Church of Chains

Church of Chains

By

Sean O’Kane

PROLOGUE

Father Burton’s gaze swept round the courtyard of the monastery as the girls of the new intake, the novices and the initiates were shepherded to their quarters for the night. There had been two formal punishments to administer that evening. It had rained heavily during them, but it hadn’t mattered. He had surveyed the faces of the other girls during the floggings, and all of them had seemed suitably fearful as they stood; legs apart, hands behind backs and watched as the rain had plastered their scant clothing to their bodies and their hair to their faces. Apart from the occasional flick of a head to clear the hair from in front of their eyes, none had dared move a muscle while the sentences were being carried out. Of course it was forbidden for them to look away during punishments and the brothers had patrolled the ranks to make sure none did.

In fact Father Burton felt the rain had added to the spectacle. Once the girls had been chained naked to the whipping post, it had made their palely exposed flesh gleam very pleasingly. And the whips of the brothers charged with carrying out the punishments had cracked down with an interestingly wet, smacking sound, sending sprays of rain and sweat up from the helpless bodies. Also it had added to the picture of utter dejection and defeat the girls had presented as they hung in their chains when they had taken their lashes, hair matted down and the panting, moaning bodies running with water.

The public humiliation of these floggings had denied, indeed it was specifically designed to deny the girls the usual pleasure their sex had been ordained to take in being dominated by their masters. As he watched now the two victims struggled to carry the heavy whipping post back into storage, just as they had earlier sweated to carry it out. The brothers’ whips played mercilessly round their thighs and calves to encourage them.

The Father felt well pleased. The work of the Church was progressing fast, all round the country, monasteries like this one were quietly being established and those who could not live by the laws espoused by the Church were being purified and redeemed. The wickedness of society was being beaten out of it in various ways. But here was where he belonged, here with these errant girls; it was the task the Patriarch himself had bestowed on him. And Father Burton knew he was equal to it.

In only a few nights’ time there would be yet another new intake of girls. He strode back into the monastery, yet again he would see to it that they were purified, every trace of their previous, sinful lives expunged. He couldn’t wait to move the great work on.

Chapter 1

WPC Paula Cheever gave herself one last critical examination in the mirror of the ladies’ toilets before going on duty.

The bright red Lycra dress hugged every curve of her body. Her full breasts which were naked under the thin material stood out proud and firm, the nipples thrusting into little peaks at their tips. The plunging neckline bared a daring expanse of the creamy skin at her cleavage. The skirt was short enough to leave her stocking tops invitingly visible and it clung lovingly to the neat swell of her taut buttocks. She had been allowed to grow her hair for this assignment and now it fell in gleaming black waves to her shoulders.

Pretty good Paula, she told her reflection smugly; whoever christened this ‘Operation Honeypot’ knew exactly what they were doing.

When she reached the Vice Squad office with its desks piled up with paperwork that needed attending to, and would be one day, and its dingy walls covered in Polaroid snaps of girls who were persistent offenders she found the Chief Inspector was waiting to give them a pep talk.

The Chief Inspector was Margaret Barfield, a good-looking woman in her mid-thirties and tipped to go right to the top. She was sitting on the front of the Inspector’s desk, her shapely legs being secretly appraised by the men sitting on the rickety chairs that were the room’s only other furniture. They were wasting their time, Paula thought, her tastes didn’t run to men. And several WPC’s had had their careers blighted by refusing to hit the sack with her.

As Paula entered CI Barfield gave her an ironic smile. “Well WPC Cheever, should police work ever lose its appeal, I don’t think you’ll lack for alternative employment,” she said.

The men sniggered and Paula groaned inwardly. For one thing she was getting tired of the snide comments from the men; for another she was terrified that CI Barfield would proposition her, she had already seen her eyeing her up. But the Chief Inspector moved on briskly and everyone settled down.

She briefed a group of four officers who were on the trail of a new pimp who had recently moved into the area and they left to set up their observation point. That left Paula and the two officers who were to man the mobile unit which would back her up.

Her job was to pose as a prostitute on one of the city’s streets which was regularly used by kerb crawlers. She would have a small microphone attached to her dress and when she was propositioned the man’s voice would be recorded in the unmarked van parked just round the corner from her. At the crucial moment the van would pull round and he would be arrested and brought in.

