Captive

by Jay Nadal

  19

  The chill of the night air caught her by surprise as she stumbled out of the club. A high-pitched whining noise reverberated in her head, its monotone shrill bounced around from one side to the other, and added to the confusion she experienced. The heat, mustiness and closeness in the club were fast replaced by a tingling chill that raised the hairs on her arms. Her sleeveless white top and denim miniskirt offered little warmth and protection.

  Revellers poured out of the nightclub and chased down the odd taxi that hovered in the cab rank. They jostled one another desperate to get out of the cold and head home to the comfort of their warm beds. In every direction, people streamed away. Some headed to the late night food takeaways to grab the mandatory burger or kebab to finish off the night in style.

  Food was the last thing on her mind as she stood fixed to the spot. Her body swayed from side to side and her eyes strained to focus in the blurry haze. With the tail lights of the last remaining cab disappearing into town, she resigned herself to begin her journey home on foot. If she was lucky, she might be able to flag down a cab en route. Her four-inch, black strappy heels killed her feet. Her toes ached and her calves were numb from being held in the flexed position all night.

  The clicking of her heels accompanied her throbbing head as the last remaining revellers melted into the background. She headed in the vague direction of home, but in the darkness of night, all the roads looked the same. She vaguely recognised the sign for the Premier Inn situated in North Street and staggered left down the dark side access road. She was certain that there was a small passage that ran alongside the NCP car park ahead of her.

  Her head ached, and her body shook as she staggered to her left and fell against the wall. The cold brick felt rough against her fingers as her forehead came to rest on the stone.

  Somewhere from behind her, she heard what she vaguely thought was the sound of a car pulling up. She wanted to turn and look, but her body refused to move, a combination of fatigue, weakness and intoxication robbed her of movement.

  “Need a minicab, luv?” said the unfamiliar voice.

  Her limp hand waved pathetically in the air. “Nooo, I’ms f…f…fine…” she slurred. The orchestra in her head belted out its loudest tune and drowned out the sound of the car door opening and the footsteps approaching.

  “You don’t sound fine to me, luv. You need to get out of the cold. This is not the time or place to be walking around on your own, luv. Anything could happen to you.”

  She waved him away. She knew what she wanted to say, but the words stuck in her throat.

  He placed an arm around her shoulder in support and another beneath her arm before guiding her towards the back door of his car. “I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you. If you don’t want me to drop you home, then at least let me drop you at the police station and they can look after you,” he said reassuringly.

  She giggled and laughed as she swayed from side to side. “Whoa, I think I’ve had a little bit too much to drink. I’m feeling very…very tired,” she said as she fell back into the seat and rested her head on the headrest. Her eyes were heavy, her face felt numb. “Yessss, home.”

  The last thing she heard was a car door being closed, and the familiar click of central locking.

  She was sure she’d only closed her eyes for a few moments when the car came to a stop. Her head lolled back and forth, her droopy eyelids struggling to open.

  “I’m just going to pop out and grab something,” the voice reassured her.

  She waved dismissively at him as she pulled the phone from her clutch bag. She could see nothing but a white screen, the black digits were just a blur. “Yeahhh, whatever.”

  Her senses were jolted, as confusion clouded her thoughts. A gush of cold air raced in, as a car door opened and a hand lunged in.

  It all happened so quickly that she had no time to respond as the hand placed a padded cloth over her face. She tried to pull the hand away, but her arms were weak. She felt more than fatigue, every ounce of energy evaporating as a dark haziness enveloped her body. Her eyeballs rolled, powerless to focus, as the sickly pungent smell took hold.

  She’s been the easiest so far, he thought. She’d practically fallen into his lap. He was certain that she had taken the left turn deliberately because she wanted him. She’d waited all evening to get him alone. The fact that she hadn’t put up any resistance, and had willingly come with him, only confirmed that they were meant for each other. What plausible reason was there for her not putting up a fight?

