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Deadline
Deadline
Deadline
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Deadline

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The Predator has a problem. He craves sex but fears women and has an intense hatred of prostitutes. How does he resolve his dilemma? He rapes prostitutes and then tortures and mutilates them.
But some, like Annie, refuse to remain a victim. Partially recovered, she takes her story to the editor of the local newspaper. Appalled by her tale and despite misgivings about the legal dangers, family-man John Peters goes ahead ...
Then the Predator mounts a terrifying campaign of revenge – against the prostitute who exposed him, against the newspaper, and against John Peters and his family.
How can he be stopped? What will it mean for the lives of those he torments? And just when will it all end?

A thoughtful and action-packed thriller from a master of deadlines, newspaper editor Graeme Barrow.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherGraeme Barrow
Release dateOct 16, 2013
ISBN9781927239483
Deadline
Author

Graeme Barrow

Graeme Barrow was born in South Africa and educated at Queen’s College and Natal University. After qualifying as a lawyer he worked in London for four years before returning to South Africa and becoming a partner in a legal practice.In 1975 he emigrated to New Zealand and began a career in journalism. He was the editor of a daily newspaper for 10 years before retiring in 2005 to write freelance – reviewing books, and writing columns on travel, wine, and classical music.He is the author of two critically acclaimed rugby books – All Blacks vs Springboks (later updated and re-published) and Up Front – The Story of The All Blacks’ Scrum. DEADLINE is his first novel.For more information, go to http://www.graemebarrow.com

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    Deadline - Graeme Barrow

    DEADLINE

    By

    Graeme Barrow

    Deadline

    Graeme Barrow

    Copyright 2013 Graeme Barrow

    Smashwords Edition

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    First published 2013 by Graeme Barrow

    Copyright © Graeme Barrow 2013. The right of Graeme Barrow to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

    This book is also available in ebook and print from www.graemebarrow.com

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Graeme Barrow was born in South Africa and educated at Queen’s College and Natal University. After qualifying as a lawyer he worked in London for four years before returning to South Africa and becoming a partner in a legal practice.

    In 1975 he emigrated to New Zealand and began a career in journalism. He was the editor of a daily newspaper for 10 years before retiring in 2005 to write freelance – reviewing books, and writing columns on travel, wine, and classical music.

    He is the author of two critically acclaimed rugby books – All Blacks vs Springboks (later updated and re-published) and Up Front – The Story of The All Blacks’ Scrum.

    This book is dedicated to Jill Marshall.

    PROLOGUE

    Mondays were always the big days for the reporter on the crime and police round. On Mondays there were always more stories from the police department than any other two days of the week combined.

    Invariably there would be at least three arrests for driving with excess blood alcohol, five or six assaults in domestic disputes, at least one brawl involving several young people outside a bar or nightclub, and every now and again a house fire. Jimmy MacNab would write all these incidents up in the most lively manner he could, for productivity was just as important as inventive and creative writing for a young, ambitious reporter wanting to make his mark and earn promotion.

    Jimmy would go down to police headquarters early each morning, never later than 7.30, to speak to the duty officers before they held their morning conference, and get the details of the overnight action. They always treated him with a hint of condescension, he thought, the occasional smirk goading him into the knowledge that they would tell him only what they wanted the media to know, and that journalists were not high up on their list of those in society whom they admired.

    Well, bugger them, he thought. Smug bastards. They weren’t so noble themselves. So far as he was concerned they were just a means to an end. Crime stories were among the most avidly read articles of all, and which hugely helped sell papers. What he craved, though, was the big one, a scoop, a gruesome or macabre or sensational crime or murder which he could really get his teeth into; to write a story which would have his name on it, and which would be flashed around to all the other newspapers in the country.

    Just the usual rats and mice stuff, John, he reported dispiritedly to his editor when he got back to the office.

    Don’t worry, Jimmy, John Peters replied. He’d heard this lament so often.

