Isolation

by Jenni Regan

  Isolation

  Will she make it out alive?

  Jenni Regan

  Bella Publishing

  Tom

  5 November 2018, 6 p.m.

  The house was illuminated by flashing lights, turning the quiet driveway into a Vegas Strip of sorts. It was bonfire night, and every so often the sight and sound of colourful explosions would shatter the scene, but in this spot, the lights were provided by the persistent flashing lights of emergency workers, not the flashes of colour in the sky that drew gasps of wonder. It was hard to work out who was doing what, although Tom was sure it was a well-oiled machine. He knew the ambulance was there for the living, but he also guessed that the police's main job at that moment was to deal with the dead.

  He had never felt so useless, so impotent, knowing he couldn't take a step into the house that had once been the centre of his universe but which now held many horrors. He longed to take some kind of action, but all he could do was stand with the rest of the bystanders who had turned up to watch this ghoulish spectacle. He looked over at his sister, Rachel; she looked as white as a sheet. He knew she would have similar thoughts, although he now knew the house had been full of terror for her long before any of this happened.

  The unkempt look of the house and the garden strewn with rubbish caught on dead plants only added to the appearance of a house of horror.

  Suddenly he noticed a flurry of activity as radios alerted various officers to a discovery. He turned to the friendly cop who had been standing with them for most of the afternoon sharing cups of tea and tips for visiting NYC.

  'Can you tell me what happened? Have they found something?' he urged.

  The cop’s whole demeanour had changed. 'Sorry, sir, but someone will come and talk to you as soon as we have more clarity on the incident. I know it's hard, but you need to be patient.' This was like asking a starving dog to not eat the bowl of food in front of him.

  Tom paced while checking online to see if anyone had leaked anything to social media, knowing the journalists standing around probably had contacts in the force. As he paced, he couldn't even meet Rachel's eye. At the moment that they should really pull together, they found themselves wrenched apart again, each caught up in their own private hell of imagining what the search had uncovered and just what on earth had taken place in the home.

  Eventually, after what felt like hours, he saw one of the big bosses striding towards them. Considering the way others almost parted to let her through, this woman was obviously high up in the ranks. Instead of a black-and-white uniform, she was wearing a shocking-pink coat, which clashed with her bright-red hair.

  Without waiting for her to reach him, Tom rushed straight over. ‘What have they found?’ he demanded.

  She ignored his urgency and put out her hand to introduce herself. ‘Mr Carmicheal, I am DCI Kingsley and have been brought in by the CID to lead this investigation. I’m afraid we don’t have a full picture yet, but it appears the team has found something of interest: some remains. We will, of course, keep you updated.’

  With this, the whole thing stepped up a notch. New cars arrived and people dressed in white suits and hairnets stepped out. Some police officers came out of the house, most looking quite traumatised, and they did a tag team with the men and women in white suits. A young officer put tape near the front gate to show that this was now officially a crime scene. Tom had seen all of this before—not in person but more as a show-and-tell in court where the crime and the victim were just names instead of someone close to him.

  Someone produced some hot, sweet tea from somewhere and took Rachel and Tom to sit on the edge of the ambulance. The presence of this lifesaving vehicle now seemed ironic since whoever they had found was in no need of any medical help.

  Eventually another woman came to speak to them. She introduced herself as the family liaison officer and said she was there to bridge the gap between them and the police. Rachel practically jumped on her, asking a hundred questions, most of which the lady couldn’t answer yet.

  ‘Let me have a word with the guys over there,’ the lady finally said, ‘and see what they have found out and what I can tell you. Give me a minute.’ She walked away with purpose.

  Time felt as though it had slowed almost to a stop. The five minutes that she was gone felt like five hours. She eventually returned with DCI Kingsley who looked almost annoyed that she was being taken away from the real work.

  ‘Listen,’ Kingsley said, ‘I am going to send you both away soon because we need to excavate what has been found and we don’t believe you should see any of that. I know you want to find out more, and I promise that I will do my best to tell you what we have so far.’

  She paused and became less business-like. Softer.

  'The team has unfortunately found what we believe to be human remains in the basement. They are partly decomposed, meaning it is impossible for us to tell at the moment who they might belong to or how they died.'

  ‘So, how long before you can tell us who it is or what happened?’ asked Rachel desperately.

  ‘It could take days, as we will have to run a lot of tests, but we will try to get you some answers as soon as possible. I know this is the last thing you want to hear, and I’m sorry to be the bearer of such news. We will ensure that you get all the support you need in the meantime.’

  Tom felt sick. There were so many horrific possibilities flying through his mind. Still, if he kept wishing and praying, even with his hardcore atheism, then maybe, just maybe, the body in there wouldn't belong to Alice.

  An image flashed into his mind of Alice being smashed over the head with a hammer or strangled with a rope, and his body could no longer hide its disgust and he was sick all over the withered plants.

