Nothing. He tried the same approach. Lowering a piece of the fruit onto her lips, leaving it there. She resisted. It smelled delicious. He pressed with the blade, forcing her to part her parched lips and allow the apple to drop into her mouth, causing her to choke. She used every ounce of her resilience not to lean upwards and reveal how she had created some space. She flicked the apple with her tongue, then savoured it, breaking down, releasing water and sugar into her mouth and down her throat. She could hardly swallow.
It was almost sensual. Rather, it would have been if the Jackdaw had not been running the blade across her naked body, playfully but with a look that said, “Pick a spot, any spot, this is where the knife slips beneath your skin my dear.”
He scratched his name into the area around her navel, emphasising the X, allowing it to weep with blood.
He cut another piece of apple and put it between his own teeth, then lowered his head down to her body, squeezing the juice across her breasts, then crunching the fruit with his teeth. It was the loudest noise in the room.
Another piece, this time held between his lips. He lowered once more and gently sealed his lips around hers, forcing the apple into her mouth with his tongue. Her breath was far from sweet, but he enjoyed the moment.
“You really are very pretty. It would be such a shame to kill you just to send a message to our friend Jack. But, as you know, being his very best analyst, I am not…” He hunted for the word. “…averse to sending a message in a cruel and unforgiving way, just like my men did with your friend.”
She tried desperately to look away.
“Look at me! Remember Nikolina? What I did to her?” He ran his fingers across O’Shea’s neck. “Of course you do, my dear.” He kissed her gently on the neck, then licked her skin, lower, stopping near her sternum. He was so close he could hear her heart beating.
“No. For now, you are far too valuable. You will be my ultimate bargaining tool when the time comes. I will need the very best distraction to lure him away from the scent. I have to agree he is a smart man. A good detective. He dresses well but like me has demons. He too is a gypsy, drifting from place to place. A nomad. And above all he is a man, so he is led by his loins. I’m sure he longs to be back there soon.” He gently placed what was left of the apple between her legs, let the nectar seep down her thighs, then smiled, which at any other time could have been mistaken for compassion.
“And you are rather lovely.”
He ran his hand over her stomach, wiping the blood from the X and rubbing it between his fingers, then gently tracing a heart with it, around her belly button before allowing his hand to rest against her lower stomach, watching her body pulse beneath his hand, he spoke.
“Very pretty.”
He picked up the apple and took a final bite, then dropped the core to the ground.
He spun around and tutted, clicking his tongue against his teeth.
“Whereas this freak next to you.” He turned, pointing with the knife, emphasising the word freak. “He, she, whatever it is, can offer so many opportunities to alleviate boredom.” He looked down at Thomas’ forlorn face.
“I see someone has already begun to play with you. How heartless. Look at you, that must really hurt?” He prodded the scabs with the tip of the blade, lifting one away, allowing it to bleed. “Worry not, dear Lucy.” He turned to look at Constantin.
“Did you really call him Lucy? Isn’t that a little bit strange? Can you imagine anyone paying a person like this for sex?” He shuddered melodramatically. He knew everything about their relationship. Knew that his esteemed torturer was gay – but no one ever mentioned it. It was best that way.
He did not despise those that chose to be gay. He had met some men in prison who were. He liked them, actually. Articulate, bright, strong and potentially the toughest men in the building. He avoided them and they kept their distance too.
Alex knew to treat the older man with respect, too. He looked at him now. Constantin Nicolescu had a hair trigger and few people trusted him. Alex was one who did.
“Miss O’Shea. I suspect you are an educated woman. Now bear with me. Remember, if you will, the day you watched them recover my dear Niko’s body from the river. Up she came, cold, muddy, blue lips. Dead. Then they lowered her to the pavement, behind a barrier to prevent others from seeing her. Typically British. So thoroughly polite.” He feigned a British accent.
She chose not to acknowledge him in any way.
“I’ll take that as a yes. I know everything you see. You may not know that I chose to kill my wife to pay Jack Cade back for his greed. For stealing her from me. I know she was heading to London to find him.”
O’Shea knew it was untrue. Chose to ignore him. She had been heading somewhere else.
“And I know she wanted to betray me as soon as she could. The spiteful whore tried to kill me with a poison. I mean, who would do that to their husband? Terrible.” He looked at Constantin for assurance. Who smiled and said, “Terrible indeed.”
“See? Even this man who has killed more people than I have slept with, and that is a large number, even he agrees. It is all about revenge. Not money, as nice as money is, not love – for I have only ever found love once, but revenge. He was pacing like the defence counsel during a televised summing up.
“What was it that the bible said about revenge Carrie?” He waited. Rested the blade against her thigh.
She knew he would do it. So she licked her lips, allowing them to form the words. “That every wrong should be equally penalised.”
“Yes! Well done. And the book, please?”
“Book?”
“From the bible. Oh do tell me you have read it. Or, do you suggest that a man who has lived so many of his months and years in prison has not? That he is an ill-educated dog.”
“I don’t know.”
“Exodus. Twenty-One. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Simple words but very powerful.”
