‘Yeah, that’s her. Her name was Erin.’
Boller began coughing, as if something had caught in his airway.
‘Are you okay?’ Sarah asked, wondering what had brought on his spluttering.
‘Yes, fine,’ he said, quickly handing the frame back. ‘Can I use your bathroom?’
Sarah gave him directions to the bathroom and he excused himself.
40
Boller entered the en-suite bathroom and moved straight for the basin. He turned the cold water tap on, began to scoop up water in his hands, and splashed it on his face. This couldn’t be happening; the woman in the photograph was the policewoman who had come to his house on Tuesday night, asking difficult questions!
He had been in his house, scrubbing the floor with bleach, when there had been a knock at the door. He had not been expecting visitors, and he had panicked that it would be one of his team mates, popping by for a late drinking session. He didn’t want to let anybody in, particularly in the kitchen where blood had congealed on the floor; Natalie’s blood. He had already taken the stained bed sheets out to an incinerator in his back yard and burned them. But on Saturday, he had left her lifeless body on the laminated kitchen floor, whilst he had gone to find something to carry her body in, to dump it. When he had returned, a dark crimson pool of blood had formed around her body and had seeped between the thin cracks in the flooring. He knew that bleaching the floor would only hide the blood from the naked-eye, but would be no challenge for a forensics team to find. He had decided to scrub the floor for now, and would look to replace the flooring as soon as possible.
As he went to open his front door, he had decided that he would just steer whichever team mate it was, to the living room and say that the kitchen was out of bounds. He had been surprised to see a pretty woman, dressed in a business suit, standing at his door. There was a small drizzle falling in the background, which was illuminated by his security light. At first, he thought she was a passing stranger whose car had broken down, but she held up a warrant card and said she was a Detective Constable. His eyes had widened. There was no way they could have connected him to Natalie’s disappearance, or so he thought.
The policewoman had asked to come in as she had some questions she wished to ask him about the last time he had seen Natalie. She told him that as he had been the last person to see her alive, his perspective on things might help steer them to the person who had abducted her. He was sweating heavily at the thought that she could read his mind, but he tried to play it cool and welcomed her in.
She asked him to describe what he had seen, what Natalie had been wearing, whether she had seemed happy or upset, whether he had noticed anybody else around. He pleaded ignorance to all of her questions, claiming that he hadn’t really been paying attention and how he wished he could have been more help. He thought she was about to leave when she started asking more pertinent questions: What time did he finish meeting with Mr Stanley, the head of Year-5? What time did he get in his car? Where was Natalie when he saw her? What route did he drive home? What was traffic like? The questions came thick and fast and then she would repeat questions, but using different words, as if she was trying to trip him up. It made him feel quite jumpy.
Just when he thought he had answered all of her questions, she had asked if she could have a look at his car. He didn’t want to show her the car, as he hadn’t finished cleaning up the boot and if she happened to ask to look inside, he would be caught. As he went upstairs to fetch his keys, he left her in the living room, waiting. When he returned, he noticed that she was chewing on something. He looked quizzically at her and she apologised, saying she had helped herself to one of the toffees from the paper bag on the coffee table. At this point, he knew he was in trouble, as it was one of the drugged toffees he had given to Natalie on Friday night. If the policewoman became aware that the sweet was drugged, she was sure to arrest him, pending further enquiries. He had quickly said he did not mind and offered her a second toffee. She gratefully accepted, making the excuse that she had not been home for her dinner yet.
She was half asleep when they reached the car but by the time she realised what had happened, she had passed out and banged her head on the floor. There was nothing he could do, apart from finish the job and dispose of her body. Nobody would believe that he had accidentally drugged a policewoman. He had put her in her car, in the passenger seat and drove out into the dark night. He had brought a shovel and a bottle of whisky with him, his intention to crack her skull with one and drown his sorrows with the other. His mind raced as he drove. He wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing and nearly hit a startled deer that ran in front of the car. It was the inspiration he needed, and at that moment, he decided he would make out like she had been involved in a car accident. He pulled the car over, placed her in the driving seat and poured half the bottle of whisky down her throat, the rest he splashed liberally over her suit. He made sure her seat belt was unfastened and then placed a large rock on the accelerator pedal. The car tore off down the road and soon left the road, winding up in a ditch. When he wandered down the road to survey the scene, he wasn’t surprised to see her bloody head poking through the cracked windscreen.
He disposed of the large rock and jogged back home. He made it within thirty minutes, where he then made an anonymous telephone call to the police, taking care to withhold his number, to explain he had seen what looked like a drunk driver careering off the road.
There had been several nights of uneasy sleep since that moment, but he had all but forgotten about it, after last night’s rendezvous with Rêmet. The image of the policewoman, looking so happy with Sarah, had made his stomach turn; the grim truth crashing down around him. He took several deep breaths and looked at his reflection in the mirror. It isn’t your fault, he told himself; it isn’t your fault. She had it coming; it was her fault for asking the wrong questions. She had it coming. The face in the mirror smiled back at him and he regained his composure. He could hear Sarah singing gently in the other room, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Her voice sounded almost-angelic and he felt it calling to him. He splashed more water on his face, wiped it with a towel and returned to the living room.
