by Vince Vogel
“Where is he?” he asked the girl.
“Underneath,” she cried out.
Gold was frowning.
“Underneath,” Jess repeated.
He still didn’t understand when his ankle exploded and his whole weight tumbled down onto the ground. He landed on his side and immediately turned to the shredded stump on the end of his right leg. The foot was completely blown away. He turned to his right and gazed underneath the car. The ugly face of Brian Conway stared back at him.
Gold’s head exploded when Conway shot him in the face with the magnum he held in his left hand. He was lying flat on his back under the Passat. He turned his head the other way. Gazed at the feet of Silver, who stood frozen in shock, not understanding where the loud explosion of the gun had come from and from where his partner had been shot. In his right hand, Conway had another magnum. He pulled the trigger and sent a bullet into Silver’s foot before he knew what had happened. The .44 hollow tip slug expanded amongst the muscle, tendon, bone and cartilage of the foot and blew it into pieces. A little cloud of pink mist floated in the air where it had been before obliteration. Silver fell onto his front and tried to crawl away. Conway sent a bullet into his backside. It traveled into the flesh, hit his coccyx and kept going up his spine, expanding all the time.
As Mr. Silver struggled in the throes of death, Conway pulled himself out from underneath the car. He dusted himself down and got in. Leaning across Jess, he closed her door.
“Time to go home,” he said, turning the keys in the ignition. “We don’t want to be late, do we?”
He was much calmer now. Almost happy. Jess knew why. He was always like this when he killed. The old man had told her many stories about him. About how his rage would get to a point when only murder would abate it. Only murder would quench a burning thirst inside of him.
Brian Conway was the nearest Jess had ever been to pure evil. And in the last ten years, she certainly had seen and received enough of it.
60
Otis sat in his sodden underwear on the cold concrete floor of a cell. If it wasn’t for the swirl of storming thoughts cascading through his aching skull, he’d of worried about getting piles. As it was, the chance of hemorrhoids was the last thing on his mind. What was on it was a simple fact. He was about to lose the very last thing he had that was his: his freedom.
Everything had been taken away from him his whole life. He’d been born into nothing and ever since, anything he’d been given—any little chink of sunlight—had been taken away by men that had been born into everything. They took his little girl. They took his wife. They took the little bit of land given to his mother for the care she’d given an old woman in her final years. They’d taken his cottage. They’d taken Bess. Tina. And if that wasn’t enough for them, they were now going to take his freedom just to make sure he knew full well what he was.
Nothing.
Molly were right, he said in his head. John too. I come to London and ended up beat. Who am I against them? I ain’t—
A hollow tapping sound stopped his thoughts.
At first, Otis thought it was the swirling anger of his mind. Sometimes he could get so mad that he’d hear sounds—like tinnitus. Usually a constant, regular beat. But this tapping was fast and then slow. Otis realized that it was being made by someone hitting the outer wall with something heavy. The cell was on the edge of the police station beside an alleyway. He sat gazing at the wall. The tapping was being done at the bottom. As he watched the wall where he thought it was occurring, the tapping began to rise steadily upwards until it reached the window and Otis was staring up at it.
That was when he saw that someone had written something on the outer sheet of plexiglass that covered the bars.
Get back as far as you can. Cover your ears and eyes. Stamp your foot on the floor when you are.
Otis stood up. A sudden energy expressed itself inside of him. Hope, you could call it. Hope that his revenge may not have fallen as flat as he’d thought.
He tapped his foot heavily on the floor as he stood with his back to the door.
There was a deafening explosion. Even though Otis had covered his ears, they still rang. The cell filled with smoke and dust and he couldn’t see. A sprinkler went off and covered him in cold water. A hand grabbed him from the dust and he was pulled out of the cell, stumbling over a pile of bricks that used to be the outer wall.
