Desire

by Louise Bagshawe

  ‘Lisa!’ The shout came from the path behind them. It was Josh, and he was bellowing with rage. Fiona must have spoken to him. ‘Hey! Lisa! Where are you?’

  ‘I think that’s your cue,’ Sam Murray said. ‘Good luck, Lisa Costello.’ And he melted away just before her bridegroom came charging through the bushes and proceeded to yell at her some more, and she tossed down the rest of her drink and stormed away from him . . .

  The memories dissolved. She sat there on the single bed with the hard mattress, her wet hair dripping on to her thighs, and tried to collect herself, tried to think.

  So Sam Murray had somehow found Alice Kennedy - and he’d known she was going to go there.

  How?

  She couldn’t have told him and blacked out the memory. Because she hadn’t even known she was going to do it. Would she have mentioned Alice in some other context? No - she had just remembered the whole conversation. She shook her head, hating the lost time. What if she had gone back to find Sam Murray later, if she’d got up after passing out on the bed and discussed Alice Kennedy with him, and an alcoholic blackout had concealed that memory . . . And what if pigs flew over the Colosseum, she asked herself. It was all too stupid. She’d thought of Alice when she had to, and not a second before.

  Think, Lisa. You’re not dumb. Think!

  She tried working backwards. So he knew she was going to find Alice. Meaning . . . he already knew that Alice and she were at school together. OK. How would he know that? Well, he was a journalist; hadn’t lots of them crawled around her old schoolfriends for their stupid little gossip-column pieces? Maybe Sam Murray had something of the cop about him after all, something that she’d guessed that night. Maybe he did more than write puff pieces. Hell, perhaps he actually was a cop. Lisa only had his word that he was a journalist.

  Except, as she replayed the conversation, she didn’t think he was lying. Was that naïve, to go with her hunches? Maybe not, if it was all she had.

  Think. She stood up and towelled her hair a little. Soon she would go out for food. Maybe something else as well.

  So Murray had a yearbook perhaps; certainly records of her schoolfriends. Which meant he’d looked around for somebody she knew in Hong Kong. And as she was a loner, with few friends anywhere, let alone in Hong Kong, that pretty much cut it down.

  But he’d known she would come. That suggested he understood why. The pieces were falling into place for Lisa now, and despite the fear, she found she was impressed. The guy had brains and cunning. As far as she could tell, no state agencies had tracked her this far yet.

  Sam Murray knew she had Janet Parks’s passport. It was the only explanation. How else could he be in Hong Kong? Lucky guess? And he’d also worked out that she wouldn’t try two flights on the same document. So he figured she’d repeat the pattern . . .

  And that had led him to Alice.

  It would also lead him to Rome.

  Her heart pulsed with emotion. Sam Murray understood her. That was something, wasn’t it?

  The authorities would track her to Rome; that was going to happen anyway, since Lisa herself had tipped them off about Alice, bound and gagged in that closet, and Alice would tell them what happened, and they’d find her passport missing and run the standard trace. Being tracked was inevitable.

  But the authorities hadn’t had the chance to find out yet. Sam Murray had got there first. He must have moved very fast, she thought, with a thrill of admiration. And he must have thought hard, to work out not only that she’d run, but how she’d run. The Thai police were probably still scouring every two-bit hostel in a hundred-mile radius of the estate.

  Sam Murray had caught the scent. And her new best friend from that disastrous wedding night, the guy who had seen her drunk and sloppy, was hunting her.

  Would he hand her over?

  Come on, Lisa, one conversation doesn’t make a friendship, she told herself. He’s hunting you. What else do you need to know?

  Only she did need to know. Badly. She needed to talk to Sam Murray. Because if he was that smart, then maybe he could help.

  Chapter Four

  Alice Kennedy, Sam thought. It had to be. She was the only contact he could find who still lived in Hong Kong, and he’d been through everything. There was one other chick from Lisa’s school days, named Rebecca, but she had left Hong Kong for Sydney when they were still in the fourth form, and Lisa would know that. So Alice Kennedy it had to be. Plus, her husband was an airline pilot. That had to be helpful, if you were looking to get the hell out of Dodge.

