The Safe Word

by Karen Long

  Malcolm had to call on all of his reserves of self-control not to burst out laughing. He waited till the door swung to behind her and then stepped into the elevator. As soon as the doors closed it was as if a huge weight had been lifted from his chest and the relief manifested itself in a huge guffaw of laughter. Tears ran down his flabby cheeks and he had to ignore the stitch-like pain grabbing at his sides as he sniggered. The elevator drew to a stop and the doors opened onto a new world. A world without Cassandra Willis and a new regime where he, Malcolm Stringer, would become the boss everyone in the office had always longed for. The sort of boss who would not make unreasonable demands of his workforce and would listen to their needs. He also believed he’d make a pretty decent partner to the lovely Cindy who was going to be treated to a fabulous wine and dine evening complete with roses and champagne all at his expense.

  Cassandra Willis barely registered the man who was going to kill her. He stepped lightly out of the driver’s seat and opened the rear passenger door for her, gently extracting the overnight bag from her hands and placing it in the trunk. He closed her door carefully as she slid down into the back seat. She was exhausted but resolved. She would phone her lawyer Harry Chen on Friday and arrange a meeting and then hope that between them they could minimise the financial impact of breaking her contract. Harry made a tidy packet doing routine contractual work for her it was about time he earned it. Yes, this was it for Cassandra, it was time to turn her life around and take control.

  It was whilst mulling these matters over that she became aware they were no longer heading east in the direction of the airport. She leaned forward and addressed the driver noticing his strong jawline and smooth, perfectly shaven cheek. It was a handsome, muscular profile but not of particular interest to Cassandra in that moment.

  “You know I’ve got a six thirty flight?” she asked, irritated.

  “Yes ma’am but there’s been an accident and the road ahead’s closed. I’ll get you there in plenty of time, relax,” he said calmly. Cassandra didn’t like the word ‘relax’. It implied that she was overreacting to the situation and the irritation that she had been trying so hard to dampen exploded.

  “What the fuck do you mean relax?” she screeched. “You will –” Any further thoughts on what he should or shouldn’t do were lost as the driver twisted round with snake-like speed and punched Cassandra in the face. The combination of shock, pain and utter incomprehension silenced her for several seconds. Her immediate thought was that it was a mistake, what had happened couldn’t have happened. But as her brain began to process the event and the pain began to bludgeon its way across her fractured cheekbone and shattered nose one clear thought emerged. She had to get out of the car. Tearing at the door handle and only dimly aware of her own screaming, Cassandra tried to get out, but neither door yielded. Frantically she tried to strategise. She was too afraid of the man to launch an attack but logic told her that as she was heading in the opposite direction to the airport she wasn’t likely to be let out at the next available drop off. She stared wildly out of the window smearing the blood across her face as she tried to clear her vision but the sudden movement of her hand caused her eyeball to shift alarmingly in its socket. By now she was bordering on complete hysteria. The car was a wall of sound as Cassandra’s opportunity to turn her adrenaline flood into defensive action began to slip away. She hammered on the windows with her fist. There was a means of escape, her cell phone! Rummaging through her pockets and finding them empty she ran her hands around the seat. Nothing! She moved her feet around trying to maximise the distance between her and the man. It had to be there! Her handbag had been knocked to the floor and she grabbed it, tipping the contents onto the seat next to her but it wasn’t there.

  And then she saw it.

  The driver had placed it on the dashboard. He must have lifted it from her pocket as she’d gotten into the vehicle. Knowing it was doomed to failure Cassandra lunged towards the phone. She managed to clumsily snatch it and savored a fleeting moment of satisfaction as the possibility of escape teased her. She was so focussed on the cell phone that it took several seconds to work out what the sudden sharp pain in her arm was and why it was accompanied by an icy sensation. Victorious but dizzy she slumped back into her seat trying to remember the emergency services’ number.

  Darkness.

  The driver waited till he was sure the woman was unconscious, carefully pocketed the hypodermic needle and then swung the car around and headed back to the city.

