www.colinwraight.com

www.colinwraight.com

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Welcome to my web site! My name is colin Wraight and I'm the author of both Poppy Darke & the Cauldron of Fear and my latest novel BlindFire.

Click book to go to BlindFire web page.

Click book to go to Poppy Darke page

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Prologue

I couldn’t trust anyone let alone a complete stranger, I wondered if I could trust her. Could I really tell her the truth? Reveal everything I’d kept secret for so long! Every instinct in my body screamed at me to run, to run and not stop until I was far away. I nervously glanced at the door and the irresistible temptation of freedom; all I had to do was leave right now and then I could disappear forever. I’ve done it before and I can do it again! 
  They would find me though, they always find me!
  “For god sakes will you relax?” She said and dumped a large shoulder bag on the table between us. “You’re making me nervous; stop worrying there’s no one else here! Just you and me..!” Then she pulled a notebook out of her coat pocket and one of those small Dictaphones out of a side pouch on the bag placing them on the table between us. “If what you tell me is true, I mean, if there’s one shred of reality in all this madness then this is your only chance! If you want to live you need to tell the world your story..!” 
  She glared at me, lips pursed, like a slightly irritated school teacher; I could tell she thought I was completely insane and maybe she had a good point, sometimes even I didn’t believe all this crap. 
  “When you’re ready, speak clearly and tell me everything, I want you to tell me your story in your own words.” She said briskly and wiped a lock of blond hair from her eyes. “… And if you’ve got any evidence to back up these claims it would help for me to see it..!”
   Deep down I knew she was right I had nowhere else to go. This was my last chance so I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth and nodded.
 She never took her eyes from mine as she pressed the small red button on the side of the Dictaphone and then took a sip from a mug of coffee. “Now then Bob! Make me famous!”
  I’d always hated people calling me ‘Bob’.

This story never had a beginning, nor middle and there is no end in sight. So where to begin?

In the fairytales of my childhood the brave Prince always slew the dragon and married his beautiful Princess. They tell you that the happy couple ‘live happily ever after’; as a kid I often wondered what that meant exactly? What really happened to Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella after the big wedding? I guess the honeymoon period only lasts for so long. Eventually the Prince goes bald, sleeps with the hand maiden and the Princess doesn’t stop nagging him for a new dress and a bigger castle. Before long all that love, excitement and adventure gives way to boredom and loathing. 
   Well let me tell you something -I don’t remember any of those Princesses being assassinated in a dark tunnel and left to die in the mangled wreckage of a horse drawn pumpkin. There’s no such thing as ‘happily ever after’! They are just stories to help scared little kids sleep.
  You see, I was there that night and I saw them. I know what they did and that’s why they want me dead too, by the time you read this story I’m sure I will already have had my own perfect little accident. 
    My name is Robert Hunter and this is my story.
 
