by Max Hardy
Calvey’s stopped struggling, his eyes rolling, the pupils dilating. His body went limp and his head lolled back, eyes closing. Ernie let go of his arms and climbed off his chest.
‘That’ him out for at least four hours.’ Ernie said, turning back to the stretcher, where he checked Bentley’s pulse. ‘Bentley is alright as well, the pulse is getting stronger.’
‘The potassium chloride should wear off soon. Val, how far are we away from the house?’ Le Fenwick shouted through the small observation hatch into the cabin.
‘Only a couple of minutes away now Doc.’
‘Good.’ Le Fenwick responded, leaning over Bentley’s slightly shaking, unconscious body. ‘It’s time for us all to find out exactly what you do know about what your father is up to.’
Chapter 35
So, here’s the choice this time. The woman that we love has been abducted by a killer and is almost certainly in grave danger. The clandestine organisation that she belongs to wants us to question a man who they have broken out of a police cell, to try and find her whereabouts. If we say no, she dies. If we say yes, we are drawn further into a world of questionable values, a world a long way away from legal and still no further forward finding out if we are pawns, knights or kings and queens. There was only one squeeze of the hand, one flick of the eye. There comes a time when you have to recognise the only way you can have a chance of winning any game, is to understand that you are taking part, whatever part you are playing. That answer was always going to be yes.
I sit on a white painted wooden chair in a crisp clean three piece suit, my legs crossed, hands resting clasped on top of the knees. A few feet away from me, Rebecca is sitting on a similar chair wearing a black backless trouser suit, red Jimmy Choo high heels and a long auburn wig. Her legs are crossed and her hands are clasped, similar to mine. Behind us is a wall of pictures. A picture of every single woman that we think Pastor Bentley has abducted. Above them, there are pictures of the three revealed murderers and a picture of Pastor Bentley, all of them with the same man. In the middle of the photographs is a painting. It is an original Cezanne, called ‘Harlequin’.
We are in a drawing room, with oak beamed floors and white painted walls. There is no furniture in the room apart from the chairs we are sitting in and the one in front of us, which Bentley is tied to. He is stirring, his head lolling from side to side, his eyes starting to open.
‘Are you ready for this?’ I whisper over to Rebecca, smiling in her direction, slightly distracted by how beautiful she is looking.
She returns the smile, then looks back at Bentley, her features becoming fierce. ‘Oh yes, I am ready.’
Bentley’s eyes fully open and he squints, looking around the room, his eyes focusing, trying to get his bearings. He stares at me for a few seconds, his gaze then drifting towards Rebecca, looking her up and down, staring into her eyes before he starts laughing uncontrollably.
‘Fucking hell.’ he squeaks out after a few moments, through the laughter, ‘You had me, good and proper. Both of you have been fucking me over.’
‘Bentley, look at the wall behind us, do you see the pictures of those women. Do you know what happened to them?’ I ask, not moving in my seat, keeping my tone calm and conciliatory.
‘What the fuck has that got to do with you? Either of you? You are a loon on the run from the law and you are a washed up DI helping her, why the fuck should I answer any of your questions?’ he spits in our direction.
‘You think that every one of those women is living a new life in another country. You think that your father, your sister and you have saved them from a life of domestic abuse. That’s what you think.’ Rebecca says as calmly and conciliatory as I did.
Bentley pauses, a look of concern entering the anger, a guarded expression rolling over his features.
‘Look at them again Bentley. Look at them closely. Look into their eyes, notice the smiles on their faces, their unblemished skin. It’s easy to see how you might think they are living a good life now, when you don’t know the consequences of what you have done.’ Rebecca uncrosses her legs demurely and stands up as she speaks, taking a handkerchief out of a pocket in her trouser suit. She stands directly in front of Bentley, staring directly into his eyes, and takes her wig off, exposing her near hairless head, with the flesh riven and scarred from where she ripped her hair out.
