The Naked Room

by Diana Hockley

  A gentle breeze stirred the leaves of the branches like wind chimes, overhanging the pathway; the silky fronds flicked their cheeks. In the distance a dog howled, telling the night air of abandonment. An owl hooted and launched itself from a branch which arched overhead, a great feathered kite gliding on its hunt for prey. Small animals scurried for cover.

  The outline of the access door at the end the building was just visible. Shadows cast by the surrounding trees made it hard to judge the height, as they struggled to lean the top of the ladder against the wall. It clattered and bounced on the timber before the ends wedged safely under the slats. The noise echoed around the countryside. They held their breath, waiting for someone to burst out of the flat.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘You got everything?’ asked James, softly.

  ‘Yep. Jemmy, torch and screwdriver.’

  ‘Remember, we only need to look inside. Any sign of someone being held, get back the way you came and I’ll text Eloise to ring the police regardless of what the bastards threatened. If I’m mistaken and there’s no one, or only a girlfriend of Angelo’s, come down by the stairs. The old man’s still in the flat. He’s quite deaf, but we’ve got to hurry.’

  ‘Ms Carpenter won’t come after us, will she?’ asked Brie.

  ‘No, I made her promise she’d stay at the house. If anything does happen, I want her safely out of it.’

  Brie nodded, stuffed the torch into his shirt and tucked the iron bar in his belt where it swung awkwardly over his hip like a medieval sword. Cursing, he hitched it around against his back and checked his mobile was on vibrate.

  ‘Okay. I’ll text you if it’s clear.’

  James held the ladder while Brie climbed to the top, braced against the wall and began to work on the rusty bolt on the access door. He dragged the jemmy out of his belt, hooked it under the end and wrenched. The bolt squeaked as he jerked backward and forward, then shot back with a sound like a gun shot. He remained motionless, waiting for a response from the staff quarters. When there was no reaction he opened the door.

  The cavity between the rafters and the roof loomed black and menacing. Some ten metres ahead, according to the building plan, a narrow, metre-long ladder would be bolted to the wall of the tower room, giving access to its ceiling. Brie turned his face to the side, trying not to suck air as he waited for the first blast of mouse stink to disperse.

  ‘I’ll start now,’ James called up to him softly. Brie nodded, took the torch out of his shirt and switched it on, aiming into the blackness ahead. Beady eyes glowed and then vanished. He tried not to think about interrupting a carpet snake in the middle of a hunting expedition.

  Scrambling across rafters whilst holding the light was not a normal activity for a classical musician, but he was young and fit. Fresh air wafted through the open access door behind him. Sweat trickled down his face, his hands stung from the rough splintered edges of the rafters and his knees burned. He crawled as fast as he could toward the ladder leading to the tower roof, where the atmosphere was thick with the stench of decay.

  June Esposito’s friends would have been horrified if they realised what kind of entertainment the apparently kindly, middle-aged housekeeper and card fanatic was planning for later that night. She was known and much admired as the Demon Queen of Five Hundred, the envy of the fanatical card club with whom she spent three evenings a week.

  She had switched the ring-tone of her mobile phone to vibrate in order not to disturb the game but, absorbed in the current hand, she hadn’t felt the text message arriving: changed mnd cmg home ar 10 min.

  Her eyes gleamed with excitement, spectacles glinting in the firelight as she contemplated a perfect hand: King, Queen, Ace, Joker and a run of Diamonds. How lucky could you be? They were only playing for dollar coins, but it didn’t matter. She had almost a million dollars already.

  James slipped into the shadows and worked his way slowly along the side of the building, a tyre lever tightly in his right hand, a torch in his left. A figure came around the side of the house and disappeared quickly through the door at the bottom of the stairs leading to the storeroom overhead. James halted, hardly daring to breathe. It moved so fast that he had almost missed it. He took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the weapon.

  He started forward, only to duck down beside a large, wooden keg filled with flowers as a car slid through the back gate and stopped behind the house. The headlights went out and a car door clunked, followed by the crunch of footsteps on the gravel. A flash of colour from the television, a short burst of sound and a neatly-dressed man with something strange on his head stepped into the house, closing the front door behind him. James sent a text warning Brie of the arrival and waited to make sure the stranger stayed inside.