Chapter 1
September 1997, somewhere in England…

I roused from a restful state of oblivion to the dull throbbing pain in my jaw, and for one second, one beautiful fantastic second I thought that it must all have been just a stupid nightmare. That delusion only lasted as long as it took for the tip of my tongue to find and probe the mushy gap where my teeth had once been. 
   Is unconsciousness the same as sleep? I don’t know and quite frankly I didn’t care! I found myself looking forward to the pain free respite it brought. Until recently they’d been keeping me awake with loud recordings of bleating sheep, that noise very nearly broke my resolve, it certainly drove me to the very edge of madness.
   Struggling weakly against the chains restraining me to the chair I tried to open my eyes and that’s when I realised that I definitely wasn’t dreaming, because I couldn’t open my eyes at all, they were a swollen mess and my eyelids were stuck together with what I could only imagine was congealed blood. My cry of agony rapidly descended into a pitiful whimper of despair as pain exploded across my shattered rib cage. 
   I had come to recognise the metallic taste of blood, as more of the sticky red stuff suddenly spewed up my throat spilled across my tongue and filled my mouth quickly before gushing down my chin. The knowledge of my broken ribs was one thing but the thought of a punctured lung or something worse was becoming a terrifying worry. 
  I tried to remember the troop medic course all those years ago just before the Gulf war. But my head had taken too many punches and most of the time I hardly knew my own name. In any case it would have been no use; I was in no fit state to help myself. One way or another once they had what they wanted I was a dead man anyway.                     
  It wouldn’t have made much difference if I could open my eyes; they had kept my head covered with a hood since day one. When I say ‘day one’ I say that with the absolute certainty that I can remember ‘day one’, all the other days seemed to merge into alternating periods of beatings and unconsciousness. 
  My tormentors had never actually spoken to me nor asked me any questions, not even my name; I hadn’t even heard them speak to each other. I’d heard lectures about this sort of thing in the Army so I knew they were using some sort of mental torture as an accompaniment to the physical type.
  They didn’t need to speak I knew what they wanted but in my heart I also knew that the moment I gave in and handed it to them I would be killed.
   Fear suddenly knotted in the pits of my stomach as the smell of coffee permeated the hood and filled my nose.
  “No.”  A cry of despair left my lips. “No..! Please!”
   Each morning was always the same as the aroma of fresh coffee chased the scent of summer’s first honeysuckle into my nose. It bugged me that I didn’t know the name of that perfume or what the woman wearing it looked like. I’d taken to counting her footsteps on the marble floor… Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen and then the jingle of a key ring and a key turning in a Yale type lock.
  My body had learnt these signs and now trembled in fear at the upcoming onslaught. 
  Footsteps on a marble floor, she was wearing different shoes today, a key turning in a lock and that cloying odour of her scent. The door creaks on its hinges as it swings open and then six more steps before she slides a chair from beneath a desk and sits down. The final sound was always the same, a mug of coffee being placed on a desk.
  “Help me!” I spat as more blood filled my mouth. “Why are you doing this to me?” I knew exactly why they were doing this but I just wanted to hear a voice, I wanted them to speak. My vocal chords were dry from the lack of water and my throat soar from screaming in pain. I said those words but I doubt she understood them or even heard them.
  She ignored me and took a sip of coffee; I know this because I heard the smack of her lips and cup being placed back on the desk.
  “I need a doctor! I have to go to hospital!” I begged. I remembered from lectures during my Army days that it is wise to wildly exaggerate the pain of injuries if you’re tortured. Fortunately I had no need to act, I was as close to death as you could get without actually being dead and these animals had no conscience to prick. “Please help me...!”
  Once again silence met my plea and I lacked the energy to beg any more. In a way I had come to know this woman and right now I could feel her staring at me, her eyes boring through the hood and into my mind. I figured she’d get bored very quickly; there was little of my mind left. 
  Time had no meaning to me, I didn’t know if it was night or day. One minute could seem like an hour, one beating could seem to go on for a whole day.
  I was unsure how many of my tormentors there were. Ofcourse there was the woman sat at her desk. I imagined her to be short and fat with lank greasy hair and warts on her face; I hoped she was ugly, that evil bitch deserved to be short, fat and ugly. I just couldn’t understand any woman who could just sit there quietly and watch a man get beaten to a pulp every day without wanting to help him.
  Then there were the men, at least two of them. They took it in turns to beat me like a tag team in a wrestling match. One of them couldn’t hit as hard as the other and I almost grew to look forward to his punches. I called him the smoker because he reeked of tobacco; it was a pungent smell so I guessed he rolled his own.
  The other guy was shorter and stockier because his punches seemed to come from a lower point and had more concussive power behind them. He was a complete sadistic bastard who liked inflicting pain; it was he who had broken my ribs and jaw knocking a few teeth out in the process. 
  A shudder of terror cascaded through the wreck which had once been my body in anticipation as more footsteps approached; they were moving briskly and coming straight for me. I braced myself for the first punch which smashed into my jaw tipping both me and the chair over, my head met the wall with a crunching thud and darkness began to surround me. Faces flashed across my memory as my mind tried to escape to another time and another place.