Sarah was slouched on the sofa, the effects of the flunitrazepam taking their toll.
‘Johan, hey,’ Sarah slurred, trying and failing to sit up. ‘Dance with me?’
Johan smiled down at her intoxicated state. She would be his, he thought to himself. He reached his arms out and took her hands in his own. He pulled her up towards him and she collapsed into his arms.
‘I think I’m a bit drunk,’ she mused, not quite able to keep her eyes open.
‘That’s okay, Cherie,’ he replied. ‘I’ll take care of you.’
Sarah felt weightless, as Boller scooped her up in his arms and carried her through to the bedroom. She felt like she was dreaming, as he laid her down on the bed and began to pull at her dress.
41
Sarah thrashed about in her dream-like state. It felt like she was in a sail boat, in the middle of a torrential storm, and she was alone. It was taking all her strength to batten down the hatches, and keep the boat afloat. She could feel the waves splashing against her face, and the force of the wind, knocking her from side to side, pulling her down then pushing her up again. She felt something hard scraping against her thighs and then a sharp pain just above.
She came to, to find herself lying flat on her bed, her dress ripped open and Johan aggressively grinding himself up and down, on top of her. Her drug-addled mind was struggling to process what was happening. Why was he on top of her? Why was he hurting her? Her flailing arms tried to push him off, but it was no good, his upper body strength was more than she could cope with.
Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she briefly passed out again. She fought hard to regain control of her mind, and forced her eyes to open again. She could feel Boller’s hand between her legs, roughly pushing against her, whilst his other hand was reaching down, tr
ying to undo his trousers.
‘Wh-what?’ she tried to say but her mouth wouldn’t allow her to pronounce the words. It was as if her lips were sewn shut.
Boller mumbled something in French that she didn’t understand, but then she felt him push harder between her legs, and the grim reality, that she was being raped, hit her like a locomotive.
Thoughts raced through her mind, but she was unable to finish one and link them together to find a solution to the problem. Why was he doing this?
She yelped out in pain, as he thrust against her semi-naked flesh. She yelped again, but it just seemed to spur him on.
She needed to get him to stop.
Yes, that was it! She needed him to stop. But how?
He continued to force himself, deeper between her legs, feeling the excitement of having her, against her will. He began to moan too.
‘Stop!’ she tried to shout, but it was barely a whisper.
Something wet rolled down her cheeks, and she realised she was crying. She chastised herself for being so weak. Crying wasn’t the answer! She had to be strong, to think of a way out of this. God, how she wished Erin was here right now.
Boller moaned louder, as he felt her tensing up around him. It meant she was regaining consciousness. It made him look down towards her. He could see her crying and the expression of hopelessness on her face.
Sarah saw his eyes look at her, and she felt sickened by the animalistic-look they had. He pushed harder and faster. Sarah raised her eyes to the ceiling and brought them around in an arc, looking for anything she might use as a weapon, or at least leverage, to get this hulk off of her. But there was nothing obvious she could use. The alarm clock was on the bedside table but like the lamp, was wired to the wall, so there was no way it would stretch. The only other things in reach were her pillows and she knew they wouldn’t do him any harm.
Unless…
She grabbed at the nearest pillow and put it over her face to help her position her hands, in such a way, as she had a hand on each edge of the pillow. Then, with one, quick motion, she thrust the pillow up and into the face of her attacker with all the strength she could muster. She pushed with all her might and felt his body lift slightly from her.
Boller began to focus his weight on pushing back against the pillow. Her decision to use it as leverage had surprised him, but he knew he was stronger than her.
Sarah continued to push up, despite the weight of Boller forcing her arms to bend. She just needed to position him so that…
There.
She thrust her right knee up, as hard and as fast as she could, and landed the blow somewhere between his buttocks and testicles. He yelped out in pain and it caused him to topple over the side of the bed, his penis roughly expelled from her, sending a shooting pain up through her groin.
Sarah knew she didn’t have time to think about the pain, and she pushed herself so that she rolled down and off the end of the bed. Boller was bent over with his hand between his legs, protecting it from further damage. She could feel a warm sensation between her own legs and saw blood dripping onto the carpet. There was an even bigger pool of blood forming on the bed where she had been only moments earlier.
Sarah got to her feet and stumbled into the hallway. She realised that Boller must have drugged her in some way, and she tried to regain her balance, before her legs buckled beneath her, and she crashed into the table that the phone was on. There was a loud crash, as the plastic phone clattered to the floor. She could see her front door and knew that if she could just get to it, she would be out and could get help.
Her whole body was aching, in particular her groin, and it took all her will power to crawl to the front door on her hands and knees. The bristly spikes of the door mat rubbed against her legs and she knew that if she could just stand and reach the door knob…
But it was too late. Boller had recovered from the attack and was standing right behind her. He placed his hands around her waist and dragged her back from the door. She cried out as she sensed what would happen next.
