The man reached inside Adrian’s pockets and pulled out the contents – money, phone, keys, ID, everything – making Adrian feel even more vulnerable than before. Was he going to kill him and dump his body somewhere?
The man flipped Adrian over, so his face was pushed into the cold, hard van floor, and his knee pressed into Adrian’s back, making it even harder to get air into his lungs. As they drove past streetlights, the van lit up every couple of seconds. Adrian strained to see who had taken him, but his head was firmly pressed against the cold, dirty floor. Surely if they wanted him dead, they would have done it already.
Adrian’s head was thumping. The man in the back was bigger and stronger than him; Adrian hadn’t even managed to get a punch in at all. He really wished he hadn’t had those last three drinks.
As the road smoothed out, the lights got less frequent. They were heading out of town.
The man took his knee off Adrian’s back. The road beneath them became rougher and so Adrian assumed they had left the city completely. He could tell from the movements in the van that they were on less developed terrain, windier roads, maybe one of the smaller towns outside Exeter.
What did they want from him? The man in front just seemed to be the driver. It was the man in the back with Adrian who was in charge.
Without warning, the man yanked at Adrian’s trousers until they were around his knees and then his ankles. What was going on? The dread deepened as the reality of the situation hit Adrian. Oh God, no.
The man climbed on top of Adrian so that his knees forced Adrian’s legs apart. Adrian’s confusion was beginning to clear. This wasn’t a mugging. Adrian tried to scream, but the rag in his mouth muffled it to the point where it probably couldn’t even be heard inside the van, let alone any further away. Adrian was completely paralysed. He couldn’t even distinguish what he was feeling as fear; it felt so much bigger.
The sound of the engine was loud and Adrian couldn’t hear anything beyond that. The man’s head was directly above his, his hands on the ground either side. Adrian focused on the man’s chunky wrists to commit them to memory – he was white, that’s all Adrian could ascertain at this point. He knew what was coming next.
The crushing weight of the man on top of him did nothing to mask the pain as he forced himself inside. Adrian clutched onto the edge of the van floor near the door; there was a lip leading to a step. He could feel his knuckles going white as he held on. With each thrust he felt his body breaking, the wetness on his legs merely confirming that he could smell blood in the air.
‘What the fuck are you doing back there?’ the man in the driver’s seat shouted.
‘Just keep driving!’ Adrian heard the man shout, his spit landing on Adrian’s face. ‘I need to teach this pig a lesson.’
Sober enough, Adrian lay lifeless as the man continued, thrusting so hard it was pushing Adrian’s head into the back of the van’s front seats. He couldn’t fight back, couldn’t do anything. Even though it hurt a lot, that was nothing compared with the humiliation Adrian was feeling right now. He wished he was dead; Adrian had never wished that before, not really. He could never have imagined feeling that way until this moment. Not existing would be great right about now.
The man climbed off and lit a cigarette when he was done. Adrian was frozen still. He was cold and he could feel liquid on his skin at the top of his thighs; he didn’t know if it was blood or semen. For now, he had to concentrate on breathing. He pushed his tongue against the dry rag in his mouth until it was out. It was still dark and as long as Adrian didn’t make a sound, the man wouldn’t know the rag was gone.
Adrian sucked in the foul air as quietly as he could, still motionless and face down on the floor of the van. He heard a can open and the sound of the man drinking, the faintest smell of strong, cheap beer in the air. He wanted to leave, to get out and run, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything; he was completely immobile. Out of all his police training, nothing could have prepared him for this.
After what felt like an eternity, the man pulled Adrian by his ankles backwards, so his head wasn’t mashed into the front seats anymore.
‘Ready to go again?’
‘Please, don’t.’
Adrian choked on the words. The man probably didn’t hear him, not that it would have made a difference.
The man moved Adrian onto his side and reached between his legs. Adrian’s throat was sore. He hadn’t realised he was crying and trying to hold it back. He knew this wasn’t his fault, he knew it. He had said the same things a million times to victims who had recounted their attacks to him. He had been sympathetic and understanding. He thought he did understand. But right now, in this moment, he knew he didn’t have a clue.
He should fight back. He shouldn’t be aroused physically and even though he knew it was a physiological response, he was still disgusted with himself because he was hard. He tried to think about anything that would stop him from climaxing, but he couldn’t. He let out a cry as he finished.
‘You think you’re above it all, don’t you? Well, you’re not so clever now, are you?’ the man said right into his ear.
Adrian didn’t recognise his voice. How could Adrian have driven someone to this and have no idea who it was?
Adrian sobbed into floor of the van, the weight of the man on top of him restricting the amount of air he could take in. The man kept talking, but Adrian couldn’t hear him anymore. He just focused on not being here. Whatever was happening inside this van, it wasn’t happening to him. He lost all sense of time. He couldn’t tell if he had lost consciousness or not, but time seemed to be jumping forwards, as though he were blacking out in between.
The van kept moving and the man only seemed to stop to smoke. They drove through a few small towns; Adrian could tell by the way the van slowed sometimes and the streetlights were different. They paused at traffic lights and he wanted to make a move, do anything.