60 KM south of Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, 9th August 1997

The air conditioning at Split international Airport seemed like a whole world away now as we trundled north in the back of an old series III Land rover. Between the droning sound of the tyres on the road, exhaust fumes and the constant smell of petrol I was beginning to feel just a little bit queasy. 
  I swigged mouthful after mouthful of water but the sweat poured out of me quicker than I could replace it. I just seemed to be constantly chewing on gritty dust and the occasional insect.
  Wearily I looked over at my colleague Jean Pascal, and smiled ruefully. The agency tended to send us on shoots together; most recently we were suppose travel to Angola to photograph visiting British royalty. It was easy to say he was my closest friend, which didn’t say much for me because he was my only friend.
  “Not long now!” He said in that heavy Parisian accent of his. “Today, you get to photograph your princess at last.”
  “We’re going to be late, Tuzla is miles away!” I cried. What I really wanted to say was ‘I’m hot, I’m tired and thirsty! I really need a pint and I want to go home!’
  He shrugged. “Diana will wait for you; she needs the publicity our pictures will bring to her campaign.”
  Of course he was right, he was nearly always right. As it turned out I missed the Angola trip back in January because of a bad case of flu but some of JP’s pictures had graced the world’s media. He never said but I think he’d made a small fortune from one days work.
  “Did you know that I met her once?” I said and took yet another swig of luke warm water.
  JP frowned heavily. “The Princess..?”
  “It was just after the Gulf war. My unit was involved in a drum head remembrance service in Munster...” Just saying those words took my minds eye back to that day. “...After the service there was this meal and she came round and spoke to us. All I remember is her wearing this white and yellow polka dot dress; she had the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen!”
 “Perhaps she will remember you my friend!”
  Now it was my turn to frown. “I doubt it! The second she came near my table I looked up in to her eyes and.... And..!”
  “And what...? What happened?”
  “I looked into those eyes and froze...”
  JP chuckled and said something in French. I was no mood to ask for a translation as the road was getting bumpier by the mile and I was sick of getting thrown around.   
  The plan was to take Photographs of her talking to injured locals and maybe get a couple of   her gazing forlornly over a minefield or two and then spend the night in Kupres before shooting off up to Banja Luca and catching a military flight back to good old Blighty.

No one knows quite what happened next, one second we were on the road and the next..! Well the next I woke up covered in someone else’s blood, luggage and camera equipment. The Landrover was lying on its side; the canvas roof was completely gone and so was JP. I turned to see the driver, a young soldier whose name I hadn’t bothered to ask, with a huge bloody gash on his head. This was the least of his problems as the poor lad was quite obviously dead. I on the other hand had been very lucky, saved from any serious injury by our rucksacks which I’d been sleeping on. 
  It took a while but eventually I fought my way free of wreckage, baggage and what looked like a mangled human arm, which I believed or rather hoped belonged to the driver. Once on my knees I looked for JP who way lying on his side by a small rock outcrop about thirty meters away. He was still alive, thank god. I saw him turn his head and look at me, offer a small wave and then he began to climb to his knees. I was about to give a loud sigh of relief when I noticed something about fifty yards away. 
  Now an empty Coca-Cola can impaled on the branch of a fallen tree would normally mean only one thing – Litter! But after the recent safety briefing at a British Army camp, I knew the can had been placed there as a warning.
  “Don’t move...! We’re in a mine field!” I screamed. “Don’t move!”
  He couldn’t have heard me because he just stood up and began walking towards me. Looking back I think he must have been in shock!
  “Stop..!”
  My voice was suddenly drowned out by a loud boom, then there was a flash and JP disappeared as the earth seemed to explode around him. A millisecond later the shock wave hit me and everything went black.
  I’m not sure how long I lay there unconscious but when I came round there was a British Army Chinook helicopter hovering some fifty feet above me. The rescue was well underway; I was already strapped securely into a cradle.
  I heard a voice, but I couldn’t look left or right as my head was firmly locked in a brace. “JP..!” I screamed. “Get JP, he’s hurt!”
  “Ok calm down sir… You’ve been involved in a mine strike! But your injuries don’t seem too bad, there’s nothing life threatening!”
  I still couldn’t see him so he must have been hanging beside the stretcher. “What about my friend?”
  “He was alive when we dropped him off at the hospital.” The voice struggled to be heard above the roar of the Chinook. “Now you relax and enjoy the ride!”
  The rest of that particular journey seemed to pass in a blur and so before long I found myself lying in a bed at the British military hospital at Sipovo reading a week old copy of the Sun Newspaper and struggling to complete the crossword. As for JP, well, he was in real trouble. The doctors were keeping him in an induced coma and unfortunately he’d lost a leg just below the knee, but he was still alive. 
  I look at the crossword- 6 Down, Inflict pain to gain information, 7 letters.
  I begin to fill in the blank squares T, O, R, T, U, R, E, and as I write that last letter I realise that I’m not sat up in a comfortable bed with nurses taking care of my every need. 
  I’m chained to a chair and slowly dying.

