Painted Skins

by Matt Hilton

  ‘So let’s go get them, us,’ he said, and she felt a wave of gratitude pass through her at his selfless bravery.

  ‘I’ve something to do first.’ She dug out her cell and hit the last number on her call list.

  ‘Detective Ratcliffe,’ she said without preamble. ‘Please tell me the cavalry are on the way. I’m inside the factory I told you about and just heard the scream of a woman. Somebody is being hurt, right now!’

  ‘Tess, I warned you to stand down, damn it!’ the detective replied harshly, but behind her voice Tess was relieved to hear the wail of a siren. ‘But I guess you’re there now, and I’m still on my way. What have you got?’

  ‘First you should know I’m here with two male colleagues, so please don’t come in shooting. We’ve gained entry to the old water plant and just heard a woman screaming from somewhere further inside. She sounds like she’s being beaten. We’re going to look for her now.’

  ‘We’re only fifteen minutes out. Stay where you are and leave it to us.’

  Distantly a woman’s shriek echoed again.

  ‘Fifteen minutes is way too long,’ Tess croaked. ‘I have to do something now. Just get here, Detective, as quickly as possible.’

  Tess ended the call.

  ‘Maybe we should do as she said,’ Pinky counselled. ‘We don’t know if Randall’s armed.’

  ‘I’m armed,’ Tess replied and held up the gun in emphasis.

  Pinky looked at the old gun with some doubt. ‘I meant if he spots us coming he might kill the girl before we can help.’

  ‘Pinky, can’t you hear? He’s killing her now.’

  ‘I hear. Let’s go.’

  Their feet clattered through debris as they charged along a corridor. Another door barred progress but Tess took a leaf out of Pinky’s book and used brute force to make a way through with a jumping kick that knocked it off its hinges. The crash echoed through the ancient building, and the screaming stopped. But nearer by fresh voices were raised in frantic calls for help. Two voices, Tess realized. ‘We have to free them first,’ she decided, and ran in their direction, Pinky following. She hoped Po had also heard the original screeches and gone to their source. She could only pray that the cessation of the woman’s agonized squeals meant Po had stopped her abuse; the alternative was that she was too late to be saved.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Rain pelted the windshield and the hood steamed as John Trojak brought his car to a halt fifty yards short of the Mustang. He peered through the smeared screen, wondering if Po or any of the others were still inside the muscle car, sheltering from the latest downpour. They would have to be nuts to go poking around in this weather, unless urgency forced them.

  ‘Drive closer.’ Cal Hopewell shoved the gun against the back of Trojak’s head.

  ‘You want them to see us?’

  ‘I don’t care if they see us. I’m confident I can handle a bunch of amateurs. Don’t forget I’m a highly trained Marine.’

  ‘Hooah,’ Trojak replied sarcastically.

  ‘That’s “Oorah”, asshole. If you’re trying to be snarky, at least get your fucking facts right.’ Hopewell leaned forward for a better look. ‘They aren’t even in the car. They’ve already gone inside those buildings down there.’

  Trojak drove the car forward and parked alongside the Mustang. He kept the engine running.

  ‘Hoping for an early finish?’ Hopewell asked sarcastically. ‘Turn off the engine and pass back the keys.’

  Trojak complied without comment.

  ‘Hands on the wheel, buddy,’ Hopewell reminded him.

  Trojak gripped the steering wheel.

  ‘Don’t move until I tell you.’

  ‘We’re getting out?’

  ‘Not afraid of a little rain, are you? The detective and her buddies have gone inside for one reason. They’re looking for someone. If it’s Jasmine, then great, I’ll take her off them. If it’s that sicko Jesse Randall, I need to speak with him before they hand him over to the cops.’ The back door clunked open, and Hopewell slid out. The gun was an ever-present threat alongside Trojak’s head, even for the brief moment before Hopewell pulled open the driver’s door. ‘OK. Out, with your hands behind your ears.’

  Rain stung his features as Trojak struggled out of the car: it wasn’t easy without the assistance of his hands.

  ‘Clasp your fingers together,’ Hopewell ordered.