  He dragged her lifeless body towards her home. The excitement bubbled inside of him like a brew from a witch’s cauldron as her strappy heels scraped on the floor. Her black painted toenails poked out. He was tempted to stop right there, and just worship her feet, but he would be patient. He knew she’d want him to be patient with her and take his time exploring her.

  He enjoyed every spine-tingling moment of removing her sleeveless top and black lacy bra. Her breasts were large and firm. He smiled as he looked at the sizing label on her bra. “36C, you are a big girl. Thank you. You like the way I take my time? Well, I’m glad.” He smiled at her as he continued his one-sided conversation. “I told you, Sally. She liked me. We can both enjoy her now.”

  With her laid on her back, he excitedly lifted the front of her short denim miniskirt. A low rumble rattled in his throat as he saw the woman’s tiny black G-string nestled against her white flesh. He removed her last remaining garments and placed them neatly in a pile alongside her strappy shoes. It took every ounce of determination to avoid playing with her four-inch heels. That would be something he’d enjoy later.

  He stood back and admired her hourglass figure. Her large wholesome young breasts and dark nipples looked heavenly beneath the roof light. A clean-shaven pubic area held his gaze for what seemed an eternity. He undressed and lay beside her. Her hair smelt fresh and intoxicating as he wrapped it around his fingers. Her skin felt smooth and inviting. He ran one finger in circles around her nipples, the delicate skin sent shivers of ecstasy coursing through his body like a 240-volt shock.

  “You’re simply divine, another one of God’s beautiful creations. For a long while, you had me fooled; you blended in so well. It’s only when you went back to being natural that I realised that you came to find me and Sally. You came to offer yourself to us.” His eyes followed his fingers as they ran down the outside of her legs before tracing back up the inside to where they met. He groaned, as his eyelids flickered. His mind transported into the deep darkness of sexual gratification.

  He delicately caressed each one of her painted toes. He loved the way in which the light bounced off the darkness of each painted nail. With a deft cut, he took a lock of her hair and placed it in a small silver trinket box.

  Before wishing her good night, he wanted their connection to grow deeper and stronger. She wanted it, he wanted it and Sally wanted it. He grabbed his knife and nicked the skin on her arm. Dark red velvety globules of blood burst to the surface. He admired how they clung together forming a dark exotic mass. She lay there, her eyes closed, inviting him to share the most precious of life’s commodities. Her blood tasted warm and sweet, just like her. An explosion of erotic intensity engulfed his mouth as his tongue searched out the last traces of her blood.

  His fun ended for the moment. Sally wanted her to rest. “You sleep well, my dearest. We’ll have fun soon,” he said as he lifted her and placed her inside the metal box before securing the lid with a padlock.

  Now, I need to get rid of her phone.

  20

  Abby had identified Yana Melnik as one of the women seen on the video footage seized from Freddie’s bedroom, but she was a reluctant witness. Terrified of retribution and public humiliation, she had denied all requests from the police for a formal statement to confirm that the assailant in the video was Freddie. This in itself frustrated Scott. He had a victim, and evidence of a forced sexual assault, but pressing charges would be harder withou
t the consent of the victim, nor formal identification of the assailant.

  He’d been clever, really clever to hide his identity on camera. But Scott knew forensics had other ways of identifying images like characteristics of body shape and identifiable features.

  The knife, photographic and video evidence, and the items of female underwear were sent away for forensic analysis. DNA analysis would no doubt confirm that the prints on the knife belonged to Freddie Coltrane and that his DNA would be found on the female underwear.

  Scott’s thoughts were interrupted by Abby’s burst out in laughter.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “Mistress Claire, the alternative lifestyle coach and fetish specialist. I’m an expert in domination, humiliation, BDSM and the treatment of submissives in general,” Abby recited as she stared at her phone.

  “Is this your other life outside of the force?”

  “Ha ha, very funny.”

  “Never a dull moment in her life,” Scott mused. “What more do we know about her?”

