by Max Hardy
‘’Welcome to Labia’s ladies, Leith’s only lesbian lap dancing establishment. My name is Destiny and I am your hostess for the evening. Our desire is to see your desire fulfilled. What can I get you to drink before the entertainment starts?’ asked Destiny, a very tall, very buxom brunette in a long white evening dress, split from the waist down on either side, her slim, tanned legs visible. She was stunning and I have to admit, my heart began to palpitate at the sight of her and of the other beautiful women in the room. Feelings, emotions that had been dormant for such a long time, since before Hannah died, started to nip at me, reminding me that as much as my mind had put me on the shelf, my libido hadn’t!’
‘It was strange watching the reactions of the girls as our ‘entertainment’ started. As far as I knew they were all heterosexual and they all knew I was gay. No one walked out in disgust, and everyone took it in the manner it was meant, a Hen Party Experience, but I could tell in the expressions of one or two that this was a bit more than fun. I could see the sexual chemistry simmering in their eyes, could empathise because I was feeling it too. Destiny was our ‘entertainment’ and for the next hour she danced for us, slowly and seductively stripping as she did, ensuring that she spent more time with the Hen, but paying attention to everyone. She was never overbearing, and would always ask, ‘Would you like to….’ before the girls interacted with her. A few needed encouragement, but with the drink and the pot that started to be freely smoked, eventually everyone at some point had Destiny in their hands, stroking her thighs, squeezing her tight buttocks, gently caressing her breasts, some even tweaking her nipples. It was honestly a giggle and I don’t mind admitting to being seriously aroused.’
‘Was that a pun in there Rebecca?’ asked Dr Hanlon.
Rebecca laughed, ‘Oh Doc, I am glad it’s not mine. It’s what Destiny would say throughout the evening as one or another of us was touching her. My eyes were wandering the room, people watching during Destiny’s dances, and I couldn’t help noticing that some of the ‘entertainment’ would take individual ladies away to a side entrance. Occasionally the odd single woman would go through the entrance too. Intrigued, I went to see what was going on under the premise of going for a wee. As I approached the entrance, which was draped in a black curtain with diamante sparkling from it in the dim light, another stunning hostess on the door smiled at me and asked, ‘Would Madame like to watch? We have some free spaces.’ Not really knowing what she meant, I nodded, and she directed me to bay number six, which was highlighted by a subdued light in the gloomy corridor beyond the entrance, as were a row of numbers, up to twenty. I thanked her and made my way down towards number six. The Jazz began to fade as I walked down the corridor, to be replaced by subdued moans and groans. I reached number six and went through another black diamante curtain, behind which was a small purple velour chaise lounge, edged with brass buttons, facing a black wall with a window in it which was eye height to the sofa. It was even gloomier in the confined space and it took a second or two for my eyes to become accustomed to the dark and make out what was through the window as I sat down.’
‘There was a small room, the flicker of candles chasing shadow ghosts up the deep red walls. The whole floor space was taken up by a large bed which was festooned with pillows, cushions and throws. In amongst them I could see the gently writhing limbs of two women, totally naked, making love. One was on her back, her legs spread wide while the second was between her thighs, head right up to her shaven mound, tongue quickly flicking over her clitoris which was exposed and hard. She stopped for a second and both of them looked toward me and smiled, mouthing the word ‘Enjoy’ simultaneously before the second woman went back down on her lover. Every single part of me was alight at this point, my body tingling with the eroticism I felt watching two beautiful women in front of me pleasuring each other. I started to touch myself as I devoured their lovemaking, stroking fingers over my breasts through my dress, snaking striations down my stomach, to my own point of pleasure, which was aching with the desire to be touched, to be stroked, to be caressed. I did just that as I watched them, sliding a finger inside my panties, down over my mound to my slightly parted lips which were moist with my excitement. I slid the end of my finger inside, taking a little of the juice, taking it back towards my clitoris which I gently started to massage while being a voyeur, pleasuring myself while watching those two beautiful women pleasure themselves.’
