounts of supposed out of body experiences that some people reported after being resurrected by medical intervention.  And as the trial by fire became an almost exquisite sensation, he rose, drifted up to a far corner of the barn where the walls met the roof, and looked down at his own, charring body, that was twisting under the heat, fat dripping from it like tallow from a candle as it was consumed.  He felt no pain now, only a feeling of well-being, and an overwhelming awe and sense of peace that he could not have previously imagined attainable.  He saw the figure of the man who had released him from earthly bonds gather up the empty shell of what had once held the spirit of his mother, to retreat to the rear of the smoke and flame-filled inferno.  And then, as if putting what were childish things behind him, and no longer a part of what had been mortal mayhem, Leo was absorbed by a light far brighter than the conflagration below him.  He was imbued with the knowledge that he was about to embark on an enthralling journey of enlightenment, where Sheila would be his guide into a new phase of existence.

The smoke billowed out through a million cracks and gaps in the structure, finding every chink that offered it escape.  And in what seemed a fiery rage, the barn exploded outwards, the blast exacerbated by the petrol tank of the Fiat as the highly flammable liquid detonated.

Laura watched spellbound, then started the car and reversed back farther from the blaze.  With the engine idling, she waited, half expecting Hugh to emerge from the wall of smoke; a human torch, carrying his smouldering charge in his arms.  But he did not appear, and as the seconds passed, she knew that it was over.  Hugh had been cremated, burned alive, and was hopefully enduring an ordeal of the damned in the deepest abyss of hell for the acts that he had committed and the suffering he had caused others.

Putting the Sierra into gear and gunning the engine, Laura accelerated away; the car sliding sideways across the muddy ground as she over-steered.  Spinning the wheel into the skid, she increased speed and shot down the bumpy quagmire of the drive, out onto the road, towards the sound of approaching sirens.

Elation and sadness welled up as a potent cocktail to overwhelm Laura in almost equal parts of intoxicating, dizzying relief and sorrow.  She cried.  The knowledge that Hugh was dead, and that she and Jim had somehow survived, was an intense and exhilarating feeling.  But the cruel loss of the PI, and of a police detective who was probably one of her team, soured the tears that ran down her cheeks.

JIM
was floating on the edge of consciousness; dreams and reality fusing into a badly edited film.  For a while he was back a dozen years, on a weekend yachting trip off Martha’s Vineyard, lying below decks on a narrow bunk with the sea-swell rocking him gently back and forth.  For some reason Pamela was sitting next to him, a half-smile on her lips.  Not possible.  Pam was dead, he knew that.  So how could this be?  And as he returned the smile, her face slowly morphed, melting and reforming, until he was looking up at Laura; was aware that he was in an ambulance, and that the yacht’s bunk was in reality a gurney; the sensation of a heaving ocean being the vehicle’s suspension responding to the undulations of a country road.

He drifted again, to find himself in the bedroom of the farmhouse, struggling with an animated, eyeless corpse that straddled him, its claw-like hands around his throat, hooked fingernails piercing the skin as it tried to strangle him.  The apparition opened its toothless mouth, scattering rusted staples from puckered lips, to emit a demented, bowel-loosening wail.  The fetid stench of decayed breath in his face made him gag and turn his head away.

“Jim...Jim!  Can you hear me?” Laura said, squeezing his uninjured hand.

“He’s concussed, love,” the paramedic said after examining Jim’s head wound and checking the pupils of his eyes.  “He’ll be in and out of it for a while.”

“What’s this week’s word, huh?”  Jim suddenly asked, his voice slightly slurred as though he’d been drinking.

“Uh, what?”  Laura said.

“I said, what’s the word?  I thought you picked an obscure one out of the dictionary every Sunday, and used it as much as possible for a week.”

She smiled.  He was going to be okay.  There was nothing wrong with his memory.

“Misanthrope,” she replied.

He frowned.  “Is that like lycanthrope?  Some sort of werewolf?”

“I suppose there’s a vague similarity.  It’s a hater of mankind; one who avoids human society.”

“A fur-ball with attitude?”

“They’re not necessarily hairy.  They just have an attitude.”

“Are you saying I’m one?”

“No.  Although you aren’t short in the hair department.”

Jim smiled and passed out again, immediately dreaming of a figure that was a cross between Lon Chaney Jnr and the beast from the movie
An American Werewolf in London.
  The setting of his vagary was Arizona, and the creature was loping from cactus to cactus, eyes glowing embers, reflecting the light of a blood-red moon.