  “She runs Brighton Dungeon. Her specialities are spanking, caning, flogging, whipping, humiliation and breath control…whatever the fuck that is?” The last speciality caused Abby’s eyes to widen as she looked at Scott. She read out the next few points slowly as her mind processed these sexual preferences. “Electrics, ball busting…Trampling…Golden showers…Sploshing…And whatever else takes your fancy.”

  “Fuck sake, and this is supposed to be fun?” Scott said in bemusement. “I don’t even know what half of these are.”

  “I do,” Abby replied quickly as she furiously googled each one of those terms. “And at one hundred and sixty pounds per hour I’m in the wrong business,” she replied shaking her head in surprise.

  “And Freddie’s been visiting her? He must have deep pockets for a student.”

  Abby agreed with Scott’s speculation. She pointed to the semi-detached house in Hove that was given as the address of Mistress Claire.

  The house itself looked like all the other houses in this residential part of town. From the outside, there was nothing to suggest what went on behind the closed doors. As Scott knew from his days on the beat, there were men and women who paid large sums of money to explore their sexual boundaries. He’d seen people that held down normal jobs and responsibilities by day like office workers, doctors, solicitors, tradesmen and housewives, who sought dark, extreme pleasures by night.

  A tall, attractive, blonde, slim and busty woman answered the door. She wore a dark red fitted dress with a plunging neckline, and bright black painted stiletto heels. She glanced at both visitors at her door.

  “Yes, can I help you?” she asked.

  Scott and Abby held up their warrant cards for her to see. “I’m Detective Inspector Baker, and this is my colleague, Detective Sergeant Trent, from Brighton CID. Are you Mistress Claire?”

  The lady’s eyes flicked from Scott to Abby before she gave their warrant cards a cursory glance and nodded to confirm her identity.

  “May we come in and ask you a few questions?”

  “Business or pleasure?” she asked with a smile.

  “We are here on business. We’re making enquiries about a current investigation.”

  She showed them through to the lounge and invited them to take a seat.

  The lounge was an opulent affair. Deep pile grey carpets matched the crushed grey velvet sofas. A large flat-screen TV sat above the fireplace, and various artistic prints adorned the walls.

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions about a potential client. Freddie Coltrane.”

  “Inspector, you have to understand that I offer a discreet service here. People come here because they trust me, and client confidentiality is something I promise all my clients.”

  Scott nodded. “I fully understand your situation. But we’re in the middle of a murder investigation, and as a process of elimination were investigating all people that may have had a connection with our victim.”

  The news caused Mistress Claire to take a sharp intake of breath. She placed a hand her chest. “Oh, dear, I’m sorry to hear that. Are you suggesting that Freddie Coltrane is complicit in some way?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say either way, to be honest. We’re merely looking into his movements, and all the people that he has come in contact with. I understand he’s a visitor here?”

  “I hope you don’t think I’ve got anything to do with the murder or with Freddie Coltrane other than my business?” she said as she shook her head with concern.

  Scott confirmed once again that they were merely looking at Freddie Coltrane’s movements and his lifestyle, which seemed to allay the woman’s fears.

  “Is this Freddie Coltrane?” Scott asked holding up a picture.

  Mistress Claire nodded and said, “Yes, that’s him.”

  “Anything unusual about him and his preferences?” Scott asked.

  The woman gave a hearty laugh and rocked backwards. “Inspector, this is the place where most people come because they have the most bizarre, and perverse preferences. There’s nothing usual or unusual about the people who visit me. Let me show you.”

  Abby and Scott followed Mistress Claire down the hallway and through a door beneath the stairs that led down to her dungeon.

  The room was a mixture of cosy relaxation and depravity. Dark red walls, low lighting and a vinyl floor stood in contrast to the soft bright red linen bed sheets on the four-poster bed to one side of the room. An intoxicating mix of fragrances wafted around the room assaulting their senses. Mistress Claire’s heels clicked on the hard floor as she waved them around her domain.

  “Is there anything that looks normal here?” she asked as she waved her arm in an arc.