“You both know the drill,” the CI told the men. “Don’t leave Paula out there any longer than you have to with a punter. Just get the evidence and then go in and get her; and him. And there’s an added reason why that’s important at the moment. Anyone ever heard of the Church of Ultimate Purification?”

They all shook their heads, and then Paula remembered a documentary she had seen some weeks before. “Aren’t they some kind of fundamentalist sect that’s setting out to reform society?”

“That’s them,” Margaret Barfield nodded seriously. “They’ve got some pretty far out ideas and some questionable methods. Up north we’re trying to infiltrate them. Amongst other things, known prostitutes are vanishing off the streets. We think they’re behind it, and what’s more we think they may be about to start operating down here. So you,” she addressed the men, “keep a close eye on Paula.”

They acknowledged their orders and left to pick up the van from the depot downstairs. The CI said she would drop Paula off at the agreed corner on her way home. It was an uncomfortable drive, Paula tried to use body language to convey to the other woman that she wasn’t interested but Barfield just smiled. The bitch is biding her time, Paula thought.

It had been thought best to keep the decoy as far apart as possible from the van until the very last moment. When the van did arrive, a couple of minutes after Paula had taken up station, she would simply lean in at the driver’s window as if she was negotiating with him. She would be fitted with the mike and the van would take up a discreet station and wait to see who fell into the trap. 

Paula shivered a little as she climbed out of the car. Margaret Barfield leaned over before Paula could shut her door.

“You show a lot of... promise Paula,” she said, managing to make the word ‘promise’ sound like Paula had asked her to leap into bed with her.

“When you’ve finished your attachment to Vice, we really must have a drink together. I like to get to know promising young officers.”

Paula managed to make some non-committal reply and closed the door. The Chief Inspector’s car pulled away and left her.

“Oh bloody great!” she muttered after it, “I either get felt up and laid by a creepy lesbian or stay as a PC for the rest of my career!” She knew there was no earthly point in reporting any proposition; Margaret Barfield could do no wrong in the eyes of the brass hats. Well it was a problem she would have to face in due course. She sighed and summoned up all her professionalism to concentrate on the job in hand.

The evening was chilly and the cold air cut through her thin clothes. How the real tarts stood it in all weathers she would never know.

She checked her watch and tried to stand in the shadows of the trees which overhung the high garden walls behind her. The van, a big, white, unmarked Transit, would be along any minute but if she could avoid being approached before it reached her, then so much the better.

The minutes passed. A couple of cars cruised by; the only traffic on this quiet street. The drivers looked hard at her, but the fact that she was standing well back from the kerb made them uncertain and they drove on. Paula wasn’t concerned, she knew they would go round and round the kerb crawler’s circuit. Once she had been miked up she would make it very plain that she was touting for business, then they would stop and the trap would spring.

She checked her watch again, a small frown on her face. The van didn’t normally take this long. The road was very quiet, all the big old houses set back behind their stone walls seemed deserted. A small shiver of alarm went through her. She felt very much alone.

Where the hell was the van?

Suddenly the silence was broken by the sound of a vehicle turning into her road off the main street. It sounded like something larger than a car. Paula stepped out of the shadows to get a better look as the lights approached her. She watched anxiously as the vehicle made its way slowly towards where she was standing. It was only a few yards away when she breathed out a sigh of relief and hailed it.

It was a large, white, unmarked Transit.

In the vehicle depot the two Detective Constables were searching frantically for jump leads. Over the weekend the van had been parked with its lights left on and the battery was dead. By the time a set had been located and a car manoeuvred into a position from which the leads would reach the van, they realised that Paula had been out for half an hour with no back-up.

They drove across town as fast as the van would go but their hearts sank as they turned into the quiet road on which Paula was keeping station. Even though the streetlights cast pools of shadows under overhanging trees, the road looked deserted. They drove slowly along peering into gateways and every dark corner which could be hiding her, but at the end of the road they exchanged grim glances.

The driver picked up the radio and raised the desk sergeant back at the station.

“Operation Honeypot here Sarge. We’ve got a problem.”

As soon as the van pulled up beside Paula, she approached the driver’s door.

“About time!” she began. “Where the hell have you...?”

She got no farther.

The door was suddenly pushed open violently, hitting her with savage force and knocking her backwards off her feet. She lay on the pavement, fury and bewilderment roiling in her dazed mind. But before her head could clear a cloth was pushed firmly over her nose and mouth and held down hard. It had an overpowering smell which was somehow familiar. Chloroform? Even as she began belatedly to struggle a part of her mind wondered professionally who would be using that stuff in this day and age? A young man’s face came into view above her, he was looking down with calm disinterest and it was the image of his clean-cut features, so at odds with the situation, that Paula took down into darkness with her.

