by Laura Read
Normally during the parties her parents hosted, at the end of the night she sat on the stairs drinking with her brother while he mocked their guests. He ridiculed their dress sense, imitated those noticeably drunk or high, and scorned the middle-class trying to be upper-class nobodies. Pretentiousness seeped out of their pores and spread like a contagion until the room became diseased with boasting and pride.
She smiled as she observed Leon conducting a conversation about investments with a group of old men following his every word. A burst of laughter emanated from their circle, nervous cackles from those trying to retain their social standing.
She noticed that Vincent wasn’t standing by Leon’s side. Angela scanned the room, not having seen him for hours, not since he’d headed outside for a cigarette. Curious, she walked down the stairs towards her father, arranging the fake smile she used for approaching guests as she wove in and out of the crowd. Her gut told her that something wasn’t right.
Reaching her father, she linked her arm through his and smiled civilly at his inquisitive look while she waited for a man wearing a haggard suit to finish making his point. Then she whispered in her father’s ear that she wanted to speak to him about her mother, who since the funeral was lying down upstairs after taking her pills.
Leon smiled at the group and said he’d be back shortly, after seeing to his wife, then accompanied Angela to the empty hallway. She stopped him when they were out of earshot and turned to face her father.
‘Where’s Vincent?’ she whispered.
Her father glared at her, realising there was nothing wrong with Isabella. ‘He’s gone on a small assignment. He’ll be back soon.’
‘On the day of Joe’s funeral? What “assignment” exactly?’ Angela asked.
Leon stopped and looked at his daughter, weighing up whether or not to tell her the truth. ‘He’s gone to see the detective you ran into.’
Angela frowned and fell silent. She didn’t know why she felt responsible for Sean, perhaps because he contacted her first instead of someone else in the family. Despite being a cop, she admired his nerve to approach her with his bold scheme. Yet she pitied him too: he must be desperate to want to work for her father.
‘Where?’
‘For fuck’s sake, this has nothing to do with you,’ Leon told her. ‘Vincent will be back soon. He knows what he’s doing.’
‘What is he doing?’
Leon sighed at his daughter’s inquisitiveness. ‘He’s testing… where the detective’s allegiances lie,’ he admitted, smiling at his choice of words.
She rolled her eyes in frustration at her father’s naivety. ‘He’s a cop. Vincent will want to kill him. You know how he feels about cops.’
‘He knows what he’s doing,’ her father repeated.
‘We both know that wasn’t the case last time,’ she said, remembering the blood bath of Vincent’s last interrogation: a junkie who stole drugs from them and died from blood loss before admitting where he hid his stash. ‘Where are they?’
Leon clenched his teeth, annoyed with his daughter’s prying nature.
As severely as she could, Angela hissed, ‘If you don’t tell me right now and I don’t get to Vincent in time, there’s a good chance you’ll have a dead cop to deal with in the morning.’
Two cars leapt into the darkness in search of their prey. They raced down the streets, hunting in their territory, the land shrinking back from their black power. The cars stopped outside a block of flats, concrete adorned with pebbledash and graffiti. Sensing the imminent violence, a Doberman barked across the street, jumping against the tall fence behind which it was trapped.
A pair of men dressed in suits that strained against their muscles stepped out from one car. Their faces were neutral except for their eyes, burning with energy, caged animals barely restrained behind the bars of their irises. They waited on the pavement for their leader to step out from the second car and give them orders.
The driver’s door opened and a man emerged donned in a charcoal suit, smoothing down his tailored jacket while the other men awaited instruction to enter the building. Vincent looked up at the block of flats and without emotion gave the command, ‘Go in and get him.’ Then he sneered. ‘Don’t do too much damage.’
The men smirked and advanced towards the building like bloodhounds detecting the scent of their quarry. They threw open the door, slamming it against the wall to shatter the glass pane set in the centre, then disappeared to stride upstairs and break down Sean McBride’s door.