  Abby took her time as she wandered around taking in the various tools and instruments of the woman’s trade. An assortment of whips, rubber straps and canes hung from one wall. The table in one corner had an assortment of silver instruments which Abby felt would be more at home in a hospital gynaecological unit. A wooden cross was pinned to one wall with a series of straps which Abby assumed restrained clients by their wrists.

  Mistress Claire saw Abby look over in that direction. “I have a pinwheel, with little spikes that I roll over their body. Some people like it softly, and find it very therapeutic. Others, on the other hand, enjoyed intense pain as it leaves a little trail of indentations.”

  Scott smiled to himself as he imagined Abby’s mind whirring at what went on down here.

  “What’s Freddie Coltrane into?” Scott asked.

  “He likes a lot of marking, pain and cuts. So I do flog him quite a lot. He gets very excited when he sees blood from his marks. He likes a lot of CBT too.”

  Scott looked at her inquisitively.

  Mistress Claire elaborated for him saying, “It’s a form of male genital torture.”

  “And that doesn’t bother you?”

  Mistress Claire shook her head and smiled. “Nothing fazes me, Inspector. Not when I have clients who want me to jab my six-inch heels into their nuts, or do a double barefoot stomp on their balls…”

  Hearing those words made Scott swallow and wince. “And do you offer any other services?”

  “If people can’t come and see me in person, but they want a reminder of me, then they can also buy stuff from me. I do a roaring trade in my used underwear.”

  Scott had heard it all and shook his head in bewilderment. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously, Inspector. People can buy my freshly worn knickers for thirty pounds. They tell me how long they’d like me to wear them for, and then I seal them in a bag and post it. They can buy my stockings which I have worn for one day for forty pounds.”

  “And who buys them, or is that a stupid question?” Abby asked.

  “Loads of people. I especially get a lot of orders from the Far East and Saudi Arabia. The Japanese businessmen and the Saudi sheikhs have a real thing for blonde English women like myself.”

  “Well, th
at was an eye-opener,” Scott remarked as they headed back.

  “Thank God we didn’t send Raj and Mike; we would never have got them out.”

  Scott couldn’t help but agree. His thoughts turned to the feedback they had received about Freddie. The information that Mistress Claire had told them only reconfirmed their first assessment of Freddie Coltrane. He was clearly a man with extreme sexual tendencies, who enjoyed humiliation, degradation and pain.

  A comment from Mistress Claire piqued Scott’s interest. She’d mentioned that Freddie was always going on about how he wanted her to cut him, and that he wanted to see blood. It was something Mistress Claire had refused to do.

  His mind went over her parting words. “The place he most wanted to be cut was around the navel.”

  Whilst in the basement, they had been out of mobile phone signal range. But as they drove off, email and text messages started to come through.

  One message from the station stopped Scott in his tracks and sent shivers through his body.

  21

  The smell of engine oil hung in the air like an invisible cloak. It was the same familiar dirty smell of a mechanic’s garage that everyone could relate to every time they walked into a car servicing garage to pick up their car. A concoction of dirty motor oil, chassis grease, brake dust and solvent combined to create an aroma that clung to the walls and floor.

  The chair creaked as he leant back and rested his elbows on the armrests. His hands formed a steeple as he stared intently at the images on his laptop. Each image captured Rebecca’s every movement, her every outline. The slimness of her figure contrasted heavily with the fullness of her chest that she tried in vain to hide beneath the leather jacket that she wore everywhere.

  He paused as he stopped at his favourite picture. It was of her leaving her house dressed in what he described as a whore’s outfit. A tight black miniskirt barely covered her creamy, white, firm thighs. Her black, long-sleeved blouse hugged her body, the buttons undone a little too far to be accidental. He’d smirked when he’d taken it. He wondered what her parents would have thought, and, whether they would have let her out of the house dressed in next to nothing. Her outfit had been finished off with tacky thigh-high, black patent, high-heeled boots.