Obsession (26 page)

They lay quietly together for some time, until Corrie lifted her head and looked at him.

He smiled. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, pulling a strand of hair from her lips.

‘You didn’t come,’ she whispered.

‘No. But it doesn’t matter.’

‘It does to me,’ she said. Then swallowing hard she asked him to make love to her, using the words she knew he wanted to hear.

His erection was instant. ‘Oh, baby,’ he groaned, as he rolled onto her. And as he pushed himself inside her, he said, ‘You just don’t know what you do to me, Corrie.’

– 11 –

IT WAS EARLY
one morning the following week, before anyone else arrived at the office, that Corrie was making her way
down
the corridor to the edit suite in order to view some police library footage for the prostitution programme. She knew already that a great deal of it would be unusable, since it contained explicit pictures of what had happened to the prostitutes from Shepherd Market who had been murdered. In fact she was not at all looking forward to viewing it herself.

With her programme file under one arm, and carrying a cup of coffee and a half-eaten pastry, she backed into the darkened edit suite, turned round and was momentarily stunned to find herself confronted by a bank of monitors all displaying horrific pictures of the mutilations the prostitutes had suffered both before and after death.

‘Oh God!’ she muttered, then glancing at her pastry she threw it into the bin.

Luke was at the controls, running the pictures through, frame by frame. Corrie wasn’t surprised to see him, since it had been at his personal request that the police had released the footage. He glanced up as she came towards him and she noticed straight away how deathly pale he was.

‘Jesus God,’ he murmured, ‘it’s enough to turn a man’s stomach. There’s not much here we can use though, I’m afraid.’

Corrie sat down next to him and watched as he continued to screen the pictures. After only a few minutes he stopped. ‘Look at it if you want to,’ he said, ‘I can’t. I’ll be in my office.’

As he stood up Corrie noticed him wince and as he turned into the light she saw a dark swelling above his eye. ‘What happened to you?’ she asked.

He grimaced. ‘If I told you it was a cupboard door would you believe me?’

Corrie shrugged.

‘Well it was.’ He laughed then. ‘If I were a woman you’d think my husband had been beating me up, wouldn’t you?’

‘Probably,’ Corrie smiled. ‘But that cut looks pretty deep, maybe you need stitches.’

‘It’ll be all right,’ he answered, and was on the point of leaving when he turned back. ‘By the way, I’ve invited a few people round to the flat for cocktails tonight. Would you like to come?’

Corrie was hesitant. She hadn’t seen him since the Friday before, when they’d spent the night together, and she was still no closer to resolving the turmoil of her feelings for him.

‘Annalise will be there too,’ he said, ‘so you don’t have to feel you’re being disloyal.’

‘Does she know you’re inviting me?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then OK, I’d love to come. Incidently, do you know where she is? She was supposed to meet me here at seven to go through this material.’

‘If the telephone call I received at four this morning is anything to go by, then I think you’ll find her tucked up in bed with a hangover.’

Corrie sighed and turned back to the controls. Annalise had called her around midnight looking for Luke, so she had expected something like this.

The next hour, spent viewing the police footage, she knew would live in her mind, probably for the rest of her life. That one human being could do such terrible things to another defied belief – except she was sitting there looking right at it. Each gaping knife wound, caked in blood and slime from the river bank, stared down at her from the playback monitors like grisly smiles. On three of the bodies most of the cuts were bone deep, but the fourth was by far the worst. On this one several of the internal organs were visible. Corrie couldn’t even begin to imagine the depths of terror or pain either of them must have suffered in the minutes before they died, but it was there, even in death, frozen in their bulging eyes.

Detective Inspector Radcliffe who was leading the murder hunt, had told Corrie the day before, after they’d interviewed him, that he was only too aware that the prostitutes didn’t believe the police were doing all they could.

‘But I can assure you we are,’ he’d said. ‘And somehow we’re going to nail that bastard, because no one on God’s earth deserves to die like that.’

‘Do you have any leads at all?’ she had asked. Felicity had asked the same question on camera, so Corrie more or less knew what his answer would be.

‘Not enough,’ he said. ‘All these women seem to have in common, aside from their profession, is blonde hair. We don’t even know yet where the murders were carried out. If we did … Well, let’s hope your programme will persuade someone to come forward.’

