Single Obsession

by Des Ekin

  ‘Bit of a comedown from the old Lexus, eh?’ Martin grinned as he led him towards a side-alley. ‘Anyhow, I didn’t come here to discuss your transport difficulties. My mate has been working away inside there on the old piccies, and he’s been doing a great job. Deserves every penny of his fee. Three ton, isn’t that what we said?’

  ‘Yes. We agreed three hundred.’

  ‘Plus my own cut on top of that. Shall we say twenty percent?’

  ‘Another sixty … All right, I suppose so.’

  The studio was closed for the weekend, but Martin was able to let them in through a fire exit. Adjusting his eyes to the darkness, Hunter found himself in the middle of a reception area that looked like a set from Blade Runner. Instead of a reception desk there was a curved plastic module hovering slightly above the floor, suspended from a cantilevered metal arm that projected from the wall. The floor was made of black marble, and the rest of the furnishings gleamed with glass and stainless steel.

  ‘Now you know why your soap powder’s so expensive,’ said Martin, steering him past a centrepiece sculpture consisting of jagged slivers of broken mirror-glass. ‘Advertising. It’s big business. I chose the wrong career when I went into journalism.’

  In an anteroom to the rear of reception, Claire sat waiting for them on a huge sofa of cream leather. She wore a blue sweater and jeans, and her usual distant Mona Lisa smile.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  Martin was nodding through a window at a vast openplan office fitted with the finest Scandinavian furniture. ‘That’s where the conferences are held,’ he explained.

  He gestured at another equally lavish room. ‘And that’s where the money is counted.’

  He led them down a corridor and they emerged into a dismal back yard. Rainwater splashed down from a broken gutter into the overflowing drain. Weeds grew in the cracks of the dirty paving-stones. ‘And this,’ said Martin, pointing to a dingy portable cabin, ‘is where the actual work is done.’

  He led Hunter into the cabin and along another corridor. Through open doors, he caught brief glimpses of art studios where sketches and storyboards were pinned to the walls. At the very end of the corridor, in a cramped cubbyhole made of cheap plywood, a young man was seated in front of an array of computers. His hair was tied back in an unstylish ponytail. He appeared to suffer from a serious acne problem. He looked about seventeen. Cigarette burns pockmarked the cheap linoleum on the floor, and the faded puke-green paintwork on the walls was festooned with pictures of page-three girls and torn-out newspaper headlines. The headlines seemed to have been ripped from sports reports; they said things like ‘Can Tim keep it up?’ and ‘Tim tipped for the top’.

  ‘Yo,’ said the computer whizzkid, extending his hand.

  ‘Hello, Tim,’ said Hunter, shaking it warmly. ‘Good to meet you.’

  ‘Hey.’ The young man turned accusingly to Martin. ‘You said you wouldn’t tell him my name.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ Martin’s voice was indignant.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Hunter interrupted quickly. ‘I’ve forgotten it already. Any luck with the picture?’

  Tim turned back to his chipboard bench. He had a state-of-the-art computer and a monitor screen as big as a tabloid newspaper. The shelves were groaning under the weight of zip-drives, DVD units and other impressive accessories. Claire was staring at the array of technology in speechless awe.

  ‘Well, sort of,’ said Tim apologetically. ‘Take a look at this, for a start.’

  He clicked an icon on the giant screen, and the disembodied head of the fake Mags Jackson appeared, floating in a sea of darkness. Then, slowly, eerily, she turned around until she was facing to the left and showing her profile. As Hunter watched in astonishment, the ghostly head made a 180-degree turn to show the right profile before returning to its original forward-facing position. As a finale, she gave him a comical wink.

  ‘Brilliant.’ Hunter shook his head. ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘Simple,’ said the teenager modestly. ‘Some messing around on Photoshop, a bit of basic 3-D animation. But that was just a bit of fun. Here’s what you really want to see.’

  He opened another folder on the computer, to reveal dozens of thumbnail images. Selecting one at random, he clicked it open, and the screen began to fill with the original full-colour photo. Only this time, Mags Jackson had neat shoulder-length blond hair and a pair of rimless bifocal glasses. Her leather gear had been replaced by a smart red jacket. She looked like a high-powered business executive entering a conference.