Paralysed with pain and fear, he just lay there. He hated himself for not moving. It was a small consolation knowing that the man clearly had no plans to kill him; though he wasn’t sure he wanted to live through this. Adrian knew from his years of experience working on the force that this was a life changer; there was no amount of counselling, no amount of therapy that would ever make him OK again. He would never be that same person he was a few hours ago – that Adrian was gone.
‘Where are you taking me?’ Adrian called, wondering what could possibly be next.
The man flipped him over. Adrian still couldn’t see his face. Nothing about him was familiar and it should have been – this was obviously personal.
The man put his dirty fingers in Adrian’s mouth as far as he could. Adrian gagged and threw up, his vomit spilling out from the sides of his mouth and down his cheeks onto the floor beneath him. He drew his knees up to try to shield himself as the occasional streetlight illuminated the inside of the van and he felt even more vulnerable than before.
The taste of vomit was sour and unpleasant. Adrian pushed as much from his mouth as he could, aware of the hand pushing on his neck. The regurgitated whisky and syrupy Coke had pooled under his head. He tried not to think about was happening inside the van. The man let go of Adrian’s throat and sat back, allowing Adrian to curl into a ball.
The man then left Adrian alone and after a few minutes, the van stopped. The door opened and the man jumped out before pulling Adrian out until his half-naked body smacked against the cold, hard concrete. He lay there for a moment, wondering what was next. The engine started and the van door slid shut before they pulled away. Adrian was alone again.
Silence descended. Adrian pulled on his trousers and looked around; it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the light. He looked up and saw the familiar sight of his front door. The man had dropped him to his house. They knew where he lived. Just like they had known where to grab him from and how they had known he was a police officer.
Bumping into them hadn’t been an accident. There was no way this
was a random attack. His phone, keys and wallet were on the ground next to him. He grabbed them and got onto all fours before standing. He looked at the time on his phone: half past five in the morning. Stumbling over to the side of the road, he threw up into the drain before staggering towards the house. He negotiated the lock as quickly as his trembling hands would allow and almost fell inside, slamming the door behind him and curling into a ball again.
Chapter Forty-Five
All Adrian wanted to do was climb into the shower and wash himself clean, inside and out. The police officer inside him knew he needed to preserve the evidence, but his overriding thought was that no one must ever know about this. He walked into each room and methodically put all the lights on; he couldn’t stand this darkness, even though dawn was breaking.
Adrian went into the bathroom and shivered as he undressed, wanting to be rid of those clothes but not wanting to be naked at the same time. He put his clothes into a bin bag that he had brought upstairs with him. There was so much blood. He didn’t know what he was going to do. In terms of reporting it, he couldn’t. He wanted to erase himself completely. Telling someone would mean saying it out loud. Reporting it would mean talking about it over and over again. No. Aside from the shame and humiliation of having people know what had happened to him, he was a police officer. He was supposed to keep people safe. How would anyone feel safe with him again knowing that this could happen, that he could let this happen?
He cut his fingernails down and deposited them in a smaller plastic bag, stuffing that one into the black sack as well, preserving as much evidence as he could. Even if he didn’t use it now, there was a possibility he might change his mind later on – people do. He knew there wouldn’t be anything under his fingernails, though; he hadn’t fought back. Not even a little. He had to hope that was enough. Without going to the hospital and being examined properly, this was as far as Adrian was prepared to go.
Climbing into the shower, he turned it on as hot as he could bear without flinching. His skin burned under the pulse of the concentrated heat. He sat in the bottom of the shower tray with his knees pulled to his chest, staring at the stream of filthy water as it ran into the drain – a dirty deep red. The soap dissolved as he rubbed it against himself until it was nothing but a paper-thin wisp in his hand.
The water ran clear. He didn’t suppose he would ever feel clean again, but this would have to do. Used. Stripped of his identity, of everything that made Adrian who he was, reduced to nothing but a vessel for the man to abuse. He had become nothing but a body in that van. A piece of meat to be pushed around a plate and discarded when the man had had his fill. Was it that easy to erase someone so completely?
Shaking off the feelings of disgust with himself, he got out of the shower and patted himself with a towel, wincing as the rough fabric scraped against the parts of his body that were grazed and bruised. He pulled on a hooded sweatshirt and loose tracksuit bottoms before climbing into bed and pulling the covers around him. It was light outside, but he needed to be asleep if he could; he couldn’t face being awake right now.
Adrian was alone when he woke. He reached across the bed but there was no one there. His head hurt and his mouth was dry. A sadness came over him, a sadness he couldn’t quantify. The hard swelling in his lip and his aching body brought home the nightmare that he had endured. He gasped aloud in anguish, unable to keep the grief inside him.
He realised his phone was ringing. He picked it up and looked at it. Imogen. There was a smear of blood on the screen. He dropped the phone as if it were burning his skin. An hour late for work. He couldn’t go in, not today. He wiped the screen with a pillowcase before throwing the pillow across the room. Then he dialled the DCI.
‘DS Miles, we’ve been looking for you,’ DCI Kapoor said.
