by Ken McClure
She turned her back on the counter and walked away, taking comfort from the number of people she had to squeeze past as she headed for the ladies' clothing section. She wanted to turn round to check if the man had followed her but something prevented her from doing this. It was as if she feared that this act in itself might precipitate the man's presence.
In the end, her subconscious made her do it surreptitiously. She had to know. She found a coat rack and pretended to examine the garments, using this as a pretext to half turn. As she pulled out the hem of one of the coats to feel the material a hand touched her back and she took in breath with a gasp and felt her body go rigid. 'Excuse me dear, could I get past?' said a little old woman. She was wearing a flower pot hat and a slightly puzzled look at Sue's rather dramatic reaction. Sue smiled to hide her embarrassment and let the woman past then she went on pretending to examine the coats. Her head was bent forward but her eyes were kept up to look around her. There was no sign of the man. She let out her breath in a long slow sigh, unaware until then that she had been holding it.
Could that look on the man's face have been her imagination? she wondered as she went on with her browse through the store but try as she might, she could not rid herself of the latent image. Maybe the man had suffered from some medical condition, she reasoned. Something that affected the muscles in his face, giving him no control over his expression? Bell's palsy or something like that. She sought distraction in a row of nightdresses but had to remind herself that her shape would be changing soon and not in the appropriate direction for these nightdresses. Might as well look at the 'tents' while I'm here, she thought and moved to the maternity section. She discovered a line in long, flowing gowns which she thought attractive or more correctly, the least unattractive and idly checked the labels for one her size. As she parted the gowns to extract an appropriate one she suddenly froze in terror. The man was standing on the other side of the rack, looking through the gap. He was less than a metre away from her and his eyes, behind small circular glasses, burned with loathing.
Sue took an involuntary step backwards and put her hand to her throat to combat a momentary inability to breathe. She found herself trapped against the wall. Sheer terror made her speak although she had difficulty getting the words out. 'What… do you want?' she stammered, trying to look out of the corner of her eye at the same time for the best escape route.
'Revenge,' hissed the man without hesitation. It was as if he had been waiting for Sue to ask.
'What… are you talking about? I've never seen you before in my life. There must be some mistake…'
'You belong to him and I am going to take you away. See how he likes it when it happens.'
The man made a move towards Sue and she lost all self control and screamed out loud closing her eyes and her fists in a defensive gesture.
'Madam! Madam! Whatever's the matter,' asked a solicitous voice in Sue's ear. Sue opened her eyes to find an assistant with her hand on her arm. All around people were staring at her and talking in quiet voices.
'There was a man,' spluttered Sue.
The assistant looked around and so did Sue. There was no man.
'He was just there,' sobbed Sue. 'He said he wanted revenge.' The words sounded silly and Sue looked at the assistant to see if disbelief would register in her eyes.
'Revenge Madam? Revenge for what?'
'I don't know,' confessed Sue helplessly.
'Perhaps a nice cup of tea would help,' said the assistant gently.
'No, no tea,' said Sue, painfully aware that people all round were speaking about her. She wanted desperately to be out of the store. 'Perhaps you could call me a taxi?'
'Of course. Why don't you come through here for a moment?'
The assistant led Sue through on of the doors marked STAFF ONLY and sat her down at a desk to wait while she called a taxi. Sue was glad to be out of the public gaze and her breathing started to subside as she regained control of her emotions.
'There will be a taxi here in five to ten minutes,' said the assistant putting down the phone. 'Are you sure you re all right?'
Sue managed a nod and a smile and thanked the assistant for her kindness.
'There are some weird people about these days,' said the assistant. 'I don't know what the country is coming to.'
Sue nodded. She needed no reminding of the fact.
The world had suddenly become a much more hostile place. Sue began to worry about crossing the pavement from the door of the store to the door of the taxi when it arrived. It arrived within three minutes.
