Kaleidoscope (5 page)
The taxi driver pulled up outside the house and Lewis paid him the fare; he would get his father to drive him home after he had accepted the compulsory cup of tea his mother would insist on making. He knocked at the door and wasn't greeted by the smiling face he had been expecting.
His mother looked like she hadn't slept for a week. Her face was drawn and Lewis thought she was going to burst into tears when she first saw him.
"What is it?" he asked, stepping inside the house.
"Lewis, come in," his mother replied and they both walked into the front room, Lewis dropping his bags in the hallway.
When they stepped in, Lewis saw his father standing by the window and watching the taxi drive away. He turned as they entered and forced an unconvincing smile in Lewis's direction then stared down to his feet.
"What is it? What's going on?"
"We have some bad news, something terrible has happened... Lewis I..." his mother began.
Lewis frowned and stared at his mother, then towards his father and back again. Weird scenarios of illness, death and tragedy in the family skipped through his mind at a hundred miles an hour. He thought about them all but dwelled on none as his mother tried to get the words out.
"It's Hannah... something's happened to her," she began to sob and grabbed Lewis's frozen hand.
"What happened?"
"I'm so sorry Lewis, I don't know how to say this..."
"What happened?" Lewis repeated firmly, his voice thin, like ice.
"She's been killed."
A void opened up beneath his feet and his legs suddenly became pieces of rubber. He released his mother's hand and slumped down on the chair closest to him.
"What do you mean killed?" he asked, a confused despair wrinkling his face. His words were quiet and thin, so much so that he wasn't even sure if he spoke them out loud or just threw them around his head. He stared at his mother. "What do you mean killed? How?" He shouted to be sure that he was actually speaking.
"Lewis... I..."
"How was she killed?"
"She was... Lewis, somebody murdered her."
Chapter 5
Hellam looked at the clock on the wall of his office. It was
and he knew that all his employees would have long gone by now; finished their days work and probably sitting down for dinner with their families.
He got up from his chair and walked over to the cabinet in the corner of the room, pulled out a key, unlocked the oak doors and peered inside. He removed several miscellaneous files and pulled at a small panel of apparent solid wood on the back of the cabinet. After placing the panel on the floor beside him, Hellam peered in the cavity behind the cupboard and at the pad of buttons on the digital safe. He entered an eight-digit code and the door released, springing open. He reached inside and pulled out a laptop then carried it over to his desk and turned it on.
Hellam glanced behind him, through the blinds and out of the window as the twilight of the evening bathed the street in semi-darkness, broken only by the orange glow of street lights. He reached over and pulled on the cord to the blinds, closing them a little more, then turned back as his laptop booted up.
He opened the e-mail software and logged into the secure server which resided somewhere in
Sweden
. The new e-mail took a few seconds to download, even on the high speed internet connection, but then it was displayed in bold text at the top of the screen. Hellam smiled; it was what he had been expecting. The message was from Alrik Olsson and the subject line simply read 'video'. Hellam clicked on the e-mail and then opened the .mpg video attachment.
The screen was filled with the image of a small, poorly lit room with a wooden chair sitting in the centre and a door dominating the rear wall. Some text was displayed momentarily over the image which showed a date then it faded away. Hellam watched anxiously as the timer in the corner of the video ran for a few uneventful seconds before the door swung open. Two men in rubber Halloween masks entered the room, dragging a third man behind them who was blindfolded and appeared to be screaming something undecipherable.
The shadow of a smile played on Hellam's lips as he turned up the volume so he could hear the cries of distress from the man. One of the men, this one wearing a vampire mask, pushed the screaming victim into the chair and began to tie his hands behind his back then proceeded to secure his ankles to the legs of the chair. The other man, who wore an old hag's face, began screaming something at the sitting man. It was in a language that Hellam couldn't understand. He then removed the blindfold and the victim, terrified, looked at his two tormentors. He spoke quickly, in the same foreign language, presumably pleading to be set free.
