Human Frailty, a Detective Mike Bridger novel (20 page)

Back in the office the room had thinned out
a bit, most of the extra staff had either gone out to speak with
Marion's friends or gone back to their own work, the initial buzz
of the web site find fizzling out to produce only a few more
possible inquiries.

The computer tech was busy tapping away on a
keyboard while simultaneously holding a phone to his ear and
speaking to someone in a language that only a tech would
understand.

Becky was in the corner speaking with Grant,
John and Jo, as Bridger came in. Bridger motioned to her to come
over.

"Becky, Beth Johansen from Marion's flat is
in the cells downstairs, she was locked up last night for
possession to supply cannabis. Can you go and have a word with her;
she has not spoken since her arrest. I think she was with Jonas
Clifton last night; she was in his car when the sectional staff
arrested her. Jonas left her to carry the can when I would bet it
was him who supplied her".

"Jonas Clifton, he's the dish she was
talking about yesterday?
”
Becky queried.

"I'm not sure about dish, but he sure has a
lot of opinions on the ways of the world. For all his bleating
about negative influences he doesn’t have a problem with mind
altering substances, apparently".

Becky gathered her notebook and a few items
from her desk then headed out of the office to speak with Beth.

Bridger went over to his own computer and
fired up the national intelligence application to see if the police
knew anything of the man who called himself Jonas Clifton.

It took less than five minutes to find that
he had no criminal history, which was not surprising, as he doubted
he would still be working at the university if he did. They had him
listed as the victim of a theft a couple of years back. He had
reported his laptop stolen from university common room. What was
surprising was that there was a noting attached to his name
suspecting him of sexually harassing a female student.

Bridger clicked on the link and read the
details.

The victim was a twenty one year old student
who reported to police that Jonas had made unwanted advances
towards her at a party held at his house. When she refused those
advances, he had become heavy and pinned her to the bed. The
victim, fearing he might rape her, had only managed to get away
when another student barged in on them. The police had spoken to
Jonas but he had claimed it was a consensual act until she told him
she did not want to go through with it then he had stopped. It was
another case of his word against hers. Both of them had been
drinking so the police decided not to progress it any further.

A further noting mentioned a second report
to police from the same girl claiming Jonas had been calling her
all sorts of names and stalking her since the incident, but she
wasn't going to take it any further as it was almost the end of her
time at the university and she just wanted to get on with her
life.

Well, that sheds a new light on Jonas
Clifton, Bridger thought to himself. He would make sure to follow
up on him after they found Marion.

"Bingo", shouted the tech from the other
side of the room, "You thought you could hide from me…, from me…,
never, I've found you. How easy was that…, get in there"

Bridger thought he might break into a
victory dance with the way he was carrying on. "What have you
got?
”
he
said, moving over to the other side of the room.

"I know who is hosting the site, the guys
behind Revenge.com..., and guess what; they are locals, right here
in Dunedin. In fact, I know them. We were at university together.
We didn't keep in touch or anything after, but I definitely know
them".

"Well don't hold anything back", Bridger
said looking at his watch emphasizing that time was ticking very
quickly.

"I found their details hidden in a zip file
attached to the main site. I only saw it because I ran a program
that scanned the site for Trojans and such. The program found the
zip file and flagged it up. The guys’ names are Jack Woolwich and
Simon Freeman; they were best buddies at Uni, a bit nerdish, both
of them, fancied themselves as the next Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
I wondered if they had made anything of themselves. I guess this
answers that question".

Bridger could not hide his impatience,
"That's all very interesting but does the information tell us how
to get a hold of them?
”

Sam looked at his cell phone and started
scrolling through the contact list, let me make a call, I may know
someone who still keeps in touch with them.

"Right, Grant and Jo, as soon as we get an
address get round there and stir them up. If they can track who is
streaming this on their site then we are in business".

"Ahh Mike, I think it's started", John said
quietly while his eyes were fixed on the screen in front of
him.

Bridger and the others looked over and saw
Marion begin to move, but she was not in control.

She looks just like a child's Marionette,
thought Bridger.

She opened her eyes into the bright lights
still enveloping her. She had been sleeping, she had no idea
whether it was night or day, but her body had told her she needed
to sleep after struggling for what seemed like an eternity against
her bonds. The crazy speech was still coming through the speaker
from somewhere in the dark. It had not changed; she knew the
dialogue off by heart.

What a way to learn your lines, she thought.
If only it was that easy.

She was thirsty, the roof of her mouth
covered in a layer of fur. The hunger had long since dissipated
into just a hollow feeling, there was tightness in her stomach that
could just as much have been from fear.

She had dreamed fitfully while she slept,
her mind processing what might be about to begin. Unable to
comprehend the reality, it had made all sorts of assumptions and
portrayed them to Marion in the form of the worst nightmares she
had ever experienced.

She made another feeble attempt to free
herself. The bonds held firm, but the movement was making her sway
and rock, causing her stomach to churn uncontrollably. She did not
want to be sick; she just wanted this whole thing to be finished.
There were no more tears to be shed, nothing left in her but dark
primal fear. She started to crave the darkness beyond the light,
wanting to hide away so as not to be seen, a place to curl up out
of the limelight.

Her brain took a few seconds to register
that the sound had stopped; the light around her had changed
slightly. She felt her arm move of its own accord, up, down
sideways, then the other arm followed. He legs moved in a
mechanical fashion, like a marching wooden soldier. She found
herself moving from side to side, unable to control her own body.
The hunger had made her weak and the bonds that held her were
tight.