    He’d once been like Jimmy, he reflected. But no more. He’d had his fill of feral child abusers, spouse bashers, knife-wielding jealous men, and drug-crazed losers with a hatred of nearly everything. He’d written his fair share of stories about these people when he was younger, as well as having to report two murders and the subsequent court trials.

    Now he found these incidents depressing enough even though his staff now wrote them. But he had to approve them and edit them. The reality was that the worse the atrocity, the more papers were sold, and this sorry commentary on human nature depressed him as well.

    Was he getting old? Was he too conservative, too cautious, too pragmatic? These days, with newspapers struggling for readers and advertising dollars because of the inroads of the internet, many papers were actively highlighting sex, gossip and violence. He disapproved, but was well aware that he might be a bit out of touch.

    Perhaps he was, but the paper’s owners were happy with his cautious management of the paper. No risky stories meant no threats of lawsuits. Lawsuits cost money, and money was something they treasured very dearly.

    Put your faith in human beings, he told Jimmy. One or more of them will do something appalling soon enough. There are still a lot of primitives around.

    Deep down, he hoped he was wrong. Rats and mice suited John Peters just fine.

    CHAPTER ONE

    It was 9.45pm on Wednesday and Annie Matson had no presentiment about what would happen in what was left of the night. There might be business, or there might not. She wanted the former so as to bring her goal closer, but her body cried out for the latter. Depression had seeped into her mind, so heavy she could feel it as a dull ache in her upper body as well. These moods occurred quite regularly; when they did she felt the strong temptation to give up and go away – to start a new life somewhere else.

    But she always fought it. She was resilient, and resolute. Besides, she had too much to lose. The prospect of possibly losing that which was most dear to her in all the world was unthinkable. Then there was her goal. She simply could not quit until she’d got there.

    But God, how tired she was. Fifteen minutes to go before her self-imposed deadline, her closing time of 9.30pm. Then she would switch her phones off, bolt the front door, go to bed and read herself to sleep. The system worked quite well. Her regulars knew when she closed shop; new clients would invariably phone first because that was what she had asked her regulars to tell them to do when recommending her services to other men.

    How had it come to this? How had a once respectable wife and mother become what she now was? As she did most days of her life, she cursed the disease that had started the nightmarish slide into shame and humiliation.

    Insert, pull, pray. Insert, pull, pray – worshipping at the shining aluminum altars that silently promised jackpots which would end the financial woes. Over and over; the handle slippery from her sweaty grip; her arm becoming numb from the mad and monotonous action. Count to five – her lucky number – and pull again. Oh God, please, please. Just one big one, please. Oh shit, that’s the money all gone. But there’s a little of the housekeeping left. She could feel it now. She knew it. That money was lucky money. The big win was imminent, just another pull away. It was her turn, for God’s sake. Surely, her numbers HAD to come up. But they didn’t. They never had. Just a few dribbles every now and again.

    But she’d always go back, sneaking out and sneaking in, a slave to the silver-bonded seductresses with their flashing, hypnotic, colored lights. Later she would lie in bed in a cold sweat, unable to sleep. How could she confess? How could she tell him she’d lost most of the money they had saved for a deposit on a house, a stake which each week they had built up with payments into her savings account? But then she’d see in her mind’s eye the row of identical icons, the jackpot sign, hear the bells that made the sweetest sound on earth and she’d know there’d be money to pay back what she had taken, money to spare, money for a present for Kitty. Wrapped in the cocoon of her fanciful imagination, sleep would come.

    It couldn’t last. First came the lies, then her pathetic excuses and explanations, followed by tearful begging for forgiveness. It happened too often though, and incomprehension and pity had ultimately turned to disillusionment and anger. Relations became rancid. One day he’d just left, taking Kitty with him.

    Annie rented her modest, two-bedroom home. Her aim was to own one like it, somewhere else, where the only visitors would be those she wanted to visit. It was that prospect which gave her the strength to keep doing what she did. She was 30 years old. She calculated that in one more year she would have saved enough for a deposit. Her weekly salary from the shop where she worked in the accounts department was paid directly into a bank savings account. She never touched it. She used her other income for living expenses. She paid for everything in cash, including her fortnightly rental. This suited her landlord just fine.