'That was quick,' said the assistant. 'If I were you I would have a stiff drink when I got home,' she smiled as the cab pulled up outside, its diesel engine ticking over loudly.
Sue thanked the assistant for her kindness and hurried to the taxi. She slammed the door behind her and took comfort in the solid thunk it made. 'Kerr Memorial Hospital,' she said and settled back into her seat. Almost subconsciously she checked that the windows were closed.
The cab pulled away from the kerb and started to head for the hospital. Sue looked out at the streets but did not see much for she was still too upset to concentrate on anything for long. She could not recall ever having been so frightened before and her heart was pounding even now. Gradually she became aware of normality in the streets they were driving through. People were shopping, men were working, children were playing. She embraced the sights greedily and started to calm down.
As the minutes passed, Sue opened her handbag and took out her purse. She knew that she had enough money for the cab fare but nerves were making her check all the same. She glanced at the meter and her gaze froze on it as she realised that it wasn't running. She was mesmerised by the digits; they were stuck on zero. Could the store have paid for the taxi in advance? Then she remembered that she had not seen anyone pay the driver. Apart from that, no one at the store had asked her where she was going.
Inside her head, the store assistant repeated over and over again, 'That was quick… That was quick.' Sue faced the awful truth. This cab had not responded to the store's telephone call at all. It had appeared at the door for quite a different reason. Her eyes moved slowly up to look at the driver's mirror. Two burning eyes behind small, round glasses stared back at her.
Panic exploded inside Sue's head and she screamed. 'What do you want with me?' she demanded, banging her fists on the glass partition. The driver did not react. The cab sped on.
The cab was moving too quickly for Sue to attempt to get out but she clawed at the window winder with one hand while continuing to bang on the glass with the other as she tried to attract outside attention to her plight. The world seemed determined to ignore her. No one looked. No one cared.
'Are you all blind?' she screamed as frustration and fear rose in her like a spring tide. 'Let me go! Let me go!' she implored the driver. 'There's been some mistake! I don't know you. You don't know me!'
The cab turned into a narrow lane and Sue started to clutch at the door handles again. She was thrown off balance when the driver swung the cab violently across the lane and parked with one side close up against the wall closing off one route of escape. He leapt out to bar the other door and opened it as Sue scrambled up from the floor. In his hand he held a long thin knife. 'One word out of you, just one, understand?' he hissed.
Sue could only nod.
'Get out!'
She got out and the man put a hand on her shoulder to steer her through a narrow doorway. She was guided along a dark passageway; it smelt of oil and petrol. The hand on her shoulder made her stop while the other one fumbled for a light switch. The light came on and Sue saw that she was in some kind of a cellar. The stone walls had been whitewashed at some point in the distant past but now they were green with damp and paint was peeling off.
'In here!' snarled the driver. He opened a wooden door and pushed Sue through. Again she had to wait for the lights to go on before finding out that she was now in a lock-up garage. There was no car, only an oil
drum and two wheels with thread-bare tyres on them lying flat on the oily floor. There was a black hose hanging up on one wall and a calendar showing a semi-clad girl advertising exhaust systems on another. Her toothy smile seemed totally alien to Sue.
'You're the killer aren't you!' she stammered through her fear.
The man did not reply.
Sue was going through agony inside her head. Scott had been wrong. Thelwell had not been the ripper. The ripper was here with her in this lonely place and no one knew she was here! 'What are you going to do to me?' she asked as if in response to some subconscious urge to have her fate spelled out.
'Anything I damn well please,' snarled the man. 'Over there. Move!' The man pushed Sue hard in the back and she stumbled and fell headlong to the floor. She grazed her knees and one elbow on the rough concrete. In a trice the man was securing her feet with a length of electrical cable which he brought out from an old chest of drawers in the corner. Sue could sense that man was enjoying her fear. He seemed to be feeding on it. She stiffened as he put his hand on her knee and watched her reaction. He seemed pleased with the way she stiffened and slowly moved his hand below her skirt, kneading his fingers into her leg, watching her eyes while he did it.