He emerged from the dust into the alleyway. Dorring stood there in a black crash helmet. He handed the old man another helmet. Otis shoved it onto his head while he followed Dorring down the alley to a motorbike. It roared into life like a tiger awakening from an eternal sleep and the second his arms were around Dorring’s waist, they were speeding out of the alley and onto the street, heading away from the chaos and confusion at the station.
61
Conway and Jess drove towards a sprawling multi-acre country estate. On the way, they passed a disused quarry that stood at one end of the property. It had been flooded for decades and was now a vast lake surrounded by cliff edges of white, craggy rock. Only divers who wanted to explore the deep caverns under the surface used it now. And only when Frank Jordon permitted them onto the grounds of his house.
The manor was absolutely stunning. Built by the Victorians, it had a certain industrial charm to it. Red brick with latticed windows and multiple chimneys standing along its slate roof. It had once belonged to the owner of the quarry, who in Victorian times had become immensely rich from selling limestone after the invention of concrete. The manor was said to be built directly over the top of part of it. Over certain catacombs not flooded. Perhaps it had been this detail that had inspired Frank Jordon to pay so much for it.
The gatehouse was a red brick building that was built so as to incorporate the gate. An archway running through its center acted as the entrance point to the great estate. Conway pulled up to it and stopped underneath the red brick tunnel. A large man in a suit came out of a door in the archway and went to his window.
“How’s master?” Conway asked.
“Very excited,” the man said, glancing across the car at Jess. “Glad to have his girl back after all these years.”
“I hope she pleases him,” Conway said, looking over at Jess, who sat shivering in her seat. Then turning back to the man, he said, “How’re you here?”
“Fully fortified,” the man replied like a soldier answering his superior officer. “If they come, they better be armed to the teeth.”
“Good. How many men with you in there?”
“Six. There’s another eighteen around the grounds. If they come, they’ll die.”
“Good,” Conway repeated.
This was the signal for the man to open the gate, so he nodded through the open door. A button was pressed inside and the iron gates parted. Conway slipped the car into gear and rolled through the brick tunnel and down a long, winding driveway.
When they pulled up in front of the manor, Jess gazed at it with sad eyes.
“Cheer up,” Conway said, getting out of the car. “You’re home.”
Jess leveled her gaze down to the front entrance of the manor. It was open and she could see inside the hallway. The sun was almost down and the room was cast in shadow, so she could only see the outlines of the people inside. Conway opened her door and she turned sharply to him.
He was holding his hand out to her. Doing his best to smile, but only managing to twist his poisonous little face up even more.
“I’ll take the ties off your wrists and ankles,” he said softly.
She offered her hands and he took them. But he didn’t cut the ties. Instead, he nodded to his left and someone crunched rapidly across the shingle. Looking up, she saw a familiar face from her time there before. A middle-aged woman with short, dyed blonde hair and a bitter little face that had gone ruddy from frowning so much. There was a needle in her hand. She plunged it into Jess’ arm as Conway held her by the hands.
“Thank you, Mrs. Crabb,” Conway said.
Jess immediately felt the muscles of her body relax and her mind was covered over with soft cottonwool. As she fell into the seat, Conway cut the ties from her wrists and ankles. A wheelchair was brought to the car door by Mrs. Crabb and Conway lifted the girl into it. Then, as though in a dream, she was being wheeled across the checkered tiles of the hallway.
She was smiling when Frank Jordan wheeled up to her in his own wheelchair. The old man was dressed in crimson silk pajamas and matching dressing gown. He was eighty-three. He’d lost the use of his legs many years ago from osteoporosis. If he tried to stand, his brittle bones would snap. His pale pink skin hung limply from his old frame. His head was completely bald and covered in scabs where the skin fell apart due to his faltering liver. His eyes shone from his gaunt face as he leered at Jess.
“Bring her to me,” he said impatiently.
Conway pushed Jess all the way, her head bobbing about like a balloon on a string, her blank eyes filled with the black pupils. When she stopped a foot in front of him, the old man lurched out of his chair and took her hand. Bringing it up to his thin, blistered lips, he kissed it gently as though he was a knight welcoming the return of his fair maiden. Then he noticed the bruising to her eye.