‘I have a temperature,’ Adrian rasped, sounding rougher than he had imagined he would. He didn’t need to fake it – he sounded pathetic without even trying. Just hearing his own voice set his teeth on edge. ‘I feel rotten. I’m so sorry, but I can’t come in today.’
‘You do sound terrible. I’ll let Imogen and Matt know you won’t be in.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, hanging up before he began to cry. He could feel it coming.
What was he doing? He should report this, but the thought of it made him feel bilious. His phone rang again: it was Imogen. He couldn’t face talking to her right now. He was completely lost inside himself. Nothing existed outside his own mind. He couldn’t think about his responsibility to report what had happened.
The moment he had realised what the man was about to do to him replayed over and over in his mind, as though if he could erase that one moment then none of it would have happened. He was in that van for over five hours, but he didn’t remember it. He remembered bits, but there was a lot that was unclear. Was it because he had been drunk? He was drunk at the start, but his adrenaline was coursing so quickly he sobered fast. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking about it; there was nothing else. He closed his eyes, praying that sleep would take him again.
Chapter Forty-Six
Imogen was staring at her screen when the coffee cup appeared next to her. She looked up, hoping to see Adrian staring back at her, but it was DI Matt Walsh.
‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ Walsh said.
‘What?’
‘Still no call from DS Miles?’
‘DCI said he called in sick, so I guess I’ll see him when he gets back,’ Imogen said, unsure whether Walsh was hinting he knew something was going on between Adrian and her. Her tension since yesterday certainly could be construed as a dead giveaway.
‘What are you working on?’ Walsh asked.
‘Just looking up any mentions of Corrigan Construction online.’
‘Wouldn’t it be quicker for Gary to do that?’
‘Probably, but I need him to break down the financials and so I thought I would get on with this,’ she said, trying not to snap.
Walsh wasn’t the one she was annoyed with. She wasn’t even sure it was Adrian she was annoyed with. Why didn’t she keep her mouth shut?
‘Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but Corrigan’s out already. He said Adrian didn’t identify himself as a police officer and he thought he was an intruder; his wife has backed him up.’
‘What is wrong with that woman?’ Imogen asked.
‘She’s scared, that’s all. She sees him getting away with it time and again. It’s self-preservation. She doesn’t trust that we can stop him and so far, we haven’t proven otherwise,’ Walsh said.
‘Sounds like you speak from experience.’
‘Not personal experience, thankfully, but I have had a few cases like this. We just have to remember that she’s the victim in this, even though she isn’t cooperating. Luckily for us, it looks like Corrigan’s behaviour has affected more than just his wife. It’s only a matter of time before we find someone willing to speak out against him.’
‘Well, let’s hope we find them before he kills his wife.’
‘Or before DS Miles kills him.’
‘Adrian wouldn’t,’ Imogen said. ‘I get the feeling you have Adrian all wrong. He’s not the bad guy here, either.’
‘He seems to be an unpredictable variable. I read the report you filed yesterday about what happened at that house and knowing how loyal you are to DS Miles, I can only imagine the reality was a more extreme version of your truth. I have asked the DCI to take him off the case.’
‘Oh,’ Imogen said, unable to think of a more appropriate reaction.
After the way Adrian had behaved at the Corrigan house, she could hardly defend him.
‘You’re a good cop, Grey. I would hate to think of you letting DS Miles hold you back.’
‘Adrian and I work well as a team; our track record proves that.’
‘I get the feeling you are the driving force behind most of that success.’
‘Well, you would be wrong. DS Miles’ determination is a huge factor. I’m not
comfortable talking this way about him without him here to defend himself. I also don’t really appreciate your suggestion that I falsified my report in order to paint DS Miles in a more favourable light.’
‘There’s nothing to defend; these are observations. Not attacks. All I am saying is don’t let your loyalty ruin your career. He’s attacked both an officer at this station and a civilian now. We have to be held to higher standards than that.’
‘I think you mean suspect, not civilian.’
‘Does that make it OK?’
‘This conversation is over. Unless there is anything else?’ she snapped.
This time, it was most definitely Walsh she was annoyed with.
‘Let’s move on. Have you found anything?’
‘The usual, really: announcements for construction bids they won and things like that. A picture of Corrigan with a bloke called Gerry Thompson from a couple of years ago; apparently, he was his right-hand man, but I don’t remember seeing him on any of the staff lists.’
‘Maybe we should give him a visit.’
‘I’ll get his address,’ she said.
She hated it when other people pointed out her flaws to her, especially if they were right. She wanted to call Adrian and tell him about the conversation she had just had with DI Walsh, but she didn’t much feel like calling just to have her call rejected again.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Gerry Thompson didn’t live like a man who had until recent years been working for the top construction company in the area. His home was a run-down studio flat just behind Paris Street. He opened the door and limped back to the sofa, flopping down and muting the TV. They followed him inside. The smell of overripe rubbish hung in the air; Imogen wondered how he slept in here. The curtains were drawn and swirls of dust circled the air. Her stomach turned. Let’s get this over with.
‘Mr Thompson, you used to work for Corrigan Construction, correct?’ DI Walsh said.
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