'Don't! Please don't,' Sue pleaded with tears running down her face but the hand continued to rise. It stopped when it could go no further and as she threw her head from side to side in despair Sue felt a thumb slip inside her underwear and circle her pubic hair. It could only be a matter of moments before he used the knife.
'For God's sake stop it! ' she screamed.
Instantly the man lashed the back of his free hand across her face. 'Stop the noise you stupid cow!' he snapped.
Seemingly satisfied with Sue's level of terror the man returned to tying her up. Her hands were spread out on either side of her and tied to metal rings sunk into the brickwork of the wall. A rope was looped round her waist and again secured through the metal rings.
'Now for the important bit,' breathed the man as he smoothed out a length of electrical cable. He started to weave it in and out of Sue's hair.
Sue sobbed as pain and fear mixed in a hellish cocktail.
The man grunted in satisfaction as he examined his handiwork. 'That should do nicely,' he murmured.
When her hair was tightly tied to the cable at several points the man stretched out the loose end and secured it tightly to something on the wall above Sue's head.
She was in a lot of pain. The man had made sure that the cable was stretched to the limit so that while the metal rings were holding her arms tightly to the floor her hair was being pulled upwards. She was held completely immobile.
The man looked down at her and seemed pleased. 'In a while your husband will come and collect you,' he said. He knelt down in front of Sue to watch her eyes fill with puzzlement. 'And when he does, do you know what will happen?
Sue remained silent, her eyes wide with fear.
'No? Then I'll tell you. His car will break the infra red beam outside the door and when that happens the garage door will open… and when that happens…' The man paused to allow Sue to work it out for herself. The man read in her eyes that she had understood. 'That's right,' he said in a whisper. 'The cable is attached to the door motor. Your scalp will be lifted from your head and what's more your husband can watch it happen, then maybe he will know what it feels like. Bastard!'
Sue opened her mouth to scream but the cry was smothered. The man forced a rag into her mouth and then gagged her securely. He got to his feet and checked the cable once more. Seemingly satisfied, he walked over to the door, switched out the light and left. Sue was left alone in fear and darkness.
Jamieson finished his report for Sci-Med and sealed the envelope. The assistant showed him where to leave it for posting and he went on up to Gynaecology to speak with Phillip Morton who was now acting head of surgery. They discussed waiting lists and schedules and it was agreed that surgery would restart as soon as soon as the first batches of instruments and dressings were re-cycled through the sterilisers.
'Mr Thelwell's final swab result came back from the Public Health people this morning,' said Morton quietly as Jamieson got up to leave.
'And?' asked Jamieson.
'It was completely negative,' said Morton.
Jamieson had started to descend the stairs outside Morton's office when he heard the phone ring and a moment later the door opened and Phillip Morton called down to him that the call was for him. Jamieson sprinted back up the stairs. Morton handed him the receiver and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
'Hello, Jamieson here.'
'Good.'
Despite the fact that only one word had been spoken, Jamieson did not like the inflection in the voice. He suddenly began to feel uneasy. 'Who is this,' he asked.
'Never mind who it is. I've just spent the morning with your wife Doctor,' said the sneering voice.
'Really? Who is this?' Jamieson repeated, now feeling desperately afraid that something had happened to Sue.
'She's a very attractive lady.'
Jamieson swallowed. His imagination was running riot. 'Go on,' he said, trying to sound calm but having to swallow again, his mouth was so dry.
'Very attractive indeed. Almost irresistible one might say. At least I found her irresistible… I just couldn't resist her at all
… So I had her… ' The voice sniggered.
'Where's Sue? What have you done with her?' demanded Jamieson now at fever pitch.
'Oh you can have her back now,' said the voice. 'I've finished with her.'
'What do you mean? What have you done to her?' Jamieson almost shouted down the phone.
