He rested the compact digital camera on the sill of the open car window, monitoring the crowd through the two inch screen. The camera had been a marvellous buy for the price. Small and discreet enough to hide in the palm of his hand and yet powerful enough with its 10X zoom to pick out the finest detail at fifty yards.
He checked and double checked his rear view mirror again, and then scoured the faces of the bustle of parents hovering outside the school, attentive to any suspicious reaction, especially as he had now parked in the same spot for the past week whilst he waited and watched out for her. He took a fleeting glance at his watch again. She was late today. Or had he already missed her. He hoped not. He especially liked to see her in her school uniform. And he also knew that this would be his last opportunity to catch her in her uniform for some time; the school’s were breaking up today for the annual six-week summer hols.
At the edge of his peripheral vision he caught sight of her, coming his way from a different part of the school. A shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds just as she emerged from a row of trees close to the boundary fence. For a second it cast a halo effect on her mane of blonde highlighted hair, and he snapped off a shot. He wasn’t too concerned about the composition of the shot because he knew he could play with the image later on his computer to get the effect he wanted. He wondered why she had been so late for him. He zoomed in and caught the frown creasing her pretty face. Something or someone was troubling her. He snapped another shot of her chewing at a finger. She looked particularly attractive today. Was that a hint of mascara around her beautiful brown eyes?
He took another picture of her climbing into her mother’s car, catching more thigh than normal as her short, grey school skirt rode up her legs, before she went partially out of his sight as she slammed the passenger door shut. There was a brief exchange of words between her and her mother before they pulled away from the kerb. He wondered what that was about.
Dropping the camera onto the seat beside him he took another glance around. He let out a deep breath as soon as he was satisfied he had not attracted any unwarranted attention, and then he put his car in gear and slowly crept away.
He drove the three miles to his usual quiet spot and veered off the road onto the dirt track to the woods. He edged slowly along the tree line until he was on the long stretch where he knew he would have a good view of anyone approaching from a distance, and then he turned off the ignition.
He wound down both front windows to listen to the sounds around and picked up his camera and started to go back through the images he had captured. He was particularly interested in the ones he had caught of her two nights ago when he had crawled to the bottom of her garden, waiting for her to go to her room. It had reminded him of his teenage years when he had sneaked around his neighbours’ properties with the camera his father had left him, snapping away as they emerged from their bathrooms.
When she had come from the shower he had set the camera to video mode, watching her as she gently rubbed the moistness from that long mane of hair. He particularly liked the way the light glistened on her face and neck and shoulders. He had captured her petite, slender form perfectly.
Viewing this was almost as good as being in the room itself with her.
He found himself getting excited again. He felt the rush of desire as a burst of testosterone surged through him. He set the camera on the dashboard of his car, switched to playback mode, cranked back his seat, unbuttoned his jeans and began to masturbate.
* * * *
“Harder, faster.” barked Jock Kerr, setting all his weight behind the leather punch-bag. “C’mon son, thirty more seconds, put it in.”
Hunter’s gloved hands pummelled the sand-filled bag in piston-like fashion. Every muscle in his arms felt as though it was on fire and beads of sweat ran from his forehead, down the sides of his face and neck, adding to the already soaked patch on the front of his gym vest.
“Okay son, that’s it. Good work, call it a day,” ordered his father in his strong Glaswegian lilt.
Hunter punched the bag twice, hard for luck, then dropped his guard and rested his chin on his upper chest taking in great gulps of air. He felt physically drained almost to the point of sickness, and yet he was mentally alert, pleased that he had managed an hour of his father’s training. Hunter loved his boxing sessions in his father’s gym. His passion for them was almost on a par with his painting, but unlike finding enough time for his art, he knew he could always squeeze in an hour or two at the gym several times a week. It also gave him quality time with his dad, and it had the added bonus of sharing a well-earned pint or two with him after in his local working-men’s club. Inevitably conversation revolved around Hunter’s job or the distant memories of his father’s boxing days.
On a repeated basis he found himself listening to the potted version of his father’s life changing experiences. The same story, over and over again, of how he had boxed since he was a young boy back in his native Scotland. Explaining in detail how he had been introduced to it by his father, Hunter’s grandfather, so that he ‘could stand up for himself.’ He had very quickly discovered he had a natural flair for the pugilistic art, and so as a teenager he had been taken on by an ex-professional at one of Glasgow’s leading clubs and had been coached to a high level. Then he would re-run some of the fights in animated fashion, especially when he had got to the part where he told Hunter he found himself selected to compete in the Commonwealth games. And especially how, at seventeen, he had won a Bronze medal and that had carved the way for a professional career. His story tailed off when he told him about the bout which ended his career. He picked up a nasty cut just above his eye, where the flesh is at its thinnest, and despite several skin grafts, the scar opened with every fight and so at twenty-two years old his career was over.
Then with immense pride he would pick up the story again, telling him, that rather than turn his back on the sport he was good at he had worked even harder and immersed himself fully in the training side of the game. His father’s story always ended on a note of sadness as he explained how he had soon come up against the seedier side of the fight game, finding himself constantly warding off some of the undesirables, especially those involved with the Glasgow gangs.
Hunter always wondered why he would go quiet at this point of the story and would find something else to say or do. Though his father would return to the story later, telling him that when he discovered that he had a child on the way, he decided he had had enough of Scotland, and moved down to Yorkshire with his pregnant wife, where he began a new phase in his life, setting up one of the best boxing gym’s in the area, which earned him a very good living. He always ended his life tale by putting an arm around his shoulders and telling Hunter that his birth six months later changed his life.
Hunter leaned against the tiled wall of the shower area rolling his neck slowly whilst the warm jet of water swept away the sweat from his head, along the curve of his back, and away down his legs. That felt really good, he said to himself as he shut off the shower and padded into the changing area. As he dried himself he switched back into work mode, recalling the previous night’s telephone conversation with Barry Newstead.
He had kept in daily touch with Barry since the interview with Susan Siddons, updating him as to the latest developments in the investigation into the two murders. He had also shared the predicament of Paul Goodright, particularly raising the issue of how he could legitimately introduce the cardigan as evidence without it being subject to too much scrutiny, especially if it proved to be a vital piece of evidence to the enquiry. If anyone could resolve this, he had told himself, it would be Barry. After all he had employed so many unorthodox methods in his past; Hunter had no doubt that he would have been involved in something pretty similar over the years, especially the era which Barry had moved in during his career. The phone call yesterday evening had proved him right.