She had a wistful look in her eyes for a second as she went quiet, before looking at Dr Hanlon again. ‘Morally, some may find that unacceptable, but to me, then, it was exquisite, enticing, exciting. It was the start of a journey. A journey that led me to damnation.’
6:34 am
There was heavy, laboured panting in the almost consuming darkness. Moans and groans could be heard. A single piercing narrow beam moved quickly from left to right as the source of the panting and of the beam seemed to be dragging themselves tortuously, their body gyrating and contorting in time with the groans.
‘Shit.’ exclaimed Corporal Garry, the person holding the pen torch, as it settled on the eye of a webcam which was taped to the underside of a floor beam. He was underneath the floorboards of the drawing room in Featherstone Hall. He was on his back in the foot high void, snaking his body to move him further into the claustrophobic space. So far he had seen three webcams, six pressure sensors and a dozen motion detectors around the floor space where the crate was positioned in the room above.
‘It doesn’t look like we are going to get into this bloody thing from underneath.’ he relayed into his mike, ‘I’m coming out now.’ he finished as he started to shuffle backwards, towards a hole in the floor which he then climbed out of and emerged into the main corridor of the house.
In the corridor, two of his colleagues had a small scanner on wheels facing the door of the drawing room. ‘How’s the scanning going?’ he asked.
‘No joy with X-Ray, the bitch is lead lined. IR is showing motion sensors all around it. Nothing coming up on UV. RF, fuck RF is going wild. There’s a ton of transmissions coming from that thing. All seem to be from a spot in the top right corner. I can’t see any hardwiring into it at all. Oh yeah, and I can confirm there’s enough Semtex on the outside of that thing to blow this house to kingdom friggin’ come.’
‘Shit.’ Garry said, again. ‘I better go and give the Suits the good news. Thanks guys.’ he finished as he walked off down the corridor to the main entrance. He was a short, slim yet muscle bound soldier, his army fatigues filthy from crawling under the floor, his ginger hair full of dirt and cobwebs, which glistened in the arc lights as he came out of the Hall. He jogged across the drive to the MIU and bounded up the stairs into the meeting, which was in full flow.
All available seats were filled in front of the white boards and half a dozen technicians and technical forensic staff were sitting at the computer screens on the back wall. All of the plasma Video Conferencing screens were on, showing the Path Lab, the Mortuary, a meeting room at HQ and the Chief Superintendent.
DCI Strange now had his jacket off, rainbow suspenders holding up his trousers and sleeve garters gathering his shirt arms up around the elbow. Those arms were leaning on the table, listening intently as DI Munro finished relaying back findings from his initial investigations.
‘Okay then, we have ten missing persons to chase up. In the next two hours we need to have talked with every one of their families in detail to rule them in or out. Mick, have you got enough support to get that done?’
‘We’ve got Henshaw, Simons and Gilbert on the case from HQ. I’ll shout if we need any more resource.’ Munro answered.
‘Great. Now Leigh, where are we with finding out who this guy is?’ asked Strange.
‘So, none of the surrounding neighbours have seen any activity at the Hall for over two years, when it was boarded up. Jimmy Greeson, from the adjoining farm, told us it used to be owned by a ‘Lord Featherstone’ up until he died. It had been in the Featherstone Family since 1800 or so,
but the current Lord was the last in the family line. A bit of a recluse by all accounts. It was sold to developers on his death. They had grand plans to turn it into a luxury hotel. No one locally met these developers. Initial searches on the online Land Registry Service state an offshore holding company called ‘Axiom’ acquired the property in 2011. There is no one in the Land Registry Offices or Companies House yet to get any further information. Registered address for ‘Axiom’ is a PO Box in the Cayman Islands.’
Strange jotted down pertinent points on the board and then asked, ‘Have you tried any escalation routes with those organisations?’