Vincent stood leisurely on the pavement and lit up a cigarette with a gold-plated lighter, listening to the loud crashes and cursing from the flat above while he savoured his smoke. Finally, once more the street fell silent and one of his men strolled out with knuckles oozing blood to announce that Sean had been overcome.
‘Well, are you going to bring him out?’ Vincent yelled at him. ‘Where the fuck is he?’
‘Sorry, sir,’ came the reply, before he hurried back inside.
Vincent felt anger coiling inside his gut, aching for release. All he wanted was for the detective to be delivered to him, so he could drive to the outskirts of town and begin his interrogation. His body ached to begin the torture. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since his last victim.
Sean’s flat was in the worst area of town, a gang warzone where neighbours wouldn’t ask questions if they saw someone bundled inside a car, later to be found murdered. They would presume he dealt drugs and would be thankful another of their vicious kind, or their competition, had been executed.
Anonymity enveloped the street. It was the perfect setting to abduct the detective, as well as in which Sean had thought he could remain hidden. He wouldn’t have expected an interrogation on the day of Joe’s funeral.
Although curious about how Sean lived, the detective’s intentions and motivations interested Vincent more, and he wanted to discover whether Sean would remain loyal to Leon’s faction. Sometimes it amused Vincent to look at the possessions in someone’s home before an interrogation, but in this case he couldn’t be sure whether the items would be Sean’s own or staged, and he doubted that a cop would have many belongings anyway.
Photographs, letters, artefacts and clothing provided Vincent with clues about an individual, but at times knowing too much about someone made it harder to break their fingers, twist their limbs until they popped out of their sockets, burn them with cigarettes, beat them until their skin turned into a purple mesh over which blood-red lava flowed. He let out a sigh to calm his impatience and flung his cigarette stub to the ground, crushing it beneath his heel.
Angela phoned Vincent several times but couldn’t get through; she gave up calling. She knew she was close to the disused farm where Sean was being held, the latest building her father acquired from a property developer with a gambling problem.
Her car screeched around a corner and accelerated down the desolate road. Ebony trees like inkblots absorbed the stars overhead. Her dim headlights provided the only source of light.
The skies opened and black heavy rain descended, sweeping across the road, windscreen wipers squeaking in protest across the wet glass. Her car swept around another bend, water spraying up from the ground, and sped past a lorry. The driver blared his horn at her for veering out of lane.
Angela braked hard when she realised she’d driven past the turning to the farm. She reversed and drove carefully down a narrow dirt track, through a dense tunnel of foliage bordered by metal railings. A jagged fork of lightning ignited the red sky ahead, laced between black thunderclouds. Deafening thunder pursued the lightning, momentarily subduing the noise of falling rain against the body of her car.
Beyond the surrounding grassland and thick nettles, she could see the skeletons of crumbling redbrick outbuildings sheltered by corrugated metal, which crowded around a mud-spattered courtyard. Vincent’s black Mercedes was parked outside an old barn, a single white light emanating from the doorway.
Reaching a closed gate
, she slowed to a stop. Another flash of lightning cut through the red sky as she leapt from her car. Her shoes cut into her feet as she struggled through the mud, viscous clay coating her black satin heels. Rain lashed against her face as she fumbled for the latch. Cursing, she swung the gate against the fence, bolted it in place and made her way back to the car. Inside, she flicked the wet tendrils of hair out of her face then started up the car and drove towards the barn.
Vincent stopped when he heard a car approaching across the concrete forecourt. He turned, slate eyes narrowed, uncertain of who had arrived. Sleeves rolled up, his chest and arms were drenched in sweat, shirt stuck to his body, and his face flushed.
Earlier his men restrained Sean in the barn while he changed out of his suit into an old shirt, jeans and boots. Before he sent them away, he allowed his men to use Sean as a punching bag, beating and bruising him, marinating the meat with sweat and blood in preparation for the grill. When they left, the two perspiring soldiers spat on the silent detective lying on the blood-soaked ground.
