The Slowest Cut (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Sunday morning.

Warner was the last of them. The final one in the small group that had made their childhoods hell. He’d seemed so big then, so tall and powerful, and he had been when they were only six and ten. His giant hands and stale adult breath had stopped all their escape attempts with ease.

Mai touched her lower back gingerly, gently running a finger over her raised scars. They were Keloid now, from years of cutting and healing. The wheals had been red then white then red again, as the edges of the scars were split repeatedly by the whip, wielded to fulfil Warner’s perverted needs. Mai closed her eyes; forcing herself to remember and feel the hatred for him again, as fresh as she’d felt it every day for years. Tears seeped between her dark lashes and tip-toed gently down her cheeks, their years of gushing and being ridiculed for it, teaching her to cry silently or attract more pain.

She pictured Warner’s face, younger and lean, with dark hair slicked back from his forehead where the grey now appeared. Hair that she’d grown to hate for what the sight of it heralded, long before she could reason why. She could hear his voice instructing the boys to hit her, his brown eyes gleaming as he watched them cause her pain. Forcing each boy to strike harder than the last, although most of them could barely see her through their own tears. Little boys with high-pitched voices saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” to the little girl that they were forced to hurt, again and again.

They’d begged her forgiveness for an act that they were mere puppets in, but she hadn’t hated them. They were children like her, trapped in a macabre Punch and Judy show. All except Alan Rooney. He’d been an eager pupil, offering to strike harder and longer without a single tear, his eyes bright with a pleasure that had mimicked Warner’s own. Warner’s ever-willing apprentice as a child, and worse as an adult. That’s why they both had to die.

Mai shook her head, shaking out the images that filled her mind. The dank, damp basement room of the school that her ‘loving’ parents had sent her to. Or so the story went. She’d never known them and she’d never been sure what was true. The other children had suitcases and money, with letters and presents coming from home. They called their parents by name and held their photographs close at night. She’d had no names to utter and no images to gaze at in the dark.

It hadn’t mattered. All the money and power and photos and names hadn’t saved any of them from their fate. One by one they’d come for them, leading them down the dark corridors into the night and then further, beneath the building into hell. Hell. Mai sneered at the word. If she was destined to go there when she died could it really be any worse than that room?

Night after night. Warner in the corner, shouting instructions while he stroked his thighs, her trying to avert her gaze from what he did next. Eileen Carragher laughing and drinking in the corner, while Warner inflicted pain on them, and then forced them to watch their bestial adult acts and join in.

Mai’s face brightened as she remembered the night that she’d met her love. Him a slight, pale boy not much older than herself. Shivering in his thin vest and squinting half-blind into the dark, then gasping when he’d seen her chained to the boiler-room pipes. She’d loved him at once for his full mouth and thick dark hair and then even more for his stubborn refusal to lift the whip. He’d fought and cried when they’d forced it into his hand, and stood arms down, obstinately denying them their thrills. Warner had beat him until he’d buckled and lay bloodied on the ground, then she’d met his eyes with hers and nodded, silently giving him permission to carry out their will.

Mai smiled as she remembered how light his touch had been. How high he’d flicked the lash so that it barely skimmed her, all momentum gone. They hadn’t realised what he was doing, as she timed her screams to match its rise and fall. She’d loved him then and she loved him now, for all his gentleness and care.

Mai turned towards her lover Jonathan Carragher and smiled, remembering their first meeting and grasping his hand as they gazed at the man on the garage floor. Gerry Warner struggled harder, tightening his bonds, expertly tied by Mai after years of watching him do it to her. She bent down close to him, breaking her silence with a whisper.

“Well, Mr Warner. Time for science class.”

Gerry Warner tried to scramble away, his eyes wild and red, but there was nowhere for him to hide. Mai peered closely at the man that she’d been so afraid of as a child, knowing that he couldn’t hurt her now. His body was thin and weak, all his youthful muscles wasted and gone. His face was lined and his hair fell in a clumsy curtain now around his face. Warner looked old and indigent and for a moment Mai saw a flicker of pity on her lover’s face. She turned to Jonathan Carragher fiercely and gripped his arms.