‘Already on it, voicemails left with everyone we know and the organisations out of hours numbers but no answer back yet. Worst case scenario is the offices open at eight, but I would hope to get traction before then. DC Anderson is searching the net at the moment to see if we can find out anything else about Axiom.’ filled in Saxon, efficiently, motioning to DC Anderson, a middle aged, stern faced woman, sitting at one of the computers.
‘A waiting game there then. Phyllis,’ Strange said, addressing DC Anderson, ‘can you own that now and let us know what you find?’ he asked, to which she nodded acknowledgement. ‘Great. So Leigh, what about the calls and the phone lines?‘
‘Well, the phone line is also registered to ‘Axiom’. No individual’s names. Bills are paid via direct debit from an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. No further info at the moment. Mr Reynolds has been looking at the calls. Do you have any news?’ she asked a very young looking, scrawny individual sitting at a bank of three monitors beside DC Anderson.
He turned his evidently twitching head to the watching audience, his pallid features flushing red as he addressed them. ‘I c…can c…confirm,’ he began, stuttering slightly, ‘That the voice on the 999 c…call and the voice on the later c…call are the same person.’ he said, pointing to one of the monitors on which overlapping voice waves were in synch. ‘There are no other records of c…calls to or from the phone in the past two years. I am starting to c…check background noise to see if that can give us any c…clues on where he c…called from. Both c…calls were made from the same mobile phone. It’s a pay as you go, so we have no way of telling who owns it. We are waiting on info back from the provider on the location of the c…cell the c…calls were made from. I will have that in the next half hour.’ he paused, taking a deep breath.
‘Good.’ Strange said, in the gap. ‘Well done, feedback that info as soon as you get it. Have you managed to check the feeds into or out of the room?’
‘Not yet, I was waiting on the Bomb Squad c…checking it out first.’ Reynolds finished, relief evident in his tone.
‘Gaz,’ Strange started, addressing Corporal Garry, ‘what can you tell us about the crate and are we clear to start checking the room further?’
‘There’s two boxes, the wooden crate you can see, then inside that, a lead lined box. Between them is a layer of Semtex. At this point we don’t know how it is armed or what the trigger mechanism is, but it looks to be inside the lead lined box. My guess at the moment would be the trigger is wireless given the amount of RF activity that’s coming from the thing. I would suggest the AV is also being fed wirelessly as we can’t see any cables going into or coming out of the box. We’ve checked under the floor to see if we can get into the crate from underneath without being seen. No Go. There’s webcams and motion sensors down there. It’s alright for you to start doing non-intrusive wireless scans but don’t do anything invasive unless you talk to us first. As soon as we have finished our checks, I’ll get one of the guys to sit with Mr Reynolds to see what activity is going on.’ briefed Garry.
Just as he finished, the conference phone on the desk beeped, announcing that ‘DI Saul’ had joined the call.
‘John, good of you to join us.’ started Strange. ‘Thanks Gaz, I know I don’t need to tell you this, but the quicker we can work out where those feeds are going to…’ he left the sentence dangling.
‘I know.’ Said Garry, holding up a hand. ‘And as soon as we are sure the whole thing won’t blow us all to hell, I will gladly let you in there.’
‘Thanks.’ Strange nodded appreciatively, then spoke into the conference line. ‘John, how did things go with Rebecca, did you have a chance to talk to her? Do we have any leads?’
‘I think what we have Sir, are more questions than leads. Rebecca has potentially been kidnapped. Either that or has been broken out.’ he started, relaying the pertinent parts of the conversation with Dr Ennis. ‘I’ve e-mailed over CCTV footage of the Dr Hanlon that took Rebecca. It was taken by the Institutes system when she was transferred into his care. It is very clear. We also have footage of the van that moved her and also of a guard who assisted. My gut is telling me that this is the same guy who set this thing up. Who else would have anything to gain from kidnapping her?’
‘Possibly, but do we have any facts at this point to back that up. Didn’t Dr Ennis say he had an Irish accent? Our guy doesn’t. Have you run a PNC check on the van? What about facial recognition on the Dr and the guard?’ asked Strange.
