To Kill a Man - Maggie Costello Series 05 (2020)

by Bourne, Sam

  You do not yet know what it is like to be violated.

  He was trying to cry out. Though the gag was stifling the words, it was clear from the pitch of the sound he was making that he was pleading for mercy.

  One of the captors now nodded to another, who went over to the table where several objects were arranged. Wearing latex surgical gloves, the captor picked up one of them and moved towards the captive. Once again, the first captor held the man down by his shoulders. It was becoming hard to hear over the gagged screams. It crossed the second captor’s mind that the captive might soon vomit into his gag, which would cause choking and asphyxiation. Nevertheless, the captor assumed a kneeling position behind the captive and did what had to be done.

  It took several minutes. The work was hard, requiring physical effort, not made easier by the sounds emanating from the captive, which resembled those of a pig in an abattoir.

  Now the metallic voice spoke.

  Do you know what it is like to be violated?

  Visible underneath the leather strap that held the ball gag in place was the matted tangle of his hair, now drenched in sweat. He made a noise that sounded like ‘Yes’. But it was feebly quiet.

  Even as the other captors stood around, watching, the second captor remained at the task. At one point, the captor returned to the table, coming back with a new object.

  Do you know what it is like to be violated?

  Another ‘Yes’, more emphatic this time.

  That was the cue for the captors to derig the basement and pack up. As they did so, their captive remained in the middle of the floor: bound and gagged, on all fours, naked from the waist down, his genitals exposed and wrecked, his clothes soaked in urine and much else.

  He began to squeal again, doubtless anxious that he was about to be left here, cuffed and manacled and unable to escape.

  Thanks to a raised hand from their leader, the captors understood that they were to remain still for a minute or two, to allow their captive’s fears to deepen. His crying and bleating grew louder. Until, on a signal, they lifted him to his feet, covered him in a blanket, guided him up the stairs and, once the coast was clear, pushed him back inside the minivan which was waiting kerbside.

  They repeated the previous journey, the same circuitous route, the death metal soundtrack, the nauseous loops and false turns, until some thirty minutes later they were back on Chalmers Place, the small side road just off Fremont Street where he’d been apprehended.

  The van came to a stop, engine idling. The door of the vehicle slid open. Now, as one, the captors spoke to their captive. For the first time, he heard their voices. In chorus, they uttered the three words which they had agreed in advance – and which they knew would complete his humiliation. That done, they shoved him out onto the sidewalk, pulled the door shut and sped off.

  He remained there, shivering in his nakedness, his wrists and ankles still restrained, gagged by a gimp ball, until a couple emerged from one of the brownstones. At first, they giggled at the sight of him: they assumed he’d been the victim of a bachelor party prank or perhaps that he had been turfed out of a BDSM dungeon, where he’d been an otherwise willing participant. When they caught the whiff of urine, they assumed he’d got so drunk, he’d let himself go. They never for one moment imagined him as the victim of a sexual assault.

  As he sat there, shivering in the autumn cold, processing the three words his kidnappers and torturers had spoken, a question began to throb through his brain. Once he got someone to loosen this gag and break these cable-ties, should he report what had happened to the police? Or did self-preservation dictate that he keep this humiliation, this violation and shame, to himself?

  Chapter 39

  Some breaking news now, out of Chicago. Important new details concerning an incident last night, in which a man was violently assaulted and left for dead – police sources telling CNN in the last hour that the man involved was a convicted rapist. Detectives in the city are pursuing the theory that the assault was a ‘copycat’ of the lethal attack on Jeffrey Todd, for which Washington lawyer and possible presidential candidate Natasha Winthrop is currently in custody. Remember, the clock is ticking for Winthrop. If she wants to enter the race, she needs to get out of jail, clear her name and get running. Just two working days to go now till that registration deadline.

  Reporting live for us now, from Chicago: Kaine Braw. Kaine, lots for us to untangle here. What’s the latest?

