Isolation - a heart-stopping thriller, Shutter Island meets Memento

by Neil Randall

  “She isn’t stupid, Nigel. Once the blasted thing starts to ascend, she’ll notice how much slower it is, and she’ll refuse to open the door from her side.”

  “Then I’ll kick my way out.”

  “Impossible. If you crawl yourself up into such a tight ball, you’d never be able to free your limbs, you’d be like a sardine in a tin.”

  Regardless, I wouldn’t be denied. Knowing the main door leading up to the steps was far too secure, the dumb waiter was our best, and only chance of escape.

  “That’s a risk I’m willing to take. I’ve been gone for two days now. All kinds of things could’ve happened in my absence. I can’t wait any longer. Lives are in danger.”

  Incredibly, the task wasn’t nearly as difficult as we had both envisaged. Once I’d managed to get a firm foothold, making myself as small as possible, chin tucked into my chest, Gideon was able to push me further and further inside the dumb waiter, right to the back of the shelf.

  “I don’t know about this.” He peered inside. “I think we should call the whole thing off, just for today. I think we need talk things through, and decide what to do for the best.” He forced his arm deep inside, as if to block the dumb waiter’s passage, like an unwelcome stranger’s foot wedged in a door. “Once outside, you might go to the police. Mater would get into a lot of trouble. I don’t think I could live with myself.”

  “Move your arm,” I whispered, fearful of Mrs Forbes-Powers overhearing. “I won’t go to the police. You have my word on that.”

  Why the dumb waiter suddenly started to ascend, I never discovered. Maybe the old woman in the kitchen above had heard us arguing, maybe she inadvertently pushed a button in error, or maybe it was simply force of habit, whatever the cause, it began to rise with Gideon’s arm still jammed inside.

  “No!” he cried. “Mater! Turn it off! Turn it off!”

  But it was too late, the ascending appliance crushed Gideon’s arm, wrenching it away from the shoulder joint, until bone and sinews crunched, until he was screaming out in pain, until a dark claret stain seeped through his shirt, until the dumb waiter juddered to a halt.

  In the chaotic moments that followed, where I desperately tried to get out, to squeeze my way past Gideon, whose legs by this time had started to buckle, to give way beneath him, I heard a key scraping around the lock, the handle turn, and the door clatter open.

  “My God!” Mrs Forbes-Powers rushed across the basement. “What have you –? You fools!”

  With admirable speed of thought, she pushed the down button, lowering the tray, which released Gideon’s ruined shoulder. With utmost care, the old lady then slowly guided her son backward, easing his arm out of the dumb waiter. In turn, I pushed forward, squeezing myself out, close behind him, where I spilled to the floor. Not wasting a second, I leapt to my feet and, ignoring pleas of both mother and son (“Call an ambulance!” “You can’t leave us like this! Gideon will die!”), I raced up the stairs. In panic, thinking of nothing but getting out of the house, I dashed down the hallway, turned the key in the lock, and threw open the door, the sharp morning air hitting me like a well-directed slap to the face.

  No sooner had I rushed out of the house than a car raced over to the kerb, skidding to a halt. Confused, frightened, I looked on as a window wound down, revealing a familiar face, that of Bannister, the private detective who’d been hired by Michelle’s family.

  “Come with me, if you want to live,” he said, like something out of a seventies cop show.

  “What? Why? I—”

  “Late last night, Jeffrey Fuller was found horrifically murdered. You’re the number one suspect. Get in or risk being convicted of a crime you never committed.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  There were so many things I wanted to ask Bannister, I literally couldn’t travel for a moment longer without at least satisfying some of them.

  “Stop!” I shouted, banging a balled fist against the dashboard

  Instinctively, he hit the brakes, jolting us to a sudden stop.

  “For pity’s sake! What is it?”

  “I need to know what’s happened? Tell me everything.”

