Obsession (72 page)

‘Oh no!’ she cried suddenly. ‘No! No! No!’ The gates were firmly shut – there was no way out.

‘Oh my God!’ she gasped, spinning round to look out of the back window as the car stopped. ‘Please! Do something! You have to get us away from him!’

Annalise suddenly screamed and buried her head in Corrie’s lap. Corrie swung round to see Luke opening the passenger door of the car. Then it was as if the entire world suddenly decelerated into a nightmare of horrific and vivid slow-motion, as ribbons of blood plastered themselves to the windscreen and a fibrous grey substance coated a viscous fountain over Annalise’s hair and Corrie’s hands.

As the reverberations of the explosion ebbed into the afternoon stillness Corrie’s eyes were transfixed by the gun in Luke’s hand. He had just blown out the taxi-driver’s brains.

Cristos was waiting at the airport with the Sûreté when the next flight came in from London, bringing DI Radcliffe, DC Archer and Phillip Denby. The first moments the two police inspectors came face to face threatened to erupt into pandemonium as both started to shout and neither understood the other. In the end Cristos barked them to silence, and provided the interpretation.

‘I don’t fucking believe it!’ Radcliffe snapped, when Cristos had finished. ‘The man’s not a fucking magician, he can’t just make two grown women vanish into thin air. I take it you’ve checked your hotel again …’

‘Of course I have,’ Cristos snapped back.

‘So how the hell did he get them out of the airport?’

‘What does it matter how he got them out, the fact is he did,’ Phillip interjected. ‘So what are we doing about finding them?’

Radcliffe eyed him nastily. ‘How he got them out of the airport matters,’ he said. Then turning back to Cristos. ‘Ask this frog here what enquiries they’ve started making.’

‘I can answer that for you,’ Cristos said. ‘They’re pulling in all taxi-drivers and hire-car clerks. The crew who flew in on the Air France flight have been detained here at the airport. The Sûreté are right now alerting all TV and radio stations, they’ve already spoken to the press that are here, and they’ve wired back to London for photographs.

‘Do the flight crew speak English?’

‘As far as I know.’

‘Good. Then I’ll question them myself. Now, I suggest you return to your hotel in case they do turn up there – take Mr Denby with you, and I’ll get to work here. Though how the hell I’m going to make frog-plod understand me, God alone knows.’

As Radcliffe made to turn away Cristos caught his arm and pulled him to one side. ‘Why the hell did you let her come?’ he asked tightly.

‘What?’ Radcliffe hissed incredulously. ‘
You’re
asking
me
?’

‘You’re damned right I’m asking you. I called your office and told someone there to stop her. I was gonna come over there myself tomorrow … I didn’t want her out of police protection.’

‘Then why the fuck didn’t you stop her yourself? You knew she was coming …’

‘She didn’t speak to me, she spoke to my assistant. I got right on the phone the minute I knew to tell you to stop her.’

Radcliffe was about to deliver a boiling response when Phillip stepped between them. ‘I don’t see any point in going over this now,’ he said. Let’s concentrate on what really matters, shall we?’

Both Cristos and Radcliffe glared at him. Phillip smiled awkwardly, then to Cristos he said, ‘I’d like to know what our chances are of finding them. Would you mind interpreting that to the French Inspector …’

‘He doesn’t have to,’ Radcliffe interrupted, with blatant hostility, ‘I can answer it for you. Our chances at this moment in time are piss poor. France is a big place, Italy is just round the corner. They could be anywhere. What we’ve got to do is find a lead, like how they got out of this fucking airport. Without it we’re up shit creek.’

The second floor veranda, jutting in an expansive semicircle from the back of the villa, was a forest of bougainvillaea, cacti and geraniums. Trailing lobelias coiled a formless route across the white trellis which clung to the exterior walls of the house and a symmetrical array of miniature palms stood like sentries around the sweep of the waist high stone wall. The view out over the sapphire-blue sea, where rich men’s yachts glittered in the sunlight, was stupendous and unlimited.

Corrie was seated on a white wooden bench just in front of the sliding glass doors which separated the veranda from the garishly ornate lounge inside. Next to her was a massive
wrought
iron table to which her feet were tied, but her hands, her mouth and her eyes were unencumbered. Annalise was lying on a hammock chair, her lovely blonde hair tumbling over the edge and her emaciated limbs exposed mercilessly to the sun’s searing rays. She was attached to the chair by a rope coiled around her neck.