  He had, he concluded, a great deal to thank Cindy for.

  Chapter Eleven

  Eleanor watched Laurence through the window of D’Angelo’s with interest as he manhandled the dog through the evening traffic. She sipped her coffee and speculated on why Laurence was hauling the enormous, unloved creature around with him. It took Laurence at least thirty seconds to realise that the dog was not going to be fobbed off with being secured to a bike rack while his master conducted a debrief in the coffee shop and he was left in the now torrential downpour. The bark was unremitting and Eleanor wondered whether Laurence was going to thump the dog in front of the steadily increasing audience of law enforcement agents. Despite a momentarily balled fist Laurence managed to maintain his calm and yanked the sodden creature into the coffee shop. Big Al’s expression made it clear to Laurence that this move was unlikely to reach first base.

  “Sit outside!” commanded Al, “You have coffee there.”

  “And a house panini?” Laurence asked desperately.

  Laurence’s expression drew something akin to pity from Eleanor who indicated that he sit at the table adjacent to her and they could communicate through the open window. Big Al looked as if he was going to complain about that too but seeing Eleanor’s slow eyebrow raise decided to slam some plates around instead.

  “Here,” said Eleanor, passing Laurence a napkin through the window to wipe the rain saturated plastic seat.

  “Thanks,” he muttered. “For fuck’s sake! I’m getting soaked!”

  “You’ll live,” Eleanor responded. She turned to the dog, “He looks hungry.”

  “How can he be?” snapped Laurence. “He ate everyone’s lunch in Admin and Timms gave him a chilli burger. He’s already a threat to global warming. God only knows how he’s going to process that!”

  Eleanor shrugged; she’d lost interest in the dog saga. “What’ve you learned?”

  “Hmm?” Laurence was craning his neck to see if his order was on its way. It seemed improbable as Big Al was chatting to a more favoured customer.

  “Focus Detective!”

  “Sorry.”

  “Tell me about the gym,” she said, catching Big Al’s eye and nodding in Laurence’s direction.

  “I met Tracy Earnshaw, Lydia’s personal trainer, who claims she had bumped into her and Stollar at the Xxxstacy club and enthused to her about the kidnapping day trip.”

  “Enthused?” asked Eleanor.

  Laurence thought for a moment or two. “Perhaps not enthused. She said she’d ‘mentioned it’. She told me she’d only done the kidnap thing once and thought it a bit ‘lame’. Tracy said she’d taken Madam Sashia’s contact details into the gym for Lydia but apparently she’d already got them and had contacted a man. Tracy felt it was possible that she could have gotten the number from the club.”

  “What was her relationship like with Lydia?” asked Eleanor as Big Al delivered the food and Laurence tucked in hungrily. The dog had slid his huge head onto the wet table and stared at the panini with intense concentration. She smiled as Laurence slammed his arm between plate and snout in a gesture reminiscent of a kid fearful that someone would copy his exam answer.

  “Whitefoot!”

  “Sorry. Tracy said they didn’t have a meaningful relationship. I guess she meant they were acquaintances but she called her ‘Lydie’, not Lydia,” he spluttered through a bolus of cheese, bread and coffee.

  “That’s kinda personal. ‘Lydie’. What else did she have to offer?”


  “Not much but she opened her locker for me.”

  “Lydia’s locker?” asked Eleanor.

  He nodded.

  “How many lockers were there to choose from?” He made a gesture that implied a great many. “Then how did she know which one was Lydia’s?”

  Laurence chewed slowly and swallowed. “I don’t know. The locker was empty, nothing in there at all.”

  Eleanor nodded slowly. “I think Tracy had a more ‘meaningful relationship’ than she’s admitting to. We should pay her a second visit.”

  “What do you know?” asked Laurence, yanking his coat collar higher to prevent the rain running down his back.