His hawkish look skipped up to the pug face of Conway.
“Who hurt her?” he hissed.
Conway went to speak, but before he could, Jordon snapped, “No lying, boy.”
Conway readjusted his tongue and said, “She tried to escape. I had to restrain her.”
The eyes were burning up at him.
“If I wasn’t so pleased you’d got her back, I’d have you whipped.”
The scarred skin of Brian Conway’s back itched when the old man said this.
“I’m sorry, master,” he said, turning his eyes to the black and white checkers below his feet.
“Come!” Jordon said, letting go of Jess’ hand and clapping his bony palms together. “I wish to be carried.”
Conway came from behind Jess’ wheelchair, being replaced by the sour-faced Crabb, and came to his master. Crouching in front, he delicately took the old man in his arms, Jordon placing his thin arms around the wide shoulders. Then Conway lifted him out of the chair and held him like a groom gripping his bride as they go over the threshold of their new home.
“Come, my dove,” Jordon said to the blank face of Jess. “Let’s go to your room. I have a surprise waiting for you there.”
Conway carried him across the chessboard tiles to a shuttered elevator, sliding the metal gate to the side when he reached it. They each got in, Conway holding the old man, Crabb standing behind Jess in the wheelchair. As the elevator went down through the ground, Frank Jordon’s old eyes studied Jess.
“I can only imagine what horrors that animal Jacob Harris has put you through,” he said. “He lacks the sophistication of myself. Nothing more than a peddler of slaves. I’ll certainly make him pay for what he’s done to you, don’t you worry, my dove.”
Jess said nothing. Just stared forwards at the rock wall that went past the bars of the gate.
They reached the bottom and entered a corridor of shimmering strip lighting, Conway carrying the decrepit old man and Crabb pushing Jess. At the end was a beautiful ornamental door with carvings of woodland creatures on it. Bears, foxes, deer, wolves.
The nurse used a key to open it, the locks clunking as the bolts receded. Jess was presented with a beautiful little girl’s room filled with toys. On top of a heart shaped bed sat innumerable teddy bears ranging in size and type. On the walls were pictures of castles and princesses. And dragons. There were several decorative doll’s houses, a little town of them on the pink carpeted floor. In another corner, a large wardrobe stood open, filled with dresses. Princess dresses. Fairy costumes. Other, more adult selections similar to the tattered cocktail dress she currently wore.
“It’s just like you remembered,” Frank Jordon hissed from Conway’s arms, “but with one added feature.” Addressing Crabb, he added, “Turn her head for her.”
The nurse came behind Jess, took the sides of her head and gently forced her to turn to the far corner of the room. Even though she was sunk under the surface of the drugs, Jess still understood what she was seeing. She was still able to feel the terror associated with seeing it.
Because staring back at her from the corner of the room were the drugged and swollen eyes of Tina. She was in a wheelchair, strapped to it at the wrists, waist and ankles.
“I thought you’d like company,” the old man hissed. “A friend.”
Both girls began screaming.
62
Dorring and Otis had dumped the bike and were now sitting in the front of a van driving fast down the M25 towards Somerset, the thing tilting as Dorring dodged it through the steady stream of traffic.
“Where are we going?” Otis asked.
It was the first time he’d spoken since Dorring had gotten him out of the police station. Dorring turned to him. He was staring forlornly out of the windscreen.
“We’re going to the men I think took Jess,” Dorring said.
“Which is?”
Dorring took something from his pocket and held it out in the middle of the vehicle for Otis. It was a piece of paper.
“What’s that?” the old man asked blankly.
“Read the names on it.”
Otis took it and began scrolling down them. His eyes weren’t good. It took a while to focus on the words. When he reached the one Dorring meant, he began shaking his head.
“Why’s Frank Jordon’s name on here?” Otis asked.
“Those names were handed to me by Jonathon Powell, shortly before they blew his brains out. Jordon’s part of the Ring.”
