Fairwood (a suspense mystery thriller) (18 page)

“Please, let me do it myself.”

“Take your pants off,” she repeated, sternly.

She had briefly hoped to use the opportunity to attempt escape, to take advantage of the woman’s fragile nature and compassionate tendencies, but this no longer seemed like the same woman and the shock and fear had thrown Pandora on a different course. With a trembling hand she removed her knickers, suddenly realising that her skirt had been torn free as she felt the thin underwear slide freely down her naked legs.

She felt the woman’s arm brush past her, felt her lift up the toilet seat and felt the pressure applied to her arm as the old woman tried to usher her downwards.

“Sit.”

Pandora remained standing. She was scared and felt ashamed. But that shame and fear combined to create an angst that she knew she needed to use as soon as she felt it rising. She lashed out, quickly throwing a fist at where she assumed the woman was.

She felt her hand connect with flesh and bone; felt the punch follow through as the target toppled; heard the screams of surprise and anguish as the connection was made. She quickly kicked off her knickers, freeing herself from the threaded shackles, before launching a few kicks in the direction of the fallen woman. She connected with the hard ceramic of the toilet bowl, felt her toes crunch and twist under the impact. She ignored the pain and continued to kick until she landed a few heavy thumps into the mound of flesh that lay on the bathroom floor.

She was breathless and in pain and she still needed to use the toilet, but she had won; she had beaten her kidnapper. The blindfold was tied tightly behind her head, she tried prying it free but couldn’t. She toyed with the knot, snatching and pulling at it until it came free and the rag slipped from her eyes.

A surge of adrenaline cut through her like a drug. She could see the crumpled woman lying on the floor at her feet, a twisted scowl on her bruising face as she looked up at Pandora and struggled to regain her breath and composure. She glared at the woman, spat at her and then turned towards the doorway, ready to run away, to escape the clutches of the perverted pair, to find Dexter and to get out of Fairwood.

The husband was standing in the doorway. His arms folded across his chest, an appreciative sneer on his face. She knew, from one look into his sadistic eyes, that he had been watching the whole time. He had been giving his wife directions; he wanted to see Pandora suffer, wanted to see her humiliated.

He lowered his arms, balled his fists and moved quickly towards her. She tried to fight, tried to struggle, but he was stronger than her and, when his wife managed to drag herself from the floor to help him, she was outnumbered.

She wet herself in the struggle, giving him the humiliation that he sought. They both laughed, snickered like school children, as they dragged her back to the bed and tied her up without drying her dripping legs or returning her knickers.

22

This time the dogs yapped when he knocked on the door. The sound pleased him, reassured him that he was on the right track. Although, judging by his previous experience with Bat-shit Barnes and her catalogue of crazy, he wouldn’t be surprised to open the door to find her on her all fours yapping away like a ra
bid primate.

He shifted his feet impatiently as he waited. He had left Simpson at his house. He asked him if he wanted to come along, promised him it would be a case he could sunk his teeth into, one that would recollect the big, exciting cases they had in the past -- the ones wedged too sparsely between all the misery and the paperwork -- but Simpson refused, seemed to prefer the solitude of Cawley’s house.

Barnes left the door on the chain as she opened it, dipping her prominent Neanderthal brow to shield her grey eyes from the afternoon sun.

“You again,” she said, more a statement than a question. “What do you want?”

“I’m here about the bandits. I need your help.”

She frowned, closed the door and unhooked the chain. She opened it fully, stood in the doorway and looked him up and down suspiciously. “I already told you--”

“But now I’m listening.” The words had been formed and spoken before he had a chance to stop himself. He deflated, cursed under his breath. She looked annoyed.

“How dare you?”

“I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

He held her inquisitive stare momentarily, then shook his head.

“I try to help you and this is the thanks I get?” She shook her head. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

He was. He was ashamed of his house, his job, his life. He thought about telling her that in a moment of exasperation, but the sound of his phone ringing in his pocket stopped him. Part of him was happy for the distraction, happy to answer it without even glancing at the screen, that part of him had, briefly, completely forgotten that the last thing he wanted to do was answer his phone.

He deflated further when he heard the sarcastic voice of his boss on the line.

“You sound a lot better.”

He mouthed an expletive, held up a hand to Barnes to ask her to remain patient, which she did with her arms folded across her chest.

“I had some herbal tea, some honey, did me the world of good,” he said plainly.

“Are you being sarky Cawley?” she spat aggressively.

He was. He didn’t know why he was but he definitely was, and he wasn’t stopping either.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Where are you?” she demanded to know. “Why aren’t you here? What makes you think you can--”

“One question at a time please.”

He shifted the phone away from his ear to avoid the barrage of obscenities that she screamed at him.