  As soon as his fingers were knitted, Hopewell stepped behind Trojak and grabbed them. He pushed the car doors shut with his knee. He never once lowered the gun. ‘Walk. Take those steps down, but one at a time. Try to pull free, I’ll shoot you where you stand.’

  ‘What if I slip and you let go?’

  ‘Simple answer: don’t slip.’

  The warped boards that formed the steps were slick with wet moss. Trojak negotiated them as warned, taking single tentative steps then settling his stance, before moving down again. ‘Jesus, you move like a geriatric,’ Hopewell growled.

  ‘Just ensuring I don’t trip as advised.’

  ‘You know, Johnny, I can’t make up my mind if you’re incredibly stupid or incredibly brave. Brave I can deal with, stupidity not so much. Whatever, don’t fucking try me.’

  Trojak picked up a little speed.

  Hopewell descended behind him, still gripping his clasped hands, but his attention was straying. He checked out the nearest structure for any sign of movement. Rain in the treetops and on the nearby tin roofs made hearing anything else impossible. They reached the bottom and stood on a platform of poured concrete. The concrete had crumbled at three corners and bushes had invaded the cracks. To the left was a ten-foot drop to the sloping hillside that was overgrown with shrubs, to the right a set of concrete stairs allowed foot passage to a cinder track that ran around the nearest building. Ahead was an entrance to a foyer area, the doors hanging askew in the frame. ‘I guess that’s the way inside,’ Hopewell said.

  Trojak took a step, but Hopewell jerked back on his captured hands. Trojak grunted, and struggled to find his footing.

  ‘End of the line for you, Johnny.’

  His fingers were released, but Trojak didn’t move. He knew the gun still threatened him.

  ‘Turn around,’ Hopewell commanded.

  Trojak did, and the rain was in his face again. He squinted through the droplets on his lashes, as he slowly lowered his arms.

  ‘So what happens now, Cal?’ he asked.

  ‘Can’t have you slowing me down; can’t let you go.’

  ‘So you’re going to shoot me?’

  ‘I don’t have any other option,’ Hopewell said glibly.

  ‘I’ll go and wait in the car,’ Trojak offered. ‘Not as if I can go anywhere seeing as you’ve got the keys.’

  ‘I won’t need a driver for the return trip.’

  ‘So old times don’t account for anything?’

  ‘We were never friends.’ Hopewell lowered the gun so it was centred on Trojak’s heart. ‘And speaking of old times, you said earlier if you’d been at the party that night you’d have taken my knife and stuck it in my eye.’

  ‘Still would, given a chance,’ Trojak admitted. ‘Shame you took my knife off me back at Tess’s place or I’d have tried now.’

  ‘That’s why I can’t give you a chance. I’ve made up my mind about you. You’re brave and stupid. But stupidity has the edge: you do realize you just talked me into killing you, right?’

  ‘You didn’t require convincing,’ Trojak said.

  ‘Not really,’ Hopewell smirked.

  Without warning Trojak lunged away.

  For the briefest moment, Hopewell was slow to react, his mind still working on where best to shoot Trojak. Now his options were limited, as Trojak raced to the edge of the platform. Hopewell fired, and blood puffed on the air. Trojak twisted, his arms outstretched as his feet swept from beneath him and he pitched over the ten-foot drop. From where he was in a shooter’s crouch on the platform, Hopewell heard Trojak pound the earth on the downs
lope, and the rattle and crackle of him breaking twigs as he rolled. He stalked to the edge of the platform, the gun held in both hands. He aimed below, but there was no sign of Trojak. If he hadn’t seen proof that he’d hit his target, the blood on the platform and glistening on leaves below, he’d have been more concerned. If Trojak wasn’t dead, he was mortally wounded, and had rolled into the damp space beneath the platform to die.

