The Darkness Inside: Writer's Cut (36 page)

Brutal Domination
–
Japanese bondage special! Bend Her, Break Her!

The videos included a couple of commercial porno titles, but most were marked solely by date and a varying sequence of letters which I couldn’t decipher, but which I guessed indicated their content. I didn’t want to find out for sure.

The room opposite was the boxy bedroom where the second piece of footage had been filmed. The bed was there, absolutely unmistakeable, and there were plenty of scuff marks on the floor where more furniture or equipment used in the filming had been dragged in and out.

Back out into the hallway. To my surprise, the basement door was unlocked. A narrow flight of steps led down into a dirt-floored space lit by a sole naked bulb hanging from the centre of the ceiling. Hooks were driven into the beams; one had a pair of manacles hanging from it still. In the centre of the room was a low, large table, like a bed without a mattress. There were various fixture points built into it, and the whole thing looked like it could be lengthened or contracted like a workbench. Maybe I was wrong, but it looked a lot like a homemade rack. Its surface was pock-marked and covered in stains.
 

I stopped myself trying to imagine their origins.
 

In the far corner was another homemade contraption, about the size and shape of an isolation tank, or a coffin, with a pair of iron bolts securing its lid. Shelves packed with cardboard boxes ran down the wall next to this last contraption. Amongst the unpleasant-looking devices there I saw Goddard’s makeshift electric prod with a car battery next to it. I could see what looked like girl’s clothes in a couple of the boxes that are open. Hard to say whether they were long-term storage or something used more recently. Another one, tucked at the back and thick with dust, held what looked like old, very old, boy’s clothing. As I reached the foot of the stairs, I passed a piece of paper tacked to the wall.

It was titled: ‘SLAVE CONTRACT’. At the bottom was a jerkily scrawled signature. It was too badly written for me to make out anything but the final ‘y’.

The air down here smelled rancid. It got worse when I opened up the ‘coffin’ to make sure it was unoccupied. It was lined with dark brown carpet, which again was marked with old stains. The fibers were worn thin in places, and from the shape of the impressions left behind, it looked to me like this was where he keeps Holly. At the head end of the box, blonde hairs sparkled in the light from above.

Feeling ill and angry in equal measure, I shut the lid again and went back to check the upper floor.

The first door I came to on the landing led into a cramped room with a computer in one corner, along with the gear I guessed Goddard used transfer and edit his video footage. There were also a couple of shelves of books — normal paperbacks for the most part, but amongst them I found
Psychological Torture in the Korean War
,
Mental Chains
—
the Willing Slave
,
Identity Breakdown and Nazi Brainwashing
and a handful of similar academic titles. Tucked into one were a dozen or so photos of different girls, all of whom looked between twelve and thirteen. Recent photos, taken on modern equipment.
 

With only room for one ‘guest’ here, it looked like Goddard was scouting possible replacements for Holly.

Also present were a small collection of spares for the lighting and set-up rigs used in the films Kris had sent me. Leaning in one corner was an upside-down placard. The text on it read: ‘LIBERTY BEFORE DEATH’.

From there I moved through to what was clearly the location used in the first piece of footage: a long, broad space that might once have been two rooms later knocked through and enlarged into one. Undecorated wood, same as the rest of the house. A second bed, similar to the one downstairs. No ceiling beneath the ridge of the roof above, just bare joists. There were still two halogen lamps up here, as well as a video camera on a tripod pointing at the bed. A hostess trolley to the right held a variety of tools. Unpleasant, metal contraptions for the most part. Restraints. Pliers. A cigarette lighter and a screwdriver with a soot-blackened head. A makeshift whip made of steel cable.

A side door led into a surprisingly well-decorated bedroom. A lilac carpet kept almost spotless. A double bed spread with a beige comforter with tiny purple flowers on it. A dresser and closet made of oak. The closet was full of Goddard’s clothes. There were more in the dresser. Tucked to the side of the top drawer was a Smith and Wesson revolver and a box of shells. I looked at it for a second, but left it where it was.
 

