by John Nicholl
At first Cynthia didn't see the young boy hanging on the wall to the left of the door, or the instruments of torture, or the menacing metal meat-hook suspended from the ceiling. On first impressions it was a strange, cold, clinical space, and despite the putrid smell of human waste permeating the air, she felt strangely reassured by the room's initial scientific, lab like appearance… Perhaps people were wrong after all? Maybe her husband was simply misunderstood rather than criminal?
She took another step forward with a new confidence, and slowly scanned the room with blinking eyes. When she saw the emaciated young boy for the first time she just stood and stared, desperately wanting to believe that the horror before her was a product of her imagination rather than reality. Cynthia walked towards Anthony and touched him gently on his right cheek… He was real. This wasn't work. It wasn't science. Her husband was a monster. There was no denying the awfulness of what he’d done.
Cynthia placed her hand ever so softly on Anthony's bare chest, and held it there… Was she imagining things? Was she in denial? No, there was a heart beat. A faint but definitive heartbeat! Thank God, he was alive. The boy was definitely alive.
In a hormone fuelled frenzy, she urgently struggled to free him from his metal shackles until her manicured nails were broken and her finger tips bled. But her efforts were hopeless. She fell at his feet and wept… No amount of endeavour on her part would suffice, however hard she tried. And even if she did finally manage to get him down, which appeared a lost cause, she wouldn't be able to carry him to the door, leave alone drag him up the steps. She just didn't have the physical strength.
Cynthia jumped to her feet… She needed help. She had to summon help.
She turned away from Anthony without looking back, and rushed for the steps… Why on earth hadn't she told the inspector what she knew when she had the opportunity? She should have told him. It seemed so obvious. Why didn't she tell him?
Cynthia heard her husband’s mocking voice in her head… Stupid girl. Stupid girl! Why can’t you get anything right?
She entered the kitchen, but stopped suddenly and listened intently, hoping her ears were deceiving her… The key in the lock. The front door opening! The door being slammed shut. Footsteps on the hall tiles. He was back. Oh no, he was back! She could run? She could hide? She could try to placate him? Don’t panic, Cynthia, don’t panic.
She took repeated deep breaths and pictured the young boy hanging from the bloody black steel shackles in that terrible place: the hell her husband had created… There would be no retreat. There would be no running; not this time. Not this time!
Cynthia listened as the doctor’s footsteps got closer, closer, closer. And then he appeared: tensing and relaxing his muscles, loosening his powerful shoulders, and forming his hands into formidable weapons. He stared at her, then at the displaced dresser, and then at her again… The bitch had opened the door. Unbelievable! She’d actually opened the door.
He took a step towards her, shouting: louder, louder, louder, until she surmised the room itself may be trembling. ‘What the hell have you done, you sanctimonious bitch?’
Cynthia edged along the worktop, inch by inch, inch by cautious inch… Nearly there, nearly there. Come on, Cynthia, nearly there.
And then she moved quickly, like a sprinter off the blocks, and urgently grasped a ten-inch filleting knife from a wooden knife block on the shiny black granite work-surface. She moved gradually towards the cellar entrance in a sideways motion, whilst holding the knife out in front of her with both hands clutched tightly around its shaft.
Dr Galbraith narrowed his eyes, sucked in his cheeks, growled animalistically, and suddenly rushed towards her, striking her with a glancing blow to the side of her head as she thrust at him ineffectually with the blade. Cynthia stumbled backwards, lost her footing, and hit the door frame before falling forwards and slumping to the floor.
The doctor approached her, raised his right leg high behind him, and kicked her hard in the side ten-inches below her armpit, before stepping over her prone body and advancing towards the first of the cellar steps.
Cynthia gasped for breath, somehow raised her dazed and shaken body onto all fours despite two cracked ribs, focussed on the doctor’s broad muscular back with blurred eyes, crawled forwards rapidly until she reached him, lifted her right arm, and plunged the knife deep into the back of his left thigh with as much force as her bruised body could muster, striking the bone with the tip of its razor sharp blade.
The doctor screamed like a demented howler monkey, as much from the shock that Cynthia would dare to do such a thing, as from the searing pain. He kicked out mule style with his uninjured leg, landing a heavy blow on the top of her head with the heel of his shoe, as she grabbed at his legs in a further attempt to impede his progress.
Cynthia cried out, stunned, dazed, head swimming, but she didn't let go. As he shook her off and raised his foot to stamp down on her head, she grabbed the cloth of his trousers, extended her free arm, and plunged the blade deep into his thigh for a second time. He swivelled and span athletically, freeing himself from her fragile grip, and kneed her hard in the face, leaving her close to unconsciousness. He looked down at her prone body and savoured the moment.