  Rachel

  5 November 2018, 11 a.m. (Earlier that day)

  The wakeup call had come early—it had still been dark outside—but Rachel had already been awake. In fact, she hadn’t really slept. All night she had felt so helpless. Dark, twisted shadows had crept into the hotel room, snatching her from her dreams and forcing her to wake up as soon as she drifted off even for a minute.

  She got dressed quickly and met Tom downstairs. He was knocking back a coffee, and he handed a cup to her. Neither could even think of eating. The smell from the buffet was sickening rather than enticing this time round. The police had called to say they would gain entrance to the house today. That was the last place that Alice’s phone had given off a signal—the family house, the home that had once housed Rachel and Tom.

  The pair drove over to the house and could almost hear the gossip escaping from every home, school and shop as they drove through the suburbs. Rachel gasped in horror when they arrived. There were at least three police cars, an ambulance and what looked like people in riot gear. What did they expect to find?

  The woman they had spoken to on the phone came over to introduce herself. She was cheery but straight-talking. ‘Now this might look like an overreaction to a disappearance, but in this day and age, we don’t know what to expect.’

  Rachel noticed officers were walking around the house, just as she and Tom had, looking for an easy way in. They had already knocked and rung at the door, and they had even tried to shout through the letter box only to find that it had been taped up.

  Another officer was looking through the windows and knocking on them. He didn’t seem to find anything worth reporting back. The panes of glass looked dusty and smudged.

  ‘Has that piece of shit you have in custody told you anything useful?’ Tom asked the woman.

  ‘No, not really. He admits that he and Alice were sexual partners but insists that the last time he saw her was months ago. We are still holding him, though, so please feel reassured that if he has anything to do with this, whatever it is
, we will investigate it fully.'

  ‘I don’t suppose he told you he abused her on film and shared the film for every pervert around the world to see, did he?’

  Rachel gasped; she hadn’t known the details.

  ‘Thank you for bringing that to our attention. It is truly horrific. It appears that he has been profiting from a lot of young girls. Thanks to the information you provided, we will be inspecting his growing business empire. You understand it may be hard to prove that these girls haven’t consented, but if we find out that any of them are underage, then we will throw the book at him.’

  'And what about his fondness for the more extreme ends of the scale? My IT contact told me he had found evidence of snuff movies being made and sold on the dark web. Are you also looking into this?'

  'To be honest, we have never discovered a murder carried out in this way in the UK and have every reason to believe those kinds of films are really just an urban myth—at least in this country. But we will, of course, be investigating fully.'

  'But how do you know?’ Rachel asked. ‘There must be plenty of women that go missing every year—prostitutes, drug addicts, women who are sold into modern slavery.' Rachel wondered if this wasn't being considered because this was taking place in the sleepy Dorset countryside rather than a big city.

  'We will leave no stone unturned with this young man. Please don't worry.' The female officer appeared to be shutting the conversation down. Rachel guessed they wanted to focus on the here and now and not some hearsay from one of Tom's contacts. She noticed the group of police were regrouping, and the woman was called over.

  ‘Sorry, I have to go. Looks like we will have to resort to Plan B. The house is like Fort Knox. On the plus side, that would have made it very hard for any perpetrator to gain entry.’

  Yes, but what good is a security system when evil is invited in rather than breaking in, Rachel thought. She was about to ask what Plan B was when she saw two officers appear with what looked like a battering ram. Upon seeing them, Rachel burst into tears; up to that point, they could all just pretend that it was a wild goose chase, but it was suddenly so real. They don’t go smashing down doors unless they are expecting to find something bad inside.

  She watched through her hands as a group of officers ran towards the front door. Each time they crashed the battering ram into the door, she could hear a crack that made her wince. Finally, with an almighty bang, the door fell as gracefully as an oak tree. They were in.

  Alice

  I didn't always post pictures of my food—I wasn't one of those Instagram wankers who would carefully style every morsel, watching the salad wilt and the eggs go cold while getting the perfect shot—but a well-presented dish could always guarantee a few likes. Likewise, people apparently liked to hear about my dreams and what I thought of last night's TV. This is why I usually found myself eating with one hand, phone in the other.

  Of course, I would rarely share what was really on my plate; clean eating was all the rage, after all, unless I had been out the night before and was nursing a hangover. There were so many hashtags involved in hangover-style fry ups, it was too good an opportunity to miss.

  This was how I had first met Stan. He had liked and commented on a particularly beautiful eggs benedict I had posted up following a wild all-nighter in a club. I had been wary when I looked at his feed—full of cars he obviously couldn't afford and stupid memes about smoking weed—but he was undoubtedly a looker, and within a few days of him complimenting my every move and look, I was hooked.

  He loved the idea of having a girlfriend who was also an airhostess, and I loved to tell him about all the places I visited, tagging him in posts about beaches and bars and privately sending him pictures of my boobs. It was the latter that he was a bit obsessed with, always begging for me to send pictures. Often, I couldn't be bothered, so I picked a few randoms from Google with similar skin tones in a bid to keep him satisfied. He seemed more than happy to show me his; indeed, most messages would involve either a dick pic or a few well-placed aubergine emoticons. My gran had always said that boys were obsessed with their bits, and Stan was a perfect example.

