The Bristol Savages, page 11
“Jennifer?” Dr Malin said softly. “These detectives want to ask you some questions. Okay?”
Jennifer looked exhausted. She’d been cleaned up, but the brutality of her kidnap and subsequent torture were clearly evident: a swollen and cut upper lip, a black eye, scratch marks on her left cheek, clumps of hair torn and ripped out of her head. Butterfly stitches covered the worst of the scratches, and pads had been placed over the worst injuries across her scalp. Her eyes looked haunted, skittish and feral, like a frightened deer. Under the injuries was a pretty young girl. She was pale, and Sarah wondered if that was from shock, blood loss, or the fact that she had been held captive in a dark basement away from the sun for a long time.
Apparently, she had been chained up for ten days.
Jennifer Downe was nineteen years old.
Dr Malin said, quietly enough so Jennifer couldn’t hear, “are her parents on the way?”
Ben said, “they’ll be here in the next hour. They live in Salisbury.”
Dr Malin nodded and then left.
Bidderman went to advance into the room but Ben put a hand on his arm to stop him.
Bidderman looked as if he might rip the arm off at the elbow, were he not to be immediately released, but his expression cleared when Ben said, “maybe Sarah should talk to her.”
Bidderman nodded, and Ben looked at Sarah. She tentatively ventured into the room, feeling much like she was being forced on stage to perform. Like a monkey.
Jennifer watched her with the solemn and devout attention of a penitent child.
“Hi, Jennifer,” Sarah said, stopping by the bed. “My name is Sarah. I’m a Detective. How are you feeling?”
“Everything hurts,” she said simply. Her voice was small, like that of a child.
“I know. I just want to ask you some questions about what happened. If you don’t mind.”
“Okay.”
Jennifer started crying, softly, with hardly a sound.
Sarah groped for the tissues by the bedside and passed them to her.
“It hurts when I cry,” she said.
“Your ribs?”
She nodded, wiping her face carefully between the cuts and the bandages.
“He broke three of them.”
Sarah paused, hating what she was going to have to do, but knowing she was going to do it anyway.
“Do you want to tell me what happened? From the beginning?”
Jennifer paused, folding the tissue carefully. Sarah noticed that two of the fingers on her left hand were in a splint. Not for the first time, she wondered if Charlie hadn’t gotten what he deserved.
“He was staying at the hotel,” she began, still folding the tissue. “That’s where I work. Behind the reception desk.”
“At the Marriot in Salisbury?”
She nodded.
“In the centre. He was on a business trip, he said, selling cutlery and things. He was really nice, really…good looking. When I finished my shift on Friday night, he was just coming back to the hotel. We stopped and talked, and he offered to buy me a drink. So we went to this bar, Senoras, it’s not far from the hotel, and it was nice, he was nice, and then we were outside, just chatting and…” She reached up and touched her nose. “He hit me. I must have blacked out. I woke up in his car. In the boot. I started kicking and screaming, but he just ignored me. He was listening to music. When I started kicking and screaming, he just turned it up. We drove for a long time. Then we stopped, he got out, and he just left me there, in the boot, for what seemed like hours. I screamed and screamed but nobody came. Then…” Jennifer drew a shuddering breath, winced: her ribs. “Then he came back and took me out of the boot and he hit me again and then he…he picked me up and just…dropped me. Down that hole. I landed on my ankle and something cracked and I blacked out again. When I woke up he had my hands in these chains tied to the ceiling…and my feet weren’t even touching the floor. I thought…I thought my arms would come out of their sockets, I was in so much pain. Charlie was at the far end of the room, I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him, he was humming to himself, like he was…happy. And then he was there, and he was…he was…” Sobs escaped Jennifer, and she turned her face away for a moment, pushing the tissue to her mouth as if to stifle her misery. Sarah looked over at Ben and Bidderman, both of whom – lingering in the doorway – looked uncomfortable.
After a moment, Jennifer controlled herself, swallowing back her tears, and wiping her face with another tissue.
“He was naked,” she said savagely, a flash in her eyes. “And…erect. And he had something in his hands, I didn’t know what it was at first, then I saw it was like a cord, you know, a cord for a lamp or something, but just a cord, no lamp, but with the plug still attached on the end. And he brought it up and…he just started hitting me with it. Everywhere. And hard. It hurt like…I couldn’t believe how much it hurt.”
She paused, swallowing, and looked at Sarah, and in her eyes was a question, or a need, but Sarah did not know what it was she wanted.