Dr Galbraith hobbled across the kitchen and fetched a white tea-towel from a kitchen drawer, tied a tight tourniquet high on his thigh above his painful injuries, and limped towards the steps with blood seeping down his leg and soaking into his tailored trousers. He clutched repeatedly at his head with anxious probing fingers… It was time to kill the little bastard. Time to destroy the evidence. He’d force the interfering bitch to help him with that particular task, before he killed her.
Just as he was approaching the bottom step, Cynthia dragged herself to her feet on punch drunk legs. She stumbled in the direction of the stairs, and took a full two-minutes to reach the bottom, with the knife held tightly in her right hand.
When she finally reached the cellar she saw the doctor standing at the medicine cupboard, drawing a clear liquid into a syringe, turning away, and fast approaching Anthony with a determined expression on his face.
As Cynthia stumbled towards him with her knife hand behind her back, he stopped, suddenly aware of her presence, and surprised by her rekindled determination… Maybe he should revisit his thesis at some future date? The bitch had spirit despite the hopelessness of her situation. Interesting, pathetic, but interesting!
Dr Galbraith refocussed on the present, met Cynthia’s eyes, and smiled. ‘Your timing couldn't be better, my dear. You’re just in time to watch the little bastard die. And then, once you've helped me dispose of the body, it will be your turn. I suspect it may well prove to be a welcome release, my dear. But, don't be under any misapprehension; you won’t die easy. I’ll take my time, and you will suffer. Oh yes, you’ll suffer. But, not to worry, that’s for later.’
Cynthia dragged one foot forwards, then another, then another, and reached her husband just as he was about to insert the needle deep into the boy’s swollen abdomen. He seemed strangely oblivious to her presence as she took the knife in both hands, gripped it tightly, raised it high above her head, and brought it down into his upper back with all the force her eight-stone-three-pound frame would allow.
Dr Galbraith dropped the syringe, lurched forward, lost his footing on the badly soiled floor, collided with the wall immediately next to Anthony’s shackled wrists, and crashed face down onto the hard white tiles, with Cynthia straddling him and clinging on for life itself. He was stunned, he was slow to react, and Cynthia seized her opportunity. She raised the knife high above her head for a second time, and plunged it down into his right shoulder muscle with all her strength, rendering the arm useless.
Cynthia pulled out the blade, rose slowly to her feet, and stood above the incapacitated body of the man who had brought so much pain and misery into her troubled world… Was he dead? He was, wasn't he? Surely he was dead?
She knelt down at his side, somehow summon
ed the strength to roll him over onto his back, and stared at his seemingly lifeless face for a minute or more, before reaching out nervously to feel for a heartbeat… Was it over? Was it really over? Surely it was over? But, she had to be sure. Like it or not she had to be sure.
As Cynthia bent forwards, and placed her face close to his, listening for any sign of breathing, he suddenly opened one eye, then the other, and snatched at her left earlobe with flashing white teeth. But she reacted quickly, lurching backward and causing his attack to fall fractionally short. As he reached up in an attempt to grab her throat, she jumped to her feet, lifted the knife high above her head in both hands, and brought it down forcibly, before repeating the process time and time and time again. When he was totally, utterly, unrecognisable as the man who had tormented her, she stopped, and flopped blood soaked and exhausted next to his corpse.
As Cynthia lay there, in that awful place, that monument to evil, panting, gasping for oxygen, it dawned on her… It was over. This time it really was over.
All fear suddenly left her, and in that instant all was calm… She was safe. The child was safe. The monster was no more, and her world was a better place.
Cynthia was oblivious to her pain, and unaware of the weapon clasped tightly in her right hand as she walked back up the steps, across the family kitchen, and into the hall. The knife clattered to the tiled floor and made her jump as she picked up the phone and dialled nine-nine-nine.
She stumbled into the lounge, slumped heavily to the floor next to an old dark oak sideboard, and dared to unlock a cupboard with bloody outstretched fingers that she noted were no longer trembling. She took her favourite LP from the collection she had not seen, leave alone played in years, and pulled herself unsteadily to her feet. Cynthia took the record from its colourful atmospheric sleeve, lifted the record player’s clear plastic lid, placed the disc gently on the turntable, waited for the needle to make contact with the black vinyl, and turned up the volume. She sat back down on the luxurious soft carpet with a new vitality, and listened contently to the glorious sweeping medley of Bowie's visionary songs, while waiting for the emergency services to arrive.
A note from the author
Thanks for reading: White Is The Coldest Colour. I’m always interested to know what readers think, and I’d be grateful if you’d leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads.
I’m in the process of writing my next book, which will tell Cynthia’s story following Dr Galbraith’s death.
John Nicholl
28, March 2015
