by Zoe Sharp
I took a deep breath, and stepped through the doorway, moving quietly along the corridor until it opened out into one of the main dance floors. My breath was coming in gasps now, my heart about to burst. I bent and deposited my helmet on the floor, putting it down without a sound.
As soon as I moved out onto the darkened floor, the big lights in front of the stage blazed on. I flinched back, couldn't help it, shielding my eyes with my hand.
The voice spoke from the other side of the lights, mocking. “Ah, Charlie! Just in time. I do so love a woman who's punctual!”
The voice was undisguised and in a moment the tumblers of my mind turned, the lock shifted into perfect alignment, and the door swung open to reveal all the dark secrets that slithered inside.
“Hi Dave,” I said, admirably calm, coming further forwards. “What have you done with Clare?”
“Oh she's here,” he said, disembodied in the shadows. “I'm sure she'll be very relieved that you've come to give yourself up for her sake. Greater love hath no man – or no woman, in this case – than he will lay down his life for his friend. Isn't that the saying? Mind you, I thought there was something going on between you two the first time I saw you. I thought if I got lucky you might invite me to join in.”
I ignored the shudder of revulsion that twitched my shoulder blades. “Dream on, Dave,” I said, my voice thick with contempt. “That sort of thing only happens in the sick videos you used to hire out from Terry. Oh, I missed it at first. I was looking for DC, but he used to identify you by your job, not your initials, didn't he? Terry's client book was filled with references to DJ and I didn't spot it. I doubt the police will be so slow.”
He advanced then, jumped down off the stage with a supple agility that made the hairs rise on my arms. He had forsaken his polo-necked jumper in favour of a T-shirt. Where I expected to find the bruises round his neck from Marc's punishing grip, instead I saw two deep scratch marks, scabbing over. Oh Christ, Joy . . .
I'd missed that one, too.
He came towards me, menacing. I forced myself not to take a stance. I couldn't afford to provoke him without knowing where Clare was. What he'd done with her. To her.
Besides, gripped in his fist – his left fist, of course – was a survival knife with a metal-topped rubber handle, and a wicked eight-inch blade. I tried to avoid staring at it, but it pulled my gaze like a magnet.
“What's the fascination with me, Dave?”
“We're alike, you and me. Soul mates.” He circled me. “I saw the way you dealt with Susie – so casual, so easy. And when I saw you fight those two lads that night in the club I knew, then,” he purred. “I knew that you were just the same as me, Charlie. You had the power over them, and you revelled in it.”
I shook my head. “I did what was necessary, Dave, and I didn't enjoy it,” I stated calmly. I turned to glance at him. At him, not the knife. “You're forgetting a major difference between us. I didn't kill them. And I didn't rape them first.”
“You're a woman. Women are weak, stupid, vain,” he threw back at me. He paced then. Quick, short strides, agitated, speaking almost to himself. “They promise everything with their come-to-bed eyes and their come-on bodies. Dressed up like whores, most of them. I see them!”
He spun back to me, his eyes fired. “Every night, they come in here, flaunting themselves in front of me. Teasing. Look don't touch. They pretend they're going to come across, then they dance back out of reach. Make you beg for a touch, a taste. Well I wasn't going to let those little bitches taunt me any longer! I showed them who was in control!”
“So first you raped that young girl,” I said. “Then you decided she didn't light your fire, so you raped and killed Susie. What made you pick her out, hmm?”
He flushed, his cheekbones turning a dull red. “She led me on, let me down, and then told that bastard boyfriend of hers all about it,” he complained. “They were laughing at me!”
I remembered the insult Tony had thrown at Dave as Susie was dragged away. “You can shut up an' all, you dickless little shit!” I wonder if he ever realised those careless words would be the cause of her horrific death.
“What's the matter, Dave, wasn't she very sympathetic when you couldn't get it up? Oh she probably promised you a quick one if you'd keep her winning the karaoke, but you couldn't do it without a fight, could you? So you waited until she'd been thrown out of the club and then you raped her instead. Nobody noticed you disappearing on your break, and you always changed clothes between sets anyway. It was the perfect opportunity. That was much more like it, wasn't it Dave?” I allowed a sneer to creep in. “Bit more of a thrill? Made you feel more of a man, did it?”
