Fairwood (a suspense mystery thriller) (20 page)

“Then what?” Sandra snapped, an edgy nervousness to her voice, not for fear of what Cawley would do -- she knew he wouldn’t lay a hand on her -- but because he had fought back and hadn’t bent over and let her fuck him, like she’d done every day since the divorce. “You’ll hit me? You’ll beat me?”

He shook his head calmly. “I’ll arrest you.”

“What?”

“This is not your house anymore Sandra. I’m no longer a part of your life. Do you think it’s acceptable behaviour to bring thugs to peoples’ houses so you can intimidate them and steal their stuff?” he shook his head. “I’ve let you off in the past, not just because of what we went through, but because I didn’t really give a shit. I let you have what you wanted because you seemed to want it more than me, but now you’ve gone too far.” He paused to prod Jonathan with his toes. Now that the anger had gone and his blood pressure had settled, he suddenly felt very exposed; he hadn’t looked down but he doubted the cold air would be very flattering.

“Take your thug and piss off,” he told her.

She gave him a long and angry stare, like a wolf eyeing up its prey before tearing it to pieces. Then she hung her head, kicked her brother angrily in the back and barked at him, “Get up you pussy! We’re leaving.”

Jonathan dragged himself to his feet and meekly scuttled away without a glance in Cawley’s direction.

Andrew sidled up to Cawley and they both watched the pair leave.

“Well,” Andrew stated with along sigh. That was certainly interesting.”

Cawley stared at him, looked at his glass, now nearly empty. Simpson wasn’t the sort of man who drank his spirits with coke; he liked them neat and hard. The coke was probably for Cawley’s benefit; a weak attempt to hide his boozing.

“You’ve certainly cheered up,” Cawley said.

“Like I said,” Simpson said, draining the last dregs in his glass. “I feel good lately.”

Cawley nodded slowly, his eyes on the empty glass. He thought about commenting, but he didn’t want to drag his friend’s mood down; didn’t want to draw attention to something that would only serve to depress him.

“Good for you,” he said. “Now, what do you say we have a drink, eh? You can join me for a little one, right?”

Simpson’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull. “Sure,” he was quick to say. “I mean, if it’s just a little one.”

Cawley grinned. “Help me find my clothes first. I think the neighbours have seen enough.”

25

She hadn’t eaten, hadn’t drunk. She had been tied to a bed for what felt like a lifetime. The rotten stench of her own body odour and dried urine clogged her nostrils. Her hair matted to her forehead, grasped at her face like the spindly legs of a lethargic spider.

She didn’t know how long it had been but the darkness had given way to light again. She was either being tricked, like a blanket draped over a budgie’s cage to simulate time shifts and stimulate silence, or it was morning again and she had spent an entire day on the bed.

The man hadn’t raped her yet, not that she could remember anyway. It was possible that she had fallen asleep and he had fondled or entered her. The thought sickened her and forced her dry stomach into a gagging heave. She reasoned that he would probably want to clean her up before he did anything, a part of her doubted he would get his kicks from sleeping with a woman who had bathed in her own piss and sweat, but a much larger part of her, the rational part, knew that if he got his kicks from watching her piss herself then it wasn’t much of a push to suggest he preferred her dirty.

She didn’t think of Dexter, didn’t want to ponder what he was going through. She knew he would be suffering more than her. He could take more of a beating than her, he would be able to take whatever torture and sadistic games they threw at him, but what he couldn’t take, what would gnaw away at him like an infestation, was the uncertainty of what was happening to her. He couldn’t do anything to save her, couldn’t do anything to help her; didn’t even know if she was dead or alive, comforted or suffering. That would hurt him more than any physical torture.

“Are you there?” she asked the room beyond the blindfold.

She heard a shuffle, the sound of a squirming man who hadn’t expected his presence to be realised.

“What is it you want from me?” she pleaded.

“It’s better if you don’t know,” he answered.

“Better for who?” Pandora croaked, her voice grating in her throat which hadn’t felt the lubricating touch of liquid for a long time.

He didn’t answer.

“What are you going to do with me?”

She heard a soft laugh, a heavy breath she felt crawl up and down her spine. She shivered, snapped angrily against the restraints and then quickly softened. She didn’t have the strength to fight.

“If you’re going to rape me, get it over with.”

“You
want
me to rape you?” he asked.

She sensed the smile on his face when he asked, as if he got a kick out of the possibility of her answering affirmatively.

She thought about telling him that anything was better than being tied to the bed to wait for the inevitable, but then she pictured what that
anything
could entail and she quickly decided against it.

“Is it money you want?” she asked, pushing the images of his sweaty and desperate body out of her mind; shooing away the thoughts of him forcing his way inside her. “We have money, all the money you want--”

“Is that all that matters to you?” he asked bitterly. “
Money
. Is that it? Is that the height of existence for you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Is that why you did all of this?”

“All of
this
?”

“Robbery. Murder.”

She shook her head violently from side to side, sensing the bitter hatred in his voice. “We’re not murderers. It was one man and it was an accident.”

