A Deadly Compulsion (30 page)

WALKING
from the kitchen and along the short hall to open the door, Laura had a smile on her face to greet one of the graveyard shift cops.  Maybe it would be Marty Drury, who was the youngest and by far the more affable of the two.  It wasn’t.  As she opened the door her smile froze a split-second before she was struck savagely on the shoulder.  The blow spun her round, and the flask flew from her hand to crash to the floor and spin away with a sound that might have been loose pebbles being shaken in a seaside bucket.

With his forearm around her neck, exerting pressure on her throat and cutting off her air supply, Hugh rammed the muzzle of the Glock up against Laura’s temple.

Jim kicked back the wooden, ladder-backed chair he’d been sitting on and rushed out into the hall, to stop abruptly at the sight of the man holding the gun to Laura’s head, and the almost plum colour of her face, caused by slow asphyxiation.

“Hi, Jimbo,” Hugh said, kicking the door closed behind him.  “I was in the neighbourhood, so I thought I’d just call by and repay you and the boss for all the trouble you went to over the last few days to fuck me up.”

Jim could hardly recognise Parfitt.  His hair was dark; he wore shades, and his nose was badly swollen.  “Hugh, listen―”

“No, Elliott,
you
listen.  Do exactly as I say, or I end it here and now.  Go into the lounge and lay face down on the floor, arms together behind your back.  You know the drill.”

Jim obeyed.  He walked woodenly into the middle of the room, knelt down and slowly lowered himself to stretch out on the carpet.  Within seconds he felt the bite of a plastic restraining strap as his wrists were pinioned together.  He then grunted in pain and surprise as Hugh brought the gun’s barrel down hard on his bandaged hand, which blossomed with blood as the stitches burst and the surgeon’s work was undone.

Hugh had been holding Laura face down next to Jim, his knee in her back.  He side-swiped her twice with the gun, hard enough to daze her, and then reached into a pocket for a reel of duct tape and proceeded to tape her hands behind her before, as almost an afterthought, he also used it to bind Jim’s ankles together.  Once satisfied that neither posed a threat, he hauled them to their feet, one at a time, and pushed them onto the settee.

Sitting on the chair opposite the two people he most hated in the world, Hugh placed the Glock he had purloined from the copper he had killed on the top of the coffee table.  He smiled broadly, enjoying the fact that he was in complete control of the situation.

“This is cosy,” Hugh said, removing the police radio and his knife, hypodermic, a phial of fluid, hammer, and two six-inch nails from his pockets, to set them down neatly before him on the tabletop.  “Just the three of us, and plenty of time for me to demonstrate my skills.  You’re going to experience suffering that you can’t properly imagine, Laura.”

He remained unmoving for a few minutes, savouring the moment, and then sighed, got up and went into the kitchen, returning with a bottle of French brandy and one balloon glass.  Settling down again, he opened the bottle and poured himself a large measure.  God, he felt up for it.  This was too good to rush.  He swirled the brandy around the glass and inhaled the bouquet before sipping the golden liquid; the mellow spirit startling his taste buds before being swallowed to hit his stomach with spreading warmth.  He was relaxed and totally at ease.  Only now mattered.  There was no past or future in his mind to dilute the moment.  He was eager to start in on what would be his most memorable act.  No enemy can be greater than one who has been a trusted friend.  Laura had turned on him; a Judas.  Her treachery would now be repaid in full.  He had given her respect, loyalty and a certain amount of devotion, and she had been ready to throw him to the wolves;
had
been the leader of the pack.

“Now, are you sitting comfortably?  No, of course not, but I’ll begin anyway,” Hugh said, grinning at his prisoners.  “I’ve given it a lot of thought, and have decided to skin you alive, Laura.  It isn’t original, I know.  It’s an art that has been practised throughout history, and no doubt more expertly than I will be able do it justice.  But I’m prepared to give it a go if you are.

“And you, loverboy,” he sneered at Jim. “You get to watch the whole show from a front row seat.  Worse, you get to live to remember that if you hadn’t been so fucking clever, this wouldn’t be happening.  You’ll probably crack up after this is over; maybe top yourself, because you’ve got no grit, Elliott.  You can only handle being on the winning team.  When things go wrong, you fold like a wimp.”

“Where’s that hideous prune you call Mummy, Hugh?” Jim said, his whole body tensed, ready to kick out if he could goad the other man into attacking him.  “Doesn’t mummy’s little boy want her sitting here to watch him being naughty?  Or has she finally fallen apart with all the exercise she’s had of late?”

