The Dungeon House (Lake District Mysteries) (22 page)

Daniel paused, his dark eyes glittering with barely suppressed excitement. ‘I’m guessing Robbie Dean didn’t show you round downstairs?’

On waking, Joanna fooled herself for a moment that this was merely one more nightmare. She was lying on an uncomfortable old mattress in a small, square room that smelt of urine. Dim light from a naked bulb shone on whitewashed walls and a rough stone floor. There were no windows, but one wall had a steel door. An old-fashioned cylinder radiator stood against the opposite wall, but no warmth came from it. It was like being trapped inside a freezer. The room was bare, apart from a dirty white duvet draped across her body, and a vile plastic toilet. She must be below ground, but the ceiling seemed high for a cellar. An extractor unit was set in it, adjacent to a small oblong panel of sheet metal. A trapdoor? No, it wasn’t big enough for a child to squeeze through, let alone a grown man or woman.

The duvet was scant use or comfort in a room so dank. Numb with cold and misery, she shifted her position.
There was a pressure on her right wrist from a tight leather bracelet with a lock and buckle. She felt woozy, and her face hurt, where he’d ripped off the tape gagging her. A sour taste lingered in her mouth, and her throat was sore where the man’s knife had nicked it. Something scratched her left ankle, and when she shrugged aside the duvet to take a look, her gorge rose. This was nothing like the bad dreams she’d endured a thousand times before. The man had tethered her to a rusty chain, and stripped off most of her clothes, leaving only her cotton undershirt, bra, and knickers.

The chain was locked to an iron ring fixed into the wall behind her, and when she moved, the link bit into her flesh. She retched, but there was nothing inside her to vomit up. Her stomach felt burnt and empty. She’d been sick after the stranger seized her, she remembered now.

After dragging her out of her car, he’d tied her wrists with cord, and forced her to drink from a flask. She was shaking so much that some of the liquid spilt down her jaw instead of going into her mouth, angering him so that he pulled her hair hard, and brought tears to her eyes. The stuff smelt foul, and tasted bitter.

‘Please,’ she’d gasped. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

The man in the crash helmet gave no answer. He just took a roll of masking tape from the pocket of his anorak, and tore off a strip. Knowing that if she screamed, nobody would hear, and he’d make her suffer even more, she’d remained limp and unresisting as he taped her mouth shut.

As he tugged her trousers down, she’d felt his hands
on her bare thighs. At last, she realised she’d been right. This wasn’t Nigel. But it wasn’t a stranger, either.

Joanna heard the metal panel in the ceiling slide open. Scared and exhausted, she’d dozed fitfully, but the sudden clatter reminded her that this nightmare was only just beginning. For a few seconds, she dared not open her eyes, terrified of what she might see. When she forced herself to look up, she saw a face framed in the opening. No, the metal panel wasn’t a trapdoor. More like something from a sick peep show.

Robbie Dean was watching her.

‘Why?’ She sounded like an old, hoarse woman.

‘You should never have come back.’

‘I … I didn’t …’

‘You’ve ruined everything.’ His voice trembled with temper; he sounded like a child on the brink of a tantrum.

Despite her weakness, she summoned up the strength to protest. ‘I haven’t … I never meant to bother you.’

Why did he hate her? She’d never done him any harm. There was a strange wariness in his expression. She tried to persuade herself his rage wasn’t caused by hate, but by uncertainty, as if he didn’t know what to do.

His face disappeared, and the panel slid back into place. He was furious, yes, but that wasn’t all. He sounded – nonsensical as it seemed to Joanna, chained to the wall of a mouldy cellar – on the verge of tears.

Hungry and feeble and afraid, she closed her eyes. Jumbled images swam through her mind. Robbie laughing in the car, seconds before it swerved off the road. Robbie, spotting her at the Dungeon House, the
morning after the night before. Robbie, groping her in the darkness on the beach at Seascale. The rough touch of his calloused hands when he pulled down her trousers had triggered a long-buried memory. Had he raped her? He’d left her knickers on, and she didn’t feel sore between her legs, but …

What was that? The rattle of a key in a lock. The door was opening. Robbie limped into the little room. He was breathing hard. She craned her neck, trying to see what lay on the other side of the door, but he shut it behind him with exaggerated care.

‘So,’ he said.

One question she must ask, however much she feared the answer.