  Another couple of clicks, and she appeared with a tightly shorn blade-one haircut that made her look like a skinhead on a soccer terrace.

  ‘There’s loads of them,’ Tim said, dismissively flicking through them. ‘I’ve used every hairstyle and hair colour I could pinch from the fashion Websites on the Internet, matched up with a range of clothes. Glasses, too. Tortoiseshell, Ray-Bans, John Lennon. I’ve done print-outs of the lot.’

  He handed over a thick batch of colour prints.

  ‘And that’s about it,’ said Tim. ‘Unless you want to join me for a pint of Guinness. Oh, and take this with you, too.’

  Almost as an afterthought, he handed Hunter a brown cardboard portfolio. It contained half a dozen copies of Martin’s original image, but they’d been enhanced and sharpened almost to studio quality.

  As he sifted through them, something caught Hunter’s eye. ‘I wonder …’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Have you got a magnifying glass or something?’

  ‘Don’t need one,’ said the teenager. ‘We’ve got the pics digitised in the computer. We can blow them up to any size you want.’

  He summoned up the original image. ‘What do you want to look at?’

  Hunter stared at the photo. As he’d noticed earlier, the woman’s leather jacket had swung open as she’d walked past the camera, revealing something white protruding from an inside pocket.

  ‘Just there.’ He pointed it out on the screen. ‘A card or an envelope or something. Can you blow it up for me?’

  It was indeed a piece of white card. Only the tiniest sliver protruded from the pocket – just a centimetre or so – but that was enough to reveal a few letters that had been mechanically printed on it in purplish capitals. The printing led downwards along the card, disappearing behind the lining of the pocket.

  ‘That’s the best I can get,’ said Tim, finally. ‘It’s not much help, I’m afraid.’

  He turned to look at Hunter, who had his head bent sideways, trying to decipher the writing.

  ‘No need to stand on your head,’ he laughed. ‘I’ll get the machine to stand on its head instead.’

  Within a few seconds, he’d inverted the photo to show the writing horizontally. It was already breaking up into pixels, making the image look like a heap of coloured parcels under a Christmas tree; but, despite this, it was now possible to distinguish the letters.

  ‘5K2,’ Hunter read.

  ‘Sounds like a rock band,’ said Tim, pressing a button to give Hunter another print-out.

  ‘Or a mountain in the Himalayas,’ offered Martin.

  ‘Maybe it’s K as in thousand,’ Claire suggested. ‘Perhaps it’s a sum of money. Five thousand two hundred and something. We can’t see the rest.’

  Hunter’s brow furrowed. ‘It looks vaguely familiar,’ he said. ‘But I can’t think why.’

  They stared at the fragmented digits in silence.

  Finally, Hunter shrugged. He took the print-out and clapped Tim on the shoulder. ‘Well, we’ll have a good think about it. Thanks.’

  ‘No problem. Want to wrap it up over that drink?’

  ‘No, I’ll pass on the pint, if you don’t mind. You’ve caught me in the wrong decade.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  ‘But I really appreciate what you’ve done today. It’s been more helpful than you’ll ever know.’

  Tim beamed. Appreciation for his work was obviously something that didn’t come his way all that often.
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br />   ‘Any time, Hunter,’ he said. ‘After all, you’re paying me well enough.’

  ‘Er … yeah,’ said Martin. ‘About the money. Hunter’ll fix me up and I’ll pass it on to you, okay?’

  Hunter struggled into his suede jacket. ‘Fine by me. You happy with the fee we agreed?’ he asked Tim.

  Tim nodded happily. ‘Happy as a pig in you-know-what,’ he grinned. ‘Easiest two hundred I ever earned.’

  CHATO Cook lined up his cue to pot the black. He’d been on a joyless drinking binge for most of the night and the day, but he hadn’t got drunk, just soberer and meaner. An hour ago he’d been thrown out of his local for trying to throttle some guy who’d accidentally pushed up against him. He was barred from most other pubs in the area, so he’d shuffled around to the Kilmucklin Snooker Club for a game of pool.

  He was setting up the cue-rest for the crucial shot when Declan Trim wandered in, trailing his gammy leg. Deco did security at the car park of the Bick Iron lounge. He was a sound bloke who could be counted upon to look the other way whenever Chato and his mates wanted the latest in modern in-car audio entertainment.