    The larger bedroom, at the rear of the small cottage, was where she slept. It was neat, tidy, and tastefully decorated, considering what she had spent on it. The curtains were colorful, serviceable and thick – helping to keep out the winter cold. The prints on the walls were of popular and predictable landscape scenes. Above the door handle was an iron bolt. The bed was a single.

    She thought of the other bedroom as her office. The double bed took up most of the space. The only other piece of furniture was a small cabinet in which were bottles of whisky, gin and rum, along with the usual mixes. In addition, she always kept a few bottles of beer in the fridge in her kitchen. She drank none of this herself. At weekends she would drink a few glasses of wine each night. That was all. She didn’t smoke.

    She’d acquired self-discipline.

    In the corner next to the door was a hand basin. On the wall behind the bed the famous near-nude photo of a young Marilyn Monroe, enlarged to four feet across, hung in a cheap frame. One of her regulars had asked her to have a large mirror installed on the ceiling, but she had refused. Mostly, she kept her eyes closed, but she knew she couldn’t keep them shut all the time, and the thought of looking up and seeing a man gyrating on top of her was horrifying.

    The little wooden house was the smallest in a modest but respectable suburb. There were no large or stylish houses, but all were well cared for. There were none which badly needed painting or other repair work; no unkempt gardens, no old hulks of rusting cars which would never be driven again.

    The little house squatted, rather incongruously, on a rather large section of land. It meant some work in the upkeep line, like mowing the lawns and tending the vegetable garden, but Annie didn’t mind. She enjoyed it. It was honest labor. Two orange trees some owner had planted several years ago were now fully grown, and took up much of the space. These added to the privacy, which was why she had chosen the house. Privacy was her ally, anonymity was her aim.

    She ran a tight and disciplined ship. She saw only one customer per night – and some nights there were none. She never worked weekends, just Monday to Thursday nights only, partly because of a craving for rest and time on her own, partly so that the neighbors would harbor no suspicions. Another reason was that every second weekend she was allowed to visit Kitty where she now lived with her father, in another town. She realized that the neighbours might well suspect what her night-time job was, but so far there had been neither complaints nor comments.

    Her system was very different from those of the other self-employed sex workers, for Fridays and Saturdays were their lucrative times: when pay-packets were spent, when the working week’s tensions were drowned with alcohol, and when alcohol fuelled lust. But drunks and unknowns were not to her taste. Hers was a referral business. Every man who she let into her office had been told about her by someone who’d been before. She had never advertised. If it became known that she was a prostitute, even a part-time one, her chances of getting custody of Kitty would be nil. Then there was the important matter of money. Since prostitution had been legalized, she knew she’d be pursued for income tax should her situation become public knowledge.

    The fact that she was known to be selective allowed her to charge what others in the profession could not, although it had taken her some months to realize this. There was also the matter of her looks. She was not beautiful, or even striking, but she was easy on the eye. She was slim and petite, with a gamine face and good complexion. Her dark hair was cut short in a girlish style, and her figure was good.

    But, she knew, it was her air of being, if not quite ladylike, then at least somewhat proper that was another factor in her appeal. This made her one of a kind. It added to her exclusivity. She was well-spoken and well-mannered, even in action. She refused to talk dirty, although she always emitted the obligatory cries at the appropriately tactful moment. Prior to that she squirmed energetically enough, but her mind was elsewhere, concentrating on the reason she had to debase herself in this manner. She performed on automatic. It was because of this that her face had little of the coarseness, or cynical hardness, of most of the busy professionals.

