The Ring - An Alex Dorring Thriller

by Vince Vogel

  “Hand him the registration the tramp gave you,” Barker said to Green.

  She reached into her pocket and took a piece of paper out before handing it to Stevens. He gazed down at it and then up at the detective.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “One of your cars. I wanna know who’s driving it today.”

  “Then why didn’t you just ask?”

  “I did. That’s as nice as I’m willing to be today.”

  Stevens groaned, placed his glasses on and sat forward in his office chair, twisting his computer monitor around so that it faced him.

  “Do you need me any more, sir?” Jeanette the receptionist asked from the doorway.

  “No. You can go,” Stevens said without taking his eyes from the monitor.

  She left, closing the door behind her and the four of them were all alone in the office.

  “May I ask exactly what this is about?” Stevens said while he typed the registration into the computer.

  “No, you may not,” Barker said. “All I want is answers. Not questions. Now get on—”

  A commotion happened right behind him. Someone had knocked into his back and then fallen to the ground. When he turned, Barker saw John falling to his knees, a terribly distraught look on his face. He began coughing heavily, blood coating his hands as he held them over his mouth. Green and Barker helped him up and placed him in a chair.

  “Is he okay?” Stevens asked.

  “Get on with findin’ that number,” Barker shouted at him, turning a furious look over his shoulder at the security manager.

  Stevens obeyed, turning his eyes back to the computer.

  Barker crouched beside the chair as John continued to cough, hands clamped over his mouth. Barker observed the blood on them and around the lips. He also observed, as he had before, that his old partner made a terribly hollow sound when he coughed, as though it reverberated through his bones, through his hollow body, through what was left of him.

  “I got it,” Stevens said.

  Barker turned from John. Green was already up and in front of the desk.

  “Who?” she said.

  “It’s in the name of Brian Conway,” Stevens said.

  “Do you have an image of him?” Green asked.

  “Yeah. Here.”

  He flipped the screen around. A man’s face. Black, curly hair. Stunted nose and features. Round head. Malevolent scowl as standard.

  54

  “He’s missed you so much, you know?”

  They were driving down a motorway, banks of grass and fields on either side of them. Conway was driving. Jess was sitting in the passenger seat.

  “Ever since you were taken from him,” Conway went on, “he’s talked incessantly about you. He loves you, you know.”

  “He isn’t capable of love,” Jess said bitterly. “Men like him can only feel the worst types of feelings. Not love.”

  She’d rediscovered her voice. It was the anger that did it. The anger of sitting next to this animal.

  “You’re wrong,” Conway retorted. “He loves you like a daughter.”

  “A daughter he rapes.”

  “You’re very much wrong with your cynicism,” Conway said. “I don’t pretend to understand a man as smart as him. I’m nothing more than his lowly servant. But I will tell you that he has gone beyond such thin concepts as love and hate. He understands that without the dark, we would never be aware of the light. He is a man beyond morals because he is a man of both the light and the dark.”

  “He’s a man who likes to abuse children, Brian,” she said. “Nothing more. He may be beyond morals, but he’s certainly not beyond his own deviant urges. If he’s as strong as you think, he’d be able to fight his animalism.”

  Jess was becoming more bitter by the second. This man sitting beside her—a man she’d grown up around and hated—brought the black bile rising up inside of her. Rising up until it became like molten rock and brought fury bubbling out of her.

  “You speak so eloquently,” Conway said as he gazed ahead at the road. “He taught you to speak like that. Gave you the type of education you’d never have gotten with your parents. If it weren’t for him, you’d be picking apples with the rest of them. Talking in grunts and giving birth to an endless stream of idiot children like some fat sow.”

  “He only educated me because he wanted someone to talk to before he raped them. He wanted to discuss art and philosophy—his art, his philosophy—so he needed to educate me enough so I could talk to him about it. It was all for him. If he had of been satisfied with me grunting like an animal, he would have given me no education and kept me in a pen.”

  Conway turned his scowling, ugly little face on her. If a look could produce fire, she would have gone up in flames.

  “You ungrateful little bitch,” he spat at her.

  Jess recoiled away from him in the seat. He’d been violent with her before. It was always him who did the violence. Never the old man.

  “He gave you a life your parents couldn’t even imagine,” he said. “Kept you like a princess and educated you like one.”

  This made her mad. They always tried to make her grateful for it. Tried to break her down so she was their complete slave. She was a smart girl. The books he’d made her read and his schooling had sharpened her intellect. From this standpoint, she’d become all too aware of what was being done to her. Of how wrong it all was, despite how right they always told her it was. As though they could rewrite history through their words, by simply telling her something contrary to reality and expecting her to believe it through the forcefulness of their argument. In a way, she’d preferred being at that building with the other girls. Taken from place to place. Leered over by whole rooms of men. Made to do terrible things. It was all horrifically obscene, but at the same time more sincere than her time with them. More honest. No lies. No deceit. No telling you you should be grateful for the life you have—all of which is said shortly before he places his hands in your knickers. At least at that place with Tina and the others, you knew what was expected of you. You knew what you were to them. When she had been very young, Jess had seen the old man as a father. Had even fallen into the trap of believing he was her protector. That he kept her locked in that room for her own good.

