Hyena Dawn

by Christopher Sherlock

  ‘You’re a genius, Bernard. But what about making the substi­tute photo look real? Are you going to use a make-up artist to create the whip-marks on my fiancee’s back?’

  ‘Who said anything about faking it? This will be the real thing done to a real lady!’ And Bernard roared with laughter as he explained the rest of his plan to Jay.

  Helen couldn’t quite believe it had happened; it was exactly what she’d been planning. Jay had asked her out for dinner. She could see he was infatuated with her. Well, she would continue to keep him at a distance and control the whole affair very coolly. Her price would be high - marriage, if possible. She had always dreamed of living the way Jay did, driving an exotic sports car and wearing the latest designer clothes.

  She got home just after six that evening and phoned her boyfriend, Nigel, to cancel their date. She’d been thinking of ditching him for a long time now, so she felt nothing of standing him up. She actually got a strange kick out of hearing his disappointment at the other end of the line. She slammed the phone down with satisfaction - men like Nigel would soon be a thing of the past. Jay was in a different class altogether; he could offer her everything she wanted. It gave her a thrill to be in the company of a man who had so much power.

  Now she had to think about what to wear that evening. She prided herself on her wardrobe - not a lot of clothes, but all of them carefully chosen. She never bought cheap and only chose the sort of things that never went out of fashion. She knew that the way she looked and dressed was an important part of her success. There were many secretaries who wanted to work for the Goldcorp Group, and she’d got the job because of her poise, her looks, and her falsified references. She’d gone to elocution lessons to remove the last traces of her guttural South African accent, and the references made out that she’d attended Johan­nesburg’s top private school for girls. Rhodean.

  First she chose some French underwear, a low-cut lace bra and a black suspender-belt with a very brief pair of panties. The satin-smooth black silk stockings enhanced the sensual shape of her legs and she admired herself in the long mirror in her bedroom. Now she would have the time really to arouse Jay. The black evening dress fitted her like a glove, with a daring plunge behind that left her whole back naked. Her breasts pressed invitingly against the thin black material and hinted at the excitement that lay beneath.

  The car swung off the Ml South and turned right onto the M2 West, heading towards Krugersdorp. Helen thought for a moment that they were going to the exclusive Crown Mines restaurant but was surprised when the car turned back north towards the industrial suburb of Amalgam.

  She was about to say that she knew the area well when she realised that that would conflict with the information on her curriculum vitae. She was supposed to have lived in the exclusive suburb of Houghton . . . The buildings that they were now passing evoked strong memories of her childhood. Perhaps Jay was taking her to see a new factory before going on to a restaurant?

  ‘This is a very exclusive club we’re going to, Helen.’ He turned the car right and drove in through the open doors of a large warehouse. As they entered, the doors began to close behind them automatically. Inside, it was pitch black. They got out of the car and Jay held her arm, escorting her through the darkness. She heard a door opening and the sound of other voices.

  ‘Friends.’

  In the darkness Jay’s voice seemed to have an almost threat­ening tone to it. She had never heard him speak like this before. Suddenly she felt out of her depth and scared. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘In the middle of fucking nowhere, lady.’

  Another voice, it sounded guttural, low-class and unpleasant. Helen wondered how Jay could allow this man to speak to her in such a way.

  The lights came on. They were so bright that she could hardly see anything for a time - large lights, like the sort they used in film studios; steam rose eerily above them. She was standing alone in the middle of the warehouse which smelt of damp and male sweat.

  Two men stood behind one of the lamps, and she could see that they both held cans of beer in their hands. She turned round and saw Jay sitting on a chair in the corner. Next to him was Bernard Aschaar. There was a movie camera on a tripod next to them, and several aluminium camera cases on the floor. The only other object in the warehouse was a big wooden table that stood next to her. For reassurance, she began to walk towards Jay and Bernard.

  ‘Stay right where you are.’ Jay’s voice was cold and command­ing. She obeyed it, and shivered, even though the warehouse was quite warm inside.

  ‘Don’t worry, dear, we’ll soon warm you up.’

  All of them laughed, and she laughed nervously too. She heard the sound of a drink being poured. One of the men came forward and handed her a full glass of neat whisky.

  ‘Drink.’

  He said the word slowly. She took the glass and poured the contents on the floor. She was tired of their games. She walked bravely towards Jay and Bernard, who looked at her coldly.

  The next minute the man had grabbed her hair and twisted it so savagely she screamed out.

  ‘Shut up, bitch. Johnny, fill me another glass.’

  He didn’t let go of her hair and she thought it would come out at the roots. ‘Please. Please. Mr Aschaar, help me.’

  She cried out in desperation, she couldn’t work out what they wanted. Another glass was handed to her and the man released his grip on her hair.

  ‘Drink.’

  She drank the whisky, feeling it burn as it went down her throat. She wanted to be sick. She lowered the glass but the man held it up to her mouth again. Now she almost choked as the whisky continued to pour down her throat. She felt giddy, but at least the pain of her pulled hair wasn’t so bad.

  ‘Give her another glass, Johnny.’

  ‘I can’t drink any more.’

  ‘Shut up or I’ll break your fucking teeth.’