  Chip, major developments tonight. As you know, Chicago Police say they were called to this street corner in the Lincoln Park neighbourhood last night, after a man was reported to be lying in the gutter in a state of what police are calling ‘severe distress’. They say he had suffered ‘extreme, aggravated sexual assault’, with some details that are too graphic to share on this network.

  But the big news came just a few minutes ago, with the naming of the injured man. He’s convicted rapist Nicholas Corey, who recently completed five years of an eleven-year sentence for rape, winning early release four months ago. Law enforcement officials tell CNN that this was the second time Corey had been paroled following a rape conviction, this second release coming despite objections from his victims and their families. Questions there for justice officials and the Governor of Illinois over that parole decision. Also significant perhaps: at the time of that second conviction, the judge accepted that there were perhaps dozens of rape cases that had not been brought and in which Corey was the prime suspect, the judge ruling that those additional cases should be taken into account during sentencing.

  And talk tonight, Kaine, of a possible connection with the Winthrop case.

  Well, no formal connection alleged as such, Chip, but the revelation that this man is a convicted rapist has sparked talk tonight of the uncanny parallels between the two cases. Both situations, if you will, centre on a known rapist who, for whatever reason, was still at large, on the receiving end of a violent assault. Now obviously Natasha Winthrop is currently accused of murder, because Jeffrey Todd was found in her home, apparently bludgeoned to death. This case, very different – Corey is still alive – but what sources are telling CNN is that police are exploring whether this might be some kind of revenge attack on Corey, perhaps even a copycat of the Todd killing. Or at least an attempt to copy the Todd killing.

  And what do we know of what happened?

  Details are still emerging—

  Of course.

  But it seems that Corey may have been snatched off this street and taken away in a black minivan to an as yet unknown location. Eyewitnesses on the seventh floor of the apartment building just over my left shoulder, Chip, tell CNN that they saw a black vehicle fitting that description pull up sharply and suddenly, at around nine o’clock last night. They saw four men dressed in black, wearing ski masks or balaclavas, jump out and grab a man, bundle him into the vehicle and speed away. Then, several hours later, another sighting of an apparently similar vehicle on this same street, shortly before Corey was found by police. So the working theory right now – and we should stress, these are unconfirmed details at this stage – the working theory is that Corey was taken away, assaulted and then brought back here and dumped. With some suggestion that whoever did this might have been following the lead allegedly set by Natasha Winthrop, taking the law into their own hands.

  Kaine Braw reporting live from Chicago. Thanks, Kaine, and of course more on that as we get it. Coming up: the Kansas high school hockey team who might just be revolutionizing the sport . . .

  SATURDAY

  Chapter 40

  Washington, DC

  On days like these, Maggie Costello had to remind herself that her time had once been consumed with faraway border disputes, meetings with foreign ministers or mediating between warring parties in distant civil wars. She had come to this town as a foreign policy specialist, years of experience as a UN mediator under her belt. Now here she was, sitting in
a waiting area at police headquarters, in downtown DC. She doubted any of her former colleagues at the State Department or White House had ever even passed this building, let alone stepped inside. They inhabited the Washington she used to inhabit, the Washington of ‘the administration’, of think tanks and book launches, of network TV bureaux and cocktail receptions. You could live in that Washington and barely touch this other one, the urban Washington of police stations and potholes, of elementary schools and shootings on the local evening news. Maggie knew that was true, because she’d done it.

  She flicked through a discarded copy of yesterday’s Metro section, abandoned on the black vinyl-covered bench by whoever had last been unlucky enough to sit in this waiting area. But she couldn’t concentrate on the newspaper. She was exhausted from the long drive that had brought her here, a thirteen-hour marathon from deepest Maine to DC, interrupted only by snatches of sleep in the rental car in various gas stations and parking lots, the seat reclined, a scarf across her eyes – and the door locked.