  ‘Chato,’ said Declan.

  ‘Deco,’ said Chato. ‘How’s it goin’?’

  ‘Cat.’ Declan sighed. ‘Catastrophic. I’m rushed off my feet. I could murder a pint.’

  He looked at Chato hopefully. Declan earned a pittance from the Bick Iron, but he knew that Chato usually had cash from some job or other.

  ‘Sure,’ Chato grunted. ‘Get them in and I’ll pay.’

  ‘Thanks, Chato. You’re a star. I’ll get you back on payday.’ Declan held up two fingers to the club’s barman, who dispensed drinks from a single Guinness keg underneath a wallpaper-pasting table.

  Chato turned his full attention back to the black ball. It was a difficult shot. In the end, he decided to take it without the cue-rest. He chalked the end of his cue and measured distances and angles.

  Declan amused himself by picking up a copy of yesterday’s paper from the bar table. He stared for a moment at Hunter’s picture on the front page.

  ‘Your man’s round at our place tonight,’ he said. ‘Round at the Bick Iron. Don’t know how he has the nerve, all those other reporters around. He must have a neck like a jockey’s bollocks.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ muttered Chato vaguely, as he drew back the cue to take the shot.

  ‘Your man who wrote the story about Whatsisface, Joe Valentia.’ Declan squinted in the half-light as he consulted the caption. ‘Hunter. That’s the name. Oh, Jaysus, Chato, hard luck.’

  Chato froze for a second as the black ball careered wildly around the table and the white cue-ball sank with a clunk into the corner pocket. Losing the game had cost him a fiver, but that was the last thing on his mind.

  ‘Hunter’s drinking at the Bick?’ he asked with dangerous calm.

  ‘Yeah.’ Declan didn’t like Chato’s tone. The last time he’d heard that tone from Chato, it had been five seconds before a shattered pint glass had buried itself in someone’s face.

  ‘Right now?’ He glared at Declan. ‘Is he there right now?’

  ‘How do I know, Chato?’ Declan’s voice had become plaintive, like an injured puppy’s. He didn’t want to pay the price if his information turned out to be outdated. ‘He was there when I went off duty half an hour ago. That’s all I know.’

  ‘Two pints,’ yelled the barman.

  Glad of the diversion, Declan turned his back on Chato and collected the drinks.

  ‘You sure it was him?’ Chato’s voice followed Declan across the room.

  ‘Dead sure. I saw the bike before I saw him. Then I recognised his face from the picture in the paper.’

  ‘Bike? What bike?’ Chato took the proffered pint and glared at him.

  ‘Not a bike. A motor-scooter.’ Declan was getting flustered. ‘Lovely old 1960s Vespa. I know, because I’d one just like it myself when I was a teenager. We all used to ride off to Bray and look for rockers to fight, but we never found any.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘Plenty of young ones, though, all dolled up and ready for action around the back of the amusement arcade. Those were the days, Chato. You never got the full biz, not in those days. The best you could hope for was a dry court up against a wall and maybe a hand up the front of the jumper.’

  The tactic failed. Chato wasn’t interested in Declan’s sexual conquests in seaside resorts. ‘A Vespa, you say? Did you get the number?’

  ‘No. But it wasn’t local. Some foreign registration. Jaysus, it’s a lovely job, Chato, you should see it. Perfect paint finish, shining chromework, new leather saddle. He must have spent a fortune restoring it. You could tell it was his pride and joy, the way he locked it up in the far corner of the car park and offered me a big tip to keep a special eye on it.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘I did in me brown. I took the tip and promised I’d mind it right up until the end of me shift. But I didn’t tell him I was going off duty in ten minutes.’

  Chato sipped his pint for the first time. ‘And who’s on duty at the car park now?’ he asked slowly.

  ‘Nobody. Not until I start again at eight.’

  Declan had been a mate of Chato’s for years, and he’d never known him to leave a pint. No matter how much trouble he was in, no matter how much of a hurry, he would always drain his glass in one long, relishing swallow before dashing out. But tonight, he just set down the pint on the edge of the snooker table and walked off without another word.