Hugh’s left eye began to blink rapidly, and his mouth worked soundlessly, but he didn’t make a move from his chair, just glowered at Jim.

“Well, motherfucker?” Jim pushed, wanting a response; needing to unsettle Parfitt and modify the situation, desperate to change the course of events that loomed horrifyingly in front of him.  “Can you only go up against defenceless women?  Not got the bottle to deal with someone your own size, head on, huh?”

Hugh took deep breaths, and found composure. “It isn’t going to work, Elliott.  Your FBI mind games aren’t going to get you or Laura out of this,” he said, lifting the syringe, drawing a small amount of morphine into it – which he had taken from the doctor’s house – and quickly leaning forward, to plunge the needle into Laura’s thigh.

Jim lurched forward off the settee, to do no more than fall across the coffee table and roll on to the floor beyond it, helpless.

Hugh jumped up and drove his foot into Jim’s ribs, twice, then kicked him a third time in the side of the head, sending him sprawling on his back, to be enveloped by a dark veil that negated all interest in the proceedings.

Laura felt drunk, and not from the wine.  She tried to speak, but her tongue felt too big for her mouth, and the words that she tried to form just sounded like a toddler’s gibberish.

Hugh’s cheeks dimpled in a smirk.  He began to cut her clothes from her, and she could only watch, numb, her body unresponsive as the effects of the narcotic paralysed her.  He cut the tape from her wrists, and she tried to lash out to defend herself and fight for her life, but her arms hung limp and unresponsive at her sides.  She was powerless; completely at his mercy.

Hugh chose the wall opposite the spiral staircase, removing a framed photo of Laura and her late daughter from it, to hurl across the room, where it shattered against the kitchen door.  He then examined the feature of the upright oak posts that protruded from the plaster and ran from floor to ceiling, four feet apart.  Lifting Laura, he carried her to the wall, and pinning her between the rough plaster and his own body, facing him, he raised her right arm up above her head to the side as high as he could, with the back of her hand against the dark wood.

A white-hot stab of pain blazed through Laura’s hand and raced along her arm to her shoulder.  And as she cried out in agony, her other hand came alive with the same crippling forks of excruciating fire.

Hugh moved back away from her, and Laura’s body sagged, causing more pain as her spiked hands took her full weight.  She somehow managed to lift her head and look up to her left, to see the rivulet of blood running from her palm, and to stare in disbelief at the two inches of gleaming nail that protruded from her flesh.  The bastard had crucified her to the wall beams.  A vision of Christ on the cross materialised in her mind.  Her spirit gave way, snapping under the burden of fear.  She didn’t want to die, but if this was her time to, then she wanted it to be over with quickly, but knew that Hugh had other plans; knew that the real suffering had not yet begun.

Jim came to his senses in a sitting position, his back up against the cold metal staircase.  He tried to move, but his neck was taped to one of the cast-iron uprights.  Before him, Laura was hanging, naked, with blood dripping down her arms from where nails affixed her hands to the vertical wall beams.

“I got things set up while you were having forty winks, Jimbo,” Hugh said conversationally, appearing in front of Laura, his recharged glass of brandy in his right hand, and a wicked looking knife with a thin, six-inch-long blade in his left.  “Now, what I intend to do is make a Y-cut, but not too deep, because this isn’t an autopsy.  I’ll just be peeling her like a tomato.  And every time she passes out, we’ll take five and wait for her to come round.  I don’t want her to miss a thing.  In fact I think I’ll work from her neck to her thighs, and try to flense her torso like a jacket.  Then I can slip it on and wear a part of her while she’s still alive.  I may have to give her another shot of morphine when I start in on the head.  Removing her face and scalp might just smart a little.  Can you imagine what will be left, writhing on the wall, Jim?  It’ll be like some butchered thing out of a horror movie, but
we’ll
both know who it is, won’t we?”

“You fucking sick bastard!” Jim cried out, tears filling his eyes to mist his vision as his stomach cramped with leaden fear, frustration, and anger at his helplessness to do anything but watch.

“There’s no need to be insulting, Jimbo,” Hugh said, a theatrical expression of hurt on his face.  “You’ve dealt with enough serial killers over the years to know that we’re driven, without the ability to show any empathy.  We feed off suffering, thrive on domination, and really get off on having control over others.  Christ, I’m only following a blueprint.  It’s a genetic thing.  Look at nature; hunters and prey.  What I do is as natural to me as fox hunting is to the well-heeled minority of dickheads that try to justify their actions as being necessary culling.  Blood sport always has its critics.  But I don’t attempt to justify anything.  I just need to do it.  I’m like a furnace that needs stoking.”