‘Looks like the van had false plates. PNC has them registered to a 1999 Ford Fiesta, uniform are on their way to the keeper now just to make sure. No facial recognition yet, I’ve only just got the images.’
‘We will pick that up John. What about the Dr Hanlon at Broadmoor. Are we sure he isn’t involved in this in some way?’
‘We can’t rule him out yet and I have the guys at HQ checking out phone and e-mail records that Dr Ennis claim were to him. We do have a picture of him. He looks nothing like the Dr Hanlon we have on CCTV. At the time Rebecca was being moved he was on holiday in Cyprus with his family. HQ are co-ordinating a local Detective to interview him and to corroborate his story.’
Strange leaned against the table again, rocking gently back and forward, a pensive look on his face for a second before he spoke again. ‘Do you have any evidence at this point to suggest that Dr Ennis is involved with this?’
There was a pause before Saul answered. ‘No, no evidence. He has been open in providing the court documents, the CCTV information and the e-mail and phone records of his dealings with the Dr Hanlon he knew. He seemed genuinely shocked when he found out about the real Dr Hanlon. I watched him closely. While my gut tells me he is a bastard, at this point, there is nothing to suggest he is involved.’
‘OK, thanks John.’ Strange said, still mulling this new turn of events over in his mind. He turned back to the board and wrote the name ‘Dr Hanlon’ to the side of ‘Unknown Caller’, with an arrow pointing to it and a question mark above. He then drew a line down to a box with the name ‘Rebecca Angus’ in it and looked intently at that name. ‘Did Dr Ennis say if Rebecca had mentioned anyone else being involved in her son’s murder?’ he asked, still facing the board, his features still ruminating on the information in front of him.
‘He did. Rebecca talked about someone called Madame Evangeline. However, Ennis believes that this ‘person’ is a multiple personality inside Rebecca herself. Apparently there was no evidence at all to suggest that she was real. We need the detailed case files to confirm this.’ answered Saul.
‘We do need those files. John, a DI Bentley is on his way down from Edinburgh with the files at the minute. PC Buglass is rendezvousing with him to get them. It might be worth you going instead to pick his brains about the case, as we don’t have Rebecca. Can you do that? He’s only free for about an hour?’ Strange asked, slightly distracted, still looking at the board, moving the marker between various bits of information, his mind still digesting everything in front of him.
‘Yes, no problem. I’ll give Buglass a call.’ answered Saul.
Strange put the marker pen below Rebecca’s name and slowly started to draw a line down, towards a box with the words ‘Person in the crate’ inside of it. ‘The one thing we do have to consider, if our caller and the fake Dr Hanlon are indeed one in the same, and if she has been kidnapped rather than broke
n out.’ Strange said, putting a question mark above the line he had just drawn before turning back to the room. ‘Is that the person in the crate could be Rebecca Angus.’
7:07 am
Rebecca’s head turned towards the high pitched squeaking that came from down the corridor beyond the open door to the cell. It grew louder and louder until a rusting old trolley, its wheels barely moving freely, came into view, quickly followed by Dr Hanlon pushing it into the cell.
‘Do you know what it’s like,’ he said, puffing slightly as he rolled the trolley up to the side of Rebecca, ‘to find anything decent to transport things on when the kitchen is shut. Bloody Impossible!’ he finished, flopping into his seat.
‘Now, what I have here is breakfast: Full English. You have a choice. I can either feed you, or loosen your arms so you can feed yourself.’ he finished, looking questioningly at Rebecca.
She sniffed in the amazing aromas of the sausages, bacon, eggs and mushrooms, closing her eyes and savouring the smells. ‘Do you know how long it is since I have smelt anything as delicious as that, let alone eaten anything that hasn’t been liquidised or through a tube.’
She opened her eyes and looked back at Dr Hanlon, a slight smile on her lips. ‘Do you think you can trust me yet? I think that when you pop off and leave me, you are going back to your little room, with its little monitors, and you are checking to see if I injure myself when I am alone.’ she offered, the smile still there, her eyes wide and challenging.