  Brie crouched beside the bottom of the short ladder which led to the access door above the tower room ceiling. A scream came from somewhere underneath, high and urgent like the cry of a small animal. His heart pounded, rage surged through him. A woman was in danger.

  He jammed the torch between his shoulder and neck and reached to shove hard against the access door. At first it didn’t give, then creaked inward. Another blast of foetid air hit him. Ignoring it, he stuffed the torch back in his shirt, scrambled up the ladder, squeezed through the aperture and fell in a heap next to the manhole in the ceiling of the tower room.

  Underneath the ceiling a man laughed, followed by the sound of a fist thudding into flesh. A woman shouted and another bark of laughter followed. James’s plan flew out of Brie’s mind; he didn’t feel the vibration of his mobile phone as the text message arrived.

  A large box covered half the manhole. He yanked it away, over-balanced and fell back. The edges of the rafters bit into his spine. A thin shriek came from the room below. He dragged himself up and lunged forward, scrambling for a handle on the cover. Wresting the screwdriver out of his pocket, he dug it into the crack at the edge of the cover fighting for leverage, hooked it under the timber and wrenched the hatch up. In one fluid motion he flipped it back and dropped feet-first into the gap.

  His legs crumpled as he crashed to the floor, his right ankle twisting. For an instance he was winded, but oblivious to pain, he pushed himself up in one swift movement. It was then he realised he had left the jemmy in the ceiling. A huge torch lay on the floor, its beam lighting up a man who was crouched over something against the wall. For a second they stared at each other in shock, before the other bared his teeth like a wild animal and leapt.

  Brie dodged, his assailant sailed past to land on his knees. The man scrambled for something on the floor, then sprang up and lunged back at him.

  A blade flashed.

  Brie leapt aside again and kicked out, catching his adversary on the thigh but lost his balance and toppled over, upending a metal stretcher.

  A muffled scream came from underneath.

  As he tried to get to his feet, his assailant leapt on him. They rolled across the room, gouging, punching and clawing.

  Brie was fighting for his life.

  As James reached the entrance door leading to the stairs, he heard the high-pitched squeal come from somewhere directly above, followed by a man’s laugh.

  He paused for a moment, listening. A muffled shout came, followed by a crash and sounds of a fight. He stumbled up the stairs, tripped on the top step and went down on one knee, trying to keep a grip on the tyre lever. The torch rolled out of his other hand and bounced. He groped on the floor and found it just in time to turn the beam onto a man hurtling up the stairs behind him, face twisted with menace.

  Using the lever and torch like epées, James kept the new arrival at bay. His assailant’s arms threshed wildly, as he tried to get close enough to attack. James smacked the metal tyre lever into his face. With a muffled howl, the man fell down the stairs, cannoning into another halfway up.

  As both men rolled to the bottom, James turned back to the door, dropped the torch and tried to wrench it open.

  It was locked.

/>   He thrust the tyre lever into the crack between the jamb and the edge, jerking it from side to side, trying to spring the door open.

  The wood cracked.

  The sounds inside the room escalated, as bodies crashed into the walls and hit the floor.

  The door started to give way, then suddenly crashed outward, almost knocking him off balance. He leapt aside, then dived into the dimly-lit room, slipped and fell heavily onto his side. A torch on the floor spun around, its beam flashing in turn on the up-turned stretcher, a porta potti lying on its side and the legs of the combatants. Locked in mortal combat, the struggling figures staggered and lurched to the centre of the room.

  As James tried to get to his feet, the world exploded with a deafening roar, and he was showered with blood.

  CHAPTER 44

  After Dark

  Detective Senior Sergeant Susan Prescott

  Saturday: 7.55pm.

  Something smashed in the buildings beyond the perimeter of the estate. The night was split asunder by the blast from a shotgun. For a shocked moment, the countryside forgot to breathe.

  ‘Go, go!’ I shouted.

  Evan and Ben ran, followed by two of our team with guns drawn. I raced beside them, trying to keep the beam of light from my torch on uneven ground. The target looked a hundred miles away.