  Eleanor paused and drank the last of her coffee. “I know that we have a dead woman, killed by a sadist for pleasure rather than material gain. He found a way to ‘cream off’ a customer from Madam Yesikov and kill her. It’s possible that he left identical contact cards in one of the clubs that Lydia picked up. If so we haven’t found that yet and Lydia’s phone records and her parents show no unrecognised outgoing or incoming calls.”

  “How the hell did she contact the guy? She use a phone booth? Maybe at Xxxstacy? Why would she do that?”

  “Maybe there’s poor coverage there or maybe she didn’t need to call. Perhaps she met him there?” Eleanor said, rising to her feet and checking the time. “I think I’m going to have a drink at Xxxstacy tonight; do a bit of fishing. Fancy a date?”

  Laurence smiled. “You betcha.”

  Eleanor pulled on her coat. I’ll pick you up at eleven.”

  Laurence had been feeling tired but magnanimous on the drive home and had stopped at the local pet supermarket, purchasing a fifteen kilo bag of medium quality dog kibble and a leash. Monster seemed aware that concessions had been made and didn’t whine or break wind on the way home. Unfortunately any good will towards the dog evaporated on finding a note attached to his front door. It read, ‘What the fuck died in there buddy?’ and was signed, ‘The poor bastard that lives next door.’ Laurence groaned as he remembered the turd that was still sitting on the kitchen floor.

  The smell rivalled anything he’d encountered in the morgue and it took considerable presence of mind to scoop it, bag it and take it out to the street bin. By now it was eight pm and Laurence had been awake for the past thirty-six hours and was desperate for sleep but decided that a shower and a steak would be the best option; he could doze afterwards.

  Eleanor knew that she was missing something. She’d been soaking in the bathtub for the past hour and barely registered the fact that the water had dipped to slightly above blood temperature. The key, she believed, lay in where Lydia had got the contact details from. The killer had observed the protocol of Sashia’s kidnap routine and managed to convince Lydia that she was going to have the same experience as Tracy Earnshaw. Eleanor sighed and squeezed out the flannel, laid it over her face and tried to get a little deeper into the mind of the killer. Why did he go to such elaborate lengths, surely he could have snatched Lydia at any time? He didn’t take the five thousand in cash but still went through the process of having it delivered to Xxxstacy by Stollar. By not collecting it he was drawing attention to the fact that he wasn’t part of Sashia’s enterprise – that and not taking Lydia’s ring. Another question that had been eating away at her was why, when he’d gone to all the trouble of changing the lock on the Westex door, he didn’t have the bolt cutters with him when he came to deposit the body? It didn’t make sense that he wouldn’t be prepared for that event, as he was clearly so determined that Lydia should be displayed in that place and manner. In her mind’s eye Eleanor stood in front of the Westex power station and stared at the lock, maybe he tried his key and found it didn’t work; was he frustrated, desperate to find another way in? She dipped her head below the water line, opening her eyes and looking at the scattered lights reflected on the surface. Where were the signs? Every event was heralded and garlanded with little signs and it was her job to find and interpret them. It was because she hadn’t always picked up on the cues that would save a life that she had dedicated her adult life to searching for them.

  Caleb was a year younger than her and at twelve he was just beginning to stretch and fill out into the adult body he would never acquire. He lived on the next street to her in Cabbage Town but it could have been another planet for the lack of similarities between their upbringing. Where Eleanor’s life was nurtured with books, sports, love and indulgence, Caleb’s was filled with fear, secrets and desperation. But she hadn’t understood those signs until after the events had played out.

  Eleanor and he caught the same bus and on the days when she missed it he waited for her and they walked the three kilometres to school together. He was uncommunicative, lonely and vaguely unhappy but as he walked next to her, his blazer collar yanked up and head sunk into his shoulders, she sensed their companionship. He seemed to like listening to her chatter about friends and family, never contributing any thoughts of his own. This should have been the first warning sign. Eleanor’s father had been a patrol officer for twenty years and he often told her that if you kept your eyes open and listened for sudden changes to the mundane everyday occurrences then you could spot the danger coming. But she didn’t listen to the nagging doubts when Caleb said that he needed to tell her something. His timing was dreadful, registration was just about to start and Eleanor wanted to sign up for a new kickboxing class. She said she’d catch him later but as she turned she saw something in his face that she’d never seen before, a sign.

