by Helen Fields
‘Hand’ll do,’ King replied, popping the door open. She was close enough to a match for Jayne that he wouldn’t risk driving around any more. She hesitated. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked.
‘The light’s not working in your car. Why’s that?’ She took a step away from the Saab, more spooked than he’d expected. It was only a precaution but one he’d had to take. He didn’t want onlookers seeing his face and had taken the bulb out before setting off.
‘The bulb’s blown,’ he said, ‘and the rain’s getting in. Would you just hurry up?’
She stared into the darkness of the car as if trying to see him better then slammed the door.
‘I think I’ll take a pass tonight, pal. You’d best go home.’
King thumped the steering wheel. Stupid fucking whore. He didn’t have time to play games. With a deep breath he willed himself calm and called after her.
‘I’ll pay double, all right? Just for a hand job. Sixty quid. Come back!’
‘I don’t think so,’ she shouted over her shoulder, walking away. ‘Something’s not right wi’ you.’
That was when the man walked out of the shadows, pulling her by the arm of her coat, marching her back to King’s car.
‘You pay sixty, right? Just fingers and palm, no extras. Money up front.’ He held a hand through King’s window, who fumbled in his wallet while the pimp issued a series of reprimands to the unwilling prostitute.
King passed him the money, keeping his face well back and deepening his voice.
‘Here you go.’ He handed over three twenties. It was proving to be an expensive night. The pimp, who King decided from his accent was Romanian, pushed her into the car.
‘I want you back in half an hour. Stay out of the pubs,’ the pimp told her.
‘Yeah, bollocks to you,’ she whispered under her breath once King had put the car in gear and she was beyond the pimp’s reach. ‘Turn right up there, I know somewhere close by we can stop, assuming you want to do it in your car. It’s a bit cold for outside tonight.’
‘The car will be fine,’ he said, following her directions until they reached a suitable place. He waited until she was busy undoing his zip before reaching into his coat pocket, opening the ziplock plastic bag and taking out a rag.
‘You came properly prepared,’ she joked. ‘Judging by how much work I’ve got to do down here, you won’t be needing your hankie for a while.’
As she cackled at her own hilarity, King slammed the cloth over her mouth and nose, pressing relentlessly backwards into the headrest. In the footwell, her legs did a jig worthy of an Irish dancer as her hands flailed uselessly around, intermittently attempting to pull away the cloth and scratch King’s hands. At the end, she was reduced to a juddering, twitching wreck, slumping slowly downwards in the seat until her chin came to land on her chest.
‘Laugh at that,’ King said, punching the side of her face so hard he heard the vertebrae in her neck protest. She was still very much alive though and in need of more long-term sedation than chloroform could offer. He tied and gagged her, pushed her onto the back seat and covered her with a blanket.
By the time he was hauling her body, shoved into an enormous sack, up the hidden staircase behind the cellar wall, he was tired. Really, deeply tired. His muscles ached, his head was thumping and a knot of pain was rolling over like a spit roast in his stomach. He needed food and sleep.
‘No rest for the wicked,’ he said, as he unlocked the door. ‘Quite literally, you’ll probably think. This wasn’t my doing though. If that policeman hadn’t insisted on hunting Jayne down, the chances are it wouldn’t have been you. You’re too old and heavy to be Jayne. At least I can do something about the fleshy parts. Let’s see what else you have to tell me.’
Elaine and Jayne were exactly as he’d left them. ‘Aren’t you two a sight for sore eyes,’ he said breezily as he dragged the sack into the middle of the room and dumped its contents in a slowly stirring, dazed heap. The women were watching anxiously. He knew what they were thinking. Were they to be replaced? Was this someone new, better than them, making them surplus to his requirements? He was tempted to play it out like that for a while, to see how they would try to impress him and keep their places. Jayne, however, had decided it was time to talk. He braced himself for yet more pleading.