“You’ll get caught, Parfitt.  Sooner or later they’ll hunt you down and―”

“And what, Yank?  This isn’t the good old U S of A.  There’s no death penalty here, so even in the unlikely event that I did get caught, I’d be put in some shit-hole for the criminally insane.  Big deal.  But I don’t intend for that to happen.  I’m going to vanish when I’ve finished up here and start a new life.  And you’ll know that I’m out there somewhere, laughing at you. But enough banter.  Let’s get down to it, shall we?”

“You’ve lost the plot, Hugh,” Jim said.  “I thought that you were repeatedly killing your mother for what she must have done to you.  Why are you doing this?  It isn’t part of your demented, delusional crusade.”

“If it hadn’t been for you and Laura, I would still be at the farm with mother, and still be a copper.  You’ve both ruined everything.  You have to pay.”

Hugh turned to Laura, raised the gleaming blade of the knife to her eye, and then let the point trace a line over her cheek, to follow her jaw line down to her neck, and further, to linger at the side of her right breast, then caress the nipple to involuntary erection with the cold steel.  He smiled at the unbridled fear that manifested in her wide eyes and frantic expression.  It was time.  He was aroused, and began to moan in anticipation as he made the initial cut at her right shoulder and started in on the wet work.

VIC
Buchanan took deep breaths, fighting nausea, ignoring the pain in his head and clenching his teeth until his cheek muscles ached.  Reaching up in the darkness he could feel the deep gashes in his scalp and the wetness of blood in his matted hair, which also trickled down his forehead into his right eye.  He was surprised to have survived, though, having believed that Parfitt was going to kill him.

Easing round, knees bent, Vic put his feet together and started kicking against the back of the car’s rear seat.  It gave way on the fourth attempt, and he rested, pacing himself, hoping that he wouldn’t pass out before he could nail the bastard who’d attacked them and may have already killed the copper and her boyfriend.  He had no way of knowing how long he’d been out.  Maybe it was already over.

With supreme effort, Vic found the willpower to pull himself through from the boot into the rear of the car.  His gun was in the foot well, and he slipped it back into his shoulder holster as he leaned forward to look at the dashboard clock.  The green numerals were fuzzy, his blurred vision almost doubling them.  He concentrated, narrowed his eyes and fought to focus.  It was 11:38 PM.  He had been out cold for at least thirty minutes, maybe longer.  Reaching over to where Marty was slumped, he put his fingers to his partner’s neck, to feel only the stillness he had expected.

Opening the car door, Vic fell out onto the grass verge, his legs weak, trembling.  Lying there for a minute, he battled against an insistent voice in the back of his mind that urged him to just close his eyes and go to sleep for a little while.  It was with an iron will that he forced himself to stand up and stagger across the narrow road to the cottage.  And it was mainly anger that fuelled his determination; an unbridled resolve to deal with the lunatic who’d murdered Marty.  He lurched drunkenly as dizziness disoriented him, and slammed into the gate, folding over it, pitching forward onto gravel that bit into his cheek and temporarily revived him.  With what took monumental effort, he climbed to his feet again and wove his way to the door like a Saturday night drunk; his free hand pressed against one of the head wounds that bled profusely.  He could have been twelve again.  Back then, the boy he had been had woken with terrible stomach pains.  His mother and father were at work, and he was off school, it being half-term.  For weeks he’d suffered with a dull pain in his side, but had ignored it, said nothing, and hoped that it would go away.

With his pyjamas saturated in sweat, the young Vic had set off on the longest journey of his life.  The pain was so intense that he could not climb out of bed, but had to roll onto the floor and crawl.  Every movement was a colossal challenge.  He made it to the top of the stairs on his hands and knees, and then passed out.  When the escalating agony brought him round, he edged down the stairs one at a time with a continuous moan escaping his lips, and tears mingling with the perspiration on his chubby cheeks.

The journey along the hall and into the living room at the rear of the house took him almost twenty minutes.  And the effort to gain his feet next to the sideboard and snatch the phone from its cradle was an act that took strength of will he had not known he possessed.  After dialling 999 and telling the operator that he needed help, Vic had passed out again, to be found unconscious by the ambulance crew that forced entry to the house.  Within forty minutes of arriving at hospital, Vic was being prepped for emergency surgery.  His appendix was on the cusp of perforating, and had he not found the fortitude to reach the telephone, then he would have most likely not survived.