“And how does that have anything to do with us?” O’Shea was gaining in strength, temper did that to her.
“Well, you see…” He sat on the edge of the table, rested his hand on her stomach, thumb facing up to her head, his little finger marvelling at how smooth she was. He teased her as he spoke.
“…Mr Cade deprived me of my wife. That is worth an eye. Then, he took my daughter away. Let us call that a tooth. So far? You understand me?”
“So get on with it.” She bared her teeth. Defiant.
He laughed. “It also says a hand for a hand. But Constantin beat me to it. I would have given anything to be a fly on the wall of Detective Inspector Roberts’ office when the candle burned down. Genius.”
“Chief inspector.”
“Oh, I am sorry.” His reply was dripping in sarcasm.
“No dear, you see, I wouldn’t want to harm you. The bible goes onto to say, ‘And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free…’”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, let us pretend that you are my maid. Then this thing next to you is my servant. I need to send another message to your team. These messages are such fun. One thing in return for another.”
“I have no idea. OK? I have no fucking idea what you are rambling on about, perhaps it’s time for more heroin or whatever shit you lot take to give you these ideas. There is no point anymore. Wherever you go Jack and the team will find you. You cannot hide anymore. Unless you head to a mountain range and live in a cave.” She went to turn away but resisted.
“Have you heard the term hiding in plain sight?”
“No.”
“Well, it means to be closer to your enemy than your enemy realises. Like us. Here we are, almost under the noses of the British authorities but as far as they know we are at home in our mother country, or, as you suggest, in a cave.”
She was at least able to confirm her suspicion that they were closer to London than made sense. It gave her hope. At last.
“We are so close we can send little messages, parcels of joy and goodwill, but never be suspected of being so close to where we actually want to be. Your city. Your home and what makes it famous.”
At the Op Orion base Nick Fisher placed a mug of tea – a mug with the cross of St Andrew emblazoned on it. Its owner picked it up, inhaled the Yorkshire Tea.
“Superb Nick.” He took a sip, sensed that his DS wanted to ask something. “Alright Nick? Something troubling you?”
“It troubles me that no one seems to give a flying fuck about Carrie or Cynthia, guv. We are sat here with our fingers up our arses…”
“Did you use it to squeeze my tea bag out?”
“Respectfully boss…”
“Fair point.” He stood, leant on the side of his desk, eye to eye with Fisher. “The best answer and tell everyone this Nick is that yes, I give a flying fuck or any other expression that sums up how much I am worried. I think about it every day and most of the night until sleep finally allows me to have a few hours. I’ve got frontline staff in three counties looking, airports on standby, border alerts in place, bulletins, dogs, detectives.”
“What about the media?”
“Again, fair. But we both know Nick, the second they start pontificating about their whereabouts we can start writing an obituary for The Times.”
“I think Carrie is a Guardian reader.” He tried to smile.
“Thanks, Nick. I appreciate your passion for this. Know that I am more than a hundred percent behind you and my maths teacher would kill me for saying that.”
“Do whatever you need to do. Bring them home. If you overstep the mark doing it, I’ll be here, alongside you. You have my word.”
“But what if…”
“There will be no what ifs or buts or maybes, Nick.”
“Guv.” Fisher left the office, strong shoulders swept back just a little further than they had been when he had found an excuse to enter the boss’s office.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Alex turned to Constantin. “Tape him down, securely. He must not move. Not one inch.”
It happened, quickly, the aluminium tape left the roll and bound Thomas to the table, across his chest and around his neck and then back onto itself, sealing, fast.
“Good. Shall we begin our journey towards redemption? You are free to watch Carrie. In fact, that is a wonderful idea. I think you would say, inclusive? Yes? Completely. A night to remember.”
O’Shea remained quiet as Constantin slid the table with his legs, butting it up against Thomas’.
“Best view in the house. Can you see or do you want to look away? Your choice.”
She tried to stare up at the ceiling, but something drew her back to the scene and she watched Stefanescu remove a pair of pliers from the clear plastic packaging.
“Cheap, but cheerful, and they will do the job.”
He prized upon Thomas’ lips but he wrestled against him. As sore as the earlier cuts were he had discovered a newfound strength.
‘No way you bastard.’
“OK, so you have decided to make this so much worse. Constantin, come and hold his nose will you?”
Thomas’ eyes bulged, but he relented.
“There, isn’t that so much better?” He parted the arid lips and gripped onto the left eye tooth, the one with the longest root. And started to pull.
Thomas tried to scream, his throat was so dry. It was a hoarse, desperate bid. ‘Please, no.’
The fresh blood provided a hint of lubricant as the tooth slowly gave way. Thomas could hear it leaving his head; a deep, rasping, cracking sound and then, it was in front of him. Blood-soaked Ivory.
“Well done, you were a good boy. My assistant will clean you up and give you a sticker. So brave. You should put it under your pillow tonight. One fairy for another.” He dropped the tooth into a new polythene bag and sealed the plastic strip.
O’Shea hated him more every second. Oh, that she had a gun, or a hammer, or just a phone.