I saw his hand clench convulsively round the handle of the knife. Dare I push him any further? Oh, I dared!
“Joy put up more of a fight, didn't she, Dave? Caught you unawares, marked you, but even that wasn't enough was it? So then you came looking for me. Taking my voice changer threw me,” I admitted. “I thought the thugs had lifted it, that it could only be Angelo threatening me. I didn't realise it was a little runt like you.”
Stupidly, I'd missed the fact that Dave had been inside the flat the morning after Marc's boys had turned it over. I remembered his exaggerated surprise at the damage. He was over-reacting because he'd already seen it . . .
“You think it can't happen to you? Your over-confidence is your weakness,” he hissed. “I've watched you for a while, Charlie. You think you're equal to a man, but you never will be. Don't forget, I've had a private lesson. I know all about your feeble abilities. You're just like those other bitches, and you'll scream like them when I'm fucking you. You'll scream and you'll beg me to stop, just like the rest.”
“I wouldn't bet on it,” I said tautly.
“No? How about I just let you watch while I do your friend? She's a looker, all right. I bet she'll scream.”
I smothered my rising panic and shoved it viciously back down into the depths of my psyche. “That's always the way with you, isn't it, Dave? Taking the easy way out,” I taunted. “What challenge is Clare to you? She can't fight. There's nothing to stop you raping her, but I'm what you've really been after. Why waste time?”
“This – is – my – game!” Dave spelt out, face white with sudden fury. “We play it my way!”
I knew I'd gone too far. I backed down. “OK, Dave, whatever you say,” I murmured, holding my hands out, palms upwards, supplicant.
I didn't move while he stepped smoothly back into the shadows. He'd dropped all pretence now, and was moving like a pro, sure and economical. How could I have missed it before? I hadn't bothered to look beneath the surface veneer, to see past the mirage he'd created and I was kicking myself for it. How many times had people made that very same mistake with me? So often I'd almost come to rely on it as part of my camouflage.
When Dave reappeared, only moments later, it seemed, he was dragging Clare's weeping figure after him. I was horrified to see he'd bound her slim wrists together with one of the heavy duty plastic zip-ties he used to fasten his disco gear down. I knew that some police forces used them because the breaking point was phenomenal. It offered minimal chance of Clare being strong enough to force her way free.
Never let yourself be immobilised. It was one of the basic rules of self-defence.
When he reached the middle of the dance floor, Dave stopped and let Clare go. Without the support she collapsed, whimpering, cradling her wrists to her chest. The plastic had been snatched tight enough to dig cruelly through the skin. Now they left smears of blood on the front of her pale cream jumper.
Instinctively, my legs took me forwards. Dave stepped fluidly to the side, grabbed a handful of Clare's hair to yank her head up, and slid the blade of the knife under her delicate jaw. She went rigid, eyes wide with terror.
I froze, unable to take my eyes off the knife. Unable to move as Dave increased the pressure a fraction, so the razor-sharp edge just bit through the top layer of her skin and her blood began to w
eep down over the polished steel. I swallowed, my mouth abruptly arid, tongue swollen like a man too long in the desert.
Dave tutted, grinning. “Oh no, Charlie, not so fast,” he warned. “Your reflexes might be passable, but even you couldn't get over here before I'd given your friend a second mouth to feed. And you won't be able to save her afterwards, will you? Remember Joy?”
“So what happens now?” I asked, my voice a whisper.
“You strip,” Dave said. “Get rid of that leather jacket, for a start.”
I did as I was told without protest, dropping the offending piece of clothing onto the floor next to me. Stared at him. Tried not to concentrate on Clare's shock-glazed face.
“And the boots. Take them off.”
I bent to unfasten them, but as I did so I had a chance sighting of Dave easing the knife slightly away from Clare's throat, changing his grip.