  The Kennedys had a nice place on the mountain at the heart of Hong Kong, the Peak. From his research, Sam knew that it had been in the family for some time. He arrived early, seven forty-five in the morning, because he wanted to get the woman before she left for a job, or to shop, or whatever it was that suburban Westerners did in the post-colonial city.

  He knew immediately that something was wrong when he got there. It was the garage: open, but only half so, like somebody had forgotten to close it after driving out. He was able to stick his head inside pretty easily, and there was no car in the bay.

  People like Alice Kennedy and her husband didn’t leave their garage doors ajar. They were far too safe and respectable to take risks. It smelled off, and Sam had learned to trust his nose.

  He mounted the steps and rang the bell. No answer. Nothing. They had no maid, apparently, no kids or nannies. He looked up at the windows; several lights were very clearly on.

  He had to get in, and he was prepared to talk his way out of a burglary rap. They had a tiny back yard behind the house, sloping up the mountain as Peak houses’ gardens usually did. He clambered up there and examined the house from the back. Lights were on in random places, but nobody seemed to be home.

  He knew she had been there. He could feel it. Maybe she’d run away with Alice Kennedy; maybe she’d been recognised and they’d had to leave fast. He needed to know. By clambering up on the side of the conservatory, he got himself on to the flat roof of the kitchen. From there he could see the window of an internal corridor.

  He stripped off his jacket, wrapped it around his elbow and smashed the window. Then he kicked in the rest of it until the hole was big enough to crawl through, and clambered inside.

  ‘Hello?’ he shouted. ‘Anybody home?’

  Hell, if somebody was there, it would be better to portray himself as a concerned citizen than encounter the lady of the house coming out of the shower.

  There was no answer. Sam started to move through the corridors of the house. They were covered in a thick silver-grey carpet, the walls a muted shade of peach. All very comfortable, very middle class. Not Lisa Costello at all.

  Then he heard it. A rhythmic thumping, and tiny snuffling noises, like the mewling of a cat.

  Sam had heard noises like that before, although not often. That was a human being, bound and gagged. A woman or a child, from the pitch of the voice.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he called out. ‘I’m here to help. Keep making noise, I’ll find you.’

  The mewling rose to a screech. It was coming from his left. He ran down a small set of stairs into some kind of guest wing. She was in the bedroom. Already he could smell the stink of urine; the poor woman must have been there for hours.

  He flung open the closet doors. There was a young woman in there, dark hair, hysterical, her gag soaked with tears. She had a bruise on her forehead, a nasty one, shades of purple and brown.

  He moved to her and tugged down the gag.

  She started to cry, as though she couldn’t say anything.

  ‘It’s OK, ma’am. My name’s Sam Murray. I’m going to cut off these ties. When the blood comes back to your limbs it’ll probably hurt.’ He glanced around him; there was an open door to an en suite shower room on the other side of the bedroom. It was smallish, probably for guests. ‘Lean on me and I’ll assist you into the bathroom.’

  She nodded, still crying, and he ripped off the ties that were holding her arms and legs. They
were tight, and she wouldn’t have been able to loosen them herself.

  ‘You’re Alice Kennedy, right? Did Lisa Costello do this to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she sobbed. ‘She’s mad . . . ah . . .’

  She gasped in pain as Sam lifted her to her feet, holding her elbow. A small piece of paper fluttered down from her chest to his feet. He picked it up. Alice didn’t say a word; she was staggering next to him, her limbs spasming with the agony of her circulation returning, her bound muscles screaming. He slipped the paper into his pocket and helped her into the bathroom, sitting her down on the lavatory while he gently pulled the door half closed.

  After a few minutes he heard the sound of water running. She was drinking; she must have been gasping with thirst.

  He looked around. There was a bathrobe hanging in the closet where she had been bound. He slid it gently through the door.

  ‘Hey, Ms Kennedy. If you need this.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she wept. ‘Are you police?’

  ‘No, ma’am. I’m a journalist who’s been tracking Lisa since the murder. I figured she would come see you.’

  More sounds of water; she was getting undressed, washing herself. He sat on the bed and waited.