A minute passed.  For sixty long seconds Vic leaned heavily against the wall next to the door to rest and summon up enough strength to be able to function.  He waited until tattered sails of fog drifted across the face of his mind to leave it clearer.  Adrenaline swept through him as he readied himself and took deep breaths.  He drew his gun and curled his finger purposely around the trigger.  He reckoned he might have one slim chance.  If he could kick the door open, he would have to use the split second of surprise to find his target and shoot.  If the door held, blowing the lock out was his only other option, and would result in him losing any element of surprise.

The sudden scream from inside the cottage galvanised Vic into action.  Disregarding his injuries, he stepped back apace, and with all the force he could muster, kicked the door at a point an inch to the side of the brass handle, relieved as with a splintering crack the aged wood gave and shot back, ripped away from the lock.  Vic entered a hall, rolled forward and came up on to one knee at an open doorway, searching for the rogue copper, his gun now held two-handed, the barrel moving in coordination with his eyes.  In an instant he saw the man who had attacked him and Marty.  The killer was now turning to face him, holding a knife in his hand.  Vic also noticed the naked woman, standing against a wall with her arms raised, and the Yank sitting at the foot of a spiral staircase, apparently tied to it.

“Flinch and I’ll empty the mag in you,” Vic said, his Browning Hi-Power sighted on the man’s chest.  “Drop the knife and take three steps towards me, and then lay face down.”

Hugh was totally shocked by the sudden, dramatic entrance of the armed copper.  It was hard to believe that the blood-drenched figure was still breathing, let alone conscious.  Or that he could have escaped from the boot of the car and managed to break down the door.  That the man was swaying, almost out on his feet, and that blood was still flowing from the deep lacerations to his head, was encouraging.  Hugh knew he had a chance; play along and wait for the man to keel over.  It was only willpower that was keeping the stupid plod standing upright.

“I said, move,” Vic slurred.  “You need to know that if I even think I’m going to pass out, then you’re history.”

“Okay, okay, take it easy, don’t get your knickers in a twist,” Hugh said, dropping the knife and stepping forward, to slowly lower himself to his knees and adopt a prone position on the carpet.

Vic pushed himself up, using the wall at his back for support.  He walked towards the stairs with faltering steps, not taking his eyes off Hugh for a second and giving him a wide berth.  Picking up the knife, he went to Jim and sliced through the tape that held his neck against the stairs, and then cut through the plastic tie that bound his wrists.  It was all he had the strength left to do.  Vic had given his all, lost consciousness, and fell across Jim’s lap.

Taking his chance, Hugh crawled across the floor to the coffee table and grasped hold of the gun he had taken from the other copper.  He leapt to his feet, turned and fired twice.

One slug hit the staircase next to Jim’s head, to ricochet off it with a loud pinging sound and imbed in the wall scant inches from where Laura was hanging.  The other bullet thudded into the shoulder of the insensible police officer, causing his limp body to jerk.

Jim snatched the Browning from the inert copper’s hand and returned fire, loosing off three shots without having time to take proper aim.

Hugh felt a searing pain in his thigh.  He fired again wildly as he limped-stumbled-careered into the kitchen, to unlock the door and stagger away from the house, across the back garden and into the woods that loomed; a black wall in the night at the end of the small lawn.

Jim eased the cop off him on to the floor, got up and went to Laura.

“No, Jim, finish it.  Kill the bastard,” she said.  “I’ll live.”

Hugh ran through the thick bracken for twenty yards, grunting with pain, half-hopping, to finally trip and fall into the waist-high ferns.  He sat up and scrabbled backwards, pushing with his uninjured leg until he was up against the trunk of a tree.  This, he decided, was where he would wait, knowing that the Yank would follow and search for him.  His only chance of making it the half mile back to where he had stashed the car and caravan was if he killed Elliott.  His first shot would have to count, or his pursuer would take cover and pin him down.  He should have hesitated the extra second it would have taken to aim properly in the cottage.  He had actually panicked.  All he could do now was listen and watch and be ready to end this fiasco.  He still had the advantage, and would not waste it.  He took off his belt and buckled it around the top of his thigh, pulling it as tightly as he could bear, before securing it.  He would need treatment, but at the moment that was the least of his problems.