Chapter 2
September 1997, somewhere in England…

I hadn’t really thought about food or water since this whole thing began, they were the last thing on my mind, I couldn’t even remember my last meal. But as I drifted back into consciousness a bouquet of scents filled my nose, teasing my senses. My stomach rumbled with hunger as a tidal wave of drool left my mouth and spilled down my chin
  Nearby someone was eating a bacon sandwich and I realised with gut wrenching cramps that I was absolutely starving.
  Three lots of footsteps approached quickly and after some struggle they managed to set me and the chair up-right once more. Then two lots of footsteps left the room and I was left with my mystery visitor, I prayed they still had the bacon sandwich and that it was for me. 
  Would this person speak to me? There was just silence for what seemed like an age and then it happened, it just happened like it was the easiest thing in the world.
  “Mr Hunter..!” He whispered.
  Even from those two words I could tell he was middle-aged and I felt he could be a taller man, maybe over six feet. He was a smoker but unlike the short guy this one smoked only filter tips. 
  “Are you awake Mr. Hunter? I was hoping to have a chat with you this morning!”
  His voice had moved and now I sensed he was kneeling right in front of me. I already hated this man, he was speaking with his mouth half full of my bacon sandwich and then I detected brown sauce. My god the man had lashings of brown sauce all over the bacon and it was driving me crazy. I would have given him anything for just one small bite, just a taste or a lick.
  “Mr Hunter I’m here to help you..!”
  My throat was dry from a lack of water and it took excruciating effort to speak, but I managed to make one word audible enough to be heard. “Hospital..!”
  “Hospital…! Ofcourse Mr Hunter I’ll call you an ambulance at once!”
  As a wave of release swept over me I finally snapped and began sobbing.
  “But first there’s the small matter of those pesky photographs..! Where are they Mr. Hunter?”
  I strained to see my tormentor through the hood; I desperately wanted to see his face and the cut of the man. As a child I’d been brought up mostly in tough care homes and you had to stand up for yourself or learn to run fast. This situation would be even more tragic if he turned out to be some spineless scrawny little no mark.
  “Murderer..!” I spat angrily.  
  Throughout my whole ordeal there was always this tiresome little voice in my head constantly telling me ‘not to worry’ and that ‘everything was going to be alright’. 
  But it wasn’t going to be alright, was it.
  Reality had arrived in the form of a man who ate bacon sandwiches whilst torturing people and more annoyingly spoke with his mouth full. 
   Deep down I’d always suspected that a slow death might be my only way out of this hell hole and although my imminent demise might ease some, if not all, of my pains I still hoped and prayed for a miracle.  
  The realisation that they were going to kill me no matter what came with a very strange sense of relief and my sobs turned into laughs, my ribs hurt like hell and I laughed more, my head hurt in a place far beyond pain and I laughed like an insane man. Then I laughed because there was nothing else to do apart from lose my mind.
  I guess it must have been the laughter that upset him the most because I think he hit me over the head with something quite hard.