Jim
had
suffered a mild concussion, and his back was a mess from the shotgun blast that had strafed him, but would heal, once all the lead shot was removed.  It was his hand that was the main cause for concern.

A consultant strolled into Jim’s room the following morning; a gaunt-faced man who peered over gold half-frame spectacles, his hands deep in the pockets of his Versace trousers.  He looked dressed to play golf at some swank private country club, not deal with the sick or injured.  He proved to be droll, an antithesis of his outwardly morose persona.

“Do you play the piano, Mr Elliott?”  Dr Nigel McMillan asked in a refined lowland Scottish accent.

“Er…No.  Why?” Jim said.

“That’s good, because it’s going to be a wee while before your hand starts to pull its weight again.”

“What’s the damage, Doctor?”

“Severed and partially severed tendons.  Your index finger may never serve as an efficient nose-picker again.”

“I don’t pick my nose.”

“Another plus.  But seriously, I’ll be operating on your hand as soon as your shaken but not stirred too much brain has settled down.  With physio and the possibility of further surgery down the line, you should regain maybe eighty percent mobility in it.”

As the consultant left, Laura arrived toting a carrier bag.

“Not fruit and flowers?” Jim said, hauling himself up into a sitting position.

“No, Coke, the ‘real thing’, not the nose-candy variety.  I also brought you my MP3 player and headphones.  There’s a terrific selection of music on it; The Sound of Music, Des O’Connor’s Greatest Hits, and a Disney sing-a-long.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding.”

“I am.  There’s Springsteen, Chris Rea, Old Blue Eyes and quite a lot of country and western, which should make you feel at home.”

“Thanks, but I’ll be out of here in forty-eight hours.”

“Who says?”

“I do.  I don’t like hospitals, and I’m fine apart from the hand.”

Laura leant over and kissed him on the mouth, easing her tongue between his lips and teeth as she ran her fingers lightly through his chest hair.  He reached out to touch her breasts, but she pulled away, grinning, looking down between his legs at the now tented sheet.  “Is that a gun, or―?”

“No.  I’m just pleased to see you.  Now, either strip off and climb in, or take a seat. No more prick-teasing, or I’ll soil the linen, and the nurse will probably spank me.”

“In your wet dreams, Elliott,” Laura said, sitting back on the uncomfortable plastic chair, which she thought was a less than subtle ploy to discourage lengthy visits.

“Bring me up to speed, then,” Jim said.  “What happened after I passed out?”

Laura slipped off her jacket, thought about having a cigarette, and then remembered that she was in a no smoking area.

“The barn was gutted,” she said.  “I hung around until I was sure that Hugh couldn’t have survived, and then drove out to the road.  You were transferred to an ambulance, and I came to the hospital with you.  The forensic team are picking through the remains. Clem is in surgery this morning.  His foot is a mess, but thank God, he survived.”

“He should have waited for me to arrive.  But I think he was too anxious about you, Laura.”

“He’s a good copper.  A bit of a loner, but I like him.”

“I saw a newspaper earlier,” Jim said.  “You’re almost a celebrity over this case. You should reassess your career.  There’s got to be a book deal in the offing.  I can see it now;
The Tacker
by Laura Scott.  Then it’ll be a movie.  Although they’d probably relocate it to Los Angeles instead of York, and cast someone like Mark Wahlberg in the role of Hugh.  It would bear no resemblance to what you wrote, but it would pay big bucks.”

Laura shook her head vehemently.  “I don’t want to profit from all the misery that a fellow officer caused.  Christ knows what the final tally of victims will be.  I doubt that we’ll ever know.”

“Business as usual, then?”

Laura felt the mood change.  It was as if a sudden icy draught had entered the room to lower the temperature by a few degrees.  The cold shadow of her job was there between them, festering; a wedge driven deep between her and all that she wanted from life.  Unbeknown to Jim, she had made the decision to walk away from the sleaze, now sick of a life that was ruled by violence, drugs and the worst elements of human nature.

“I’m taking some leave, Jim.  I think I’d like to see Arizona, as soon as all the debriefing and paperwork are out of the way.  A guided tour might be best.  Any idea who I should book with?”

Jim’s disposition was instantly modified.  “Elliott’s Golden West Tours are incomparable,” he said.  “You get as much sex and scenery as you can take.  It’s a personally conducted, tailor-made romp through the Southwest.  You’ll see Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, Vegas; the whole nine yards.  But watch out for that guide, he’s a randy piece of work, given half a chance.”