They had seen almost nothing of Luke since the afternoon before when he’d led them from the taxi back to the house. In those few minutes he had walked silently behind them, only snorting when Annalise had stumbled against Corrie and Corrie had supported her in through the door. He had then gestured for them to go up the stairs, where he had left them in a bedroom, locking the door behind him.

Annalise was so traumatized by the killing of the taxi-driver that she could barely hold herself up, so Corrie had taken her to the shower and sponged the blood and gore from her body, her own still quaking with shock.

At odd intervals throughout the night Luke had returned to the door – Corrie had heard the key grating in the lock, but he didn’t come in. Once or twice he yelled out to her that it was all her fault, that she could have helped him, but she’d run away.

‘But you’ll never run away again,’ he cried. ‘You’re going to save me now, Corrie. You’re going to be with me forever.’

Then, just before dawn she had heard him downstairs shouting. Neither she nor Annalise could make out what he was saying, but the agony in his voice was as terrifying as the mocking Irish tones.

He had finally come into the room an hour or so ago now, and made them strip to their underwear. That was when he had put the noose around Annalise’s neck. He had looked at Corrie then and somewhere deep in the confusion in his eyes Corrie had sensed a desperation that, despite her fear, had wrenched at her heart.

‘Luke,’ she said, taking a step towards him, but almost
instantly
her arms came up to defend herself as he swung the gun towards her.

‘Keep away,’ he snarled, and turning to Annalise he pushed her to the floor, keeping hold of the rope like it was a leash. ‘You be coming along too now,’ he growled at Corrie.

Appalled, Corrie had watched, unable to do anything to stop him as he proceeded to make Annalise crawl on all fours out to the veranda where he had pushed her face into a bowl and made her drink like a dog.

‘This,’ he hissed back over his shoulder to Corrie, ‘is what the bastard did to Siobhan.’

Now, as a gentle breeze rustled the palm fronds, Corrie looked over at Annalise. At that moment the sliding doors opened and Luke walked out onto the veranda.

Corrie looked up at him. His eyes reflected all the torment inside him, but as he gazed down at her she could see that he was unreachable. It was as though he had lost all sense of where, or even who, he was. He lowered his eyes to the gun and started to turn it over in his hand.

‘Where did you get it?’ Corrie asked quietly.

He looked up in surprise, then smiled. ‘Paranoid wealthy Americans. They all keep guns,’ he sneered.

Long minutes ticked by, the air so still there might have been no world beyond that terrace.

‘Do you intend to use it on us?’ Corrie eventually asked.

Annalise whimpered and turned her face into the back of the chair. From Luke there was no response at all.

As the silence moved through an indeterminable time the sun grew hotter and the strain so acute Corrie could feel herself becoming consumed by it. Suddenly she couldn’t stand any more. ‘What are you waiting for?’ she yelled. ‘Why don’t you just put us out of our misery?’

‘Corrie, don’t!’ Annalise sobbed.

Unruffled by the outburst, Luke sighed and shook his head. ‘I don’t want to kill you,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t
want
to do it.’ Suddenly his head came up and his grin was obscene. ‘Will you be getting hungry now?’ he asked.

Annalise turned her frightened eyes to Corrie.

‘The police know that you killed the prostitutes,’ Corrie said, ignoring his question.

Luke blinked and looked out at the horizon.

Corrie closed her eyes as she thought of the bitter ironies. Of how the prostitutes themselves had chosen TW to support their cause. Of how Luke had interviewed Radcliffe the day Bobby McIver was arrested. Her head came up.

‘Who’s Bobby McIver?’ she asked.

Luke reached out for one of the palms and ran a finger along the spiky leaves. ‘My only friend,’ he answered.

The heat, the tension, his constantly changing voice was making Corrie’s head spin.

‘He’d do anything for me,’ Luke continued. ‘All the other kids tormented and teased him. I was kind to him. He was devoted to me.’

‘So devoted that he agreed to take the blame for what you’ve done?’

‘He’ll die before he tells them anything. I know he will.’

‘But how can you let him …?’

‘Does it matter? Does anything matter now?’ He took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been setting things in order,’ he said. ‘I have to make sure that Siobhan is taken care of after I’m gone, you see.’

‘Oh God help us,’ Annalise moaned, covering her face with her hands.

‘Who is Siobhan?’ Corrie asked.

Luke blinked, then seemed frozen in a moment of confusion as he looked at Annalise. ‘Why to be sure she’s lying right there,’ he answered.