What was distressing Corrie most of all now, as she forced herself to look at the passing images which, in any sane world, should only have come from a slaughterhouse, was the way in which she was identifying with the victims. She had known, albeit for a short time, what it was to be tied up, to feel so helpless and afraid. The difference was of course, that she had been with Luke, who had been so sensitive to her fear that he had released her immediately. That hadn’t been the case for these women, and it made her want to weep for the unfairness of it, when all they had set out to do was help a man release his pent up sexual desires.

In the end she selected some shots of the type of knife that had probably been used, some coils of rope and one rear shot of a prostitute who was tied up into the foetal position. Unless she was instructed otherwise she didn’t want to use any shots of their faces – the only part of their bodies that had not been slashed by the knife. With the terror printed indelibly in their eyes it seemed an unforgivable intrusion, and would, she was very much afraid, incite
some
latent psychopath to try his own hand at forcing such an expression.

She spent the rest of the day with the editor, piecing together the interviews they had shot over the past two weeks. At midday she called Annalise, but as the phone was ringing Annalise walked into the office. There was a heated argument going on at the time between Alan Fox and Cindy Thompson, who were working on a programme about the recent clash between church and government. Corrie was paying very little attention, but Annalise, looking infinitely better than Corrie had seen her for some time, entered into the affray the minute she walked in the door and very soon had everyone laughing.

‘You’re looking mightily pleased with yourself,’ Corrie remarked when Annalise came to perch on the edge of her desk. Now that summer had arrived Annalise was wearing even shorter skirts than usual, without tights, and Corrie glanced a touch wistfully at her slender brown thighs.

‘And why shouldn’t I be?’ Annalise asked. ‘No don’t answer that, because you’re angry with me that I didn’t turn up this morning. Well, I’m here now, at your disposal. What do you want me to do?’

‘You could go and view the editing we did this morning,’ Corrie answered, ‘and the shots I’ve selected from the police stuff. Grant has them all lined up.’ She laughed as Annalise threw her arms around her and planted a loud kiss on her cheek.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered in Corrie’s ear.

‘What for?’ Corrie asked.

Annalise shrugged. ‘For being you,’ and she skipped off across the office towards the edit suite. As Corrie watched her go she was frowning. She hadn’t missed the bitter smell of alcohol on Annalise’s breath.

Corrie and Annalise had been at Luke’s apartment since seven o’clock, the time he’d told them to arrive, but as yet,
there
was no sign of anyone else. It was now past eight o’clock and Corrie was starting to feel lightheaded after two martinis on an empty stomach.

The hour had, in fact, passed quite pleasantly, until some five minutes ago when Corrie had got up from the sofa to go and look at an oil painting Luke had bought a couple of days before. At the same time Annalise had gone to the bathroom. Almost before she knew what was happening Luke had taken Corrie in his arms and was kissing her. For a moment or two Corrie found herself kissing him back, but then, hearing the bathroom door unlock she all but leapt away from him. Whether Annalise had noticed the guilty flush on her cheeks, Corrie didn’t know, though she doubted it – Annalise would have been sure to say something if she had.

Now Corrie was in the drawing room alone, but from where she was sitting she could see Annalise and Luke in the kitchen together. He was whispering something to her and Annalise kept giggling, which was making Corrie feel more than a little uncomfortable. After a while she looked at them again, but turned away quickly as Luke met her eyes while slipping a hand between Annalise’s legs.

Corrie turned hot with embarrassment and anger. The invitation to a cocktail party, she realized, was a sham. He had used it as an excuse to get them both into his apartment, and once there, into his bed. Well he could think again if he thought she was going to take part in his perverted sex games because she was leaving right this minute. Which she would have, had there not been a ring on the door bell, announcing the arrival of more guests.

While Luke went to let them in Annalise remained in the kitchen, and seeing her bend over to retrieve her knickers from her ankles, Corrie discreetly closed the door. She was half smiling to herself now, mainly with relief that she had been wrong in her surmise of the situation. But her
relief
was shattered the instant the new arrivals walked into the room.

She recognized her father immediately, as, from the expression of horror on his face, he did her. Corrie spun towards Luke, but he was already embracing the woman who had come in with Phillip. On the brink of panic Corrie looked at her father again, but though his face had paled he seemed to have himself back in control again.

‘Corrie,’ Luke said, taking her by the arm, ‘let me introduce you to Phillip and Octavia Denby. Phillip and Octavia, this is Corrie Browne, TW’s brightest and best researcher.’