  Bannister took a deep intake of breath, and slowly exhaled. “Okay, Mr Barrowman. I understand. But time really is of the essence, so let me précis events as quickly as I possibly can: the police were baffled by your disappearance, the only lead was the old woman you’d visited (the fact I turned up this morning, by the way, was completely by chance), but she said you left her house after about five minutes. Due to you going missing, all other members of your former counselling group were moved to a safe house. On searching your flat, the police found, amongst other highly incriminating evidence on your computer, a wooden box, a rare antiquity with a horned owl symbol carved into the lid. When they took it for D.N.A. testing, blood traces matching those of the deceased women in the hotel room were found.”

  “What? But my girlfriend, Liz, bought that box from Portobello Road Market, days after the killings.”

  “And that, to the best of my knowledge, is exactly what she told the police when questioned. But the stall-holder she claims to have purchased the box from has vanished without a trace. Then, late last night, Fuller’s body was found in a field, cut up, just like the other three. All of which, since nobody could account for your whereabouts, has made you number one suspect for each killing.”

  I took a moment to take all of this in.

  “What about Liz?

  “Last I heard she’d been released on bail.” He fixed his stern, implacable eyes on me. “This is serious, Mr Barrowman. The police have little else to go on, other than the theory of you being some kind of sick, twisted, psycho killer who’s been dangling evidence under their noses from day one. In all likelihood, your girlfriend is now seen as an accomplice.”

  “But that’s ridiculous.” I leaned back and ran both hands through my hair. “Wait.” I turned and met his purposeful stare again. “If that’s the case, then why aren’t you driving me straight to the police station?”

  “Because information has come to light that suggests you’re nothing more than a pawn in somebody else’s game. It’s imperative, therefore, that I take you to see Miss Rouse’s parents. Everything will become much clearer then.”

  As if to emphasise the need for haste, Bannister sped off again, motoring down the road. Only he failed to notice a pedestrian, no more than a blur of thick winter fabrics, stepping into the road, and being sent tumbling up over the bonnet.

  “Damn!” Bannister slammed on the brakes again. “Of all the…” he pushed open the door and got out of the car.

  I followed after him, rushing around the bonnet, seeing the same woman from the supermarket and bus-stop, the one intent on securing fraudulent compensation for feigned injury.

  “It’s okay.” I fell in beside Bannister. “I’ve seen this woman before. She does this sort of thing all the time: throwing herself in front of buses and suchlike, to try and get compensation. Chances are she’s faking the whole thing.”

  But when we both crouched to examine her body, we saw blood pouring from a nasty gash to the back of her head, and that one of her legs had been broken, a piece of bone protruded through a thick pair of knitted tights.

  “Oh no,” I said, realising that, for the first time in her life, this woman had genuinely had an accident. “We – We better call an ambulance.”

  Bannister made a strange guttural noise, somewhere between a grunt and groan of displeasure.

  “Not going to happen, Mr Barrowman.” He grabbed my elbow and guided me up to my feet. “There’s too much at stake now.”

  As if both thinking the same thought, we looked around, surveying the empty, deserted, early morning streets.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” I said. “Can’t we at least call for help and then leave? If not, she’s going to die.”

  Rolling up his sleeve, Bannister showed me the tattoo of a horned owl on his wrist, the exact same owl I’d seen scrape
d across the dead women’s skin in that hotel room.

  “I think you know what this means.” Yet again, we made brief yet significant eye contact. “Get back into the car, Mr Barrowman. Michelle’s parents need to talk to you before the police do.”

  Bannister knocked three times, very deliberately, as if it were a prearranged signal, then turned the handle and walked inside the farmhouse kitchen.

  “Hello, Nigel,” said Mr Rouse, sitting beside his wife at the head of a long pinewood table. “I’m so glad you’ve been found safely. For a while there, we feared you’d suffered a similar fate to the others.”

  Despite Mr Rouse speaking first, it was his wife who did most of the talking.

