Angels Bleed (Fallen Angels Book 1)

by Max Hardy

  ‘This is unexpected.’ Rebecca said, her gaze returning to Dr Hanlon.

  ‘Well, you did say you would love to go to sleep in a nice clean bed, and I am nothing if not obliging. How are you feeling?’

  ‘A little fuzzy, my head is pounding.’

  ‘That’s the sedative wearing off. There are some tablets on the side. Take them.’

  Rebecca leaned over and picked the tablets up, and popped one after the other in her mouth, sipping the water to wash them down.

  ‘Where are we?’ she enquired.

  ‘Take a look.’ Dr Hanlon said, gesturing with both hands to the windows behind the head of the bed. Rebecca swung her legs over the bed side. She looked down at the cotton pyjamas she was wearing. ‘Pretty. Much nicer than the ones in hospital. Less of a draft up the back.’ she said, standing and pulling the closed flowery curtains open.

  ‘Newcastle?’ she queried, taking in the wide stretch of water that was the River Tyne visible outside the window. The Millennium Bridge was directly in her line of sight, with the large span of the Tyne Bridge just to the right. Over the top of that bridge, the sun was slowly setting, painting the thin streaks of clouds that intermittently tram lined the deep blue sky a pale pink.

  ‘It thought we were in Broadmoor, what are we doing here?’ she questioned, turning from the window and taking in the contents on top of the dressing table.

  ‘Well, that would be another little lie I told you. We were never in Broadmoor. We are here for you to recuperate.’ Dr Hanlon answered.

  Rebecca was looking down at something on the dresser top. There was a long kitchen knife lying there, beside which was a small, tightly wrapped piece of toilet paper. She picked the toilet paper up and unwrapped it, exposing the rusting screw contained within.

  Holding it out in front of her, she addressed Dr Hanlon curtly. ‘Did you take this out?’

  ‘I did. Now, before you get all stressed, that is all I did. It’s dangerous to have a rusty object like that inside you. I did bathe you too, and dress you, but I did not touch you in any way inappropriate while doing those things. I did what was necessary to make you comfortable. So, could you please throw the screw in the bin? If you are intent on killing yourself, please use the knife.’

  Rebecca smiled at him with a bemused, lopsided half grin. She threw the screw into a waste bin under the dresser, then pulled out a seat next to it and sat down, still looking at Dr Hanlon. ‘I take it you aren’t really a Doctor working for Broadmoor?’

  ‘I am a Doctor, but no, I don’t work for Broadmoor.’

  ‘So why am I here?’ she asked, turning her legs under the dresser and looking at her reflection in the mirror. Dr Hanlon had cleaned and dressed all the cuts and abrasion on her face, arms and legs. While her skin was still ravaged with scars, it looked a lot less grotesque than when she had seen it for the first time earlier.

  ‘To be guided along the path of redemption?’ Dr Hanlon posed with mirth.

  Rebecca opened and closed her mouth, watching the stub of her tongue moving. In the reflection, she caught sight of the back of her head from the mirror behind and saw the intermittent clumps of what hair was left. She picked up a brown short bob wig off one of the heads in front of her and positioned it on her head.

  ‘I think I told you Doc, I am beyond redemption. No one can change what has happened. Not you, not the almighty, not anyone.’ Rebecca answered, fiddling with the wig until it was in a position she was comfortable with.

  ‘That supposes what you think you have done, is in fact what you actually did. I know it wasn’t. It’s time for you to face up to that truth.’

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked as she turned to him, running her fingers through the fine strands of the wig.

  ‘You look beautiful.’ Dr Hanlon answered, smiling.

  ‘Your Irish charm won’t work on me Doc, I look more human, but hardly beautiful.’ she lowered her eyes to the bandages he had dressed her wrists in. She circled a thumb and forefinger of one hand over the bandage of the other and gently squeezed, a tinge of pain evident in her expression. She looked up at Dr Hanlon once more, picked up the knife and rested the sharp blade against the dressing on her wrist.

  ‘I could demand that you tell me who you are.’ she said, rocking the knife gently to and fro, with just enough pressure to splice threads on the bandage.