Then Vincent slowly conjured the devils ensnared within his heart. He faced Sean, man to man, predator to prey, and as the defenceless man’s screams became louder so too did his demons feed on his cruelty. They were not yet gorged on their feast of mutilated flesh, hungering for further brutality before they returned to the recesses of his dark psyche.
Vincent didn’t like being interrupted during an interrogation.
His worn boots made no sound as he strode towards the crate where he’d thrown his holster. He removed his gun and stole over to flatten himself against the wall next to the door.
Beyond the barn he could smell the thick clay mud snaking into puddles across the ground. Raindrops like ammunition bounced off the metal roof above his head, water sloshing into the drain outside. Against his back he felt the rough texture of brick through his shirt. His body cooled while he waited, looking out into the cold wet night. A car door slammed and he heard clipped footsteps heading towards him across the forecourt. He raised his gun.
Angela made her way through the shadows towards the doorway, avoiding the water pouring from the broken guttering. She tried to make her face neutral, not knowing what to expect, in what state she’d find Sean, or how Vincent would react to her being there.
Her hands were empty and shaking, her hair and clothes sodden, numb red lips prickling as the cold rain fell against her face. She stopped short of the doorway and looked down to see a shadow move.
‘Vincent?’ she called out.
She heard a sigh and Vincent appeared in the doorway, scowling at her, his tall frame blocking her view of inside the barn.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ he asked, tucking his revolver into the back of his jeans.
‘Leon sent me to see how you were getting on,’ she said.
Vincent knew it was a lie the moment the words fell from her lips. ‘He didn’t send you.’
She couldn’t help but cower at the cruelty in his eyes. Although she didn’t believe he would harm her, he still frightened her.
‘How did I know you were here then?’ she asked.
Vincent roughly seized the top of her arm with one hand and her throat with the other, lifting her off her feet to hurl her inside the barn, slamming her against the brick wall. Not loosening his grip, he lowered her down so the toes of her kicking feet could touch the ground. With her free arm, Angela tried in vain to slacken his grip from around her throat. Her face turned crimson and she glared at him in fury.
Although Vincent didn’t want to admit it, he was attached to her, and not just because she was Leon’s daughter. He didn’t want to hurt her but she was interfering with his work when she had no right. She needed to know her place and that she wasn’t welcome.
Wooden beams and piled crates shadowed the far side of the barn, but finally Angela saw Sean. He hung bare-chested, arms tied above his head with a thick rope looped over a beam, the cord slicing through his wrists. She could just make out his face, head slumped on his bruised and burnt chest, blood trickling down his body to pool on the concrete floor. On a crate next to his hanging figure lay blades, knuckle-dusters, lighters and metal bars.
Sean looked up at her and his gaze pierced Angela’s heart from across the room. His face was filled with such suffering that tears welled in her eyes.
It was partly her fault he endured such pain: if she found out earlier that Vincent was going after him, she could have stopped him before he took things too far, or asked someone else to conduct the interrogation. She wondered whether Dominic was tortured too before he was killed. Guilt rose to the surface for failing him as well as Sean.
Only she could help the detective now. She looked back at Vincent and her fear dissolved. She lashed out at him with her free fist. In response Vincent relaxed his grasp on her neck and she gasped for air, red marks formed around her throat.
‘Why are you here?’ Vincent snarled.
‘To save him,’ Angela confessed.
‘Save him?’
‘I thought you’d kill him.’
Vincent looked at Angela anew, at her shed tears and eyes pleading not to let her go but to give Sean his freedom. Her lack of fear aroused him. She was at his mercy, not because she wanted to survive but because she was willing to risk her life to save someone else. Although her motivation to save Sean intrigued him, he didn’t care why she was concerned for the detective. His mind focused on something else, something he tried to suppress but lust got the better of him.