  “Please, sit down.” She directed us to chairs. “As you’re aware, Michelle went missing from her home over a week ago now. What you probably don’t know is that Mr Bannister and Michelle were part of an organisation called The Horned Owl Society, an organisation that investigated cases of domestic abuse. Far more sophisticated than your average vigilante group, they have, over the last two or three years, tried to protect the victims and bring those implicated to justice.”

  Bannister glanced across at me, hunching his shoulders apologetically.

  “Now, to give you a little more background information, both Michelle and Mr Bannister had suffered terrible abuse in violent relationships. Mr Bannister at the hands of his ex-wife, a vicious alcoholic manic-depressive, Michelle, allegedly at the hands of not just her former boyfriend, namely you, Nigel, but of her parents.”

  It took a moment for that last piece of information to register.

  “Her parents? You mean you and your husband?””

  “That’s correct.” Mrs Rouse picked up a bundle of bound papers. “Maybe you’d like to familiarise yourself with some of the allegations. All of which, I assure you, are completely and utterly false.”

  I took the papers and started to read from the top sheet.

  Monday 27th February 1989

  It just happened again. Mother and Father crept into my bedroom, semi-naked, with their bag of tricks, their handcuffs and torture devices. Time and again, I screamed and screamed, begging them not to hurt me like the last time. But Mother kept saying it was for my own good, that it would help me become a better person, a better wife in the future. No matter how much I struggled, how I kicked out my legs, or pounded my fists against Father’s chest, it was no use – he was far too strong. Like before, they stripped me naked, bound my wrists and ankles to the boards at the head and foot of the bed, and performed all kinds of perverted sex acts upon me: inserting painful objects inside me, whipping my back and buttocks until welts rose, and making small incisions into the fleshy parts of my skin with razor-blades. And just like last time, I got the impression that they derived very little sexual gratification from these horrible acts, more that they enjoyed inflicting pain, that they liked to see me writhe, hear me scream, watch blood seep from my various lacerations, that it was the power they could wield over me that was the most important thing.

  Afterwards, Mother dressed my cuts, dabbing the wounds with disinfectant, whispering soft, practised words into my ear, words laced with stark warnings: “Remember, darling, no one will believe you if you tell them. Remember your medical history. Remember how often you’ve lied to the doctors in the past”.

  It’s like I’m trapped in some kind of horrible nightmare. What am I to do? Try and kill myself again? How am I to escape? Cut my wrists? Swallow some pills? Who can I turn to? Jeffrey?

  I couldn’t believe what I was reading, not just because of the graphic, sickening nature of the events described, but because it had been written at the height of mine and Michelle’s relationship, when we were at our happiest. Moreover, at that time, if she ever talked about her parents, Michelle couldn’t have been more glowing, fuller of love and respect for them. Countless times, we laid awake at night, Michelle in my arms, saying how awful she felt, putting them through all the heartache, all the hard times, how she hated acting the way she did – the depression, self-harming, suicide attempts – because her childhood couldn’t have been more idyllic, her parents more perfect and loving.

  “She’s actually claiming that you both sexually abused her? I…” I trailed off, so absurd was the idea I’d just verbalised.

  “So you see, Mr Barrowman,” said Bannister, as if it was his turn to pick up the story, “when I told you I was a private detective, I wasn’t being completely truthful.”

  He went on to explain how Michelle had given him some papers, telling him only to open and read them should anything happen to her.

  “When she went missing, I naturally opened the bundle and read about your systematic abuse of her. Disgusted, I toyed with the idea of having it out with you myself, so sure was I, considering the nature of the letters and diary entries, that you were involved in her disappearance. There are certain things, therefore, that I need to confess. The phone call to your office regarding Jeffrey Fuller – that was me. I needed to hear your voice, to try and work if you were telling the truth.”

  “I see.” At that moment, something important struck me. “And this organisation, why call yourselves after a horned owl?”

  “It was something Michelle had read about. She said it was symbolic of death. She wanted to scare people who’d abused others.”

  I nodded as if that made some kind of sense – but it didn’t, none of it did.