  Eleanor was sore but triumphant the morning after and eager to detail each blow delivered and received, but Caleb wasn’t there. She debated whether to miss the bus as he frequently did but if he was ill and off school she’d have to walk alone; a thought that held little appeal for her. He’d been absent for three mornings before she finally decided to walk Rusty, their ageing spaniel, round to his house. She wasn’t sure why her father had found it surprising that she was walking the dog, perhaps it was something she rarely did as a teenager. She couldn’t remember. Neither could she remember the walk there but every pace and sound of the run back was etched into her memory. Eleanor didn’t like Caleb’s house. She had only been in once and the smell and tension that pervaded every room had made her feel uncomfortable, so it was an unspoken law that the only house visited was hers. Caleb didn’t like to touch anything in her home, he’d sit quietly in the kitchen and always took too long to finish any food or drink put in front of him. A gesture that seemed more poignant now, as it had irritated her beyond measure at the time.

  The three minutes that separated her childhood from adulthood were, in her mind, a timeless entity. Eleanor had angrily looped Rusty’s lead over a fence when his braying bark could not be shushed or threatened out of him. This she recalled but not her approach to the house or what prompted her to investigate the basement steps. Protocol demanded that she knock at the door and announce her presence to Caleb’s stepfather but something told her these niceties were no longer required in this breached world.

  Caleb’s naked body lay curled underneath a hastily rearranged pile of household garbage bags, which his stepfather had piled in a pathetic attempt to hide his actions. The adult in her knew instantly that he was dead and had been for some time. Possibly the mottled pattern on the alabaster skin, or his obscenely bloated stomach and genitals, which had pushed the bin bags to one side satisfied the question but the child in her still spoke and called to him.

  Even now.

  Pulling herself upright and breaking the surface of the water she tried not to see the red wheals on her thighs and stomach but failed. An image of the man in the hotel room, flicked into her head. The man had been good and for a moment she even considered contacting him again but crushed that thought quickly. Rule number one stated categorically that, ‘There will be no second contact.’ With this in mind she grabbed a towel and launched herself quickly out of the bath rubbing vigorously at her stomach and breasts. Maybe you could wash away your
sins?

  An hour later Eleanor stood outside Laurence Whitefoot’s apartment and readjusted her clothing. She wore a shoulder length platinum blonde wig, and numerous studs that were attached to her lips, chin, cheeks and nose. Each was held in place by a magnetic contact inside her mouth. Hazel contacts and heavy bronze liner and shadow gave her a feline appearance and she doubted if even Mo would recognise her. It had been tempting to don full rubber latex fetish gear but the object was to blend and hide her identity and that meant not drawing too much attention to herself. When Laurence finally opened the door, it was obvious from his confused expression that firstly he’d been asleep and secondly he had no idea who she was. He peered at her and began to splutter introduction query when he froze, letting his jaw loll forward like a kid with a big thought. Eleanor swept past him and Monster, stopping only to breathe in the barely concealed scent of dog shit and note the bullet hole in the refrigerator.

  “Is the dog your ex-girlfriend’s?” she asked pointing at what remained of the photograph. Laurence sighed, yanked open the fridge and grabbed a beer, grimacing as he felt the tepid metal can.

  “Yup,” he replied.

  “But you bought the dog together?”

  Laurence stared at her and nodded, taking a deep swig of beer. “I don’t need psychoanalyzing,” he snapped.

  Eleanor shrugged, “Stop drinking I need you alert and capable of driving.”

  Laurence smiled and looked at her appraisingly, his eyes dropping from her mouth to her breasts and lingering on her crotch. For a moment Eleanor felt a heat between her thighs and a desire for him to grab her arms and push her down; but that was not a game she was willing to play now or ever with a colleague. She hardened her expression and snapped, “Get ready. Dress down.”