British Military Hospital 
Sipovo, Bosnia- Herzegovina
10th August 1997

Situated at one end of the notorious ‘Route Parrot’ and in an area known to the mapmakers as ‘the anvil’, the British Military hospital at Sipovo was nothing more than a few tents erected inside an old factory with a makeshift helipad close to the main gate.
  I was what they affectionately termed ‘walking wounded’, so although I slept in a bed on the ward, I was allowed in the NAAFI bar and even outside into the sunshine. JP on the other hand seemed to be spending an awful lot of time in surgery and the doctors were very slow in coming forward with any information.
  Towards the end of the third or fourth day a Landrover turned up at the hospitals quartermasters store with all our camera equipment on board. Everything except my 35mm camera and a couple of rolls of film was utterly destroyed and I wasted no time in throwing it all in the nearest skip.
  At least our rucksacks were intact along with our wallets and passports etc, so we would be able to leave the country when the time came. When I  heard rumours that they were talking about repatriating JP back to Paris I went straight up to the ‘ops’ room on the first floor and demanded to talk to some one in charge.
   I was in no mood to be fobbed off so I banged hard on the door and the top half, like a stable door, opened abruptly. These days I was a civilian but even after all these years I still got the urge to brace up and salute everytime I saw an Officer.
  This one must have thought that I was still serving because he just glared at me; I think he was waiting for me to come to attention.
  “I’d like to speak to some one about the French photographer!” I said. “Is it true you’re repatriating him?”
  “And you are?” He snapped, even as he said the words I could tell by his face that he’d realised I was a ‘civvy’.
  “Robert Hunter..! I was injured in the same vehicle! Just want to know when we’re getting out of here?”
  He took his time to look me up and down like a Headmaster might at an ill behaved pupil, and then walked over to a desk behind him and picked up a wad of papers. “Just the man I wanted to see! We received your movement orders this morning! We’re going to get you and your French buddy onto a Chinook tomorrow and fly you down to Camp Four in Split and from there I imagine you’ll fly back to Brize Norton in the next couple of days.” 
  I’d been to camp four before it was sort of a staging post for guys entering and leaving theatre. There was this nice little café there that served fantastic full English breakfasts, maybe things were looking up at last.
  He was just about to slam the hatch in my face when I raised my hand up to stop him, I don’t think that impressed the man too much because he rolled his eyes with impatience and breathed out a little harder than he really needed to.
  “I’d like to speak to ‘my French buddy’ if that’s alright with you!”
  He hesitated for just a second too long and gave me a look of utter disdain. “I’ll see what I can do!”
  “Yeah...! Cheers for that… Mate..!” I said. These officers hated familiarity, I could see him squirming, but he couldn’t do a dam thing about it. I made a point of looking at his rank and name badges, I wanted to know who to come looking for if I couldn’t get in to see JP. “Captain Slade, you’ve been a great help.”
  He just glared at me and slammed the hatch shut.
  “Dick head..!” I muttered. “What an absolute dick head..!”
  I was sort of nervous going in to see Jean Pascal, but in the end he didn’t look so bad. When eventually I got in there he was propped up on pillows reading a book, he saw me, placed the book on the bed and then smiled. 
  “How are you?” I asked, stupid question really considering the circumstances.
  He smiled again. “Well most of me is just fine..! But my leg not so good it was put out with all the other clinical waste… I was hoping they might let me keep it.”
   I don’t know why but I felt really uncomfortable talking about the leg situation so I changed the subject. “I bet you’re ready to go home, they’re flying us down to Split later today.”
  “Yes I know we get to eat the full English breakfast in that café! Maybe we can go down to the beach play some volleyball and watch all the pretty girls swimming in the sea..!”
  I’d known JP long enough just to frown at him.
  “Ah I see you think that I am going to be one of those bitter amputees..? So the volleyball maybe something of a problem, perhaps I could hop.” 
  “We can sit under a palm tree drink a couple of cool beers and watch the pretty girls swimming in the sea.” I said. “And as for beach volleyball I’m getting a little too old.”
  JP sighed heavily. “I am sorry old friend; I always get like this when I loose parts of my anatomy… Anyway I wanted to talk to you about something! I want you to do something for me.”
  “Anything..!”
  After looking up and down the tent to make sure no one was in earshot he beckoned me closer. “I have contacts in the Ritz Hotel in Paris and they tell me that something big is about to happen with you know who.”
  “Princess Di..?”
  “Look at all of the newspapers..!” He said excitedly and reached for a copy of The Star. “Look at the pictures; they’re holidaying on a yacht! Soon they are to travel to Paris where they will stay at the Ritz Hotel. They let me make some calls yesterday and I spoke to my contacts…”
  Suddenly I could see where all this was going. “You want ME to go to Paris? Don’t you?”
  “The place will be absolutely teeming with Paparazzi, but my contact will make sure you get all the best pictures… For a cut of anything you make. You can stay at my place and use my car, all you have to do is say yes.”
  It sounded like easy money and I never turn a job down. “What about you?” I asked.
  “Don’t worry about me. They tell me that I have months of rehabilitation and pretty nurses ahead of me, I will be fine.”
  And so eight hours later I found myself alone at Split international Airport with nothing more than my passport, a 35mm camera and the keys to my friends flat and car. He’d never even mentioned having a car before, so it came a bit of a surprise that I could borrow it.
  “Oh I didn’t know you had one, what model is it?” I’d asked hoping he’d say Mercedes or BMW.
  His parting words echoed in my ear. “It’s a Fiat Uno..! Help yourself to anything in the kitchen but don’t use the milk it’s probably off by now.”
  The flight to Charles de Gaulle would take a few hours and I planned to sleep for pretty much all of it.