He found that amusing. The sound of his laugh made her blood run cold, pricked up the hairs on the back of her neck and arms.

“An accident?” he recited, amused. “Well, that’s okay then.”

She tried to turn her head towards him but couldn’t twist her neck more than a few inches. The muscles between her shoulder blades and at the base of her neck seemed to split with the movement. “Who are you?” she asked, looking in his direction. “What do you want?”

The laughter stopped with an abrupt intake of breath. She heard him stand up. She snapped her neck back to her body, tried to make herself as still and as small as she could.

She heard him advance across the room, his feet creaking on the floorboards, thumping against the thin carpet. He stopped above her; the orange light that burned through the edges of her blindfold was eclipsed by his looming shadow.

He bent down. She could feel his hot breath on her naked torso, could smell the scents of coffee, cooked breakfast and a deep, sinful lust as he moved his head slowly over her stomach, her breasts and then settled on her face. He leant in close to her ear. She jerked when she felt his desperately quivering voice whisper warmly into her ear, “
What do you think I want
?”

***

After a night of drinking and enjoying his victory over his wife and her brother, Cawley ventured out to Stubbies with Simpson in tow. They both drank more than a little, which, by Cawley’s calculations -- as Simpson had already been drinking before his arrival -- meant that his former partner had knocked back enough alcohol to drown a horse. Simpson was clearly more experienced though, as he didn’t seem to be suffering the next day, when Cawley woke with a splitting headache, feeling like he needed to simultaneously vomit and defecate his internal organs.

“Feeling any better?” Simpson asked as they clambered out of the car, bracing a rush of cold air that nearly knocked them off their feet.

Cawley pressed against the wind with a grimace and nodded. His stomach still felt like it was in battle with his throat and he wasn’t sure he could hold down its contents much longer. He didn’t feel better. Simpson had been in high spirits all morning and had cooked them both a fried breakfast, which Cawley regretted eating moments after swallowing the last chunk of fat-drenched bacon, when the crispy shards of meat instantly began to repeat on him.

“Still settling,” he said, tapping his stomach with his fist.

Simpson grinned back, looking pleased with himself for having cooked a breakfast that was still, nearly two hours later, fighting digestion in Cawley’s stomach.

Cawley regarded his friend warily as he rounded the car. He hadn’t seen him so happy for a long time, couldn’t remember the last time he had seen his friend smile. He knew it was all fake of course, the smile and the happy attitude wasn’t genuine, but Simpson himself didn’t seem fully aware of that. He had tricked himself into believing that it was okay to hide his own misery.

“So, remind me why we’re here again?” Simpson said as he glanced up at the dilapidated facade. He was clearly a man who liked his pubs and Cawley doubted he discriminated much when it came to drinking venues, but even
he
wasn’t impressed with the rundown exterior. The building looked rotten.

“He’s up to something,” Cawley said confidently. “Something doesn’t add up.”

“But you think he definitely saw Bleak and Bright, right?”

Cawley nodded. “That’s the problem. If he did, and they got away like he said, then why be so coy about it? The only thing that made sense was that he was lying, making it all up for the notoriety, but if he’s telling the truth, as I’m sure he is, then what the fuck is he hiding?”

“And the door?” Simpson said, nodding towards the boarded-up bottom.

“Another piece to the puzzle. He said they smashed it up, but he’s lying. If he did it himself, why hide it? Not illegal to smash your own door and it seems trivial to do it for the insurance.”

Simpson nodded in agreement.

“Thanks again for coming out,” Cawley said, giving his friend a meek smile. “It’s good to be back on the job together.”

“I’m here as a friend,” Simpson reminded him. “Not a partner.”

Cawley nodded. “Here for the day out, gotcha,” he said. “And maybe afterwards I can take you to the cinema, buy you a meal or--”

Simpson glowered; Cawley grinned and nodded towards the pub, “Come on. Let’s see what this guy has to say for himself.”

The pub was quiet, empty but for three patrons gathered around the bar, the bartender on the other side seemingly directing them. They all turned as Cawley and Simpson entered, the newcomers gave them welcoming nods, they received confused and alerted stares in reply.

They exchanged glances, swapped a stare with the bartender and then tried to disperse, breaking off into menial conversations in a vain and obvious attempt to hide the fact that they had been talking about something they shouldn’t have been talking about. Cawley and Simpson recognised the situation; they had seen it on countless faces of drug dealers, trying to hide their blatant dealing in the face of the law.

He held up his badge, although they already knew who he was. “Detective Inspector Cawley,” he said. He nodded towards Simpson, spoke almost instinctively and then stopped himself, “This is--”

Simpson finished for him, “Detective Inspector Simpson.”

“We have some questions to ask about the other night,” Cawley directed his attention to the bartender, keeping the others locked in his periphery. He rested his elbows on the bar, looked into the bartender’s eyes and saw him twitch, an involuntary spasm. The bartender diverted his eyes, flicked them around the bar and then dragged them back to Cawley, immediately looking away when he saw that Cawley hadn’t even blinked.