  ‘Easy does it, Sidney.’ Jay’s voice echoed across the room. Maybe he would help her. But his next words dashed that hope. ‘She’s got to look good for the pictures. Can’t have her mouth bleeding.’

  ‘You’re the boss, sir. She’ll look real pretty, don’t you worry.’

  The full glass was thrust up against her mouth, and again he yanked her hair back. She wouldn’t drink, so he punched her in the stomach and she sucked the whisky down.

  ‘That’s enough, Sidney. We don’t want her pissed, do we?’

  ‘All right, bitch, now you can strip.’

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  ‘There won’t be any music, lady, so you’d better make it good.’

  ‘Just do it next to the table, Helen.’ Jay’s voice sounded cruel. She was seeing a side of him that she would never have believed existed. Now he was behind the movie camera, focusing it on her.

  ‘I won’t. I want to go home, Jay.’

  ‘You don’t make it easy on yerself, do yer, lady.’

  ‘You pig.’

  ‘Can we use force again, Mr Aschaar?’

  ‘Yes, but don’t mark her too badly, Sidney.’

  Before she could move, Sidney and Johnny had grabbed her. They forced her over the table, face-down, with only her feet protruding over the edge. Then they tied her down with baggage straps.

  She felt her shoes being pulled off and something strike the soles of her feet very lightly. She heard the sound of more drinks being poured and a cigarette being lighted. She smelt the familiar smell of Bernard’s Turkish-blend tobacco.

  ‘No one will hear, Sidney. So as hard as you like, but keep it in the centre of the soles. We want her to be able to stand up when you’ve finished. Lightly to start with.’

  Mr Aschaar sounded as though he were delivering a manage­ment paper at a conference. She couldn’t believe that they hadn’t tried to rape her. There were more soft blows against her soles and she wondered what sort of game they were playing at.

  The blows continued regularly so that a pins-and-needles feeling developed in her feet. Sh
e thought that if this was all they were going to do, she could handle it. Then suddenly it hap­pened: a vicious blow after the soft ones. She couldn’t believe the pain. It shot up her spine and threatened to break her body in two. She screamed so hard that she could feel the blood in her throat. She tried to say that she would do anything they wanted, but she couldn’t speak. Another blow, even worse, and she started retching. She managed to scream the words out. ‘I’ll do anything! Just stop!’

  Another blow hit her feet and she thought she was going to die. Then they left her on the table and disappeared out of the giant room. She tried not to think about what was going to happen next.

  They came back into the room and the man called Sidney cleaned the vomit off her face with a rag. His face came up close to hers and she began to shake with fear.

  ‘No funny business, remember.’

  She felt the straps loosen, and pulled herself up to a sitting position. For a few moments she thought she might pass out, but that avenue of escape evaded her. Instead she became very sober and tried desperately to detach herself from the whole bizarre situation.

  She eased herself down from the table and was surprised to find she could walk. She picked up her shoes from the floor and slipped them on. She could feel that they were watching her every movement.

  The man called Sidney came forward again with a glass of whisky. ‘Drink up.’

  ‘I don’t . . .’ She was going to object but remembered what they had done to her before, and gulped the drink down quickly.

  ‘That’s better, dear. You’ll find life here a lot easier if you just do what you’re told.’

  She hated the sound of Sidney’s voice, she could tell he enjoyed her suffering.

  ‘Now you can strip.’

  The camera started, and the noise of the motor turning the film broke the silence. Another light was switched on, and for a moment she could not see clearly at all. Then, mechanically, she began to ease her dress off as she stared into space. The camera stopped and there was silence again.

  ‘Now is that what you’d do for your boyfriend? I don’t think so. Look as though you’re enjoying it or I’ll enjoy beating you up.’

  Helen began to shiver again but managed to get herself under control. This time when the camera started up she looked at it seductively. She pulled her dress up slightly to reveal more of her legs; she raised it over her head.

  ‘Bend over the table and look as though you’re enjoying yourself.’

  She did as she was told, and Sidney came over to her, holding a sjambok. The blows came fast and furious. She started to cry. Then he stopped and stepped back. The man called Johnny came up behind her and ripped off her panties. Then he mounted her savagely.

  She cried, she couldn’t help it, the pain was excruciating. She felt totally humiliated. She prayed that he would stop.

  Eventually he pulled away and she felt the pain subside. She wanted to crawl away and hide.

  ‘That’s fine. We’ve got what we want. How about you, Jay?’

  She heard a laugh. Jay came towards her and unzipped his pants.

  ‘Now Helen, get off the table and show me how much you love me.’

  Bernard stared at Helen who sat in the car seat, bloody and shivering. Perhaps it would be better just to have her eliminated. Jay had lost control of himself as usual.

  Still, they had the photographs. He would hand them to Muller in the morning, along with the blackmail note. Helen would effectively drop out of circulation. Muller would never find her, but he might find the blackmailer and the original photographs, which was what they really wanted. Bernard was pleased, in a way; he’d taken some shots of Jay abusing Helen - further material that he could use against Jay in the future.