  Hopewell stared for a moment longer, then shrugged and turned towards the foyer. He had more important targets than trying to root out a man already beyond help. He’d shot a man, most probably killed him, and that meant he’d crossed a line he hadn’t even done while he was with the United States Marine Corps. It was a line he couldn’t retreat over and knew where this new direction would lead him. He’d admitted to Trojak that he saw Jasmine Reed as unfinished business, and he was determined to do to her what she fought against all those years earlier. Holding his gun by his side, he dipped his other hand in his jacket pocket and took out the lock-knife he’d liberated from Trojak. He’d cut Jasmine when she’d defied him, he’d cut her again, but only when he’d had his fill of her. He thought about Jesse Randall, suspected of abducting women and keeping them prisoner at this decrepit old factory. He felt no affinity with the ugly son of a bitch, though he did experience a trickle of respect for the man’s audacity. Though not for a second did it sway him: Randall had taken what was rightfully his and that was unforgivable.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  It was similar to trying to make her way through a funhouse, one dressed for Hallowe’en, Tess thought as she took the twisting passageways deeper inside the derelict structure. Many times she met blind ends and turns that led away from the girls’ shrieking, and twice she and Pinky had to clamber over spilled rubble or kick through locked doors. Overhead the roof rattled and shook as the wind picked up, and the drumming of rain made hearing more difficult.

  ‘Which way now, Tess?’ Pinky asked, as they faced yet another dead end.

  ‘The most direct,’ Tess announced and approached the blockage in the passage. It was dark, but she brought up the flashlight app on her cellphone. She shone it over what was evidently a recent addition to the structure. Boards had been nailed to a framework of timber to block the passage. She wondered how long Jesse Randall had used the factory as his playground, and how many other adaptations he’d made to it to enjoy a self-contained space.

  ‘Can you see anything we can use as a lever?’ she asked Pinky.

  ‘Shine your light this way,’ said Pinky and moved back the direction they’d approached from.

  Tess aimed the light after him and watched him root around in a pile of junk heaped against a wall. He came up with a length of steel pipe as long as her forearm, on the end of which was a coupling and some kind of valve. ‘This should do,’ he said, and tested the weight in his opposite palm. ‘Stand aside, pretty Tess, this job requires brawn over brain.’

  He went at the partition wall as if he was hewing down a tree with an axe, and with only a few hefty swings had smashed open a hole that Tess could peek through. The passage stretched on ahead. ‘Go for it, Pinky,’ she encouraged and he lay in again. Once he was satisfied that the boards were sufficiently weakened, he changed tactics, using his heels to kick a way through. As they passed through the barrier, he paused to wipe sweat from his brow. ‘That manly stuff is rather liberating, hey?’ he said with a grin.

  ‘The next barricade’s mine,’ Tess told him with a wink.

  They set off jogging, with Pinky puffing and panting now. Tess couldn’t afford to slow. Their demolition of the wall must have been heard throughout the factory, and if Randall had given Po the slip, he might very well be on his way back to where they were heading.

  ‘Hell … I haven’t run like this … since trying to get … to the head of the chow line … at Angola, me …’ Pinky wheezed behind her. ‘Gotta stop soon … Tess … before I cough up a lung.’

  ‘It can’t be far now,’ she said without slowing.

  ‘Legs are burning …’ he huffed.

  ‘There’s no gain without pain,’ she replied.

  ‘Actually, I managed … to gain all this weight … an’ it was painless.’

  Any other time, Tess would have welcomed humour, but right then couldn’t help feel it was inappropriate. The pain those girls must have suffered was no laughing matter.

  She slid to a halt.

  Pinky almost flattened her, but at the last second proved he still retained some agility, by swerving around her and caroming off a corner in the wall. He spun around, hefting the pipe he’d carried with him like a club. His chest rose and fell as he gasped for air. ‘Whassup?’

  ‘There,’ she replied and pointed to their right.

  A dozen yards away somebody hammered against a door. Another ten yards further on a woman slapped another door, crying out because she’d recognized their voices as belonging to strangers. ‘Over here! Over here! Please help me!’

  Tess and Pinky moved closer, Tess’s revolver leading the way.

  Now the woman in the room nearest took up the caterwauling.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Tess called out, ‘we’re here to help.’

  She’d put away her cell after Pinky knocked down the partition, but she pulled it now, but only so she could switch on the flashlight app.

  She shone it on the nearest door, then flicked it at the other. The backwash of the glow showed similar doors on the opposite side of the corridor. One stood open. She took a brief look inside. It was empty but for an old engine block, a flattened bucket, an empty plastic bottle and some smaller items of trash she couldn’t identify. The ammonia stench from within raised her gorge, and she ducked out into the hall again. She turned to look at the nearest locked door, and was aware of Pinky gawping alongside her.