‘Who’s that?’ she asked. She was quiet today, almost at ease. He’d been charting her moods, following the pattern of them. Having passed through fear, disbelief and anger in rapid succession, Jayne was proving much tougher than Elaine.
‘Your body double,’ he said. ‘I’ve brought this woman to save your life.’ He grabbed a handful of hair and pulled the woman’s head back to reveal her face. It wasn’t pretty, not with the bruises, but then it wasn’t pretty before that either. ‘Don’t judge her too harshly,’ he told Jayne. ‘I’m sure there’s some explanation for how she ended up like this. I’m betting she could tell some tales, if only we had the time. But where are my manners? How was your evening?’
Jayne frowned. He didn’t like it when she did that. It reminded him of Natasha.
‘We’ve been chained into these chairs all day, with only one hand free and hospital bottles to pass water. It makes it difficult to have a good day,’ Jayne replied.
‘More freedom in time, when you’ve shown you can be good. Elaine, how are the dentures?’ King clicked a finger in front of Elaine’s face. She opened her mouth immediately and obligingly. ‘A little sore, but that’s to be expected. Medicated mouthwash will help. I hope you two have been keeping yourselves occupied.’ He inspected the chess board between them, placed there to help pass the time and stimulate their minds. It had belonged to his parents, as did practically everything in the house, but this was an object they had loved. He would often come home from school to find either his mother or father playing chess with Eleanor. His sister was being home educated, an easy decision as his father was a science writer and his mother a full-time homemaker. No school was adequately equipped to maximise her potential, that’s what his mother had said. Reginald attended the local school and had missed out on the regular afternoon family chess tournaments. It was only after Eleanor died that his father found the time to teach him how to play. It had taken a while, but he’d become a player of some quality. His father had not been shy in drumming strategy into him. Chess was allowed only in recreation time, after homework and testing. Recreation time had been the part of the day King looked forward to most.
Elaine was in dire need of some recreation now. She spent her whole time with her head bowed, barely communicating. The chess pieces were untouched but the food and drink he’d left had been consumed.
‘And how was your day?’ Jayne asked. That made Elaine look up, open mouthed, comically aghast.
King tried to answer, had to think about it, stuttered and started again.
‘It was difficult, thank you for asking. I’m tired, actually.’
Jayne nodded, an expression that looked oddly like sympathy on her face.
‘Why don’t you go and get some sleep. If you’ll let me up from the chair I can look after the girl. Save you some work.’
For a moment he was tempted. It would be so easy. He wanted his bed desperately. It was the stress of having to deal with the pimp, he thought. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to have happened. Someone had been close to him, had heard his voice. And all for Jayne Magee. It was only right that she did some work to thank him for his efforts. Sadly, it was a trick. All women deceived through softness, sucking you in with sweet lies. She didn’t want to help him at all. And yet he wished, he wished so much that she could be trusted. King hardened his heart and accepted his fate. He could either be teacher or friend, but he couldn’t be both.
‘I’d have appreciated the offer, had it been meant to help me. But it wasn’t, Reverend, and I don’t appreciate a woman of your qualifications and moral substance being duplicitous. Undoubtedly you would like to help this girl but let’s not pretend your offer is
to benefit me.’
‘He’s going to kill her,’ Elaine muttered. ‘There’s nothing you can do. Just don’t watch. I can’t watch again.’ She was shaking so hard that the cuffs around her ankles were cutting into her skin. Jayne reached across the table and held Elaine’s hand until the shaking lessened. It was a fascinating lesson in the strengths and frailties of the human mind that the two women had responded to their situation so differently. King considered writing a paper on it. An insider’s view that would, like himself, be entirely unique.
‘Is Elaine right?’ Jayne asked calmly. ‘Were you planning to kill that woman?’
The self-righteous Reverend’s use of the past tense irritated him, as if she was so convinced she’d be able to talk him out of it that she didn’t need to address the situation in the present.
‘She hardly belongs with you and Elaine, does she?’ he snapped. ‘A street whore, staying with a respected lawyer and an eminent theologian. It would be an insult to you both.’