  We grouped outside the entrance to the building, waiting to see if anyone came out.

  Nothing happened.

  We started up the stairs, flattening ourselves against the walls. The stench of gun powder, fresh blood and faeces was overwhelming.

  Nothing stirred.

  ‘Someone turn a light on!’ screamed one of my team from the top of the stairs. Evan fumbled around until he found the switch on the wall outside the door. Light flooded the room, revealing bodies strewn on the floor, with two men standing, dazed, one holding a shotgun. The team shouted, ‘Drop it! Get down! Down! On your face! Hands behind your backs!’

  ‘Jees-us, get an ambulance!’ Ben’s voice cracked with panic.

  I sent out the call and squeezed through the doorway into a small room. Three dishevelled, blood-spattered men knelt on the floor. One was an old, grey-haired man, the other square-headed Tommy Esposito. The third prisoner was Ally Carpenter’s father, whom they released on my identification.

  Two blood-splattered bodies lay in a heap in the corner of the room amid debris leaking from an upturned porta-potti. Sheets of blood-spattered and what was probably urine-soaked newspaper were scattered on the floor. My team whipped out surgical gloves and pulled them on. An officer carefully picked up the shotgun, put the safety catch on and bagged it.

  I looked at the bodies. The one sprawled on top had been shot in the back at point blank range. Amid the bloodied mess, I could see backbone and ribs. A broken torch stuck halfway out of what looked like lumps of meat on the floor.

  A groan came from underneath a stretcher which was tipped against the wall. For a split second everything stopped.

  James got there first and assisted by one of my team to turn it upright. A young woman was lashed on top, legs spread-eagled, her face bruised and smeared with blood, long hair tangled and wet. She moaned again, deep in her throat. Blood had seeped through the gag in her mouth. Her camisole top was rolled to her waist, exposing bloodied breasts.

  Ally Carpenter.

  I skidded over and struggled to undo the gag. James knelt, trying to untie the cords binding her icy limbs. Ben thrust him aside and cut the ropes. Her eyes opened, rolled and closed without focusing. Her arms and legs flopped uselessly.

  Shocked? Drugged? Probably both.

  Her ashen-faced father slid down the wall to sit beside her and stroke her face. As I wrapped my coat around her, I noticed he was using his shirt as a sling. I moved to check it, but he shook his head emphatically. Turning my attention to the carnage, I recognized Briece Mochrie lying partially obscured by the shotgun victim. His features were almost unrecognisable, a slice in the side of his neck, blood oozing from his throat. Oozing—

  ‘Mochrie’s alive! Where’s the ambulance for God’s sake? Quick, apply pressure.’ I scrabbled in my coat pocket for a handkerchief, a scarf, anything.

  My team rushed to pull the top body away. ‘Where’s the fucking ambulance, for Chrissake’s?’ someone yelled.

  Sirens blasted their way through the night, surging closer as I listened. ‘Almost here,’ I yelled. Evan, calm amid the chaos, held both hands over the wound in Mo-chrie’s throat, blood trickling through his fingers.

  A woman screamed above the hullaballoo. Eloise barged her way in and paused a moment to gaze in horror at the bloodbath. Seeing James sitting by Ally, she shrieked and threw herself at them. He leapt up and caught her in mid-air with one arm as she slipped, almost crash-landing on her daughter.

  ‘It’s all right! El! She’s alive!’ he shouted.

  I couldn’t hear myself think. The sirens stopped outside the building and I stepped out of the room onto the landing. Red, white and blue lights both from emergency vehicles flashed insanely around the staircase. A gang of paramedics thundered up the stairs and promptly jammed themselves in the doorway. The smallest, a woman, squeezed through and followed a pointed finger to Mochrie. One stopped, briefly, to examine the dead man.

  Within what seemed like only minutes they stretchered the cellist out of the room wrapped in a foil blanket, his face covered by an oxygen mask. A tube snaked from his arm to a bag carried by a paramedic. His head appeared scalped. Two medics attended Ally, while James occupied himself with preventing Eloise grabbing her daughter.