  But it was all a horrifying lie.

  The rage spilled out of her. The fear evaporated. The wild thing inside of her leaped to attention.

  “You’re nothing but his lackey,” she told him.

  His hands gripped the steering wheel and his teeth gritted together.

  “You murdered a woman today,” Jess went on. “She was more decent than you and your master could ever hope to be. Just trying to protect me and you stabbed her to death. How many others have you killed for him?”

  “I warn you, Jess,” he snarled through those gnashed teeth of his, “that it’ll be one more, you keep going on. I’ll pull this car into the side of the road and I’ll bury my knife into you.”

  “That’s what your abandonment of moralism has brought you,” the young girl went on like a skilled debater. “You’re just a petty murderer ready for the hangman’s noose. A fault in society. A bad seed that needs weeding out. Deadwood in need of the lumberjack’s axe. You and he aren’t beyond morals. No one is. They find out about you and they’ll lock you up in a room.”

  She was leaning with her back on the door. He hadn’t noticed her hand moving to the handle. When she said this, she opened the door and he quickly leaped across the car as she fell backwards towards the rushing road.

  55

  Tina was woken up by the clanking of the cell door unlocking. They’d fed her dinner earlier and it had taken her whole energy to digest it. Therefore, she’d fallen to sleep. They’d been kind to her ever since she’d arrived. Fed her in an office within the building, not kept her in the cell. It was only when the girl got tired and started to drop off that they’d taken her there and set a bed up inside.

  The door of the cell opened and
a female police constable walked in.

  “You up, my love?” she asked.

  “I am now,” Tina replied, sitting up and wiping sleep from her eyes. Yawning, she added, “Where’s Otis?”

  “He’s busy at the moment.”

  “Busy doin’ what?”

  “Just busy. But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to tell you that a social worker has arrived to take you away.”

  “Where?” the girl snapped.

  “They’ve a home for you. Somewhere safe. Get you away from all of this.”

  “I told you,” the girl snapped irritably. “They looked after me. They didn’t hurt me.”

  “I know. I know,” the WPC said, holding her palms up in placation. “But like I said, those men are dangerous. You weren’t to know how bad.”

  “They saved my life. Is that so bad?”

  “Okay. I’m sorry. You’re right.”

  Tina easily sensed the woman was patronizing her.

  “Where’s Bess?” she then asked, as she had innumerable times since they’d taken her into custody.

  “I told you before, she’s safe in the kennels.”

  “You should let Otis see her. She hasn’t spent a single day away from him her whole life.”

  “I’m sure they’ll let him see her at some point. Now come on. The social worker’s in reception. He’ll take you somewhere nice to sleep. Give you some tea too.”

  “Can Bess come with me?”

  “I’m afraid they don’t let dogs.”

  “Then what’ll happen to her? You said Otis had done bad things. Does that mean he’s gonna go to prison?”

  “I can’t answer that, my love. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll make sure the dog is okay.”

  “What if she’s not? What if they decide to put her down?”

  “No one’s going to put the dog down.”

  “But they might.”

  “No, they won’t. I’ll make sure of it. Now come along, my love, the man’s waiting.”

  Tina pulled the blanket to the side and got up off the bed, yawning once more as she stood in the center of the cell. She then followed the WPC out of the cell and along a corridor. The lime-colored linoleum was so waxed it shone and Tina followed her blurry refection along it until they reached a stairwell. Two flights down, the WPC turned off and they entered another corridor. Then they went through some stiff doors and into a reception area. A man stood up as they entered.

  “This is Mr. Rivers,” the WPC said.

  He was middle-aged with glasses and a moustache. There was gray in the brown hair of the moustache as there was gray in the brown hair on his head. He had a morose look and his skin was almost gray. Especially where he shaved his face every day. He smiled at Tina as the WPC ushered her over and the cloying smirk made the girl cringe back from him.

  She stood in front of Mr. Rivers, the smile shining down at her, and thought he was a creep. And Tina had met plenty of creeps in her time.

  “Ah, Tina,” he said. “How are you after your ordeal of the past few days?”

  “Don’t you mean the past few years?” she said back. “The others had me for years.”

  “Yes, of course,” he said through his smiling teeth. “But I meant your time with this Mr. Rawly and the other man, Dorring.”

  “They saved me.”

  He didn’t reply straight away. Merely gazed down at her like a hawk gazes down at a mouse, the smile never dropping from his cheeks.

  “You’re a smart girl,” he said. “I’m sure you know how things are. Now,” he looked past Tina at the WPC, “has the girl got any belongings?”

  “None. I was told you’d get her things.”

  “Yes, we will.”

  “What sort of things?” Tina asked.

  “Clothing,” Mr. Rivers said. “Toiletries. Nothing special. Just what you need.”

  He said this in the condescending manner of a teacher indirectly telling a child to shut up.

  “Okay,” the WPC said. “I’ll fetch the paperwork for her.”