“OK. That’s the tooth.” He smiled at O’Shea. “So exciting. And you get to watch.”
She closed her eyes, sealed them shut. She knew what was coming but feared that her co-prisoner did not. It was the biblical quote in all its reality.
“OK, do we have the phone ready? This will be a first, for all of us. At least the pain of the tooth coming out will mask what happens next.”
He looked at Constantin. “Well, shall we toss a coin?”
Constantin shook his head. “It depends on whether you want this person to survive. You do it, he dies. I do it, he dies in a few days, having suffered a great deal of pain.”
“You make a compelling case. Over to you. I will help. This is fascinating Carrie. Isn’t it?” She forced her eyes to look away.
Constantin put his hand out, waiting for the first tool. The Surgeon.
A cheap scalpel touched his palm. He placed it against the right eye, lifted the lid and started to cut. As he did so Alex filmed, capturing the surgery in the half-light of the cold room.
Constantin skilfully cut into the cornea, slowly releasing the eyeball which fought against the point of the blade. A circular, clinical motion allowed the coloured orb to emerge, leaving him free to cut through the muscles that surrounded the eye, allowed it to move, held it in place.
He had once known their names, but years of abuse, drug, alcohol and mental had robbed him of his long-term memory. What he did know was what each one did and as a surgeon would he cut through each, slowly releasing the ball. He snipped with scissors, cut with the scalpel.
Alex watched, in awe. Partly amazed, partly nauseous. It was one bet he was glad to have lost. Not many things made him squeamish. Every part of this operation did.
He looked though – via the small phone screen.
O’Shea could only listen.
Thomas whimpered in pain. Fear had paralysed him.
Constantin sawed through the last muscle – the superior oblique – he remembered something after all.
In true optical surgery the surgeon would have created a harness, held the eyeball in place, then deftly removed it, cleaning the wound, applying sutures and then stitching up the void. After care would follow, then rehabilitation.
Constantin had no such concerns. All that remained was the optical nerve. He stared at Thomas, knowing that the image of his face would be the last thing this particular eye would see. Then snipped the nerve with the razor-sharp scissors.
Blackness. Horror. Bleeding. Panic. An end in sight.
He dropped the eyeball into a new plastic bag, leaving it coated in fresh blood. He laid it on the table where it remained, watching him.
He pushed a gauze pad into the wound and stepped back, away from his patient.
Thomas’ tear ducts still worked and now they filled both of his eye sockets with fluid. And it hurt. More than anything ever had or ever would.
O’Shea could feel herself retching. Her top lip moist, bile surging up into her throat.
Alex pushed the tables apart. “Revenge Carrie is a cruel mistress. As we said, an eye for an eye. If only we were there to watch when your friends received it. Sleep well.”
He stroked her face, then slowly removed his hand, allowing his fingertips to linger on her cheek where he knew it would be more sensitive.
He then dropped the instruments into a separate plastic bag, the scissors only half concealed. They would need to be disposed of for perpetuity.
He began to walk out of the room, a silhouette once more, then stopped, waited a moment in the shadows.
“Oh by the way.” His voice carried through the sparse corridor into her room. “I have so enjoyed our reunion – if that is what we can call it. When this is all over I will have you cleaned up. Then we can see just what it is that Mr Cade finds so captivating about you. For now, we all need our beauty sleep.”
And with that final sentence he was gone, walking towards the light of the communal room, a corridor away, followed by his smiling surgeon. An
other procedure to add to his list.
O’Shea knew that her next words were likely to be futile, but she spoke them anyway.
“Look Lucy I don’t know what your real name is but trust me, when they are asleep, we go. Tonight.”
“You go on your own Carrie. Please. They cannot do anything else to me. Save yourself girl. Save yourself.”
O’Shea was a belligerent soul at the best of times and there was no way she was leaving the building without him. She had one last question.
“No, we are going tonight, whether you bloody well like it or not. But before we do, I need to know your real name.”
He laughed, more a snort, the smile cracking the drying blood on his cheeks.
“Does it really matter that much to you, darling?”
“It does.”
“Then you will be the first since my dear old mum to call me John.”
O’Shea snorted now. “You have got to be kidding me?”
“No. It’s true. Possibly why I chose Lucy.”
O’Shea had a newfound respect for her cross-dressing, call-girl cellmate. And she was more determined than ever to get them both to safety. She strained to hear the conversation next door. They talked of a team, heading into the city. Something about a stone. Then banks. Then the river. Three words. Stone, bank, river. Then another. Tower.
She could only hear these words. Somehow she was able to tune in, erase the white noise of her heartbeat and the ever-present distant flow of motorway traffic. Four words now. Bank was obvious, it was their signature to attack ATMs; adding devices to steal data and in some cases even blowing the safes to pieces with oxyacetylene.
Three words then.
Stone. River. Tower. If she could remember nothing else.
Twenty minutes later the first team left the building. Then another. And one more. She tried to calculate how many had gone, how many were left. The problem was she had no idea how many they had started with. Ten? Twenty? Two?
Seven of Swords (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 3) Page 37