  Of course, there were other men who messaged me wanting to hook up, and with the world at your fingertips, there is no need to stick to just the one, but Stan was special somehow. He was so attentive, he made me feel like a princess. In fact, he was the most charming man I knew.

  Tom

  4 November 2018, 2 p.m. (The day before)

  Rachel realised almost immediately that it was her daughter in the film, even though it had been years since she had laid eyes on her.

  She turned to her brother. 'It's the same bloody curtains! I mean, they must be rotting by now. It's Alice, isn't it?'

  'We don't know for sure,' Tom said, trying to reassure her.

  'Well, I know. I know because it was me in that room, staring out night after night, trying to count the number of blue flowers on each curtain or making up little characters for each of the flowers . . . anything to take me away from the horror of the situation.'

  ‘Rach, I will have to watch this, you know. We need to know if it holds any clues.’

  Tom turned the screen to face him and punched in his credit card, sickened that he was now apparently supporting this lowlife scum financially. His eyes were drawn to some comments below. Some were commenting how bigger was better, but others were abusing the woman in the film and calling her a pig.

  He felt even more sick as he pressed play. He could immediately hear the monster’s voice telling her what she should be doing. Tom realised very early on that this was not something Alice had done before, willingly or not. There was pain and confusion in her eyes, and she was constantly trying to hide her body. Scared of what might be coming next, Tom stopped the film and quickly closed down the site.

  He walked off quickly, and Rachel went to the bar for a couple of medicinal brandies. When Tom returned smelling of smoke, he grabbed his drink greedily and drank it down in one shot.

  ‘I haven’t had a smoke for about ten years, you know, but it really is that kind of day.’

  ‘So, it’s bad then? Do you think I should watch it?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘No need, Rach. It is probably what you imagine: girl being taken advantage of and filmed by a disgusting sexual predator.’

  'But it doesn't explain what has happened to her. After all, he is obviously making a few quid out of this film, so why would he harm her?'

  Tom silently typed a site into his phone and held it up for Rachel. She read it, puzzled.

  'What the fuck is this? Some kind of sick joke?'

  'No, and I didn't want you to know about this at all, but one of my colleagues in the New York office has been digging for me. I don't know if you are aware of the dark web, but it is the horrid side of the internet. You can get all sorts on there. Guns, drugs, sex.'

  Rachel nodded. 'So, what is this? Some kind of sick fantasy porn?'

  'Well, no. Sadly, he says there is evidence that some of the women being abused and killed in these videos are actually murdered; it is not just some badly directed slasher movie. Apparently, they are a growing thing in other parts of Europe, but more dubious porn peddlers have got into them in this country.'

  'So does this Stan have links?'

  'Not that I have found yet but look at the stuff he sells.' He flashed her the site. 'It is all disgusting, and look at that car he was driving when we met him. That wasn't bought with the profits of a few soft-focus movies.'

  'So, you think this Stan man may have somehow used Mum's house as some kind of studio for his sick film? Shit, Tom, this all sounds so ridiculous.'

  'I know, and I hope I am wrong, but why else would Alice have disappeared off the face of the earth? And why the hell was she back in her gran's house when we know that she was living the dream life in Bournemouth?'

  Tom left Rachel at the bar and went off to make a phone call to a private detective who had come recommended by one of his more dubious leg
al clients. In many ways, he hoped the detective wouldn’t find what he was dreading to see, but it was clear they needed someone who was more useful than the actual police force.

  Alice

  I didn't just use my laptop for silliness and sexting. I loved the way I could keep in touch with hundreds of my friends with so little effort. No matter where I was in the world, I could share everything about my trip, down to the hotel view. My gran used to tell me that in her day the best anyone got was a postcard, which wasn't even a selfie but rather some random view highlighting whichever strange foreign country you were in. She used to have a few yellowing cards stuck to her fridge door from various friends. I used to find them fascinating as a child, as it gave a little glimpse of the world outside my sleepy hometown. Maybe it was this that inspired my love of travel. Sadly, I don't think my gran ever made it further than Torquay.

  I did feel guilty about that. At the time of her life when so many of her friends were off on cruises or taking up exciting hobbies, my gran was at home looking after me. While her friends were sharing photos and enjoying occasional days out with their grandchildren, she was feeding and clothing me every day, acting as good cop, bad cop, nurse and chef.

  The internet also meant you could be whoever you chose to be, and a few times a week I became Tania. Tania was thirty-seven, had three kids and came from Birmingham. She loved karaoke and holidays in Spain. Unlike my actual profile, Tania only had a handful of friends in contrast to the hundreds I had racked up.

  Logging on to Tania’s profile, I was excited to see that Rachel had been online only three minutes ago. This meant there was bound to be something fresh up there. I was rewarded by finding out that Rachel had to get the car fixed that morning. Pleased to see that no one had commented yet, I quickly liked the status and started thinking of a clever comment. As always, I had to try a few in my head before committing.