He grabbed her arms and forced them above her head against the wall. He looked down at her flushed chest encased in black silk, smooth skin covered in raindrops and tears. Changing his grip, he brushed her wet hair aside and bit into her neck as hard as he could to make her cry out. He relaxed his bite and drew her skin between his teeth to suck on it before releasing her from his mouth, raising his eyes to penetrate hers once more.
He realised he’d made a mistake. Her eyes glazed over with a wretched emptiness, as if she accepted her fate: in return for Sean’s emancipation, Vincent would finally get his chance to fuck her.
‘I’ll give you what you want, but not tonight,’ she said. ‘Just let him go.’
Vincent didn’t want to make a deal with her. He bent down to kiss her but found her mouth open in masochistic reception. He didn’t want her like this.
He abruptly released her. ‘Fine.’
He turned and walked towards Sean, stopping to don his holster, into which he placed his gun. He didn’t know what had overcome him but he was stupid for acting on his feelings for Angela. Perhaps he’d kissed her to make Sean jealous. She’d fallen for the detective – why else would she be here?
He wished he could rewind time. Wanting to leave as quickly as possible, he picked up his leather case and filled it with his various instruments. Then with a knife he sliced through the rope above Sean’s head.
The detective fell to the ground, hands still bound, and he lay on the floor moaning as Vincent strode back to Angela, case in hand, flicking the knife closed and placing it in his pocket.
‘McBride’s only after money so he can leave town. I’ll tell Leon he can be trusted and he’ll start working at Febrile in a couple of weeks.’ Vincent pointed behind him. ‘There’s a hose attached to the tap on the wall. Make sure you wash the blood away before you leave and remove the rope.’
A distant roll of thunder welcomed him as he vanished through the doorway into the dark, the rain subsiding along with his anger. His wrath indignantly settled inside the darkened prison of his heart, demons trapped beneath the surface of his skin once more, desperate to escape.
5
Defences
Feeling broken, Angela faced Sean lying motionless on the ground, wet mud seeping into his wounds. Her echoing footsteps neared the man who days ago seemed poised, confident, and ignorant to think it would be painless to deal with her family. She knelt on the floor in the dirt and blood to look at his face, frightened blue eyes set in a b
ruised face caked in blood, sweat and grime.
‘Sorry if this hurts,’ she whispered, lifting his trussed hands to place them in her lap and untie the knots wound around his wrists.
She worked quickly and carefully, not wanting to prolong his pain any more, but Sean hissed whenever the rope cut deeper into his raw skin. As she loosened the knots, Angela looked down at the lacerations on his body, coagulated older wounds and the blood trickling from fresh injuries. Underneath the layers of blood were the mauve bruises fists made, patterns made by knuckle-dusters, burnt brown flesh and the imprint of the blade of a heated knife, which distorted his skin into a bubbling froth of wine. Blood and dirt stained his jeans, his bare feet and hands blistered.
Angela focused on trying not to think, on becoming numb, filling her head with emptiness so she couldn’t feel. She couldn’t break down in front of Sean.
‘I’ll drive you to the hospital,’ she murmured, sitting back on her heels to wind up the rope.
‘No,’ Sean rasped through cracked, swollen lips, lifting himself off the ground, groaning as he rose to stand. ‘I can’t go to the hospital.’
‘What?’ asked Angela, looking up at him in disbelief. ‘You’ve lost a lot of blood. You need stitches and your burns need to be treated.’
‘If I go to the hospital, they’ll ask questions. They’ll want to know why someone wanted to torture me.’
‘So? Let them ask their questions – you don’t have to give them any answers. You could have internal bleeding. You need to go to the hospital.’
‘No hospital!’ Sean shouted down at her.
Angela stood up to face him. ‘So you’re going to stitch yourself up? Have permanent scars across your whole body because you’re too fucking stubborn to go to the hospital? You could bleed to death overnight if you have internal injuries.’