  The paper was in his pocket. He fished it out and looked at it.

  A note.

  Dynamite. He photographed it quickly. A wash of adrenaline swept through him. Wait till Rich Frank got this instalment; he would struggle to believe it. Sam was proud of himself. This might be a shitty, demeaning job, no job for a man, but goddamn, he was good at it.

  While the sounds of the shower came from inside, he moved to the closet and photographed it extensively.

  ‘Ms Kennedy? You OK in there?’

  ‘I want my husband,’ she said. She sounded a little calmer now. ‘He’s a pilot with Cathay. The number’s programmed into the phone in our bedroom; that’s right down the hall.’

  ‘OK. I’ll bring it to you.’

  ‘Thank you. What’s your name?’

  ‘Sam Murray, ma’am.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Murray,’ she said. She was still crying a little bit.

  ‘I’ll - uh - shall I call them for you and let you get dressed?’

  ‘That would be kind.’

  ‘OK. Sure.’ He was pleased; she was actually asking him to enter her bedroom. He found the phone, and saw the coverlet was halfway off the bed - this must be where Lisa had attacked her. Quickly he took a picture, and noted the suitcase. While he rang Cathay, he opened drawers and the bedside cabinet.

  There was a passport in there, face down. He took more pictures, flipped it over - yep. It was Janet Parks’s all right. Man, I’m good at this shit, he thought.

  Cathay assured him that Captain Watson would take the first flight home. She’s more ruthless than I expected, he thought; got to give her credit. If that was the right word.

  He would call Craig later, when he got up. For now, this baby was all his. He walked back towards the spare bedroom, and knocked politely on the door.

  ‘Ma’am - are you ready?’

  She opened it in a pair of slacks and a baggy sweatshirt. Classic defensive dressing, what rape victims typically chose. She looked shell-shocked.

  ‘My legs still hurt.’ She rubbed at her wrists.

  ‘Your husband’s being notified; they said they’d have him on the next plane home. Can you tell me what happened?’

  She sat down heavily on the bed. ‘What day is this?’

  ‘Tuesday.’

  ‘She came to see me yesterday afternoon. We talked. She said she didn’t kill her husband, John Steen.’

  ‘Josh. She denied it?’

  ‘Yes, and she said she wanted me to tell her what to do and would I give her a ride to the airport. I said she should go to Australia. I mean, I don’t know if I believed her, but this is China here.’

  ‘So she was afraid of being executed.’ He’d got her right so far. But then that was something that would likely occur to any fugitive for murder in this part of the world. ‘Did she say anything about who did kill him?’

  ‘No. She didn’t know. She said nobody would believe her but she didn’t do it. Then she said she wanted a lift to the airport, and when I wasn’t looking she hit me.’ Alice’s voice rose to a wail of outrage.

  ‘Did you fight back?’

  ‘I couldn’t. I was blacked out.’

  She must have hit her pretty hard then; she must have some basic skills. Women in fights usually clawed and slapped and pulled at each other’s hair. It might be sexist, but it was perfectly true in Sam’s experience.

  ‘When I woke, I was tied up in a cupboard and gagged. And the worst thing is she made me tell my maid to take the day off today! I could have died in there!’

  ‘Not after one day. Sounds like she just wanted time to get away.’

  ‘Are you on her side? I trusted her, like an idiot,’ Alice said, and burst into tears again. ‘I was so thirsty and so frightened. I thought I was going to die. I went to the bathroom on myself!’ She shuddered. ‘That poor man, she stabbed him to death . . .’

  Sam wrestled with himself. What did he do now?

  ‘Excuse me - can I use your phone? I need to call the police.’

  ‘Yes, go ahead,’ Alice said, twisting her hands.

  ‘Walk around if you can a little,’ Sam told her. ‘Get the blood flowing.’

  He pulled out his cell and dialled Craig’s number. This time it was answered on the first ring. Craig would have caller ID.

  ‘You asleep?’

  ‘Not yet. But I’m guessing you didn’t call for some male bonding,’ Craig replied.

  ‘Not exactly. I’ve tracked the girl a little further.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘A house of a schoolfriend in Hong Kong. She tricked the woman into getting rid of her housekeeper, then knocked her out and tied her in a closet. Hands and feet, gagged her too. That’s where I found her.’