It was a chance, a slim hope, but it was there. There was nothing else I could do but grab it with both hands and pray.
Arms outstretched, yelling, I drove my body upright and onwards, and launched myself at Dave.
Twenty-five
Dave knew all the rules of hand-to-hand. I found that out the hard way, but the surprise of my initial charge had the desired effect of making him move back, putting some distance between him and Clare. I hoped she'd take the opportunity to make a run for it, but catching a glimpse of her inert form slumped on the floor, it seemed unlikely.
Dave and I circled each other, half-crouched and intent. He held the knife like an expert, with the pommel of the hilt upwards and the blade slanted down, protecting his forearm. It stopped me being able to get a grip on his wrist, putting a lock onto him that would force him to his knees and disarm him.
I switched tactics. I blanked my mind of the knife, but at the same time was acutely aware of its position and direction. Instead I concentrated on the man behind it. He was focusing all his energies into the weapon he was carrying, relying on it to be both offence and defence. If I could just slip past his guard . . .
I tried it, feinting right, then dodging left and lashing out with my boot to his kneecap. Dave's reactions were faster than I'd hoped. I caught him a mild blow, enough to hurt but not disable, and received a thin slicing cut across my bicep for my trouble.
He only just nicked me. If I'd still been wearing my jacket, I doubt it would have pierced the skin, but the thin material of my T-shirt offered little armour.
I made a big play of clamping my fingers over the wound and grimacing, but in fact the pain was little more than a twinge. Knife wounds are clean and straight, and unless they're deep enough to be serious, they heal quickly. A punch on the nose would probably have done me more damage.
“You think you can defeat me,” Dave crowed now, “but you've got no chance. You know what? I think I'm going to have you, then have your friend as well. She looks sweet enough to be dessert.”
“You better be into necrophilia then,” I growled, “because you're going to have to kill me first, you sick bastard.”
Dave straightened for a moment, and the look in his eyes was quite insane. “Oh by the end of this you're going to be dead, Charlie,” he said, his voice almost distant. “Even if I don't manage it today, you'll always know that one day I'll catch up with you, and when I do, you'll die.”
He started to laugh, and as he did so, I shifted and sprang.
I managed to dive under his guard, get past the first layer of defence, but he swung his fist round sideways and hit me hard in the face, with the steel pommel of the knife. It landed just under my eye and the noise of my cheekbone fracturing sounded disgustingly loud inside my head.
Streaks of pain shot round my skull like cracks, stars exploded in my vision. That side of my face felt as though it had instantly swelled up to twice its normal size, half closing my eye.
I stumbled and fell onto the flooring. Once I was down Dave kicked me twice in the ribs, vigorously, just for good measure. Then he stood over me and checked my reaction like he was studying a lab rat. My body turned in on itself, fighting the pain. My ribs were on fire, every breath was agony.
“Where are all your supposed self-defence skills now, Charlie?” he demanded. “You're never going to compare to a man with half your ability, never mind one who's your equal or master. You're nowhere near. Face it, you just don't have what it takes to stop me killing you. I think I'm going to enjoy it.”
“You can't hope to get away with it,” I said, my voice coming in gasps. It was an awful cliché, but right at that moment I didn't care. I just couldn't seem to fill my lungs with enough air. It was like I was drowning.
“Oh can't I?” he said softly. “And who's going to stop me?”
“I am,” I said fiercely, pivoting onto my side and booting his legs out from under him.
The break-fall he did as he landed was practised and proficient. It took some of the shock out of it, but I'd hit the same leg as before, compounding the effect. It was enough to slow him down and for a moment he was down on his back, arms outstretched.
I scrambled onto my hands and knees and jumped for the knife, clamping onto his wrist, but I'd over-reached, was off-balance a fraction. He stuck his leg up and tipped me over, rolling his bodyweight crushingly on top of my tender ribs, with the knife still clutched firmly in his hand.
I could only watch in horror as it descended, as the blade disappeared from my field of vision and closed in on my throat. I felt the chill steel line of it, resting on my windpipe. The memory of Joy was stark and shocking. I looked up and saw death in his eyes, just as she must have done.