  ‘You could, but psychological blackmail won’t work on me. If you slit your wrists, I will just sit here and let you bleed to death, if that is really what you choose to do.’ he said simply, crossing his legs as he responded.

  Rebecca continued slicing the bandage, staring intently at him. ‘I believe you would too.’ she said, then put the knife down on the side.

  ‘I won’t interfere with your free will. I will just ensure that you know where that has been manipulated beyond the bounds of your freedom. After that, it’s down to you.’

  ‘Okay. Let’s see if we can find the truth then.’ she said, wearing a nervous smile.

  ‘Tell me about the night Michael died?’ asked Dr Hanlon.

  Rebecca turned back to the mirror and started to look into the baskets of make up on the table, pulling out tubes, bottles and jars as she started to talk.

  ‘It was New Year’s Eve. I had been on shift that day and finished at about three in the afternoon. I didn’t know if I was going to see Madame Evangeline that evening, I hadn’t had any messages from her. I knew that I wasn’t going to see Michael that night. He had already told me he was going to be out at a party. So at that point I was contemplating either a quiet night in, or a trip on my own to somewhere like Labia’s. I got my first text message on the bus going home.’

  ‘’Tonight, I want you to fulfil one of my fantasies.’ it read. The second I read it, my heart began to palpitate. Firstly because I was going to see her and secondly because it was going to be an evening of intrigue. What fantasy of hers would we be exploring, what games would we be playing to entice and excite. All the way home I willed another text message to arrive, to give me even an inkling of what was in store. Nothing. So I went home, tingling with anticipation, and started my ritual.’

  Rebecca had opened a tub of foundation and was applying it to her face as she talked, covering up the visible scars, softening her harsh complexion.

  ‘I bathed, a long luxurious soak where I relaxed into day dreams of what my night time reality might be. I stroked myself, letting the soft sensuousness of the bubbles and the warm rivulets of water caress my body. As I was drying, another text arrived. ‘Wear your black leather cat suit, your thigh length patent boots and your cat mask. Nothing on at all under the suit. Red, long hair tonight and bring your whip.’ I smiled, an enormous childish grin and did a little foot dance of excitement standing half wet and naked on the bathroom floor.’

  ‘I continued my ritual, applying false nails to my fingers, painting them and my toes a deep, deep purple, impressing small diamond beads into the varnish. I would always get ready naked. I enjoying the freedom of the air flowing over my body as I moved around my bedroom, sitting down at my dressing table to apply my makeup.’ she said, applying a thick black eye liner.

  ‘The next text arrived and it took me by surprise. ‘Look in your letterbox. Be there at eight. Go inside and mingle.’ I went and looked as directed and found an invitation to a Masquerade Ball at a club called ‘Delectable’. I had been there before. I was surprised because we didn’t generally meet until much later. I finished my makeup, walking around the room for a minute or so to let it all dry. I had a full wall of mirrored wardrobes in my bedroom, one quarter with my normal clothes in and the rest with my evening wear. I opened the wardrobe and took out the outfit, placing it on the bed in the order I would put it on. I got dressed, enjoying the feel of the cold leather on my naked flesh as I did, putting on the cat mask, which sent a shiver of anticipation down my spine. That left only one more thing to put on, which I always left until last. I took the long red wig off a stand of a dozen different wigs
, and put it on my head, positioning it and clipping it tight to my real hair. I was ready. I felt like a goddess as I took in my reflection in the mirrors.’

  Rebecca took the top off a cherry red lipstick and painted her lips with it, padding and pouting into the mirror in front of her as she finished. She turned to Dr Hanlon and smiled. ‘What do you think?’ she asked. You could hardly see any of the scars or lesions on her face, the foundation virtually covering them all. There was a little blusher on her cheeks, giving life to her still thin face and her eyes were shadowed with a subtle pastel lime, accentuating her emerald eyes. Her lips looked voluptuous.

  ‘Well, now I’m not being a charmer. You do look beautiful. The face of an Angel.’