  “After looking into the matter, after monitoring your activities for several days, I started to seriously question the integrity of everything Michelle had recorded in her diaries. I started to wonder if she hadn’t made everything up, why or for what reason I had no idea.”

  “Maybe she wanted to create an alternative reality. Maybe she wanted to have a reason for feeling so desperate and depressed, so isolated, for wanting to hurt herself, to end her life.” I turned to Mr and Mrs Rouse. “Did something happen after me and Michelle split up? Did she have another breakdown?”

  “Not really,” said Mrs Rouse. “Well, nothing worse than before. But, in time, she seemed to grow out of her problems, to mature, to look at life as something that should be enjoyed. On her own initiative, she got some voluntary work at the local school. In the evenings, she went to teacher training college, obtaining a professional qualification. She got her own place. She had a group of friends, including Mr Bannister here.”

  I turned back to Bannister.

  “And was your relationship with Michelle strictly professional? Or were you involved romantically?”

  “Well, we—” His mobile phone started to ring. “Erm, excuse me.” He got to his feet. “I better take this.” He walked over to the window and answered the phone. “Okay, okay… I understand…yes…thank you for the update.” He clicked the phone shut and turned back to face us. “That was one of my people. Looks like things have taken a turn for the worse, Mr Barrowman.”

  This barely registered, because in my eyes there was no way things could get any worse than they already were.

  “The police have been called to the scene of your incarceration. Apparently, a man has had to have an arm amputated, a man who now claims that you were lovers, and that you attacked him.”

  “What?”

  “Look,” Bannister said to Michelle’s parents. “I better take him to the police station now. Only when we clear this mess up will we be able to find out what has truly happened to Michelle.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Okay, Mr Barrowman,” said Watson, twirling a pen around in his fingers, “let’s recap on everything you’ve just told us. The day you went missing, you visited the house of a Mrs Forbes-Powers, a woman who’d contacted your office regarding dogs fouling the pavements.” He looked up from his notes. “We’ve seen the correspondence from the woman in question and checked phone records to confirm this. On the old lady’s request, you entered the house to look at some photographs of the area. Once inside, she pushed you down some concrete steps leading to the basem
ent. You lost consciousness. When you came round, you realised that you’d been taken prisoner, that you were being held under lock and key, along with Mrs Forbes-Powers’ adult son, Gideon. Is that just about the gist of it so far?”

  “Unlikely as it sounds, that’s exactly what happened.”

  “In the basement, we found lots of, erm…what can best be described as homosexual paraphernalia – various lubricants, anal relaxants et cetera. Did you, therefore, as is alleged by your co-captive, enter into sexual relations with Mrs Forbes-Powers’ son?”

  “Not knowingly,” I blurted out, realising, as soon as the words left my mouth, how ridiculous they must’ve sounded. “After the first day, I started to suspect that he might be planning to drug me, so he could take advantage of me during the night. He told me he’d been down there for two or three years, that he was lonely, sexually frustrated, confused. He—”

  “Then why would he accuse you of attacking him?”

  “Probably to protect his mother. She’s an elderly woman. And despite her locking him away like that, there’s still a strong bond between them. You’ve got to believe me. Look at the facts! The Deputy-Director told me to pay her a visit that afternoon, after work. Surely you don’t believe that I called round, met her son, fell madly in love in the space of five minutes, and decided to move in with him down in that basement, do you?”

  Kendrick told me to calm down, going so far as to fill a paper cup with water from the cooler in the corner of the room.

  “Drink this.” He handed me the cup.

  “Look, Mr Barrowman,” said Watson, “we’ll be completely honest and up front with you. Hardly a word of the mother and son’s story makes sense – it just doesn’t add up. What we’re really concerned with is the murder case, specifically the horrific killing of Jeffrey Fuller. As you well know, before your disappearance, he was our number one suspect. Now that he’s turned up dead, killed in the same gruesome manner as the other victims, everything has changed.”