  It was finally over, with one man killed and another so badly wounded he might not survive.

  CHAPTER 45

  Aftermath

  Detective Senior Sergeant Susan Prescott

  Sunday: 10.00am.

  I arrived at the hospital, battled my way through the swarm of media and scooted behind a trolley load of flowers. James joined me as I took my place with the group of people waiting at the lifts. We called first at the ward where Eloise, suffering from shock and exhaustion, had been kept overnight,

  ‘Mrs Prescott, please, will you wait while we see Ally?’ she begged.

  I explained that I was visiting in my official capacity and they would have to be patient while I saw their daughter alone. We helped her into a wheelchair and parked it outside Ally’s room. The forthcoming interview between parents and daughter would be interesting.

  Ally Carpenter leaned back against her pillows, gazing out of the window across the city to the mountains. My heart turned over. Her face was battered and bruised, lips puffy and still seeping blood. Her eyes were blackened and swollen; one was weeping. As I watched, she dabbed at it with a wad of soft dressing. A chunk of hair had been cut from the side of her head. A cradle kept blanket pressure off her legs. She turned her head when I closed the door and watched without curiosity, as I pulled a chair over to the bed and sat down.

  ‘I thought I’d never live to see the mountains again,’ she croaked, sizing me up out of her good eye, after I introduced myself.

  ‘I must admit I didn’t think you would either and I’m extremely relieved you’re safe. Do you feel up to talking to me?’

  ‘Yes.’ She stared at me. ‘I know you! I just know you somehow. I couldn’t believe…anyone was…searching for…me and then one night…I felt someone was looking out for me,’ she said slowly. ‘Was it you?’

  ‘I was very concerned for you,’ I replied carefully. ‘What night was that?’

  She frowned. ‘I can’t remember. The days and nights rolled together. But I felt something, that someone had said a prayer. Does that sound quite mad?’

  ‘No. It doesn’t, and yes I prayed for you and sent you vibes.’

  She grimaced as she tried to smile, and then reached for a glass of water on the trolley. Her nightgown fell open at the neck to reveal thick dressings over what the doctors had advised were cuts and bites on her throat and breasts.

  ‘Thank you. Br
ie? Where is he? They said he was all right now. Does that mean he’s been hurt?’ she asked fearfully, as she put the glass down having only taken an awkward sip.

  ‘He was badly injured and the doctors needed to operate. He’s in ICU, but he’s doing well. We didn’t save you, by the way. He did.’

  ‘Oh, my gosh.’ She made a feeble attempt to push the bed covers back.

  ‘No, stay in bed, Ally. You can see him when you’re both up to it.’

  She flopped weakly back onto the pillows and I gently drew the bedclothes over her again. ‘Can you tell me what happened? Don’t worry if you can’t remember everything. The main details are important, the rest can wait. Just take it slowly and if your mouth is too sore, we can leave it until later.’

  She filled in the events of the past week and was quite calm until I had to tell her of Jessica Rallison’s murder. The news of Georgie Hird’s death was even harder.

  Then she asked about the kidnapping. ‘They said my father is rich. Was that the only reason?’

  ‘Primarily no, but they were determined to get everything they could. Do you remember one summer on Masters Island when you were twelve?’

  Her eyes widened.

  ‘You and a group of children, including Pamela Miller, goaded a boy called Steven Henderson into climbing Wild Pony Rock. He fell and was badly injured.’

  ‘But he recovered!’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘He was in hospital for awhile, but he got better, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he did, but when he turned sixteen he committed suicide.’

  ‘No. Surely not.’ She looked horrified.

  I took her hand in mine. ‘Apparently, Steven was always a mentally fragile child and an unstable teenager. I won’t pretend the accident didn’t have a bearing on that. He needed to wear a calliper permanently on his leg from the injuries he received on the rock, but it wasn’t the only factor. He was brutally tormented at school and his parents’ divorce was extremely traumatic for him. His mother blamed you for his disability, which she insists was the only reason he committed suicide. She was unable to accept that her son had mental problems long before the accident, and that his parent’s behaviour contributed to his troubles. In consequence, he didn’t receive the psychiatric care which may well have saved him.’