“You mean he had her all that time?”
“For the seven years until Crosby and his lot got her. I’m sure of it.”
“Fucker!” the old man screamed, screwing the paper up in his hand and then striking the fist that held it down on the dashboard. Turning rapidly to Dorring, he said, “And we’re goin’ there now?”
“Yes. We’re going there now and we’re going to kill every last one of them. I’m going to burn his house down. Then I’m going to burn all their houses down. Burn their whole fucking ring down with them.”
“But Jess?” Otis said.
“I don’t know. Maybe they’ll know where she is.”
“But how’re we gonna get inside his place? I been there before. They got a huge wall all around it. Big banks, too. An’ the quarry what backs up on it. You ain’t gonna sneak in that way. There’s cameras everywhere. An’ he has guards patrollin’ the place. It’s like bleedin’ Fort Knox.”
“Don’t worry,” Dorring said. “The motorbike, the explosives and this van weren’t all I got off of Maria’s brother.”
“What else you get?”
“That,” Dorring said, nodding over his shoulder into the back of the van.
Otis hadn’t even bothered to look the whole time he’d sat there. He turned over his shoulder and gazed into the back. For a few seconds, he wasn’t exactly sure what he was seeing. Then his eyes gradually widened when he realized.
Turning back to Dorring in the front, the old man said, “God ’elp ’em.”
63
Barker and John raced up to the red brick gatehouse, almost ramming straight into the wrought iron gate underneath the tunnel. Barker began smashing the horn heavily with his fist until a large man came out and walked up to his window. It was already down, Barker’s hand stuck out of it, holding his police identification.
“And what?” the guy said. “I’m supposed to just let you in because you’re a cop?”
“Exactly that,” Barker snarled at him, turning his eyes on the man. “Exactly that.”
“Is Mr. Jordon expecting you?”
“Nope.”
“Then what right have you to come in here? I mean, you haven’t even told me why you’re here.”
“We need to speak to Mr. Jordon as a matter of
urgency. We have reason to believe that one of his employees has committed a crime.”
“Mr. Jordon’s got loads of employees. Thousands of them. He’s not responsible for what they get up to.”
“He is when they’re getting up to things he’s told them to get up to. Now either you open this gate or I ram it.”
The guy at the window frowned.
“I’ll call them at the house,” he said. “Wait here.”
The man stepped through the open door of the gatehouse. There was a phone hanging on the wall beside it. He picked it up, placed it to his ear and began speaking, staring at Barker while he did. His voice was hushed, but the detective could still make out what he said.
“Some Detective Barker here,” he said. A short silence. “Reckons one of your employees has been up to no good.” Another pause. “No, I didn’t.” He placed the phone to his chest and poked his head out of the doorway. “What employee?” he asked Barker.
“Brian Conway,” the detective said.
Barker observed that the color left the man’s cheeks. He went back to the telephone and repeated the name. He waited. Words were said. Then he nodded. “Okay, sir,” he grunted obediently. “Okay.”
He placed the phone down and stepped out.
“Mr. Jordon’s a busy man,” he said. “But you’re in luck. He’ll see you.”
The gate opened. Barker slipped the car into gear and was heavy with the clutch so that it leaped forward and the tires spun on the shingle. As he sped down the driveway past manicured lawns and tennis courts, he glanced sideways at John. The sick man was practically sleeping, wedged against the door with his eyes closed.
“You still with me, old mate?” Barker asked him.
“Yeah,” John said, opening his bloodshot eyes. “I’m still here.”
He stared out the windscreen at the manor as it loomed into view. Barker skidded to a stop in the shingle and got out of the car. Then he went around it and helped John out. When his frail body was standing, he held onto the top of the car for a few seconds until his dizziness passed. Then the two of them went through the open door of the place into a large hallway. From the shadow of a doorway at the far end of the room, a wheelchair rolled towards them. Sitting in it was an old man with a pink skull. He reached them and held out a bony hand.