She could hear a slight squeak from above
her as the ropes strained against the movement. Her body,
manipulated like a puppet, was moving around the circle of light,
dancing like a demented witch at an ancient pagan ritual.

As she circled, she caught sight of herself
in a bank of mirrors that in a row behind her. The image shocked
her. Staring back from the reflective glass was a pale face with
crudely applied red lipstick. Dark eyeliner caked around her eyes.
The flowing white dress she was wearing made her look like a morbid
incarnation of a zombie bride.

The squeak continued her dance went on until
she was back in the place she started, staring from the light into
the darkness. The movement stopped, it was as if the puppeteer had
tired or was he just drawing breath, readying himself for what was
to come.

She wondered if she was just to dancing for
him, some sexual deviancy of the shadow. It might actually be
preferable to the scenarios that had played out in her head. She
thought of him, where he was, getting his rocks off, somewhere over
in the darkness.

She could hear that tune whistled quietly
from out in the darkness. She had heard the same tune before he
took her. A tune she could still not quite place. A voice came out
of the darkness; it had the same tinny far away sound as the speech
that had been playing repeatedly.

"
Good morning
mother, it's good to see you up and about. I trust you slept well.
Do not worry, everything is organized, you do not have to lift a
finger. I will be doing everything for you.

Might I say to start with, you look
beautiful. It is such a shame how your life turned out, you were
such a beautiful woman. Pity you had to make the choices you made,
but that is how you ended up where you are. You have to accept
that.

You see, the human psyche is such a complex
thing; it makes people do the most improbable things. Love, hate,
fear, anger, happiness, sadness, all these emotions contained
within us, fighting for their turn. You cannot have one without the
others. There are so many ways that they intertwine. To, love
something conversely means fearing its loss. To, fear something can
make you angry. Anger can morph into hate. To hate something
intensely must mean that you know how to love. To, love something
can make you happy or sad, and to know what it is to be sad means
you have been happy at one point. It just goes on and on, and we
are not equipped to control any of it. Some people can suppress
these emotions, I guess, but some cannot, it is a learned thing. It
starts at birth and probably does not stop, the learning that is.
Families passing it down the generations like a hereditary
disease.

That might just sound like waffle to you,
but I have had a lot of time to think about these things since we
saw each other last.

I know you remember when that was; it must
be the last thing you remember. I wonder what it has been like for
you, wherever you are, your last memory playing over and over.

You did not equip me to control my emotions
mother; I have had to learn that for myself. All I learned from you
is that you can display your emotions in all sorts of ways. It was
very hard to interpret for a young mind. Lessons learned from
watching. Monkey see, monkey do.

You made your choices for you, not for me,
you did not care about me at all.

Well I am going to give you the chance to
put that right today.

However, we cannot start
just yet. Today is the anniversary of the worst decision you ever
made. Today all those years ago, you were married to him.... That
is where the story starts, that is where it all began, so that is
the time we will begin to put it right
."

There was complete silence in the office,
they were waiting for something more, but It did not come. The
dialogue had stopped and Marion continued to hang. They had watched
as she had danced then listened as he spoke in a muffled tinny
voice. They stared at the screen for a couple of minutes in case
something else happened.

"What the hell was that
about?
”
John said.

"It was pretty bloody macabre", Jo said.

Macabre was a good description, thought
Bridger, he remembered from somewhere that the word had evolved
from, among other things, the dance of the dead. What he had just
witnessed and the unnatural mechanical way Marion had moved
certainly fitted that description.

"Is there any way we can see that
again Sam?
”
Bridger said, "Maybe record it so we can get some idea what
he is talking about".

"No problems", Sam said, while holding the
phone to his ear. Pushing a couple of buttons, the scenario began
to play on the other monitor while remaining live on the other.
"Push that to record and that to play it back", he said, motioning
to a couple of buttons on the keyboard before the phone distracted
him.

"Hi Barry…, its Sam. Listen do you still
keep in touch with Jack and Simon, yeah pseudo Bill and Steve...
You do, great, can you let me know how to get in touch with
them..., No I don't want revenge on anyone..., Yeah it's a police
matter, I can't really say too much..., No they are not in trouble,
we just need to talk to them..., Cool thanks".

"He's going to text me a cell phone number,"
Sam said, ending the call.

Within seconds, there were two electronic
beeps from Sam's phone signaling the arrival of the
information.

"Grant can you get on to that, get
those two in here, get them to give us the location of that stream,
then get them to pull it. We don't need the rest of the world
watching". Bridger looked at the clock on the wall. "He said it was
going to begin at quarter to one, it
’
s just before ten now so that does
not give us much time".

Bridger ticked off the task in his head.

"John, you keep an eye on the main screen in
case something starts before the time. Jo could you look at the
recording, pick out anything relevant, see if you can see anything.
That might give away a location".

Bridger had a thought eating away at the
back of his mind. It was the way that the voice spoke, the words he
used. It was very familiar.

The realization hit him like a sledgehammer.
It sounded just like Jonas Clifton. However, Jonas Clifton was at
the playhouse and then with Beth last night, both he and Jo had
seen and spoken with him. He desperately tried to fit him to the
scenario. He ran over the timeline in his head.

Jonas was at the playhouse last night at
six..., but where was he before that. The live stream had started
late afternoon but the voice was a recording so he did not need to
be there after that. The police had arrested Beth about quarter to
seven and no one had seen Jonas since that time. Putting all that
with what he had read about his behavior towards women, Jonas was
looking more and more like a good suspect.