Chapter 3
September 1997, somewhere in England

My body woke long before my weary mind and my backside realised immediately that it wasn’t wedged comfortably into the upholstered seat of any airliner. After my daily routine of screaming and fighting against my restraints I returned to my slumped position and waited for my friends to come back and start beating the crap out of me.
  I didn’t have to wait very long; it was almost like they knew when I was awake. The woman hadn’t bothered with her customary coffee this morning and she didn’t sit in her chair either, she perched on the edge of a table. I could tell because I heard the large buttons of her coat fall across its surface. I wondered what all this meant, if anything at all, maybe she wanted to join in today’s festivities.
  I hadn’t heard him enter, so I guess he must have been sat there for a while, and his voice seemed very close when he spoke.
  “I see you’re awake at last Robert!” He said. “I’ve been sitting here watching you and despite everything I find myself feeling very sorry for you; it’s not nice to see another human being in such a terrible state..! I don’t think it’s something that I will ever get used to..!”
  He paused for a second and allowed my blood spattered coughing fit to pass and then continued as if nothing had happened.
   “…I commend you on your bravery and you’re clearly a very tough individual, but it’s time to stop. Give me what I want and we can all go home..! You can go home Robert I promise you!”
  I heard some movement as the woman passed a cup of coffee to the man, from the strength of the pungent aroma I’d have to say he liked it strong and black. His voice told me he was an older man, maybe even elderly; this guy was probably some little kid’s granddad. I wondered how many he had done this to, how many had he killed?
  “You have taken more punishment than was ever necessary! And for what..? A couple of stupid photographs..! ” 
  I heard him take a sip of coffee, his lips smacked at the sudden heat and then he continued. “Tell me where they are and once they are in my possession I’ll get one of the boys to drop you off at the local hospital! How does that sound Bob?”
  He called me ‘Bob’. God, I hated it when people did that! 
  This old guy wanted me to hand over my only chance of survival, give the scum that murdered my best friend the only evidence in the world of what I witnessed that night. Well they could go to hell, the whole dam lot of them!
  I must have passed out because the next thing I remember is him poking my forehead “Are you awake Bob?” He said and prodded my forehead again. “Can you hear me in there?”
  I nodded.
  “Well what do you think? Are we going to finish this? Because heaven help you it’s only going to get worse!”
  It was pretty bad already; I couldn’t imagine how on earth it could get any worse. I suppose he could put a bullet right where he had just been prodding my head but I would happily take that option right now.
  “I think you should start talking Bob!” He said angrily and slapped my face. “Don’t you go falling asleep on me now..! God-dam-it man, I want those photographs!”
  You would think that the slap across my face would serve to wake me up or at least render me more alert, but I was in such a terrible state that I blacked out. If he hit me again I wouldn’t have felt it, my mind had wandered off again, before I knew it I was back in Paris.
                                          
Paris, 29th August 1997

Paris in August! Sounds like a song from some old musical? That’s what I was thinking as the wheels bounced on to the runway at Charles de Gaul Airport. I’d been in hospital in Bosnia and subsequently Split for almost two and a half weeks, but it felt much longer.
  A civilian feels many of the constraints working with the military brings but standing there in arrivals waiting to have my passport checked I felt almost free. There’s a lot to be said for reading an up to date newspaper and not being surrounded by people in uniform. After sailing through customs I soon found myself outside queuing for a taxi, with no discernable luggage to speak of I only waited a few minutes. The sun was high and the sky a deep blue, a gentle breeze made it a perfect summer’s day. 
 Jean Pascal had a house in Saint Gratien, news to me; I don’t ever recall him mentioning it before. Like I’ve said my French isn’t exactly fluent so I just showed the taxi driver

Three sample chapters from my next novel 'Near Death' due out in the new year. Feel free to have a read and let me know what you think. colinwraight@hotmail.co.uk