  Still, the drive had given her the chance to think about Mindy, who through force of will had turned herself into Natasha Winthrop, the Brahmin girl with a Katherine Hepburn accent. How daring, how ingenious, to realize that if you’re going to live a lie, then make it a big one. She could have posed as a regular daughter of the American suburbs, the child of Anywhereville. Instead, she had recast herself as a member of the 0.01 per cent, the oldest elite in the country. The idioms she’d have had to learn, the verbal inflections, the dress codes, the etiquette, the mannerisms of a tiny tribe, its ways all but unknown to anyone not called Bunny or Muffy or who didn’t have a surname as their first name.

  Yet it was also so insane as to smack of genius. Because it was the grand deceptions that worked best. Perhaps it was easier to disguise an accent shaped by southern poverty in the strange lilt of upper-crust Massachusetts than it was to sound like just another Midwesterner. If Mindy had done or said anything strange, wouldn’t most outsiders have put it down to a peculiar tic of the Mayflower set, rather than a tell-tale vestige of the trailer park? If you were going to cross sides in the class war, best to run all the way behind enemy lines, rather than be left exposed and vulnerable in no man’s land.

  And then Maggie would remind herself that young Mindy – alone, rejected, abused and desperate – had scarcely made a choice at all. The story she had glimpsed in the newspaper, that she had stumbled upon in a library in Arkansas, her refuge from the daily abuse at the hands of P, that story was about the tragedy that befell the Winthrops. If the crash had happened to the family of an accountant in Delaware, she would have turned herself into their daughter and be that person now. She had been drowning and grabbed for the only available piece of driftwood. It just so happened to be a piece that would turn her into the heiress of a fortune comprised of money so old it might have borne George Washington’s fingerprints as well as his face.

  Maggie had interrogated herself too, wondering why she had suspected nothing. She rated herself a good judge of character and she had spent serious hours with Natasha, and yet she had to be honest: she hadn’t had the slightest clue. Was that because she was a Dubliner whose ear was deaf to the nuances of the language and mores of the American elite? It couldn’t be that: no native-born American had ever caught Natasha out either. Maggie thought of Aunt Peggy, hidden away in that sea-sprayed cottage in remotest Maine. What a brilliant, gifted teacher she must have been. What an accomplished, thorough operator too, ensuring that there was not so much as a stray document anywhere – neither here, nor in Germany – that would betray their secret. What delight she must have taken in this child, whom she had rescued from violation and cruelty and who, in the process, had rescued the Winthrop family from oblivion. That pact the teenage girl had dreamed up had worked, more effectively than either of them could ever have imagined. Let your family’s name live on. Let something good come out of this horror.

  ‘Maggie Costello? Miss Costello?’

  Maggie had almost forgotten herself, sitting here, her eyes shut for what she had thought was just a few seconds. But now she saw a woman standing before her, her face weary, her hair greying, her expression impatient. Next to her was a man younger than her, with concern etched on his forehead. He was casting worried glances at his boss, an angst Maggie recognized from her own past alongside various senior officials – the fear that your superior was about to ruin everything by saying the wrong thing.

  She followed the pair into a room identified as an ‘interview suite’.

  ‘Hold on,’ Maggie said, pointedly not sitting down even as the others did, gesturing for her to do the same. ‘This is not . . . I mean, I wanted to come in for an informal chat. I’m not authorized to have a formal—’

  ‘Cool your jets, sweetheart,’ said Marcia Chester, apparently the detective in charge of Natasha’s case. ‘No need to get all fucking ACLU. Apparently your social life is so bad, you want to spend your Saturday morning having a chat with us. Which is convenient, because we’re so sad, we want to talk to you too. Everybody’s unhappy, everybody’s happy.’

  ‘This won’t be recorded?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘No signed statements?’

  ‘Only if you have something to say and you agree to sign it.’