She leans over slightly, letting Bentley see the full extent of the damage, opening her mouth at the same time and flashing the stump of her chewed tongue. ‘Did you have any idea that this would happen to me when you left me in the hands of the monster Dr Ennis?’ Rebecca asks as she starts wiping the makeup off her face, revealing the scratches, cuts and burns all over it.
‘Is that what all of this is about? Getting revenge for what Ennis did to you? Fucking up my life because he gave you a hard time. You fucked your son and you killed him. You deserve every fucking thing he did to you.’ Bentley antagonised, snarling at Rebecca as he spoke.
Come on Rebecca, keep it calm and don’t let him intimidate you. She raises her head and pushes her shoulders back, standing tall and proud. ‘And your father fucks your sister. Do you think either of them would deserve this?’ she replies with an impeccable level of calmness.
Bentley just stares at her, gobsmacked.
‘I am not showing you what happened to me as any kind of revenge. I am trying to show you that we all have things we keep behind closed doors. I am showing you what is behind my closed door because the three of us in this room need to find out the truth before the two women at the bottom of those photographs end up dead, if they aren’t already.’ Rebecca adds, walking over to the wall and pointing to the pictures of Coleen Naismith and Eve.
‘I have lied to the police about what I know of this case. I have been tracking down Madame Evangeline for the past few weeks and I found her. I withheld evidence from my last investigation, using it to track her down. If my superiors were to find out, I would be arrested straight away and would undoubtedly serve a long prison sentence. But no one else was going to help me find out the things I needed to. This isn’t about the law Bentley and this certainly isn’t about what any of us would traditionally think of as right or wrong. Right now, this is about two women who are in danger: two women who are in danger of your father.’
Bentley stares at me, thinking, his eyes then darting to the pictures of the women on the wall, settling on the two at the bottom.
‘What exactly is it you think my father has done?’ he asks quietly.
I stand up and join Rebecca at the wall, pointing at the pictures of the killers. ‘You see this man with O’Driscoll, Mann, Chodak and your father. Do you know him?’ I ask.
‘No, never seen him in my life.’
‘Not many people have, yet here he is with three mass murderers and your father, who had contact with each and every one of the women on that wall before they disappeared. When it comes to evidence, that is a lot more than circumstantial, that is bordering on compelling. At the least it should make you want to ask questions. Questions like, where did my sister take Coleen if she didn’t leave the country.’ I finish, walking back to my seat and sitting down, crossing my legs.
‘I know you think I am Madame Evangeline Bentley, but you are wrong. Annie Tait is Madame Evangeline. Annie Tait has been trying to find out what happened to those women for quite a while now. Annie Tait found out that your sister has never flown out of Scotland. Annie Tait is risking her life to try and find out the truth. We have to help her. We need to know what is going on so that we can help her.’ Rebecca says as she returns to her seat and sits down, crossing her legs.
‘We think your father has abducted and killed these women Bentley. We believe that you genuinely think these women have been saved and spirited off to another country. We believe that your intent in this was to make sure they were safe from their abusive partners. Fenny, none of us are perfect. All of us make mistakes. I just want you to think about the things we have shown you, just t
hink: what if I have made a mistake. There might still be time for Coleen and Annie. It’s your choice.’
Bentley sits quietly, looking between me, Rebecca and the pictures on the wall, the cogs whirring as his eyes flit between us. His lips start to move, but say nothing for a moment. I can tell his mind is trying to think of the right words.
‘Father would always find them. Women who couldn’t escape from their abusive partners, women who wanted help. We would take them in, giving them a place to stay out of the way and help them think about a life without abuse. So we helped. I would organise alternate identities and Dessie would arrange onward arrangements, a new life in a different country with a new identity. Some of their partners were monsters and the women wanted to see them punished. Sometimes, when they wanted me to, I would plant evidence incriminating the abusive partners. I would like to say that I did that just for the women, but I wanted to get those scum off the streets as well. I don’t believe that my father has killed anyone, I don’t believe that Dessie didn’t take them to their new identities. But I can see that there are inconsistencies and I can see that there is a wealth of evidence to suggest otherwise. What do you want me to do?’ Bentley asks as his body sags in his bindings, his spirit broken.