Corrie’s mind was in chaos. Surely Luke must know that this was her father. That the stupendously beautiful woman with him was her stepmother. Or did he? He certainly gave no sign of knowing, and Corrie just couldn’t remember if she’d ever told him her father’s name. Luke was looking at her now as if baffled by her reluctance to shake hands, and there was a smile in his eyes, as though encouraging her not to be shy.

Somehow Corrie managed to shake her father’s hand. Both of them narrowly avoided eye contact, and Corrie could sense from his voice that he was as nervous as she was. Then it was time to shake Octavia’s hand, and as Corrie turned towards her her heart suddenly froze with the shock of seeing such naked hunger in Octavia’s eyes as she looked at Luke.
My God!
Corrie thought,
surely he can’t be screwing her too
. Unable to stop herself Corrie glanced at her father, wondering if he too had noticed the look, but Phillip was already turning to the cocktail cabinet.

‘It’s very nice to meet you, Corrie,’ Octavia was saying, and as Corrie felt her hand encircled by the slim, delicate fingers, and looked into the coldest blue eyes she’d ever seen, she almost felt herself recoil. Never would she have believed that beauty could be such an offence to the eyes, but it was; for the flawless, alabaster face looking so
absurdly
large on the stick-like neck, was so devoid of animation or warmth it could only be described as grotesque. Then suddenly Octavia was smiling – a smile designed not to crease her skin – and it was a second or two before Corrie realized it wasn’t at her. Corrie turned to look behind her and suddenly it was as though the whole world had gone mad.

‘Mummy, Daddy,’ Annalise cried, coming across the room to embrace them.

Corrie took a step back. She was reeling. She felt faint, needed to sit down, better still to run away, but she could barely move. She turned to Luke again. There was nothing in his manner to suggest that he knew what was going on, he wasn’t even looking in her direction. If only she could remember whether she had told him Phillip’s name. Surely she must have, somewhere along the line, but if she had then why had he never said that he knew Phillip?

No, it was nothing more than a coincidence, she told herself, a terrible coincidence … But dear God, if Phillip was Annalise’s father, that could only mean that she, Corrie, was … No, she couldn’t think about it now. It was too much to take in. Again she looked at her father, and only then did it occur to her, that on top of everything else he was also her employer. He was Luke’s partner – the man whose name, she realized now, had never been mentioned in her hearing, and whose name she had stupidly never thought to ask.

As if in a daze Corrie watched as Phillip handed his wife a drink, then turned back for his own. Taking a sip he settled himself in a chair beside the stereo, and seemed to absorb himself in the music. Behind her Annalise, Octavia and Luke were standing in front of the oil painting discussing its merits, so not knowing what else to do Corrie sat down on the sofa.

Somehow she managed to get through the next half an hour, but it was one of the worst half hours she’d ever had
to
endure. Keeping a check on her emotions was proving almost impossible, for as she watched her father from the corner of her eye, she could see quite plainly, from his jerky movements and the sweat on his brow, that he was deeply upset by her presence. Instead of feeling angry or sickened by the way he was behaving, she felt saddened by it. Just that one brief introduction to Octavia was enough for Corrie to guess at how intolerable his life must be married to someone like her; since they’d arrived Octavia’s only acknowledgement that he was in the room had been a sneery smile when Luke had asked him, ‘how’s tricks?’

Phillip’s answer had sounded confident enough, as he told Luke about a meeting he’d had that day with his nephew, the TW accountant, but the moment Luke returned his attention to Octavia Phillip had seemed to withdraw back into himself. Did he know, Corrie wondered again, that Luke was sleeping with his wife? It seemed blatantly obvious to her, but right now Phillip seemed more intent on avoiding any kind of communication with her. She wished she could reassure him that she had no intention of telling anyone who she was, but of course it was unthinkable. If only he didn’t look so alone though, so utterly confined in the loneliness of his weak man’s world. But he had Annalise, Corrie reminded herself, and any fool could see how much he doted on her. Nevertheless, after their initial greeting Phillip had appeared awkward with Annalise too, as though he was afraid she was going to hurt him in some way, and despite the fact that he was a big man Corrie could only watch helplessly as he very nearly cowered into his chair like a whipped puppy. For a moment she was almost overcome by the urge to shake him, to tell him to act like a man, but at the same time she couldn’t help wondering why he was so afraid.