And when she came round she was sitting in darkness, but it was a swaying, moving darkness. She blinked her eyes until they began to focus and tried to bring a hand down to rub them but found she couldn’t. She tugged harder, what were her hands doing above her head anyway? There was a pain in her wrists as she struggled and she heard the clink of metal. She was handcuffed!

In a panic she tried to move her feet, but again there was the discomfort of restraint and this time a rattle of chain. She tried to cry out and finally became aware of the fact that she was gagged as well. Fighting down her fear, she concentrated on trying to get her eyes to adjust to the gloom and slowly her surroundings fell into place.

She was in the back of a large van. Suddenly images of her abduction came back to her. But if the van which had pulled up beside her wasn’t a police van, whose was it? She turned her head; at least she could do that. There were several other girls imprisoned with her. They were all seated on benches which ran the length of the van, down either side of it. Their hands were handcuffed to two, long metal bars which were bolted to the roof and ran above the benches, their ankles were manacled and a heavy chain ran through steel rings on the manacles so that they were all chained to each other. All the girls were gagged. The back windows of the van had been crudely painted over, and only an occasional glare from the headlights of following traffic penetrated the dark.

Paula couldn’t make out any of the facial features of her companions, but she got a general impression of uniformly short skirts and revealing tops, or short dresses like hers and high heels. As her head cleared she realised that these were other girls who had been taken off the streets by whoever it was. They were prostitutes like she was pretending to be, except that her abductors had thought she was a real one. Her head fell back in despair as she put the rest of the picture together.

Chief Inspector Barfield had said that the Church of Ultimate Purification was taking girls off the streets. Something had happened to her back-up, her cover had worked too well and she had been taken for a real prostitute and abducted by a bunch of fundamentalist loonies for God knew what purposes. Even in her despair she found a grim humour in her own choice of phrase.

She tried to remain professionally calm and review her position. No-one knew where she was or what had happened. At all costs her abductors mustn’t find out who she really was. Her training came back to her; in a hostage situation never allow yourself to be seen as a threat to your abductor. She would have to maintain cover and hope someone caught up with her, and also hope that none of these girls recognised her.

Suddenly the van started to slow and then made a sharp right turn which threw all the girls on Paula’s side forward against their handcuffs. Then they were on rough ground or a track of some kind and were thrown all ways, making muffled protests into their gags. After some minutes of jolting the van stopped. Paula heard the cab doors open and close and then the back doors were thrown open.

A powerful torch was shone into her eyes and a man’s voice addressed them.

“Right then you sluts. You’ve got a long way to go yet so we’re going to let you out for a moment. But don’t get any ideas. You’ll still be shackled and you’re a long way from home. Sister Lavinia will release the hands of one row at a time. When your row is free you will be able to come out and relieve yourselves. If there is any disobedience or struggling, both of us have whips and will punish the offender here and now.”

Paula hardly registered the more outlandish parts of this speech, she was using the torchlight to look at her fellow captives and was greatly relieved to find that she didn’t recognise any of them. They must have been brought in by that new pimp the squad was trying to nail.

Somebody climbed into the van and Paula felt her hands released but then immediately cuffed again in front of her once they were clear of the bar. She looked at the figure which stood over her. It was a woman dressed in a long dark skirt and a white blouse which gave her an almost Victorian look. She passed down the line of girls and when all were free of the bar the man told them to stand up and they shuffled clumsily out into the night, dragging the heavy chain at their feet with them like a nineteenth century line of convicts. They stood for a moment shivering in the night air. The van seemed to have stopped on a hill. All round them was open moorland as far as Paula could tell, and far below them were the lights of a city, but which one? She was given no time for thought though. The woman told them to follow her and they stumbled after the pool of light her torch provided. A little way from the van they were halted and told to squat down and relieve themselves. Paula realised that now it had been drawn to her attention she was desperate. The woman stood over them, a long whip trailed down beside her. Paula looked at it and decided against trying to wrench off her gag and scream. It was difficult with their hands cuffed together but with much pulling at recalcitrant knickers, all the girls managed and made the best of the humiliation of having to perform in a line, chained together.

It was when they returned to the van so that the other line of captives could be freed that Paula got her first taste of what was in store.