    She never rushed them away afterwards either – another reason for her popularity among the well-heeled, and another example of how different she was. She knew her clients (she preferred that word to the rather vulgar tricks) really appreciated this. One of her first clients had told her how much the post-coital companionship had meant to him. He related how some years back he had made his first visit to a big city brothel. The woman, who was young and attractive, had been as impersonal as a traffic warden issuing parking tickets. He had no sooner stripped than she had taken hold of his member, towed him across the small room as if he were a unicorn, washed him with soap and water in a portable wash stand, and dressed him in a condom. It was quite arousing, and caused unavoidable (and obviously intended) brevity of performance. He had hardly finished and regained his breath when she pushed him off, rolled away, and showed him the door. Time was money. He had left a bit debased and dissatisfied.

    The message had not been lost on Annie. She made a point of suppressing her strong desire to get rid of them, get showered, and get to bed. Instead, if there was an obvious longing for post-transaction patter, she always obliged, and even offered them a drink. Sometimes she would join them, although only drinking ginger ale or ginger beer. So it was that some of her regular clients regarded her more as a girlfriend than as a professional – which was also good for what remained of her self-respect.

    It was not just a desire for a better – and therefore safer, and cleaner – class of client which had led her to adopt this business practice. She had to keep her day job. Those she worked with had no idea that she also worked nights – and she was determined to keep it that way. To the other workers she was a shy, reserved, pleasant woman who kept to herself and avoided the gossip fests and the small talk in which the others indulged during the breaks. She would occasionally join them for an after-work drink, but her conversation was always general, never personal. The other women knew she was separated. They knew she had a seven-year-old daughter who was living with the father somewhere. They knew she hoped to get her back. They knew she’d only been in town for about a year - and that was about all they knew.

    She looked at her watch. Time was almost up. She disconnected her phones, and was about to bolt the front door when there was a knock on it. She groaned inwardly, but tried to sound cheery. Who is it? How can I help you?

    There was a short laugh. You bet you can help me. I’m not too late, am I?

    She opened the peephole. It was a man she had never seen before, but he looked respectable enough. She unlocked the front door. He was in his early thirties, she guessed, about six feet in height. She gave him a quick scrutiny. He was lean and well-muscled with light brown hair. His nose was aquiline, and his jaw was firm. His hair was worn quite long, but brushed back from his forehead without a parting. He had a thin moustache, and his eyes were a pale, washed-out blue. He was casually but tidily dressed in dark trousers and a dark blue sweatshirt, though she didn’t pay too much attention to what he looked like because, unless she came to know and like a man, she wanted her visitors to remain shadowy figures she would soon forget. It was a part of her attempt to blot out all thoughts of her night-time occupation.

    Normally, she would make polite small talk with new clients for a couple of minutes, offer them a drink if they looked nervous, and ask how they had heard about her. But tonight she was bone-tired, and it was late. She just wanted to get it over with.

    You know the deal? she asked. He nodded. $200, she added, in cash.

    He put his hand in his pocket, but when he brought it out it had become a fist, and he hit her, very hard, on the side of the jaw. She fell to the floor, stunned, stupefied with pain, only semi-conscious. Fluid in his movements, he forced her jaws apart and stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth. She gagged. Then he took a scarf from his pocket and tied her hands behind her back. She tried to wrestle free, but he was so strong. His strength was terrifying. He ripped off her clothes, tearing the buttons and zips, his fingers as abrasive as rough-sawn timber and his long fingernails as hard and sharp as a table knife.

    Then the sadism and the appalling agony began. He punched her repeatedly, stabbed her with the ends of his fingers; took bits of skin and flesh in his hands and twisted. He bit her breast so brutally the pain was white hot and she tried to scream. And then he was on her, snarling and growling, like a demented dog worrying a small sheep.

    Mercifully, she fainted.

    She came round, still in a state of shock and excruciating pain, to see him standing above her, fully dressed. She tried to move, but it was almost impossible. At least he had untied her hands. Two hundred dollars, he sneered, bending over her, his leering face close to hers. You want money for sin. Change your ways, you filthy whore. All you whores in this town are going to have to change your ways. You have to be taught a lesson. Respect the Lord.

    She watched him leave,

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