  ‘But that would be a whole separate process?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘With lawyers present?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘All right.’ Maggie could feel the tiredness at the back of her eyes, trying to tug her towards sleep. The light in this room was unbearably bright.

  ‘So.’ It was Allen, pen hovering above a yellow legal pad. ‘You said you had something to ask us.’

  Maggie had planned this conversation during the marathon drive, but she hadn’t gone back to it. She’d allowed herself to think of other things, so now she had to scramble to remember the play she had plotted.

  ‘As you know, I have been contracted to work for Natasha Winthrop.’

  They nodded.

  ‘I am not a lawyer, but I am seconded to her team and therefore am covered by attorney-client privilege.’

  Chester sighed audibly, looking first to her nails, then to the wall, painted a dull magnolia, scuffed by time and, it seemed, recalcitrant interviewees. She could tell Maggie was stalling.

  ‘I believe we may have useful light to shed on Jeffrey Todd.’

  Neither Chester nor Allen reacted.

  ‘Relevant to this case.’

  Allen cracked first. ‘What kind of light?’

  ‘I’m not going to share that yet, not while the details are unconfirmed. Though naturally, we’d be open to sharing whatever we discover with the prosecution in due course.’

  Now, as planned, Maggie reached into her bag and produced a file, a document wallet that she kept on her lap and only partially opened. She leafed through the papers, without ever taking one out and ensuring that none remained visible. Crucially, she did not make eye contact. She spoke again.

  ‘The records we have relate to the period before Mr Todd’s change of name.’

  Now she glanced up, as briefly and casually as she could manage. She hoped her voice betrayed no quaver, that they couldn’t hear her heart, which was beginning to thump.

  There was no reaction from either Chester or Allen. They were just waiting for her to say more.

  Now she placed some papers on the desk, though she was careful to do so in such a way that even an upside-down reader, like her, would not be able to make out anything at all. She cleared her throat, as much to steady her own nerves as anything else. Now she flannelled some more.

  ‘We believe this goes to the pattern of conduct, the record of past behaviour that will be germane to this case. Clearly, recent events have shown that Mr Todd had a history of sexual assault, rape and murder and that will inevitably be part of the defence. For the sake o
f completeness we want to explore the history that pertains to the period in which the deceased was not known as Jeffrey Todd but under his birth name.’

  Now she looked up again, meeting Chester’s gaze. What she saw emboldened her. Or rather what she didn’t see. There was no demur; not so much as a furrowed brow or quizzical look passed between the two detectives.

  She pressed on, willing her own voice to give nothing away, to sound as if what she was saying were routine, even dull.

  ‘What we have in mind is the period when Mr Todd was known as Paul Hagen. We believe that will buttress our contention that . . .’

  She carried on speaking, more padding and faux legalese, as she saw Chester eye her warily. But Detective Allen was now rummaging through his own files, looking for a document which he produced and laid on the table, as if to refresh his memory. As he read, and only glancing up once, he said, ‘So you’re talking about the period prior to the family’s move to Glasgow, Kentucky?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Maggie said, a rasp in her voice close to giving her away.

  Allen now leaned in to examine the document in front of him, suggesting he’d found what he was looking for. ‘Paul Hagen of—’

  He glanced over to Chester, seeking authorization. She gave a tiny nod.

  ‘Paul Hagen of Little Rock, Arkansas. Right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Maggie said. ‘That’s exactly who we’re talking about.’

  Chapter 41

  Washington, DC

  She’d been in the car for perhaps thirty seconds when the phone started ringing. She glanced at the dashboard screen and, although it didn’t flash up the name, she recognized the number: Liz.

  Maggie thought about answering it; for a second her finger hovered over the ‘Accept’ button. But she was too wired to speak to her sister now. Already almost delirious from tiredness after that marathon drive, she now felt as if ten thousand volts had jolted through her system during that conversation with Chester and Allen in the police suite. She was at capacity; there was no room for any more input, not even a chat with Liz.