  He pulled a blanket from under the front seat and handed it to Helen. She wrapped it round herself quickly, more as an act of self-concealment than anything else, he thought. She would have to see a doctor as soon as possible. Everything Jay got involved with turned into a mess.

  Helen could cause problems. Still, there was an easy way round that; he’d speak to the doctor and they could pump her full of drugs and then keep her out of the way for a while. She might still have her uses, especially for entertaining Jay and the rest of the men.

  Two days later Major-General Deon de Wet walked into General Muller’s office. He had been told to come up for a special confidential briefing.

  ‘Come in, de Wet. Good to see you.’

  Well, he thought, this is a change. The General had never before greeted him so effusively.

  ‘General Muller, what can I do to help you?’

  ‘It’s a confidential matter. It involves one of the most important members of Johannesburg society, Jay Golden. Here, look at this.’

  Deon sucked in his breath. He’d been out-manoeuvred. It was the blackmail note he’d sent to Aschaar, but the photograph was different.

  ‘Disgusting, General Muller.’

  ‘Yes indeed. The woman is his fiancee; you can imagine how upset he is. Now the reason I’ve decided to put you on to this case is that he doesn’t want her involved. It’s not in the normal line of police work, but I want you to find the person who sent that note. Evidently that person holds other photographs, even film of this bestial performance. We are to get that material back and sort out the blackmailer.’

  ‘“Sort out”, General Muller?’

  ‘Just find the bastard, de Wet. I’ll organise the sorting out. You’ll get whatever support you need on this one. Naturally I don’t think you’re going to come up with anything in a hurry.’

  ‘Any suspects, sir?’

  ‘None so far.’

  ‘I’ll have to speak to Jay Golden.’

  ‘Just tell me what questions you have and I’ll get them answered.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, sir, but this really isn’t much to go on.’

  Deon left the office quickly and caught the lift down to his own floor. By sending the photograph and the blackmail note, he’d wanted to let Jay know that Sonja couldn’t be threatened with impunity, but his shot had turned out to be a bit of a curved ball. He would have to play the whole thing very, very carefully.

  Deon would have tried to get into the flat by the front door, but there was a guard outside. He’d had to climb up to the back balcony, and now he was crouched there in the dark, watching her through the window.

  She was more attractive than he’d expected. There was no one in the room with her. She walked over to the drinks cabinet and poured herself a large Scotch. For a moment she seemed to look straight at him, then she turned and walked over to the mirror on the wall. She stared at her reflection for some time, pulling suggestive faces, then moved to a large earthenware jar in the corner of the room and tipped it over. Whatever she was looking for wasn’t there.

  ‘Fuckers.’

  She said the word with a smile on her face. He could tell that she wasn’t well, though he couldn’t be sure exactly what they’d done to her. He’d found her relatively easily. He’d had a blow­up of her face made, as he had done with the original photograph, then he’d given it to his journalist friend Abe Solomon and told him to go snooping round the Goldcorp Group headquarters.

  No one, it appeared, had ever seen this woman before, but Abe wasn’t one to give up easily. He’d gone to the main bar of the President Hotel - the favourite watering-hole for Goldcorp employees. Abe had waited till late in the evening when a few of the employees were well oiled. He showed the photograph round casually. They recognised the face, but backed off. Clearly they’d been warned. A few more drinks and he got her name out of them.

  Of course, Deon had found Helen’s flat deserted. But a little more investigative work on Abe’s part had revealed a number of properties registered in the name of Jay Golden. He had given the list to Deon and Deon had struck it lucky with the third address on the list, a small flat in the garden suburb of Rosebank.

  Now Helen went over to the record player, lifted the turntable from its
mounting and pulled out a plastic bag full of dagga. Then she took out some cigarette papers and rolled herself a joint. She lit up and inhaled deeply - he could smell the distinctive aroma. Immediately she became more relaxed. She lay on the settee and stared up at the ceiling.

  When she had finished the dagga she got up and poured herself another Scotch. He just hoped she wasn’t going to do something irrational like trying to commit suicide, because then he would have to intervene and blow his cover. She put on a record now, and began to dance by herself round the room. The effects of the dagga and the alcohol had loosened her up considerably. She seemed to be enjoying herself.

  She sat down on the couch with her legs drawn up against her breasts and stared at the opposite wall. He wondered if they had deliberately taken most of her clothes away, for she was dressed only in underwear. After about fifteen minutes she got up, poured herself yet another Scotch and started to dance round the room more and more erotically. Then she began to take off her underclothes as if she was stripping before an audience, thrusting her pelvis forward aggressively. Her face was covered in a cold sweat.

  She pulled her handbag from the side-table and rummaged inside it. Finding what she wanted, she flung the bag into a corner of the room, apparently deaf to the sound of breaking glass as it knocked a vase over. In her hand was a vibrator which she stabbed inside herself repeatedly with a look of savage pleasure on her face. He was sure she must be hurting herself, and now he could hear the words she was screaming.

  ‘Fuck me. Come fuck me. I don’t give a fuck. Johnny, fuck me. Come on, Sidney, and how about you, Jay? I like it, give it to me.’

  Then she collapsed on the floor, crying with despair. She flung the vibrator away from her and clutched at her sides, her face a hideous mask.