Jim saw the trail of blood; shiny black on the paving stones of the patio under the silver glow of the moon.  He followed the direction of the glistening teardrop-shaped spots, running, bent low, zigzagging to present as small a target as possible, out across the lawn and into the trees beyond.  He had hit Parfitt, seen the entry hole appear in his leg, four or five inches above the knee.  It was a wonder he had not gone down.  With a little luck the bullet had ruptured his femoral artery, though that was wishful thinking; there would have been much more blood.  One thing he
was
sure of, the bastard would not have got far, and was probably waiting for him nearby, concealed in the semi-jungle of ferns and saplings that blanketed the forest floor.  He assessed the situation and moved on, now without stealth, purposely treading on dry twigs and cones to announce his presence.  He then stopped, eased the magazine out of the gun butt and fired twice; the loud metallic clicks followed by an exclamation of “shit!” being the bait to draw his quarry out.

Hugh heard the snap of twigs and the crunch of pine needles underfoot.  The sounds grew louder as the Yank drew near.  He then saw his outline, black on dark grey amid the tree trunks, standing, working his gun.  The two hollow, echoing sounds of the mechanism, and the low oath that followed, confirmed that the weapon had jammed, or the mag was empty.

Pushing himself up on his good leg, Hugh levelled the pistol at Jim, took careful aim and squeezed the trigger.

Jim heard the rustle and scrape of clothes on bark, off to his left.  He dropped to his knees, discarding the gun and shrugging the crossbow – which he had taken the time to collect from the bedroom before leaving the cottage – from his shoulder in one smooth movement as he stood back up.

The whoosh of the nine-inch bolt hurtling through the air was masked by the roar of the Glock.  Jim felt a slug tug at his side as he pulled another bolt from the retaining clips of the bow and reloaded.  In the gloom, as his night vision returned following the blinding muzzle flash, he could see Hugh, standing against a tree.  He fired again, wondering why the other man had not continued to shoot at him.

Hugh felt an impact in his throat as he fired.  The back of his head was slammed into the rough, fissured bark of the eighty-foot-tall pine, and he could not move.  A pulsating pain shot up into his brain, and down into his shoulders and upper arms, causing him to drop the gun and reach up to the source of his agony.  His shaking fingers found the feathered fletching of the shaft that protruded from just a fraction to the left of his larynx, and by touch, he guessed that it must be an arrow.  His mind was numb with astonishment, unable to comprehend the manner in which he had been wounded.  And as he attempted to come to terms with his plight, a second piercing stab of pain; a lance of fire in his chest, resulted in him being pinned even more securely to the tree trunk.  He clawed frantically at the fresh source of throbbing, cramping torment, but could only feel the very end of the bolt; the slotted plastic nock standing proud from his right breast like a third nipple.  He pulled forward, trying to rip free of the two aluminium shafts, but the tearing pain was unbearable.  Again, he tugged at the metal arrow in his throat, but was unable to grip it and find purchase as his blood-covered, fumbling fingers slipped off the viscid projection.  Finally, he stopped, fixed to the trunk, a low, keening, almost inhuman howl issuing from lips that bubbled with a bloody froth.

Jim dropped the crossbow.  He retrieved the Browning and rammed the mag home, working a shell into the chamber as he approached the moaning figure.  Reaching Hugh, he stopped in front of him and realised that it was over, so pushed the pistol into the waistband of his trousers.

“Shit on a stick, eh?”  Jim said, studying the now helpless killer.

Hugh tried to spit in Jim’s face, but the blood pulsed out of his pursed lips with no power, to dribble down his chin and drip onto his bloodied shirt front.

“How does dying feel?” Jim asked, smiling at Hugh and acknowledging that he was satisfied with the payback he had meted out.

Hugh attempted to answer, but could only produce an unintelligible wheeze as he tried to ask Jim to finish it and put a bullet in his brain.  He felt death invading him, slowly creeping through him; a sly, stealthy but unmistakable final adversary that could not be evaded, bargained with or fought off.  He experienced clarity of thought that he had not known since something had snapped inside him, back when he had been a teenager standing next to his mother’s grave.  His rage was now subdued by a stronger emotion; uncontrollable dread.  He shuddered as a flash of lucidity forced him to face the full weight of all the abhorrent acts he had committed.  He knew that he had been deluded to have imagined that his mother was alive and wholesome; capable of movement, speech and all living functions.  That he could have vented his anger at the corpse of the person it had once been by killing so many innocents was now beyond his newfound power of reasoning.

The piercing scream that Hugh somehow found the strength to emit sent ice-cold ripples down Jim’s spine and raised gooseflesh on his arms, stomach and thighs.  He could feel the hair stiffening on the back of his neck as he watched the dying man arch his back and pull his head forward, straining to uncouple himself from the bolts that skewered him to the tree.  With the sucking sound of a boot pulling free from thick mud, Hugh’s head shot forward, free of the impediment, to droop down onto his chest.