“No! He doesn’t deserve your sympathy after what he did to us.”

Warner’s incongruously strong teacher’s voice forced its way through his gag. “Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?”

Mai kneeled to face him and then laughed into his face. Her voice was sharp. “Don’t you remember, Mr Warner? Your favourite little girl? Down in the basement night after night, pretending to be a respectable teacher during the day?” She stood and bowed mockingly to him and then turned her back. “Perhaps you’ll remember me better if I turn around?”

Realisation widened Gerry Warner’s eyes and he struggled harder, writhing futilely on the floor. Oh God, he was really going to die. Like this? He always thought it would be in his sleep when he was old. Not this. Not now. He had to escape. There must be some way. Mai watched the frantic reasoning fly across his face and laughed again.

“I know exactly what you’re thinking. How did I get here? And how do I escape? The same things I thought for years until they finally closed the school and I slipped away in all the mess.”

She knelt down beside him again, pushing her face close to his. “You, a teacher! You taught me nothing but how to be cruel. For years I earned a living the only way I knew. The only way you taught me. On the scene, but this time making sure I held the whip.”

She turned towards her lover and smiled. “Until he found me and cared for me. He’d looked for me for years, and now we’re together every day and no-one can tear us apart.”

Warner’s eyes flicked towards a corner of the dark garage. He could just make out the shape of a tall young man. He couldn’t see his face, but if he was the man he thought he was he wondered if the bitch knew what that meant. A frisson of pleasure ran through Warner at the thought of hurting her again. Mai saw his look and frowned, puzzled by what it meant. She ripped off his gag and slapped him full on the face, the noise of the slap making her partner wince. Warner smiled. It was a snide smile and his eyes held something that bothered her, as if he knew something that she didn’t, couldn’t, know.

Mai screamed at him in frustration. “What are you smiling at? WHAT?”

She slapped him again, her arm swinging down in an arc and her open palm connecting with a loud smack, knocking Warner’s head back and splitting his lower lip. She watched as blood gushed and ran across his chin, but still Warner didn’t break his gaze. Instead he slowly extended his tongue and swept it round, licking his own blood with a look that said it was nectar from the Gods.

Mai beat his head with her fists and screamed full in his face. “Tell me you bastard, tell me what you know, or I swear I’ll kill you now.”

Warner smiled between her blows. “You’re going to kill me anyway, so why should I tell you? I have information and you want it. That’s the basis for a trade, I’d say.”

She spat into his face then jumped to her feet and started kicking his stomach hard. The young man stepped forward to restrain her, just long enough for Warner to see his face. Warner’s smile spread and they both saw it. He’d been right.

Mai kicked him again, in the side of the head, making Warner black out. But not before she’d seen his triumphant smile. She turned to her lover with a tormented look.

“He recognised you, Jonathan.”

“Of course he did. He knew my parents and saw me grow up through the years. Besides, it was him that brought me down to the boiler room each night.”

Her eyes were frantic. “No! That doesn’t explain why he looked so pleased. Why would he be pleased that we’re together now?” Her voice rose into a panicked screech. “I don’t understand. Why was he pleased?”

Jonathan Carragher stroked her hair gently and soothed her like a child, shaking his head. “It’s nothing, Mai. He’s just playing games. Trying to wind you up and make you believe that he knows something we don’t, so we’ll let him go.” He smiled down at her then kissed her gently on the lips. “That’s all it is. Remember, he’s a sadist. He’s gaming you, that’s what they do. Don’t let him.”

Her sobs subsided as Jonathan’s anger grew. Warner had been a family acquaintance almost since Eileen Burns had entered their lives. He’d watched as she’d dominated his kind father, diminishing him day by day, until she had him where she wanted him and destroyed all their lives. First the bitch had sent Tian Liu away, ignoring his pleas to keep her on. Then she’d brought him to the school she taught at and started her sadistic games. She’d recruited Warner into the school, ostensibly to teach science, but really to ruin their lives even more. Gerry Warner had had free reign to use all the children there in his perverted little games.