As the timer to the video rolled by, Hellam sat and gazed in delight at the screen. He watched as the victim was tortured for over forty-five minutes; cigarettes burned into his face, his fingers broken and his knees smashed. Even Hellam glanced away a couple of times until finally the vampire pulled out a gun and pointed it at the broken man
’
s head. He paused as the bloodied victim whimpered and stared into the lens of the camera, then he pulled the trigger. The two men left the room and slammed the door shut behind them as the screen slowly faded to black.
Hellam smiled as he copied the video attachment into a folder on the hard drive, which was simply labelled 'Miscellaneous', and renamed the file with the day
’
s date. He briefly scanned the list of other videos in the folder. There were forty-three altogether, each labelled with a different date. He thought about opening another one, perhaps one from a few years ago, but decided against it; not wanting to dilute the horror he had just witnessed.
He closed the folder and opened another one called 'shipments'. There were a number of spreadsheets displayed and he double clicked on 'May-June'. The spreadsheet filled the screen and he scanned the document, nodding to himself as the dates for the arrivals of various goods rolled past his eyes: cocaine, heroin and an assortment of less profitable items. After a few moments, he closed the spreadsheet and shut down his laptop then picked it up and placed it back in the hidden safe behind the cabinet.
As he closed and locked the door to the wooden cabinet, Hellam thought about the latest video and wondered what kind of price he might get for it. It had been an especially brutal film, just as Alrik had promised, and that would surely increase its value substantially. His clients knew what they liked and fortunately, so did Hellam. He wondered briefly why he took so much delight in viewing the videos - in viewing the suffering. It wasn't simply a case of knowing how much money they would fetch. Money wasn't Hellam's motivating force, and it hadn't been for a very long time, so why did he continue in these other business ventures?
Hellam called his driver to meet him outside then walked down the stairs and out of the building, locking the doors behind him. He got into his car and asked to be taken home. As the buildings reflected from the glass of the car and Hellam stared out, he thought about the question again. Why did he continue to risk everything, just to be involved in a way of life he did not need to be a part of? He suddenly and unexpectedly thought of the girl; that fucking interfering bitch.
Psychopath...
That was what she had called him after she had stumbled across his videos. Hellam had been careless and had taken his laptop home. He hadn't expected her to arrive at his front door that evening; they had arranged to meet later in the restaurant but she had said that she wanted to come over and cook him something instead. The laptop had been on his coffee table in the front room, and while he left the room to get them both a glass of wine, she had grown impatient of waiting and curiosity had presumably led her to see what was on the screen. He had been stupid and careless to leave it right there for her to find. But find it she did, and...
But that doesn't matter now
, Hellam thought as the car cruised through the streets. That situation had been taken care of and he wouldn't make the same mistake again. No one knew about the videos, and although that might be something that could change within the next few weeks, he would be very careful with whom he shared that particular portion of his business; there were very few people who could understand those videos for what Hellam knew they were - violent, macabre,
beautiful
works of art.
***
The next afternoon, Langton knocked on the door to Hellam's office, walked in and took a seat.
"I've got some good news," Langton said, smiling.
Hellam looked up from some papers he was working on and stared at him, but said nothing.
"It's about Deacon."
"Go on," Hellam said, placing his pen on the desktop, suddenly interested.
"Kelser has been in contact with me, they've found out where he's been hiding. Apparently he's been with some girl he met a few months ago. They've been staking out her flat and yesterday they saw Deacon leave to buy a packet of cigarettes."
"That's good news, tell them to proceed. That bastard has tested my patience, he's lucky I'm not sending the others round." Hellam noticed the slight frown of disapproval from Langton. "Just tell them to get on with it and get my money back."
Langton nodded then stood and left the room. Hellam pushed the papers on his desk aside then walked over to a filing cabinet in the corner of the office. He pulled out a folder then returned with it to his desk. He opened it up and looked at the handful of papers inside, reading portions then flicking through to the photographs on the final sheet. The pictures were of an old farm house, seemingly derelict and in a poor state of maintenance. They showed interior shots of the brick farmhouse and then external and internal shots of a large barn that stood next to the building.
Hellam scrutinised the images for several moments then flicked back to the first sheet of paper where he found the number for the estate agent. He punched the number into his phone.