In the bottom drawer was a very old looking shoebox. Notes and photographs. Guys looking at the camera, smiling. Guys with one young boy or another held in front of them. Kris. Cody. The Gang of Six taking it in turns to abuse them while the others watched. Names, details of jobs or family lives, phone numbers. Out of date, but I guessed it wouldn’t have been hard to find any one of these guys in a pinch. In the notes, Heller was described as a “gangster” and a “killer”.

On top of the dresser were a pair of framed photographs. Both looked like they’d been taken years ago, had that washed-out color of old film, further faded from spending a long time out in the light. One showed a scrawny boy, can’t have been more than fourteen or so, with windblown brown hair, blinking into the sun behind the camera. He was in a t-shirt and shorts, had an adolescent suntan. On summer vacation somewhere. His arm was around the shoulder of a girl a couple of years younger than him. Wavy blonde hair, similar kids’ summer clothes, one hand held up to shade her eyes.
 

The second photo was of the girl on her own, a close-up of her face. Smiling, innocent. There was a definite resemblance to the boy in the first picture, something in the eyes. Brother and sister. Barely visible at the bottom, ‘Lucy’ was written in faded pencil.

I slipped back out of Goddard’s bedroom to check the film in the camera. I wanted to see if Holly was still alive. I’d made sure there was a tape in there and I was about to switch the machine on when the sound of an approaching car engine cut through the silence. I scooted over to the corner of the room from where I could see both doors, gun in hand, and waited.

The car came to a halt and the engine died. I heard the front door open and footsteps in the hall. Two people, both starting up the stairs. One set faded away along the landing, the second headed towards me.

The door opened, and Goddard walked into the room, over towards the camera. Five foot seven, medium build, looked around fifty-five. His hair was chocolate brown and had a faint greasy shine. Clean-shaven, pallid skin. He wore a heavy green jacket and jeans splashed with tiny specks of mud, and carried a package under one arm.

He didn’t notice me until I stepped forward, leveled my gun at the back of his head, and said, “Hello, Richard Goddard. Or is it Anderson?”

55.

He froze for a moment before saying, very calmly, “Alex Rourke.”

“Right in one.”

“And can I ask what you think you’re doing here?”

“You know the answer to that already.”

He sighed. “Kill me, rescue all the prisoners I’m keeping here, hope you don’t get caught by the cops. Or maybe you’ll find someone else to pin the crime on like you did with poor little Cody.”

“That’s basically it, yeah.”

“So why,” he said, slowly turning to face me, “are we having this conversation? Shouldn’t you have pulled the trigger by now? Or do you want to find out what I’ve done, or who I am and why I’ve done it?”

“I know what you’ve done. I know what you did to Cody, and how you turned him into your own pet monster. You tried to do the same with another kid called Kris but he escaped. Once Cody could be trusted to do only what he was told, you sent him back out into the outside world to snatch little girls for you. Is that your sister’s photo in the bedroom? Holly’s just someone to play out your fantasies about your sister, right? Someone you can torture and abuse to your heart’s content.”

Goddard’s eyes narrowed. “You found Kris. Little prick.”

“Right. And I talked to Gabriel Heller after you tried to have him kill me. So I know enough about you. I don’t know why or how you started going after kids. I guess there’s some sob story or other behind it, but I don’t care what it is. Someone like you, who gives a fuck about ‘why’?”

“I’ve had nothing to do with Gabriel in years.”

“That’s not what he says.”

“Are you going to take the word of a man like him?”

I rolled my eyes. “Am I going to take the word of a man like you?”

“I’ve got no reason to lie. You’re holding a gun to my head.”

“Neither did he. He was holding one to mine,” I said. “Face it, Goddard, you just like trying to mess with people. You love control, and you love lies and fantasy. You fucked and killed a bunch of kids. Dress it up with whatever bullshit justifications you like, you did it because you’re a sick fuck. Just like every single other sick fuck. I spent years dealing with guys like you. There’s nothing about ‘why’ that I haven’t already seen a hundred times, and there’s nothing about the ‘who’ that I give a damn about.”