Jayne let go of Elaine’s hand and leaned back in her chair, taking her time. It occurred to King that this was what he’d dreamed of – proper debate, a meeting of minds – but she was altogether too assured in her opinions. She seemed convinced of her own standpoint. Where was her desire to listen to his?
‘We none of us know what any other human being is capable of or what they have to offer. You can’t judge a person by their looks or what they do for a living. Should we not speak to her first, find out more? We might be surprised.’
‘How you live is evidence of who you are. Doesn’t the church teach us that our behaviour is what we’ll be judged by?’ King said.
‘And what of yours?’ Jayne asked, voice no more than a whisper, face revealing only gravity and curiosity. If there had been so much as a hint of insolence about it he’d have enjoyed what he was about to do an awful lot more.
‘I’m not a religious man,’ King said. ‘I’m a believer in science, facts and education. There’s nothing you can say to dissuade me from this course although I appreciate you trying.’
He took an electric razor from the satchel he’d had slung over his back and placed it on the floor next to the woman’s body. She was trying to sit upright, clumsily and unsuccessfully, her feet sliding around on the floor, betrayed by legs that still hadn’t regained muscular control. As he removed her foul clothing, armed with a plastic apron, rubber gloves and a bin bag, Elaine began an irritatingly pitched keening noise like a dog left alone too long.
‘Can we not talk about this?’ Jayne asked.
‘No, we can’t,’ King sniped. ‘I don’t want to talk any more. I have to go to work in the morning and I need some sleep. I suggest you concentrate on shutting her up before I’m forced to do so myself.’ He swung his head in Elaine’s direction, not wanting to look at her, knowing she’d be drooling and rocking again. Jayne’s chair scraped the floor and King knew she was comforting the lost soul beside her. As hideous as Elaine was proving to be, he felt a spike of annoyance at Jayne’s own apparent lack of fear. ‘Well, that won’t last long,’ he said.
‘Sorry? I didn’t catch that,’ Jayne said.
King shoved the last of the woman’s clothes into the bin bag and tossed it towards the door.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t talking to you.’
‘Then who were you talking to?’ she asked innocently. He’d had enough of being patronised. A degree from Oxford University and praise from the popular press didn’t make her superior. Yet here she was addressing him as if he was an errant member of her congregation.
‘It’s important that you watch,’ King said, straightening out the woman’s body.
He began to shave the hair roughly from the woman’s scalp. That was when she finally snapped back into full consciousness.
Hands tied behind her back and ankles bound together, she began struggling like a giant pink earthworm, thrashing back and forwards, getting nowhere, slipping on the floor. The gag in her mouth made her sound drunk, but she got her meaning across.
‘Aw, fuck-shite. I fuckin’ knew there was somethin’ bad about you. Let me go, you bastard. Let go of my fuckin’ hair.’ She struggled harder. King sat on the floor behind her head, gripping her skull between his knees as he sheared off the remaining strands. Jayne was talking but he couldn’t hear the words. If she wanted his attention, she’d have to break free of that supercilious reserve and scream. Once the scalp was completely hairless he noted with some gratification that Jayne wasn’t looking quite so calm.
‘What’s your name?’ Jayne asked the writhing body on the floor.
‘Grace,’ she said. King began to laugh. It was a mean laugh and he knew it. It sounded the way boys used to laugh at him in the playground. It was hard, mirthless, designed to disorient and humiliate. He laughed harder and harder.
‘Grace?’ he spat through his tears. ‘Grace! Oh the misplaced optimism of your parents. If only they could see you, sucking men’s parts for pennies, disease ridden and stinking.’
‘My parents are dead,’ Grace howled through the gag.
‘Amen to that,’ King said. ‘At least they’ve been spared some humiliation.’
‘Stop it,’ Jayne said. King stopped. ‘You’re being cruel.’
Dr King looked at the monster he’d brought into his house. Jayne Magee was just as bad as Natasha, lording it over him, condescending.