“Are you finished?” He asked politely when the sound of her screams had faded to a string of mumbled curses.

He heard her grumble affirmatively and then prepare another line of aggressive questioning, at which point he hung up, muted the phone off and dropped it back into his pocket. He knew he would regret it later, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to deal with any psycho bitches anymore. He smiled at Mrs Barnes, content to deal with the degree of crazy that didn’t wander into the realms of ball-squeezing manipulation.

“Who’s that?”

“That was my boss.”

“Was?”

He nodded, gave a succinct and dismissive shrug. He doubted he would still have his job after that phone call, but the crazy witness currently propping up her own doorway with a food-encrusted scowl of mistrust -- stinking of body odour and animal ammonia and wearing clothes fit for a fire-sale at a charity shop -- didn’t need to know that. Cawley still wanted to catch the bandits, not because of his job, not because of the fame that would result from their incarceration, but because that fame would piss off Sandra and Clarissa who thought of him as a washed up nobody.

“I need your help,” he said earnestly. “I know what I said, and I’m sorry, I should have listened to you first time around,” he smiled as warmly as he could. “I’ve had a long day but I really do need your help.”

She gave him a long and cold smile that seemed to thaw by the second. Eventually she nodded, stepped aside and gestured for him to enter. He thanked her and held his breath before entering.

23

Dexter dreamed he was dying. He dreamed he was being beaten into the abyss whilst Pandora watched; her face devoid of emotion. He knew he was dying, he knew he was breathing his last breaths, yet he cared more about Pandora’s situation than his own. He didn’t know what was wrong with her but he remembered her screaming, he remembered feeling helpless, angry and agonised in one collective, emotional mass.

He was happy when he woke, happy to get away from the dream. That happiness didn’t last long. He didn’t know how long he had been asleep and he doubted if the sleep had been natural, he wasn’t in the mood for a siesta and was most likely suffering from slips of consciousness brought on by a lack of sustenance, lack of sleep and the beating he took the night before.

He smelled food when he opened his eyes and saw a sandwich on a plate in front of him, just out of his limited reach. The bread looked stale, had a few flecks of suspect mould around the corners and the contents -- lettuce, tomato, cheese -- looked well past its prime, but he was hungry. The sight of the sandwich attracted his full attention. He didn’t notice the man sitting on the other side of it, his thick thighs straddling the back of a hardback chair.

“Hungry?” he asked.

Dexter growled at him, an instinctive reaction that surprised him.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He pushed the plate forward with the toe of his boot. It crept along the concrete floor with a grinding sound that cut through the empty room with a deafening squall.

Dexter hobbled forward, scooting along the floor. He cautiously reached for the plate but the shackles wouldn’t extend that far. He sat back down, scowled at the man in the chair.

He recognised him from the pub. The one who came over after the quiz, the one that had taken Pandora away. He had sinister eyes and a creepy and arrogant smile. He had a way of looking at you which suggested he was not only better than you but he owned you.

“What do you want with us?” Dexter asked.

The man gave him a casual shrug and a wayward glance into his own thoughts. “I want you to suffer,” he said eventually.

“Why?”

He shrugged again, offered a gentle and almost innocent chuckle, as if the situation humoured him.

“Is this about the money?” Dexter asked. “I don’t have it right now, but I can take you to it,” he lied. He had no idea where his car, or the money, was. For all he knew this was the man who had taken his money.

“I don’t want your money.”

“There’s a reward as well--”

“I don’t want your fucking money,” he repeated.

Dexter paused, looked him up and down quizzically. “Then what is this? Is this a game to you, to the town?”

“A game?” he seemed to weigh this up, then he shrugged and answered cryptically, “I think it’s a little more than that.”

“You
think
?”

He nodded.

“Where’s Pandora?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“If you hurt her I’ll--”

“You’ll what? You’ll shoot me, like you did that poor guy in the bank?”

The memory flared a furious spark in Dexter’s mind. He hated himself for being a murderer, hated the creepy kidnapper for reminding him of it. “Fuck you,” he snarled succinctly.

The man laughed boorishly. He stood, arched and straightened his back with a sigh.

“You’re sick,” Dexter said calmly.

The man regarded him out of his periphery. He shook his head, turned and left. “Eat,” he said over his shoulder. “You need to keep your energy up.”

“I can’t reach,” Dexter said as the man retreated around the partitioned wall and ascended the stairs.

He didn’t answer, didn’t turn around. Dexter was sure he heard him chuckle softly under his breath.

***

He stared at the sandwich. He was hungry, he wanted it, even though it looked as appealing and as nutritious as the plate on which it sat. The thought of food helped to take his minds off other things, but it also stirred his gastric juices which threatened to burn through his stomach.