“It sounds like just what I need.  Can I book now?”

Laura left the hospital walking on air, so excited at the prospect of starting over with Jim that she forgot to have a cigarette until she had reached the car park.  She was now ready to enter a new phase of life, to break free from the cocoon of her career and spread her wings.  In the final analysis, it was only people and relationships that were worth a damn.  Her job was just an endless war that could at best result in the winning of only small battles.  The overall picture was grim.  Crime in all its multifarious forms was a part of human nature, as natural as eating, making love, taking one breath after another.  It wasn’t something that could be cut out like a diseased appendix.  Good and evil came in many varieties, and she was no avenging angel put on earth to fight the Devil in all his guises.  Her close call with Hugh – which could have so easily resulted in her death – and the still gut-wrenching memory of the swiftness with which Kara had been taken from her, combined to give a fuller comprehension of the brevity of life.  Nothing that happened, however bad, would knock the world off its axis, bar it being struck by a large enough asteroid. Had she died at the farmhouse, then it would have been newsworthy for a fleeting moment, for strangers to read about as life marched on unaffected by her passing.  It was now time to look out for number one.  As far as she was concerned, she’d paid her dues in service to an uncaring society; had been there, collected the emotional scars and got the ripped and bloody T-shirt.  Egotistical would be her chosen watchword for the coming week.  She was ready for a large dose of systematic selfishness, and fuck anyone who didn’t like it.

It was ten o’clock the next morning when Laura got a call from pathology.

“Laura?  It’s Brian Morris.”

“Yes, Brian.”

“Are you okay?  I heard what happened.  It’s hard to believe that it was Hugh.”

“I’m fine, Brian.  If you walk away in one piece, you can’t complain.  And
I’m
still trying to come to terms with it being Hugh.  It seems you never really know anyone.  Only the side of themselves that they let you see.”

“I thought you should know that you still have a big problem,” Brian said, his voice lowered as though what he had to impart was a state secret of such magnitude that he was scared of being overheard telling it to the world at large.

“In what sense?”

“We found seventeen bodies in the barn.  Sixteen were in shallow graves, and one of them was Trish Pearson.  The others are too badly decomposed for a quick ID.  They’d been buried in quicklime.  Above ground, we only found one charred corpse.  I think dental records will confirm that it’s Leo Talbot.  There were
no
other remains.”

“But Hugh was trapped, locked in the barn for Christ’s sake!  He
must
have been there.”

“No, Laura.  He got out.  Believe me, he was not inside it.”

“Fuck!  Who else knows about this?”

“Officially, you’re the first.  When I hang up, I’ll have to make more calls and let the dogs of war loose, so to speak.”

“Thanks, Brian.  Was there anything else?”

“We found a glass eye in the barn.  I say glass, but it was actually a high density resin compound.  It had melted; looked like a fried egg with a blue yoke.  I still can’t figure Hugh as being so sick.  He always seemed the type who I would have been proud to have as a son-in-law.”

After Brian rang off, Laura lit a cigarette.  Dragged on it nervously.  Paced the office.  The news that Hugh was still alive and on the loose had come as a complete shock.  She could not fathom out how he could have escaped being burned up in the inferno.  He would now be the subject of a massive manhunt, but being a copper he would know exactly what procedures would be employed, and what measures to take to lie low, vanish and avoid capture.  She imagined that he was many miles away by now, almost certainly in London, or any large city that would provide an environment in which he could become anonymous among the masses.

In actual fact, Hugh was less than a thirty minute drive from where Laura was standing.  He was planning what he thought to be a fitting revenge on both her and Jim Elliott.  They had conspired to bring him down, and almost succeeded in their endeavours.  But he could not, would not be stopped, and was not one to forgive or forget.  As an enemy, he had no equal.  Everyone got to pay the piper, eventually.  And in their case it would be sooner rather than later.  He and his mother had survived a terrible and potentially fatal experience.  Now, his former life was irretrievable, but he had the strength to overcome adversity.  Laura and the Yank had killed Hugh Parfitt in name only, forcing him to adopt another identity.  He would move on, after first meeting the challenge and prevailing.  They would come to know that he was a living nightmare; one that they could not wake from to flee and escape.  The only feeling left for Laura now was a burning hatred.  The saying, ‘You’re either with me or against me’ came to mind.  Well the lovely Laura and Mr FBI were certainly not with him.  They were the opposition, and would soon know that they were on the losing team.