‘We need you to take us to where they are hiding.’ Rebecca answers.
Bentley sneers as he looks towards her, then at me. ‘Alright, but you might want to get changed out of your gladrags first, it’s a bit dark and dingy where we are going.’
Chapter 36
The first thing to assail her awakening senses was the smell. The smell of freshly lain motorways, the tarmac still warm and bubbling, mingled with the odour of burning flesh, acrid and sickeningly pungent. Her eyes started to open, blurred darkness the only thing visible in the periphery of her vision. The floor felt cold and wet, some kind of stone, and she was leaning against something ridged, which was digging into her back. The only sound she heard was a low, quiet whimpering a short distance to her right.
‘Hello, is anybody there?’ Eve asked, her voice groggy and hoarse.
The whimpering stopped, silence filling the darkness with trepidation. Eve tried to sit upright, but knocked her head on something metallic about a foot above her head. She raised a hand and felt the air, connecting with a bar. She felt along its length to an edge, then followed this as another bar descended to the floor. She shuffled around, stretching her legs and arms, feeling for the extremities of her confines, then ran her hands up and down her body.
‘I’m in a metal cage, about four foot long by four foot wide, only two foot in height. It is complete darkness. I mean complete. No ambient light at all. A few cuts and bruises but no broken bones. I am naked. Someone else is nearby.’ Eve whispers as she lies still and listens intently to the silence.
‘Hello, is that Coleen?’ Eve asks, hearing a muted intake of breath on the sounding of the name.
‘Coleen, if it is you, I am not here to hurt you, I promise.’
A sad, desolate, terrified, tear filled giggle broke out in the air, followed by a low murmuring whimper. ‘Just like they promised?’
‘What did they promise Coleen?’
‘They promised to help me. And they did, to start with. They helped me get away from Richard, my boyfriend. They promised me that he would be out of my life forever. They promised me I would never be afraid again. I am more afraid now than I have ever been. You should be afraid too, very afraid.’ Coleen replied, her tone timorous.
Eve shuffled over to the end of the cage where the voice was coming from and stretched out a hand through the bars. ‘Perhaps you can help me understand what I need to be afraid of. I am reaching out my hand towards your voice. Could you do the same, so we can hold hands, so we can help each other through this?’ Eve asked, moving her arm from side to side through the air, waiting for a reciprocal response.
Instead there was another painfully anguished laugh, followed by shuffling married to agonising whimpers. ‘She is the worst. She laughs, smiles and is so, so jolly with you. She will play with you like you are a doll, being nice, being friendly. And then she will break you, as though you were no more than a doll. He just watches and does things to himself. Apart from when she breaks you, then she does things to him.’ she finished, her voice falling low and sinister.
‘Is that Dessie and Fenny, or Pastor Bentley?’ Eve asks, still reaching out her hand and feeling for Coleen’s.
‘Dessie and Pastor Bentley. I haven’t seen Fenny down here. How do you know who they are? Did they promise to help you as well?’
‘No, but I know who they are and believe me, I am not afraid of them. I am here to help you. I am here to find out what they are doing and to stop it. I can help you Coleen, reach out your hand and hold mine and we will get through this together.’ Eve said with conviction, the words filled with strength and optimism.
Another soulless laugh, filled with anguish. ‘You can’t help me. You won’t be able to help yourself. We won’t get through this together. Together we will slowly be ripped apart, piece by piece, until we die. And they will smile while they do it. Can’t you smell the burning flesh? I can’t reach out my hands to you because they have chopped them off, all the way up to the elbow.’
Silence, utter silence, then: ‘I know that there is nothing I can say that will give you any hope Coleen. But I can promise you this, before the day is out, you will fear them no more.’
At the far end of the room, a sliver of orange light seared a line into the absolute darkness, startling Eve’s eyes temporarily.
‘You need to be afraid, because they are coming. You are fresh meat. Just listen. You will hear her singing.’