  Not that Deco minded. He hadn’t liked the hard look in Chato’s eyes, the look that said some bollocks was about to get a nut in the face or a pint glass in the gob. When Chato had that look, it was best not to be too close to him, because otherwise you might end up as that bollocks. Besides, Chato had left a full pint of stout behind him, and it was a shame to let it go to waste.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE Bick Iron bar, named after an old-fashioned anvil, was a huge factory warehouse squatting in the grey concrete wasteland of the Kilmucklin industrial estate. It was bleak and characterless and, to make things worse, it tried to disguise its lack of personality by unconvincingly posing as an old-fashioned Irish country pub. Items of useless junk that Hunter’s dad wouldn’t have allowed into his garden shed were displayed proudly in glass cabinets. Hay-rakes and wheelbarrows hung from the ceiling, and in one corner, a modern aluminium rubbish-bin was inexplicably suspended above the heads of the bemused drinkers.

  Hunter hated everything about the place, yet he could feel his pulse quicken as he forced his way through the Sunday-evening crowd. Within a few minutes he would meet Naomi Scott, and, with a bit of luck, he would at last learn the identity of the enigmatic woman who’d called herself Mags Jackson.

  The far corner of the pub – known to the management as the Library – had become the haunt of journalists from the Evening Report and its sister paper the Morning Report, which both had their offices and printing works nearby. Conversations rose and faded around Hunter as he passed the groups of reporters.

  ‘For the last time, I didn’t hijack your bloody byline, darling,’ snarled one plummy-voiced hack with a bright-orange nose that matched his toupee. Hunter recognised Cormac Falcarragh, the political correspondent of the Sunday Hibernian. He kept his head down and walked on.

  ‘You bloody well did,’ replied an earnest young man in a sharply tailored suit. ‘You rewrote my article and put your name on it. The least you could do was give me a joint byline.’

  Hunter wormed his way past them and looked around for Naomi.

  ‘Hunter! I’m over here, cherry popsicle! This way, honey-bunny!’

  The distinctive voice cut through the babble of conversation as effectively as a clattered teaspoon at a wedding reception. There were amused smiles, then a sudden frisson as the journalists in the bar recognised Hunter, wondered if he was worth bothering about, and decided he wasn’t. He was old news, even something of an embarrassment. The buzz of talk returned to its former level.
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  Naomi was sitting by the counter, at a barstool that was much too small for her vast bulk. She was wearing her usual loose, billowing dress, this time in green lambswool. In her hand rested a glass of her favourite Veuve Cliquot champagne.

  ‘Hunter, darling,’ she enthused as he approached her. ‘Come and give Mummy a big kiss.’

  She turned to the man who’d been sitting beside her at the bar. ‘Listen, it’s been just wonderful hearing all about your new exhibition, and I hope it goes just wonderfully, but I simply have to talk to Hunter about something awfully important, if I could just remember what it is. Would you mind terribly …?’

  ‘Oh … yes … ah, not at all,’ stuttered the man, whom Hunter immediately recognised as one of Ireland’s leading artists. He surrendered his seat to Hunter. ‘Nice talking to you, Ms Scott. I hope I can rely on a small mention in your column?’

  ‘Count on it, sweetkins. Count on it!’ hollered Naomi, as though reassuring a rather deaf and doddery patient in an old people’s home. ‘Now, Hunter.’ She patted the stool beside her. ‘Come and keep Mummy company and tell me simply everything about it.’

  Hunter smiled and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Naomi, you’re looking great,’ he said.

  ‘I wish I could say the same about you, darling, but you’re looking decidedly peaky. Here, Juan Carlos!’ she summoned the barman. ‘This is Hunter, my gentleman caller. He would like a drink, if and when you have a moment.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll have a mineral water, please.’

  ‘Of course he will. And I shall have another glass of the Widow Cliquot, if you please, Juan Carlos.’

  ‘I told you before, my name’s Dave,’ said the barman, fetching Naomi’s opened bottle of champagne from the fridge.

  ‘Of course it is, pet.’

  ‘Your very good health, Naomi,’ said Hunter, raising his glass. ‘Now, what’s this about a visit from my mystery woman?’

  ‘Right down to business? No foreplay?’ Naomi looked crestfallen.

  ‘I’m sorry, Naomi.’ Hunter realised that he’d lost any social graces he’d ever possessed. ‘I’ve been under a lot of pressure.’