  She smiled, observing her countenance in the mirror once more. ‘A fallen Angel, perhaps.’

  ‘I caught a taxi to the venue and arrived there a few minutes early. The streets outside the club were already busy with revellers, early shouts of ‘Happy New Year’ ringing out all around. It was a club I had been to before, just off the main street. I knocked on the nondescript door, which opened, and handed my invitation to the doorman who let me in. Surprisingly for so early in the evening the bar area was already full of people in their masquerade outfits. It wasn’t a hard core sex club so there weren’t people making out in front of everyone and the initial atmosphere was more cordial that carnal, with a string quartet in one corner, playing soft, gentle classical music. There was plenty of flesh on show and a lot of seductive stroking and caressing taking place however. I walked through the crowd, enjoying the subtle anonymity my mask bestowed, feeling sassy and sexy. As I passed people, I stroked my wandering hand over a buttock here, a bare shoulder there, staring in what I thought was a passionate way at the ladies I was caressing. They all smiled back at me, before returning to whatever conversations they were involved in. I arrived at the bar and ordered a wine, checking my phone as I was waiting. No more texts. So I mingled. I spent time with a beautiful woman in a red shimmering cape over a skin tight black latex dress, Little Red Riding Hood. Although this Red Riding Hood had her nipples poking through holes in the latex. She wanted me to whip her but settled for a conversation and a deep, passionate kiss on each of her nipples. She dropped a pill into my wine and smiled as I left her to mingle some more. As I sashayed through the ever growing crowd, my phone bleeped. A text. It said ‘A Dominatrix with a whip should have a slave. By the band is a Gimp. He is your bitch. Treat him that way.’ I looked through the crowd toward the string quartet and saw him, all in black, head to foot, standing motionless, head facing forward, not moving an inch. The only area of him that wasn’t black was the hole around his crotch, exposing his flaccid penis and dangling bollocks. He was shaved bare down below. I approached him and, wrapping the end of my whip around the base of his penis, pulling it tight, I leant into his ear and whispered. ‘Tonight you are mine, bitch, and you will do whatever the hell I want. Understood?’ He nodded slowly. ‘Good.’ I said, grabbing his reins and tying them and the whip together, wrapping their ends around my hand. I tugged hard, pulling the bit in his mouth and his bits down below forcefully, causing him to stagger slightly as we walked back into the crowd, mingling. I had no idea. No idea whatsoever that my Gimp for the night was my son, Michael.’

  6:30 pm

  Sarah dived out of the car, stumbled and grazed her knees and palms on the harsh gravel driveway before she scrambled back to her feet and started to sprint towards the taped off area around the entrance to Featherstone Hall. Saul got out of the car just as fast but was a few seconds behind her as he came around from the far side of his SLK. Buglass was standing at the tape and started to raise a hand to stop Sarah from passing, but she simply sidestepped him and ran straight through the tape.

  ‘Stop Sarah.’ Saul shouted.

  ‘You can’t go through there!’ Buglass shouted at the same time, turning and heading after Sarah too as Saul sped past him. She reached the entrance of the house and barged through the half open door into the corridor, the exertion of the sprint mingling with her blind panic to cause her to pause a moment against the door to get her bearings and decide on her next direction.

  Her next direction was to head down the corridor towards a wheeled contraption with many metal protuberances sitting outside an open door with a light shining from the room beyond. She left the front door in another sprint a split second before Saul hit it in a similar fashion. He didn’t stop, but headed off directly after her, only a few feet behind. She kicked the wheeled contraption out of the way as she ran into the doorframe at an angle, turning into the room, Saul mere centimetres behind her now. Once in the room, her arms started to reach out towards the crate that was in front of her, opening up to embrace it as she cried out, ‘Jacob!’

  Saul leapt the last small gap between them, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her to the left of the crate as he fell with her. Her right hand brushed against the wood, causing it to shudder slightly. They both landed on the floor with a heavy thud, Sarah immediately trying to escape Saul’s tight embrace.

  ‘Let go of me you fucking bastard.’ she screamed, her legs and arms animatedly trying to dislodge Saul. ‘We need to get him out!’