Eve listened as the light started to rise up the walls, framing the outline of a door into the darkness, throwing shadow into the room, shadow that revealed shapes. Eve looked at the shape of the bars coalescing in front of her, then at a large oblong object forming beyond the cage, before her eyes moved to the right, where a shadow moved in the cage next to her. Then she heard the singing.
‘Doe, a deer, a female deer, Ray, a drop of golden sun. Me, a name I call myself. Far, a long long way to run.’
The door burst open, a bright orange glow from a handheld lamp illuminating the room, dispersing the shadows instantaneously, revealing a large square cavern hewn out of granite, fully ten metres wide by about the same across, the top of it a domed ceiling so far up, it was lost in shadows. The large object in the centre of the room reflected the lamp light from its shiny, clean stainless steel surface. It was an autopsy bench, with a tray of accompanying autopsy equipment set out at one end of it. Steel bindings were soldered onto the bench at intervals where legs, arms, waist, neck and torso would be. There were steel hooks around the walls, filled with further saws and knives of every size. At the far end of the room, opposite the entrance, was another long stainless steel bench with a sink in the middle and steel fronted cupboards underneath. There were three metal cages bolted to the floor, two occupied by Coleen and Eve. On the opposite wall to them, there was a single wooden chair, facing towards the autopsy table.
Eve looked over to Coleen. To her naked, bruised and battered bloody body, her face swollen and almost unrecognisable as human. To her arms. To the two amputated stumps of her arms, black and still bleeding, that had been sealed with tar.
Eve looked back up towards the door where Dessie Bentley waltzed in, pirouetting, letting the lamp swing around her in an arc as she did. ‘Oh today is such a fun day. Look Coleen, we have a new friend to play with, won’t that be fun.’
Coleen didn’t say a word, just stared in horror through the tiniest of puffy slits which were her eyes. Dessie span right up in front of Coleen’s cage, her voice changing, becoming infuriated. ‘I said, won’t that be fun Coleen!’ She grabbed a knife from the wall above the cage and quickly rammed it into Coleen’s shoulder viciously, withdrawing it just as fast. Coleen screamed, shuffling herself as far back as she could into the corner of the cage, away from Dessie
.
‘Oh you wuss, it’s only a little nick, stop the hysterics. You are such a girlie girl.’ Dessie sang, the infuriation all gone, replaced by joviality once more. She approached Eve’s cage, crouching down on her haunches, deliberately pulling her long blue dress up to her knees, exposing her naked genitals beneath.
‘I hope you aren’t as much a wuss as Coleen. It’s not as much fun when they cry all the time. Do you like what you see down there Annie?’
‘Now Dessie, stop getting the girls excited, there’s plenty of time for play.’ Pastor Bentley admonished as he slowly walked into the room, pulling a small trolley with a smouldering bowl of tar on top of it. ‘And we don’t know that she is even called Annie. Get her out and strap her to the bench.’
Eve was watching her every move silently, not even blinking, her features calm. Dessie reached above the cage again, Eve’s eyes following where her arm went, and grabbed a cattle prod. She stuck it through the bars and directly into Eve’s exposed chest. Eve didn’t flinch as the prod came down, and relaxed her body just as it touched, moving in time with the electrical shock that paralysed her.
Dessie leant over, unlocked the side of the cage and dragged Eve out, scraping her naked body over the rough stone floor, grazing it. With remarkable strength, she lifted Eve up in one movement, dropping her unceremoniously onto the autopsy bench. She proceeded to strap her into the bindings.
‘I forgot to say, I really love your tattoo, it is so erotic. So naughty. Father thinks it is evil and that you have been sent to tempt us.’ she said out loud, then leaned into Eve’s ear and whispered, ‘But I just couldn’t resist licking it, all the way inside your lovely juicy cunt while you were sleeping.’
‘Father has a few questions for you before we start playing. If you don’t give him the answers he wants, he just might let me play with you early, which will be so much fun!’ Dessie exclaimed as Pastor Bentley walked up to the side of the autopsy trolley.