“Well, well, Charlie, looks like I've finally got you where I want you,” he panted, lips back from his teeth in a mirthless smile.
“Go fuck yourself!” I gasped. I desperately twisted my head sideways and back, bucking under him, clawing for his eyes.
He jerked. With a cold sense of finality I felt the sting of the knife going in, but there was little real pain. It was like being prodded with a stick. Just the sickly metallic smell of blood and the warm greasy wetness running down my skin.
Oh sweet Jesus, I thought. He's done it. He's cut my throat . . .
The cold logical side of my brain registered the probable depth of the injury. If I was lucky the main arteries into my brain would have been severed. I would quickly lose consciousness and bleed to death in minutes.
If I was unlucky the bleeding from the lacerated tissues would slowly weaken me. If it clogged my ruptured windpipe, I would quite simply drown in my own blood.
In the knowledge that I was most likely dead already, I went ballistic.
I had nothing to lose.
Ignoring the knife, I reached up, managing to grab hold of his ear, digging my nails in deep to the sensitive skin behind it. I used all my strength, ripping it sideways and down, and bringing his body with it. He tumbled to the side of me, bellowing, and the knife rattled to the floor.
I staggered to my knees. The blood was soaking down into the front of my T-shirt like a grotesque bib. I caught sight of the knife, clutched it, hurled it away into the shadows.
Dave lurched to his feet, his own blood sliding down the side of his face. He put a hand up to it. “You bitch!” he howled. “Look what you've done to me!”
Look what you've done to me, sunshine, my brain thought whimsically. I tried to get up, to match him. It was like wading through the surf on a loose shingle beach. I blinked to try and clear my vision, but it remained obstinately hazy.
The blast of adrenaline made me feel as though I'd been kicked in the chest. My heart was helpfully hammering my blood out of the hole in my neck as fast is it could muster. I was terrified I was going to pass out, lose by default.
Robbed of his weapon, Dave turned wildly to the stage, just behind us. He snatched up part of a mic stand, a thin metal rod about three feet long, and advanced, snarling.
I knew the end was coming, inevitable. It seemed important suddenly that I be on my feet to meet it.
I lumbered upright, shaking uncontrollably, holding on to the edge of the stage to keep my balance as I turned to face him.
With an animal grunt, Dave swung his makeshift club double-handed at shoulder height like an American baseball player going for a home run. He put all his bodyweight behind it, the effort lifting him onto his toes, his face contorted with a burning passion.
I only saw him vaguely. My vision was tunnelling out, the edges blurred with smears of colour like spoilt film. I was going down, and I knew it.
The rod sizzled the air as it sliced through it. I did the best block I could manage considering I was fairly sure the floor was at ninety degrees to its real location. I took the full brunt of the blow diagonally across my left forearm and I swear I heard the radius and ulna let go with a sharp, staccato snap. The X-rays taken later showed a level, clean break line, as though the bones had been cut straight through.
The sound and the feel of the blow vibrated through my whole body. The impact spun me round and left me sprawled face-down over the stage, limp and nauseous.
Dave grabbed hold of my shoulder and yanked me over onto my back. “Oh no, I want to see the look on your face, bitch,” he said quietly, his voice twisted and breathless.
I looked up numbly, my expression blank. It was his eyes that were the most frightening, wild with the excitement of what he was doing.
I struggled to a sitting position on the edge of the stage, using only my right arm to push myself upright, my broken left dangling uselessly by my side. I slowly pulled my feet back so they were under my knees to give me balance. Dave stood over me, breathing heavily, the rod lowered in front of him now he had me beaten.
Afterwards, I couldn't explain how I came to the decision. I didn't do it consciously, which scares me. The opportunity presented itself and I took it instinctively, that's all. I didn't hesitate for a second, didn't agonise over the moral rights and wrongs, didn't stop to consider the consequences. Dave had dropped his guard and I took advantage of it to hit him as hard as I could.