Jonathan shook his head, remembering how once he’d been old enough the bitch had used him too, trying to make him cruel and break him down. She hadn’t succeeded and now she’d paid the price. His father too, for not protecting him. In some ways his father Ian had been the worst of all. He was supposed to protect his child, not let him be used in such cruel games. Then Alan Rooney, the next generation of scum, who used the younger children to satisfy his perverted needs, first at the school and then in his father’s house near the Mournes.

It was the house that had been the final straw. When the school had closed Jonathan had hoped that they would stop, or at least confine their games to adults. But the first time they’d forced him to visit their underground dungeon he knew that they hadn’t and he’d insisted on being sent away to school, with the intention of never coming back.

Jonathan sobbed. He should have acted then; gone to the police or made an anonymous call. But he hadn’t and he didn’t know why, not until he met Mai again by accident one day. He’d looked for her futilely for years then one day he’d gone to the restaurant Tian Liu used to take them to, and she was walking out as he walked in. Jonathan thought back to the moment. He’d stopped in his tracks and called her name. “Mai.”

He expected her to scream and hit him, call him a bastard and telephone the police, even though they’d both been children when they’d been forced into their malicious games. But instead she’d turned and then smiled as she recognised him and they’d walked back inside to talk for hours. The pain they’d suffered as children had grown into a sort of love and they clung together gratefully, the only people who wouldn’t be repelled by their scars. But they couldn’t have peace, not while their tormentors were still roaming free to do it again.

Jonathan took Mai’s hand and led her from the garage, before Warner woke up and mind-fucked her again. Warner was just pretending he knew something to play for time, trying to delay the inevitable moment when he died. But Mai was too fragile to deal with his sadism now so Jonathan made up his mind.

He’d never killed anyone or anything, only watched her do so, reluctantly, to make sure that she didn’t come to harm. Nothing had ever seemed important enough to him to kill for. But now Mai was. She would sleep and he would kill Gerry Warner before she woke again. She could do whatever she wanted to do with his corpse.

***

The C.C.U. Sunday. 11 a.m.

“OK. A quick debrief before we get out there again.”

Craig sipped at his morning coffee, regretting yet another late night out with John, after they’d met for ‘just one drink’ at Bar Red. He looked rough and he knew it. He’d cut himself shaving and his eyes were an interesting combination of red and blue. Ah well, it wasn’t every day that his best friend got engaged.

Craig straightened up, preparing to start, and then he heard a familiar clicking sound. He greeted its creator without turning.

“Good morning, Nicky.”

Nicky laughed cheerfully. “Good morning, sir. I’m just in to catch up on some stuff. Everyone OK for coffee?”

Liam saw the quick glance exchanged between Craig and Annette and knew that something was up. He approached the matter with his usual tact and diplomacy.

“Here. What did I miss? And how come Nicky’s smiling when she’s had a face like a Lurgan Spade all week?”

The kick Annette gave Liam’s shins made a crack so loud that everyone turned to look.

“Ow! What the hell did you do that for? I was only asking…”

The look in Annette’s eyes said that he’d get another kick if he didn’t shut up, so Liam reluctantly concurred. He squinted at her in a way that made it clear retribution would be forthcoming and Craig interjected in a voice like a tired parent.

“Right. If you two have quite finished, let’s get on with the case.”

Craig summarised his meeting with Aidan Hughes and handed over to Annette for an update on Ryan Carragher. She ended by telling them about his T-shirt, then Liam updated them on their trip to the restaurant and Craig nodded Davy to pitch in. Five minutes later everyone knew that the Carragher boys’ Chinese nanny, Tian Liu, had been dismissed soon after Ian Carragher remarried, but not before she’d had his illegitimate daughter. They also knew that the daughter was the six-year-old girl in the porn video, and that the young man who’d bought the knife used in the murders was Ian Carragher’s younger son, Jonathan.

Liam held up his hand to slow Davy down. “Hang on. Am I hearing this right? You’re saying that Jonathan, the younger son, is working with this half-Chinese girl, who’s his half-sister?”

Davy nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly w…what we’re saying.”