Satisfied that they were now far enough from the door, Boller placed her back down and pushed her head to the floor, causing her buttocks to rise as a result.
‘You will be mine,’ he spat in her direction and knelt down behind her.
Sarah felt his grubby hands reaching between her legs, ready to finish the job off.
‘Please,’ she begged between sobs.
‘It will be over soon enough, Cherie,’ he replied.
‘People know where I am,’ she continued, desperate to say anything to frighten him into stopping. ‘They will come for me. They will come for you.’
Boller withdrew his hand and moved around, so that he was speaking into her ear.
‘Nobody will come for you, bitch. This time, they won’t even find the body.’
Sarah’s head whipped around so that she was facing him.
‘What do you mean?’ she said, forcing the tears to stop.
‘Your bitch of a girlfriend thought she was on to me as well,’ he said between gritted teeth, ‘but I dealt with her. I will deal with you as well, once I am finished.’
‘You killed Erin?’ Sarah said in a cracked whisper. ‘Why?’
‘If she hadn’t come to see me on Tuesday, she would still be alive today,’ he retorted, as if it was Erin’s own fault. ‘That stupid bitch should have just left it alone!’
‘Oh God,’ Sarah said, as she realised the truth. ‘Rêmet was right; you killed Natalie.’
Sarah’s statement caught his attention, ‘You knew Claude Rêmet?’
‘What do you mean, ‘knew’?’ she replied as it became evident why the journalist had failed to call her that morning.
‘Rêmet was another one who should have kept his nose out of my business,’ Boller shouted before shuffling, so that he was back behind her.
‘You won’t get away with this,’ Sarah shouted again and screamed as he thrust himself between her legs again.
‘You sick son of a bitch!’ she cried between his thrusts.
‘Keep crying, bitch,’ he retorted. ‘It makes it so much better.’
Sarah closed her eyes and willed the newly-forming memories from her mind, trying anything to repress what was happening. She thought about little Natalie, an innocent girl in the wrong place at the wrong time, when this monster came calling. She thought about Erin, a good and kind officer, following her hunch and winding up a victim. She thought about Claude Rêmet, a crusader who would never see justice served. The pain continued, as he thrust harder and harder. She felt a wave of relief, as he began to moan and she sensed he was near climax; at least it would be over soon enough.
‘Are you ready, bitch?’ she heard him moan, before a sudden, loud clatter caused her to pass out again.
42
Alan Jenson hated mobile telephones. In his opinion, no phone call could ever be so important that it couldn’t wait until one had returned home. It bothered him to see young people wandering around, wired into their ever-shrinking mobile phones. These days, mobile phone devices were music players, internet devices and game machines. People seemed to spend more time using a mobile phone device than they actually spent physically interacting with other people.
In spite of his opinion, he had succumbed to purchasing a mobile phone himself. Whilst he despised the thought of carrying a phone on his person all day, he could see the advantage of being able to contact someone in an emergency, should the situation require it. It had been Veronica’s suggestion that he buy the phone.
Veronica was a sixty year old spinster that Alan Jenson had known for over thirty years. Never married, she always claimed that she was waiting for the right man to come along; nobody could argue that she hadn’t dipped her toe in the water, as her string of lovers would testify to. However, none had seemed worth committing to, in her opinion. Despite her age, Veronica was still a bit of a looker and she knew that most of the widowed men in Fortuneswell fancied her. She used it to her full advantage
and she couldn’t even remember the last time she had bought herself a drink when she had been at the local club.
Alan had taken quite a shine to Veronica, since his wife had passed away and they had unofficially become an item, not that he had told Sarah about her yet. Veronica had her own house in the town, and they would generally take it in turns to cook and stay around at each other’s houses on alternate nights. The love-making had given Alan a new lease of life, a new reason for living, and that was why he had now improved his diet, to include several portions of fruit and vegetables each day. It was also helping him to increase his stamina.
Veronica liked to think she was still relatively in-touch with the world, and had bought herself a mobile phone that allowed her to check her emails while she was out shopping. She had told Alan he must invest in a phone so that she could get hold of him whenever required, and so he had relented.
It had been an awkward scene when he had walked into the mobile phone shop in Weymouth. A young, confident-looking man with his hair slicked back, had approached him and asked how he could help.
‘I want a phone,’ Alan had replied.
‘Okay,’ the young man had said. ‘Do you require 3G, Wi-Fi, HD video capabilities?’
Alan had looked at him, as if he were speaking another language, before repeating, ‘I want a phone.’
The young man had asked him if there was a particular handset he was interested in, if he wanted free minutes and text messages and how much data he would be downloading per month. Alan was bemused and had turned around and left the shop. When he explained what had happened to Veronica, she had dragged him back to the shop and had thankfully explained that he needed a basic phone, with no fancy trimmings. He had no idea what make of phone he had ended up with, but Veronica had showed him how to make a call on the device and had pre-programmed it with several telephone numbers, so that he wouldn’t need to commit them to memory.
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