  There was a signing of papers and then Tina left with Mr. Rivers. His car was around the corner of the police station. They got inside and Rivers started the engine.

  “What’s gonna happen to him?” she asked.

  “Who? Otis Rawly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s in a lot of trouble, Tina. A lot of trouble.”

  They moved off into the traffic of the city. Tina sat watching the streets go past. She began to feel terribly forlorn. Began to wonder what was going to happen. Her friend Jess was out there somewhere. Otis was in jail. Dorring was somewhere else. Men were after him. The police. The Ring. Everyone. It made her terribly sad to know that they were going to suffer. And they didn’t deserve it. For everything that had happened, the wrong people were going to suffer and the ones who deserved to were going to get off free.

  The world was a terribly unfair thing. And if the fourteen-year-old girl had learned anything in her life, it was that the innocent are always crushed by the guilty.

  They left the concrete buildings of central London and entered countryside on the outskirts. On a country lane, Rivers pulled the car over into some woods. As they bumbled down a dirt track surrounded by trees, Tina began to feel strange.

  “Where’re we going?” she asked.

  Rivers didn’t answer or even acknowledge that she’d spoken. The eerie feeling grew inside of Tina and mutated into fear.

  “What’s goin’ on?” she asked.

  Still the social worker said nothing. Instead, he stopped the car and got out. Tina watched him as he came around the car. She glanced about their surroundings. There were no houses for as far as she could see, only trees and fields.

  Rivers came to her door and she cringed back when he opened it.

  “What’s—”

  Rivers lunged at her, grabbed her throat and pressed a cloth to her mouth. It stank of some sort of spirit. She held her breath as she struggled with him. He held the cloth so tight to her face that when she finally gasped for breath, she took in a lungful of the spirit and felt herself falling backwards through the seat, the car and then the ground.

  56

  The containers were stacked high, towering above a tall fence topped with razor wire, many of the stacks as large as five story buildings. At the front of the place, a gatehouse stood beside a set of barriers. A sign on top of it proclaimed Petrescu Shipping and Storage. Dorring approached it on foot. A line of trucks stood outside on the road, waiting to be given clearance to enter so that they could be loaded with a container box.

  Having spotted his approach through a window, a large man walked out of the gatehouse and met him several yards from the barriers.

  “Can I help you?” he said in a heavily accented voice. He was six feet two, broad shouldered, big chested. Shaved, round head with a malevolent scowl for a face.

  “I’m supposed to be meeting Georgie Petrescu,” Dorring said.

  The man went very serious.

  “You are Dorring?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “This way, please.”

  He walked to the gatehouse and Dorring followed him inside. Another large man was sitting, reading a newspaper. He looked over the top at his colleague as they entered. Some words were exchanged and the man reading the paper gazed at Dorring as he went past. A door at the back led into a large tarmac lot. Telescopic forklifts with giant arms moved about it, reaching up onto the tall stacks of boxes and lifting them down. Then they would drive across the forecourt and load them onto the backs of trailers.

  The man led Dorring across to a cabin in a far corner. It was overshadowed by a wall of containers. He knocked on the door and told Dorring to wait. The latter was impatient, his foot tapping the whole time the man entered the cabin and spoke to someone inside.

  A few seconds later, the man emerged, accompanied by another. This one was short and rotund with a crew cut and a joyful face. His rosy cheeks were perched high as he smi
led at Dorring.

  “So you are a friend of my big sister’s?” he said.

  “Yes,” Dorring replied.

  “It’s a shame we should meet under such circumstances.”

  “I wish it were under different ones, yes. Did you get what I asked for?”

  “You were in luck. I was able to procure all the items at short notice. A friend of mine deals in such things and uses my freight company here to store them. It’ll cost me a pretty penny, but anything for Maria. Come.”

  The man who’d escorted Dorring asked if he was needed anymore. Georgie told him that was all. So he returned to the gatehouse while Dorring followed Georgie through the avenues of containers. They were like large buildings and the gaps in between like streets. They ended up in a corridor shielded from the sun and Georgie led him to a dead end.

  Standing in front of a container door, he turned over his shoulder and checked. Dorring turned too. There was nothing behind them except the sunlight shining into the shadow of the corridor.

  “This was buried here,” Georgie said, turning back to the door and applying a key to a padlock. “I had to have my men clear the way.”

  The lock snapped open and he pulled the door. Dorring stepped forward and helped him, the thing being very stiff. When it was open, Georgie went inside and flipped a light switch. It illuminated the interior of the twenty foot container. At the end was a table. On this was a suitcase and something the size of a large dog, covered over with a green tarp sheet.

  “It’s all there,” Georgie said.

  Dorring walked into the container and made his way to the end. He pulled the sheet back and gazed down. It was exactly what he’d asked for.

  Something to end this all.

  “My sister told me to help you any way I can,” Georgie said. “This is quite something you ask, but a brother cannot refuse his big sister. Is it all there?”

  “Oh yes,” Dorring said as his eyes fixed to the item. “This is exactly what I wanted.”