  ‘You can’t Sarah, there’s a bomb in there. If you try and tamper with that crate it will go off and he will be dead. We will be dead. Just calm down.’ Saul shouted above her screaming as she kicked animatedly. Buglass blundered into the room, a startled expression on his face as he took in the two of them struggling on the floor.

  ‘Do you need any help Sir?’ was all he could manage to say, weakly.

  ‘We’ve got to get him out John, we’ve got to get him the hell out!’ Sarah shouted, still fighting.

  ‘We can’t Sarah, not at the moment. Look at the screen.’ he said, trying to lift her head in its direction. ‘You can see him on the screen and if you stop your bloody squirming and screaming, you will hear his heartbeat.’

  Sarah looked up to where he was directing her head and saw her son’s face filling the right hand side of the screen. He looked serene: peacefully prone with no sign of any discomfort or injury. She heaved a heavy sigh, a harrowing sob escaping her lips. ‘Oh Jacob, my baby, baby boy, Mummy is so, so sorry.’ she cried, the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor invading the decreasing resonance of her screams.

  Saul lifted her body slowly up from the floor as she stopped squirming, still holding her waist tight as he managed to get both of them onto their knees. Sarah’s concentration was intent on Jacob’s image as Saul raised her from her knees and walked them back a step, sitting down on the Chesterfield Sofa.

  There was a clatter of footfall in the corridor outside followed a second later by Corporal Garry and then DCI Strange coming into view in the doorway. ‘John, Sarah, are you OK?’ Strange asked, concern in his voice as he strode across the room and sat down next to them, resting a hand on Sarah’s arm as he did.

  ‘We will be Sir. It’s just the shock.’ Saul answered, looking towards Strange, his face beaded with sweat and dirt, his expression pained and haunted. Sarah was still staring at the TV, her body quivering with emotion, her voice still frantic as she asked. ‘Get him out. Can we get him out please? How can we get him out?’

  Strange reached down and cocooned her shaking hands, edging himself closer as he addressed her softly. ‘Sarah, we are doing everything in our power to get Jacob out of there as quickly as we can. I can see that you are distressed and I fully understand that you want to be close to him while he is in there. But it is not safe in this room. Being in this room is putting his and your life in danger. We have other monitors set up in our vehicles that will show you the same image of him. May we go there and talk?’

  She didn’t answer, just looked longingly up at the screen. Saul started to stand, raising Sarah as he did. ‘Come on Sarah. DCI Strange will need to ask us some questions to help him get Jacob out of there. The quicker we answer them, the quicker they can get him out.’

  Sarah didn’t pr
otest as Saul led her slowly out of the room. Her eyes stayed transfixed on Jacob’s image until she was out of the door. The rhythmic beating of his heart monitor diminishing as they left the room and walked silently down the corridor, back into the dusk of early evening, the last strobing talons of a setting sun enlivening the flattened peaks of the Cheviot Hills behind Featherstone Hall.

  ‘Is he here?’ Saul asked pointedly as they walked across the gravel towards the MIU.

  ‘Not yet John. We’ll talk about that soon. We need to understand a little more about Rob Adams first.’ Strange answered firmly.

  As they approached the MIU, Jessica was standing at its far end, away from the entrance. Saul flashed her a pained smile, which she returned with an understanding nod. Sarah didn’t notice her. She was still in shock as Saul led her up the steps to the MIU and then into the interview room. Strange followed them in.

  ‘Could you get some coffees for us please?’ Strange asked Buglass, as he softly shut the door to the room.

  Saul led Sarah around the table and sat her down, pulling a chair out of the corner to sit next to her. Strange sat down opposite.

  ‘I promise Sarah, I won’t keep you long and you can go and sit in front of one of the monitors and see Jacob. There are just a few questions I need to ask you. Is that alright.’

  Sarah looked towards Strange, her features heavy and drawn, eyes still confused and startled. ‘I just want you to get him out Jerry. I don’t care how, I just want you to get him out.’

  ‘And we are doing everything we can to make that happen. Could you tell me the last time you were in contact with Rob Adams?’