‘What … what are you going to do with me?’

‘Wait and see.’

‘If you let me go, I won’t tell people about this,’ she whispered. ‘Not a word, not to anyone. I can keep a secret, nobody knows that better than you. This can be … just between us.’

He glared as if she were out of her mind. ‘You don’t understand. It’s the story of your fucking life.’

‘I know, I’m stupid.’ Desperation was making her talk. If she kept the conversation going, he might relent. ‘Tell me, help me to understand.’

‘You’re in the punishment cell.’

‘The punishment cell?’ She looked around. ‘Are we underneath your cottage? Why would you want to punish me, Robbie?’

He groaned, as if the question was obtuse. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

Despite knowing she mustn’t provoke his temper, her own anger welled up. ‘Hurt me? How do you think I feel right now?’

‘Don’t make it any worse for yourself. You can’t escape. I can do anything I want down here. I could have fucked you all night, and you couldn’t have done a fucking thing to stop me.’

‘But you didn’t,’ she breathed.

‘No.’ He spat out the word, and for all her helplessness, she felt a surge of relief. ‘I’ll only hurt you if I need to. But you have to obey the rules.’

‘The rules?’

‘If you don’t … that’s what this punishment cell is for.’

‘But I haven’t broken any rules.’ She squinted at him through aching eyes. He seemed distracted, as if keeping a woman against her will in an underground prison wasn’t the most urgent problem on his mind. ‘What’s this all about? Nobody’s going to pay a ransom for me.’

‘Same old Joanna.’ There were dark rings under his eyes, and his haggard features had aged ten years in twenty-four hours, but an odd touch of triumph sounded in his voice. ‘Got it all wrong as usual.’

‘Why am I wrong?’

‘It’s not money that I care about.’ He sucked the foetid air into his lungs. ‘Remember Carrie? She came back to be with me.’

Joanna was locked up and alone again. Robbie had left her without another word, and when she heard the key turn in the padlock on the door, she wondered if he meant her to starve to death. He was mad, must be. Carrie North had
been dead and gone for twenty-odd years. He was living in an insane world of his own, and for some unfathomable reason, he’d taken her prisoner.

As she drifted off to sleep, in her head she heard again the raucous chatter from that smoke-filled car, as it hurtled through the darkened countryside. Robbie, reeling out one dirty joke after another, while he kept one hand on the wheel and another up Carrie’s skirt. Joanna hardly listened. They’d all had a lot to drink, and she was content to snuggle up to Nigel, while his hands explored inside her satin top.

Was it the car crashing or the rattle of the padlock that woke her? She’d no idea how many hours had passed. Time didn’t exist in this stinking hell. Opening her eyes, she saw Robbie Dean framed in the doorway.

‘You need to drink some water. And to eat. Not too much, mind, otherwise you’ll spew it out.’

‘Thank you.’ Her voice was faint and scratchy. He was a monster, but she mustn’t enrage him, not while he had her at his mercy.

‘Come into the living room if you want. But you have to promise to behave.’

‘The … living room?’

‘Yeah, it’s where we spend most of the time. This place …’ – he indicated their surroundings – ‘like I said, it’s the punishment cell. For Carrie, if she breaks the rules.’

‘I don’t understand.’

He made an exasperated noise. ‘You never understand, do you, Joanna? Listen, are you going to behave yourself? Do as I say, or you’ll regret it.’

‘Yes, yes.’ She was whimpering. ‘Please. I’ll behave.’

‘Five minutes.’

He shut the door with a bang, and once again she heard him lock her in. Shivering, she pulled the duvet back over her skinny frame. Absurd as it was, she counted the seconds, to see if he was lying, but before she’d got to six minutes, he started unlocking the door. As he stepped inside the room, she saw that one of his hands held a short length of knotted cord, the other clutched a Stanley knife. Unable to help herself, she gave a yelp of alarm.

‘Shut it.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘There’s something for you next door. Will you be good?’ She nodded, too scared to speak.

‘You’d better be. All right, keep still. I won’t cut you unless you force me to.’

When he took a step toward her, she flinched, but managed to keep her mouth shut. Holding the knotted end of the cord, he fitted it into a loop in the leather wrist bracelet. She felt him pull it tight before unfastening the ankle chain, and when he jerked her forward, she didn’t resist. He gave a grunt of satisfaction, and ridiculously, she felt something close to joy. Perhaps he was telling the truth, and he didn’t mean to hurt her, provided she did as she was told.