"Hello, Morley estates, Katie speaking, how can I help?
”
came a bright female voice.
"Yes, hello Katie, my name is Joseph Hellam, I spoke to you a few days ago regarding Clements Farm outside Surrington."
"Yes, Mr Hellam. I remember.
"I think so, but I'd like to take one final look if possible. Can I arrange a meeting for this afternoon?"
"Not a problem," replied Katie tapping something into a keyboard on the other end of the phone. "Let me see... can you make it at
?"
"Absolutely, I'll see you there."
***
George Langton checked his watch as he pulled into the carport. He was glad to see it was only 6pm.
Home early tonight
, he thought as he got out and walked up to his front door. He stepped inside, picked up the post from the floor and went into the lounge. He dropped the envelopes onto a coffee table by the sofa, threw his briefcase into a chair and sighed deeply as he rolled his head backwards around his shoulders and attempted to work the tension free.
His mobile phone suddenly buzzed into life as a text message came through. It was a message from Miller, a police officer who was on Hellam's unofficial payroll. Langton read the message and smiled; he would have some interesting news for Hellam on Monday.
Langton had been living alone ever since his wife had left him a few years before. He had been glad to see the back of her; at least that was what he told himself every day. She had found out about an affair he was having and had told him that their marriage was over. It wasn't the first affair Langton had had, and it certainly wouldn't have been the last. He never admitted to himself how much he missed her though she had been the only woman he had ever truly loved.
He went into the kitchen and filled a glass with water, which he gulped down and then filled with vodka and ice. He took his glass into the lounge and sat down on the sofa, sighing again and releasing the top two buttons of his shirt.
After several swigs of vodka, he leaned forward, placed the glass on the table and picked up his post. He flicked through the envelopes slowly. His eyes suddenly froze on a plain white envelope with his name and address handwritten on the front. He recognised the handwriting immediately.
"No," he said out loud as he tossed the other envelopes on the table and held the plain white one in both hands. "No, not again."
The seconds passed as Langton gazed at the writing on the front of the envelope, unable to bring himself to do anything else. Finally, he picked up the glass of vodka and downed the remaining liquid in one. It burned the back of his throat and he winced hard then slammed the glass of ice onto the table. He tore the envelope open and pulled out a single piece of paper.
Before he read it, he thought about the others he had received over the past four years. There hadn't been one for almost six months now and he had been hoping that he had been released from this torment. He had done everything the sender had asked, even though he was risking his life in doing so. He glanced down at the paper between his fingers and began to read:
Hello George,
It has been a while, I'm sorry for that. Unfortunately I've been very busy with various tasks, but I'm now going to require some further information from you. You have done very well in the past and I am extremely pleased with the documents you have provided so far.
I am going to have to ask you for more however. I require documents concerning the new bank accounts Joseph Hellam has opened in both
Switzerland
and the
Cayman Islands
. I want every piece of information you can provide on these accounts: numbers, statements and also any details on the recipients of money paid out. I'm sure you will also be able to provide me with a detailed report of where the money in these accounts has come from.
Also, provide me with an updated list of Joseph Hellam's drug and prostitution associates, including dates and shipments.
Get them to me in the usual way. I need them
soon
.
CC (Concerned Citizen).
P.S. Your secret is still safe with me, remember that.
Langton squeezed his hands tight and creased the paper between them then tore it in two.
"Fuck! No, no no," he yelled as he threw the paper to the floor and stood up. How the hell was he supposed to go through all this again? Langton was privy to information regarding all the bank accounts Hellam held around the world and knew he had set up several new accounts in the past month. How had this bastard found out about them? The accounts were set up in various names, some private, and some using non-existent business names. Some were legitimate; others were used to launder money from Hellam's criminal activities through to legitimate businesses. But yet again, this man wanted details of everything.
Langton asked himself, how could he know all this information? No one except himself and Hellam knew all the details of the various accounts and what they were used for. But then, this man had already found out things about Langton that he thought had been buried forever. Things that could never get out -
must
never get out.