  ‘Holy shit,’ Craig said. There was grudging admiration in his voice. ‘She alive?’

  ‘She’s fine. She’s only been in there about twenty-four hours.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘I need another deal, Craig. For the story.’

  ‘You and your fucking deals. You want to get pulled in on interfering with a federal investigation?’

  Sam felt anger surge in him. ‘Fuck you, Craig. I’m tired of this. You guys are walking around with your dick in your hands, photographing some bedlinen in Thailand and I’m one step behind this girl and giving you everything you’ve got. You can’t compel me to do shit right now. You don’t have a subpoena. By the time you get one, she’ll have completely disappeared. I’ll lose the story and you’ll lose the case.’

  A sigh. ‘Go on, man.’

  ‘You deal with this yourselves first and wait twenty-four hours before you call the Chinese police.’

  ‘What if this woman calls the police?’

  ‘I told her I’m doing it. Maybe she will eventually. She’s a Brit, though, more likely to trust the Fibbies than the locals. I want Lisa Costello to have a head start on the Chinese.’

  ‘Because they’ll send her back to Thailand?’

  ‘If she dies right now, I got no story.’

  ‘I’m sure that’d make Josh Steen’s family real sad, that you missed your story.’

  ‘Craig—’

  ‘OK. Deal. But we’re going to pursue her with all the resources of the Bureau. They put me on the case, because I got contact with you. I’m flying tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, don’t fly to Hong Kong.’ He grinned at the pleasure of giving the FBI information. ‘She left. She dumped the first passport she stole in her friend’s house. That’s Alice Watson, wife of a Cathay pilot. No doubt she took Alice’s passport instead and flew on that. She left a note on her friend saying how she was sorry and she had to get away because she didn’t kill the dude.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. And she didn’t assault this girl either.’

 
‘Doesn’t follow, Craig. Maybe she’s telling the truth.’

  ‘This is what you call open and shut, Sam. Don’t fall for this girl. She’s very bad news.’ Craig was smiling a little, Sam could hear it in his voice. ‘This is nice work, man. How the hell did you get it?’

  ‘I just know she’s not stupid. You guys work on the assumption that she is. She’d know she needed another passport.’

  ‘She can’t go round the world boosting passports for ever.’

  ‘I’ll put the victim on the phone, OK? She can tell you the rest. I’m going back to my hotel and you’re going to call me with the destination that Lisa flew to, and you’re also not going to tell anyone else till tomorrow morning so I can get my copy in.’

  ‘Done. Email me a photo of the note.’

  ‘OK. Hold the line.’

  He walked back to Alice and told her the FBI wanted to speak to her.

  ‘The FBI?’ She blinked. ‘They’re Americans.’

  ‘They’re investigating the murder of Josh Steen. Helping the Thai police out. This ties in, because it’s the same suspect.’

  ‘I’ll speak to them,’ she said numbly. Then added, ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’

  He handed her a card. ‘If you want to talk. One more thing: can you tell me if she looked different to you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘She’d cut off her hair. And it was brown.’

  Clever girl. It was stunning how many people didn’t bother. Especially women, unwilling to sacrifice their beauty. Plenty of girls would risk jail just to keep looking hot.

  ‘He’s on the phone in the bedroom. Oh yeah, and I broke your window, to get in.’

  ‘I’m glad you did, Mr - what was your name again?’

  ‘Sam Murray. It’s on the card. When you’re through with the FBI, you should really get checked out at the hospital.’

  ‘I will. Thank you again.’ She walked off to pick up the phone, and he left the house. The woman was fine, and recovering fast. She would dine out on the story for years, he suspected.

  He had to get back to the hotel. There was a cab passing, and he flagged it down, his phone in his hand, already composing an email. Even more sensational stuff; he could imagine how the paper would run this: SHOCKING NEWS - LISA COSTELLO LEAVES FRIEND TO DIE - DENIES FIRST MURDER - ON THE RUN IN HONG KONG - THE SCANDALOUS PICTURES, THE SORDID DETAILS . . .