‘But that’s not Siobhan. That’s Annalise …’

‘You’ll not be fooling me now,’ he growled. ‘’Tis Siobhan right there.’

‘No!’ Corrie cried. ‘Luke, please, listen to me. That’s Annalise there. So tell me, who is Siobhan?’

‘She’s his sister!’ Annalise sobbed. ‘Siobhan is his sister.’

Luke’s head jerked back, as though someone had struck him. Then suddenly he was moving towards Annalise.

‘Don’t touch me!’ she shrieked, cowering back in the chair. ‘Keep away from me!’

A mask of feral rage dropped over Luke’s face as he grabbed her by the throat.

‘Luke! Stop!’ Corrie yelled, struggling to break free of the rope.

He spun round. ‘And who are you to be giving me orders?’ he snarled, thrusting Annalise back on the chair and advancing on Corrie. ‘Just who will you be thinking you are to tell me what to do?’

Corrie was pressed hard into a corner of the bench, her head strained back away from him, her whole body shaking with fear. ‘Don’t hurt her,’ she pleaded.

‘Why?’ he rasped. ‘Why shouldn’t I hurt her? She’s mine to do with as I please. She’s mine, do you hear?
Mine
! She’s nothing to do with you …’

‘Luke, stop it, please!’ Corrie sobbed.

‘Stop it! Stop it!’ he shrieked, mimicking her. ‘It’s too late for that now, Corrie. It’s too late to be …’ He stopped suddenly and cocked his head thoughtfully to one side. Then a strange, knowing smile twisted across his mouth as he turned once again to Annalise.

‘You haven’t told her, have you?’ he said. ‘She’s not knowing who …’

‘Shut up!’ Annalise seethed. ‘Just shut up!’

Luke sniggered and went to sit on the chair with Annalise. For a moment or two he was still, then looking down at her legs he lifted a hand and placed it on her thigh. Annalise recoiled so violently that the chair almost tipped over.

‘Don’t touch me!’ she screeched. ‘Don’t ever touch me
again
or I swear I’ll kill you!’ Her eyes were gleaming so wildly she looked half deranged, and her fingers were bent like claws ready to attack.

‘It’ll be rabbit stew for you tonight, now,’ he taunted her, picking up the bowl from the floor. ‘I’ll be serving it to you, right here in your dish and you’ll be eating every mouthful now, won’t you?’

Annalise’s eyes darted to Corrie, and Luke seized the moment to lunge at her. As his full weight hit her Annalise grunted with the pain. He had her arms pinned between their bodies, his legs hooked around hers – she couldn’t move. Then his hands slipped around her throat and he started to squeeze the life from her.

Corrie was screaming for him to stop while scrabbling frantically with the knots at her ankles.

‘Tell me you’ll fuck me and I’ll let you go,’ Luke seethed into Annalise’s face. ‘Tell me you want my cock, tell me it’s all you ever want …’

‘Tell him! For Christ’s sake, tell him!’ Corrie yelled, but Annalise was lying limply beneath him, all the fight gone from her body. ‘Annalise!’ Corrie screamed. ‘Annalise, for God’s sake! He’s going to kill you! Just tell him!’

Still there was no response from Annalise, then Corrie saw the way she was staring up into Luke’s face. She was so calm, so frighteningly still, that were it not for the expression in her eyes she might already have been dead – and the expression chilled Corrie to the very depths of her soul. It was as though Annalise wanted him to kill her, was waiting, almost longing, for the moment when her life would slip away. But until that moment she was going to gaze into the eyes of the man she had loved, right through to the corrupt and tortured void of his mind and let him feel the fathomless depths of her hatred.

‘No!’ Corrie cried, clawing helplessly at the knots. ‘Annalise, don’t do this! Annalise! Listen to me …’

But Annalise was intent on fuelling his madness with all the loathing in her heart.

Corrie cried out to her again and again, watching helplessly as she started to choke, as her face turned blue. Even in her panicked state Corrie could sense that in some horrific, inexplicable way, this was a battle of wills – but it was one that Annalise was going to lose.

But Corrie was wrong, and she watched in stupefaction as with an inhuman snarl Luke suddenly wrenched himself away, so abruptly that the chair pitched wildly on its chains.

‘I’ll be having a much better idea,’ he said starting towards Corrie, and taking a knife from his pocket he sliced through her bonds. Instinctively Corrie cowered away from him then cried out as he gouged his fingers into her upper arm and dragged her across the veranda. Screwing her hair in his fist he forced her head down to look at Annalise, who was still struggling to heave the air back into her lungs.