'I had her Doctor. I enjoyed her. I screwed her. I fucked her blind. Do you really want all the details? Or maybe you would rather hear them from her, always assuming that you want her back, considering the state she's in.'
Jamieson had to steady himself against the desk. He tried to take a deep breath but only succeeded in taking a series of short gulps. It was an effort to speak. 'Where is my wife?' he asked in a whisper. 'What have you done with her?'
An address was read out and Jamieson searched for a pen on Morton's desk. He scattered a series of things with his hand as he grabbed at a Biro and wrote on the first thing that came to hand. 'Lock-up number seven, West Side Mews.' he repeated.
'You're a lucky man Doctor,' continued the voice. 'She's a wonderful screw.'
The phone went dead and Jamieson was almost beside himself with fear and anger. He snatched at the door handle and flung open the door. Morton was nowhere to be seen so he ran downstairs and asked the first person he met where West Side Mews was. The man, a laundry porter delivering bed linen to the wards, scratched his head and thought for a moment. 'It's off Croxton Road to your left. Second or third opening on your left after you go through the traffic lights at Midgely Road.'
Jamieson ran off without hearing the porter continue, 'Or am I thinking of Weston Mews…'
Jamieson swung the car into Weston Mews and thumped both hands down on the steering wheel in temper as he saw the sign. 'Stupid, fucking… ' Words failed him. He got out the car and ran towards the first pedestrian that he saw. It was a postman doing the lunch time delivery.
'West Side Mews? That's miles from here mate,' smiled the man knowingly. 'You want to turn left when you leave here and…'
Jamieson tried to assimilate what he was hearing but the rising spate of anguish within him was threatening to block out everything else. The postman was taking an age to deliver his directions but Jamieson knew it would do no good to shout at him.
‘… and it's the third opening. You can't miss it.'
The tyres screeched on the road as Jamieson turned the car without the nicety of a three point manoeuvre. A dustbin was sent tumbling as the front of the car bounced up on to the pavement and hit it a glancing blow. An on-coming car blew its horn long and loud as he pulled out in front of it but Jamieson ignored it as he did the angry gesture
from its driver.
The needle of the speedometer was touching fifty as he screamed up the outside of a long trail of traffic in third gear but then was forced to cut in again when the blazing headlights of a petrol tanker coming towards him assured him that its driver was not going to give way.
'Bloody lunatic!' yelled the tanker driver from his window as he drew level. Jamieson ignored him. He could only think of Sue and what she must be going through.
'For Christ's sake, move!' hissed Jamieson through gritted teeth as he saw the traffic lights ahead change to green but with no apparent response from the head of the queue. 'Do you need a personal fucking invitation?' He craned his neck impatiently to see what the hold-up was and caught a glimpse of the 'L' plates on the roof of the car. 'Jesus Christ!' he swore loudly and slapped his hand down hard on the wheel. He rubbed his forehead hard with the heel of his right hand in an unconscious gesture of annoyance with himself. 'For God's sake get a grip,' he muttered.
In the moments when blind anger did not obscure his vision to anything other than Sue's plight Jamieson began to wonder why the man had telephoned him at all. Why should a sex attacker phone the husband? To gloat perhaps? But if that was the case, did not that infer that HE was the man's real target and not Sue? Someone wanted so badly to get at him that they would do something like this? Who would do such a thing and why?
As the traffic again slowed to a halt it now occurred to Jamieson for the first time that the call might conceivably have been some kind of awful hoax. He had not checked to see if Sue had gone from the residency. Maybe she was sitting there at this very moment wondering where he was. But if that were the case, why should the man give him an address to go to? Could this be some kind of trick to lure him personally into something? This line of reasoning suddenly took a back seat as Jamieson again considered that Sue could be lying bruised and beaten in this lock-up place, alone and terrified. A surge of anger came over Jamieson again as the traffic started to move and he engaged first gear.