‘You stop me,’ he whispered low into her face. He strode towards a drawer, unlocked it with shaking hands, selected a pair of pliers then turned back to Grace.
‘Open wide,’ he said, retaking his seat at Grace’s head, tugging away the gag and forcing a piece of wood like a miniature plank sideways into her mouth as she screamed. As he closed the pliers on the left central incisor in her lower jaw, he began to sing. ‘Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.’ Grace was gagging, either from the wood in her mouth or from fear and pain, not that the cause really mattered. It was a blessed relief to sing and drown out the noise. He raised his own volume. ‘I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.’
As he paused for breath between verses, Jayne raised her voice enough to be heard above Grace’s animal groans and mewling.
‘What is it you want?’ she shouted. ‘Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it.’ The incisor came out with a soundless spurt of blood, sending Grace’s eyes rolling upwards as she fainted. King dropped the yellowed pellet into a glass, wiped the blood from her lower jaw – it was a messy business unfortunately – and took a grip of the next tooth in line.
‘’Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear …’ On Grace’s name he gave a tremendous wrench with the pliers, bringing her back from painless stupefaction into consciousness once more. ‘And Grace, my fears relieved.’ He pulled again and she thrashed her legs against the floor. Elaine was banging her head against the table in front of her and Jayne was yelling at him as he crooned. They made quite the alternative band, he thought. ‘How precious did that Grace appear, the hour I first believed.’
Another tooth in the glass, blood washing the floor boards, King sensing his own loss of control as he adjusted his position and gripped harder with the pliers to get proper purchase on the tricky lower-left cuspid.
‘Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come.’ He had to twist the pliers this time and the effort was sending his voice off key. He coughed and was about to start the verse again when Jayne screeched at him.
‘Play chess for her. If I win, you leave her alone. If you win, then … you wanted me to learn. I’d love to see how you strategise. I’m sure you can teach me some new moves. Please?’
Dr King continued working the tooth but jiggled it more gently as he considered the challenge. ‘All right,’ he said, setting the pliers down. ‘But I’m tired, mind. I may not be at my best.’ He wiped his hands. It wouldn’t do to get the chess pieces bloody. There were some things in life that one had to respect. Leaving Grace’s hands and feet boun
d, and stuffing his handkerchief into her mouth for the sake of a quiet atmosphere, he pulled the sack back over her upper body. Distractions were unacceptable whilst playing chess. ‘’Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far,’ he sang as he released Elaine from the chair opposite Jayne’s and carried her to the bed. She rolled face down and lay unmoving. ‘… And Grace will lead me home.’
Chapter Fifteen
Another baby had been left in the same park and the media was obsessed. This infant, though, whether tougher or luckier than the other two, or because the mother had not really wanted it to die after all, had been so well wrapped up that it had survived until a passing dog walker had found him.
DCI Begbie was in conference with Ava when Callanach went to see how the investigation was progressing. It was late. By rights no one should be at work, surviving on petrol station sandwiches and carbonated drinks, at four in the morning. Still, there was no point going home. Sleep had gone missing from his life at the same time Jayne Magee had disappeared from hers. He went back to his own office and texted Ava to join him for coffee once her debrief with the Chief had finished. Half an hour later she appeared.
‘You know you can’t carry on working twenty-four hours a day, right?’ she asked.
‘Hypocrite,’ he said. ‘What’s the news?’
‘The baby’s going to survive. He’s dehydrated but hadn’t been outside very long. Same blanket again so they’re all linked.’
‘No one’s reported him missing?’ Callanach asked.
‘No, but there is something. Forensics say there was some blood clotted and dried in a fold of flesh under his arm. The paediatrician doesn’t think it’s from the baby.’
‘From the mother?’ he said.
‘That’s the hypothesis. Results may be a couple of days, even pushing it through the labs urgently. The issue is how these women are meeting one another. There’s been no contact from any GP, midwife, health visitor or other professional saying they’re concerned about a baby who hasn’t attended for follow-up checks.’