  ‘Please, please get us out,’ begged the nearest woman.

  The other woman was overcome with emotion and now wept.

  Pinky eyed the bolts and padlocks, then his pipe, but he stepped forward to attempt to wrench them loose.

  Tess held on to his elbow. ‘I told you the next barricade was mine.’

  She had no intention of smashing the locks loose – she doubted either of them could – but she didn’t need to. Affixed to the wall was an old wooden box, the door hanging open, keys on hooks inside. She passed them to Pinky while she covered the passageway with her gun. The doors took old-fashioned iron keys, while the padlocks were newer Yale locks. Pinky had to experiment before he found the correct ones, but soon had the first door open. He stood back, his lips stretched wide in an embarrassed grimace as he saw a naked girl standing before him. The girl seemed unaware of her state of undress, and held up her wrists to him. She was shackled to an oil drum filled with concrete.

  Once he’d found the correct key, and unlocked her cuffs, the girl fell against Pinky. He sheltered her under his armpit and helped walk her from the cell. She blinked wildly, screwing her face as Tess shone the torch over her. The girl was dirty, tattooed, bruised and scratched, but recognizable.

  ‘Lucy?’ Tess asked her. ‘Lucy Jo Colman?’

  Lucy’s mouth gaped, but then she nodded. ‘I thought nobody would ever come,’ she said, and tears flooded down her face.

  ‘Hush now, honey,’ Pinky soothed her. ‘We’re going to get you out of here.’

  The other girl began banging on her door.

  ‘We’re coming,’ Tess called to her. ‘We’ll be right there.’

  Pinky slipped out of his coat and draped it around Lucy Colman’s shoulders. Gratefully Lucy wrapped it around herself, as she made thanks under her breath to whatever god was looking out for her after all.

  Tess wanted to check with Lucy about so many things. Where’s Jasmine? How many other girls are here? Where’s Jesse Randall? But she put her questions aside. She helped usher Lucy along the corridor while Pinky began sorting through keys again.

  He opened the door in short time, and wasn’t so abashed on seeing a second naked girl. H
e went to her, soothing her with a calm voice, and unclipped her from a length of chain that bound her to an enormous iron cog. The girl stepped tentatively into the hall before him, and this time it was Tess who shed her jacket and hung it over the girl’s shoulders, but only after a brief inspection. As was Lucy, the girl had been bruised and cut, but there the similarity ended. This girl was neither tattooed nor carried old wounds. Unsurprisingly Tess didn’t recognize her, as she wasn’t one of the women she’d originally listed. Emma Clancy had warned her about looking for patterns in chaos, and she was ashamed to admit she had done so, and had missed this victim entirely through her short-sightedness. The tattoos and especially the scars might have had nothing to do with Randall’s process of selecting victims. In hindsight, the scarring was probably about Tess projecting her personal insecurities on the victims. She thought she was over the trauma of almost losing a hand, but apparently not: it was still there lurking in the back of her mind. But it didn’t matter, she’d still identified that girls were being taken, where nobody else had. For that she wasn’t smug, only thankful that she’d followed her hunch.

  ‘I’m Tess Grey,’ she told the young woman. ‘I’m a private investigator and I’ve been looking for you all. What’s your name?’

  ‘Maria,’ the girl whispered. ‘I’m Maria Belfort.’

  ‘Well, Maria, you’re safe now. You and Lucy are both safe.’

  The two girls shared a look, and there was some confusion on their faces. Tess realized this was possibly the first time they’d laid eyes on each other, and possibly learned their fellow captive’s name. It didn’t matter because they were bonded by experience. The two girls went to each other and hugged, weeping silently. Tess allowed them a few seconds, but none of them were safe where they stood.

  ‘The one who held you?’ Tess prompted.

  ‘He’s a monster,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Who is he?’ Tess went on.

  ‘I never heard his name,’ Lucy said. Maria also shook her head.

  ‘Is he a big guy,’ Tess went on, and traced her hand down the side of her face, ‘with a huge scar down here?’