He smiled without humor. “So I’ll ask again, why are we having this conversation?”

I smiled back at him. “Because I don’t like shooting people in the back.”

The door through to the master bedroom clicked open and Holly walked in. The long t-shirt she was wearing draped loosely over her shoulders and her hair hung in untidy strands around her face. In her hands, held unsteadily out in front of her, she had Goddard’s gun.
 

“Holly,” I said. She looked at me, confused, wide-eyed. A hint of recognition, but that was all. “Holly, put down the gun and go wait in the room next door.”

Goddard glanced at her. “Lucy, you know what to do.”

“I’m not going to let you kill him,” she said to me, and sighted up on me with the pistol.

“Holly, you don’t know what you’re doing. I’m here to set you free and take you away from all this. I’m a good guy.”

Goddard smiled. “She won’t listen to you, Alex. She’s my Lucy. She’ll do what she’s told just like Cody used to, once I’d educated him. She’s mine.”

Holly blinked once, twice and flexed her grip on the gun. I kept mine pointed at Goddard.

“You tried to do to her what you did to Cody? Make them into what you want by doing all that shit to them?”

“I educated Cody. I brought him up like a son.”

“Some father.”

“He never complained. And neither does Lucy. She’s mine.”

Holly nodded, said, shaking, “He takes care of me. He loves me.”

“Do you remember your parents, Holly? Your mom and dad, back in Providence? They’ve been missing you. They want you to come back to them.”

“No, I’ve got to stay here. I don’t want to leave. I can’t.” She shook her head violently. “You can’t make me.”

“Don’t you want to see them? They want to see you, Holly.” I tried to reconcile everything I knew about Holly the girl with what I was seeing now. Strange how she still sounded like a kid even though she’d become an adult. An adult pointing a gun at me and who looked shaky enough to fire the thing for real.

“I… I don’t have parents. I’ve got my owner and that’s all I want. All I want.”

I thought back to the ‘slave contract’ downstairs and swallowed my anger. “Do you remember your friend Tina, who you went to see on the night you were grabbed and put into that van? Do you remember that, Holly?”

She stuttered, glanced at her captor. “What? No. I’m Lucy. I’m Lucy. Stop calling me that. I’m Lucy.”

“I’m here to help you, Holly.”

“You were supposed to leave us alone. You should be in prison, or dead. That gangster was supposed to kill you. You shouldn’t be here.”

“What did I tell you, Alex?” Goddard said with a smile. “She’s mine, and she’s never going to leave me.”

“Like the others?”

“Others?”
 

“The other girls you had Cody grab for you so you could take your pick. So you could find the one that matched what you had in mind the best. They didn’t leave you, did they?” I glanced at Holly. “You killed them. Killed them because you were bored with them, ditched the bodies and started again.”

Goddard shook his head. “They weren’t worthy. I haven’t had to do that in a long time.”

“Why did you keep snatching girls if Holly was the one you wanted, Goddard? I mean, if she was so perfect then why keep Cody out there grabbing them off the street after you had her already? He wasn’t sure about you then, Holly, and that hasn’t changed.”

She shook her head. I noticed she knew I was talking about her without calling her ‘Lucy’. “You’re lying. You’re lying.”

“Don’t you remember him bringing other girls home? Or leaving this house to go and examine them, to see if they fitted what he wanted better than you did? He’s always had an eye out for someone who’d suit him more than you, Holly. You shouldn’t stand by him. He doesn’t deserve it. Or you.”

“Lies, Lucy,” Goddard called to her as she bit her lip. “This man is just afraid and angry. He wants to hurt both of us and he knows you won’t let that happen. He just wants to confuse you so that he can kill me and then turn on you. You’ll do what I say, won’t you?”