He shepherded her through the steel door, and she blinked at the unexpected brightness. They were at one end of a long, broad passageway. Recessed ceiling lights shone on smartly painted cream walls, and a brown carpet. This was so different from the punishment cell; they might
have strayed into the corridor of a three star hotel. Except that two doors on the left hand side of the passageway had large, imposing bolts as well as padlocks, and were made of steel.

Robbie’s limp seemed worse than it had when she’d called at the cottage – was it only yesterday? He shuffled along like a weary, haggard pensioner. Joanna’s eyes adjusted, and she saw that further down the corridor was a bank of four small CCTV screens. The pictures were in black and white, and before she could make out what they showed, Robbie slid the bolt on the second steel door. Opening it, he yanked the cord tethering her.

‘Inside.’

Joanna’s eyes widened as she stumbled forward. She was in a large, well-heated room, furnished in a surreal pastiche of opulence. Colossal black leather sofa, plasma screen television, even a cocktail bar padded in matching black leather and two bar stools. The carpet was thick and cream-coloured, but not very clean. On top of the bar counter stood a jug of water and a tumbler, and there were four slices of buttered toast on a plain dinner plate. The two internal doors were made of steel and padlocked. Iron rings were screwed into each of the four walls, and linked to each of them was a long chain connected to something that looked like half of a pair of handcuffs.

He chained her leg to one of the rings, and then unfastened the cord from her wrist with the efficiency of long practice. She could walk, but not as far as the door. He motioned her to sit on one of the bar stools.

‘Comfier, huh?’ He forced a grin. ‘My very own Dungeon House.’

She felt dazed, as if he’d clubbed her on the head. For a moment she thought she was going to fall off the stool, but she managed to keep her balance. His boast did give her a glimmer of insight. Robbie had created a subterranean parody of the pampered lifestyle led by the Whiteleys.

He pointed to the food and drink on the counter. ‘Get summat inside you.’

‘Thank you.’ She ventured a timid smile, and nibbled a piece of toast. She’d read that captives who establish a bond with their kidnappers stand a better chance of survival. And one thing she did know, with sudden, blinding clarity, was that she very much wanted to survive. ‘Would you like to tell me … ?’

Putting a calloused forefinger to his lips, he said, ‘Don’t talk. Just eat.’

He hobbled over to the door. At eye level, he’d put an observation panel. It reminded her of those prison doors you saw in films and on television. A few seconds later, she was alone again. Nervous of being sick, she took little bites of toast, washing them down with gulps of water. Her stomach still hurt, but she kept the food down. That was better. It was so warm that she felt drowsy, but she splashed a few drops of the precious water on to her face to help her keep awake. She needed to think, try to work out a way to escape. For all her weakness and confusion, her brain hadn’t quite stopped functioning. Frightened as she was, she told herself she must subdue her panic at being locked up in a confined space. Her life depended on it.

A loud noise broke through her thoughts. One of the
internal doors behind her was opening. She craned her neck to see what was happening.

In the doorway, hands on slender hips, stood a young woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and vivid crimson lipstick. She wore a very short white dress with a low top revealing plenty of pale flesh. Carrie North had returned to life.

‘You do realise, don’t you?’ Les said. ‘This is the longest of long shots?’

‘We can leave it for today, if you want,’ Hannah said. They were back inside the car, watching the rain as it bludgeoned the windscreen. A poor day was turning into a vile evening, but she didn’t care. They’d asked Dean if the cottage had a cellar, and he’d said no. Why not mention the air raid shelter, if he had nothing to hide? Perhaps it no longer existed, perhaps he was just a miserable, uncommunicative sod, but instinct told her he was keeping a secret. She couldn’t help feeling excited; they might at last be getting somewhere. They’d left Daniel in the pub, finishing his chicken salad, and Les had offered to take a turn behind the wheel, ‘Or we can call Divisional HQ, and run it past the Brief for a quick decision.’

Les snorted with derision. Hannah’s new boss, appointed in a temporary capacity after the unmourned departure of his predecessor, was notoriously cautious. One of the Fed reps had nicknamed him the Brief, because he was as cautious as any lawyer. The Brief would wet himself if there was any prospect of a complaint about police harassment from a self-righteous Robbie Dean.