“When he was done with that, he raped me. It was like…after everything that had already happened, all the pain, I didn’t think it would matter. But it did. It wasn’t like pain, it was like…” She tried to find the words, to explain to Sarah what had happened. “I just felt cold. And ill. In my stomach. Like he’d gotten inside me and spat on everything good, everything that was good inside me. And there was no way I was going to be clean again. That this one thing, this one thing he had done, was going to make me dirty forever.” Jennifer looked down at her hands for a moment, lost in the memory of that moment, of that invasion. “And he pretty much did that every night. Sometimes he wouldn’t use the cord, sometimes he’d just hit me. With his fists. That’s how he broke my ribs. Or he’d burn me. He had a halogen heater. He’d put it on, wait until it got hot, and then just push it against my back, or my thighs, or my bum. And sometimes he’d stick his fingers in all the cuts and blood and lick it off his fingers. And sometimes he wouldn’t rape me like he…” Jennifer struggled with this for a moment. “He would stand behind me. And I would feel him, pushing into me, from behind, in my…” Jennifer was seized with a coughing fit, and for a terrible moment Sarah thought she might be sick, but she managed to control herself.
After a moment, when she was calmer, she continued, “I knew I was going to die.” Her eyes were strange. It was an unnerving look that met Sarah’s gaze. They shone with a kind of longing; Sarah supposed she too might have longed for death rather than have the torture continue indefinitely. “You don’t do something like that to a person and let them live to talk about it.” She turned to Sarah, and her eyes were bright and savage with hate. “But somebody got him instead.” She smiled, and it was a horrible twisted smile that didn’t belong on that innocent face. “Isn’t it funny how things turn out?”
Jennifer vomited suddenly, a gush of white fluid that shot out of her mouth, over her own hands, over the hospital sheets, and partly over Sarah. It was so sudden that by the time Sarah had jumped back to avoid it, her hands, arms, and thighs were already covered.
“I’m sorry,” Jennifer moaned, and another glut of vomit sprang to her lips, but this time it was thicker, more viscous, and only covered her own chin and chest.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Sarah said soothingly, pulling tissues out of the box to try and wipe some of the sick from Jennifer’s face.
The smell of it was in Sarah’s nostrils, was at the back of her throat.
She tried not to think about it.
She heard the door open and close, and then moments later open again. It was the doctor.
“You’ll have to leave,” he told Sarah.
Sarah stepped back, pulling a bundle of tissues out of the box for herself before exiting the room. She left Jennifer with the doctor talking softly to her.
“I’m glad it was you interviewing her,” Bidderman said, with amusement, when they had left the room.
Sarah stared at him, and then began wiping herself down.
“So,” he continued, “we have a serial killer killing serial killers.”
“They make the best profilers,” Sarah said.
Bidderman watched her attending to herself with a small smile on his lips.
“That’s what I heard. You were good in there, by the way.”
Sarah looked at him, to see if this was more mockery.
It appeared that it wasn’t however.
She nodded, accepting the compliment, and continued to wipe at the sick stuck to her cardigan.
The tissues were done; Sarah looked around for a bin, found one in a corner by the fire exit, dumped them, and then went to the nurse’s station for something more substantial to clean herself with. She was given a towel no bigger than a paperback book. Better than nothing, she supposed.
Bidderman and Ben were talking on the far side of the nurse’s station. Sarah joined them.
“…Not going to get any more out of her today,” Ben said. “What can she tell us?”
“She might know something,” Bidderman said testily.
“Then we come back tomorrow.”
Bidderman stared at the closed door to Jennifer’s room, and then at Sarah as she finished wiping herself down. His lips pulled back in distaste.
“Fine,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Bidderman led the way, and they followed.
“You alright?” Ben asked.
She stared at him with narrowed eyes.
He held up his hands in mock surrender.
“I’m only asking,” he said innocently.
“These clothes are ruined,” she said, looking down at them; a lost cause.
“Listen.”
He stopped her.
“What?” She said, curious.
“That’s the sound of the fashion world in mourning.”
Sarah rolled her eyes.
Bidderman had stopped at the lifts, and they both went to join him.
“Anyway. You’ve cheered Inspector Bidderman up.”
Sarah frowned. He was looking up at the digital floor display above the lift door and whistling.
She smiled blandly at Ben.
“I’m so glad,” she said.
*
Maria was standing by Bidderman’s car as they walked along the back of the Haematology and Oncology Centre to the hospital car park.
She hurried over to them, the sound of her high heels echoing across the concrete. Sarah decided she hated her in that moment, in her fashionably studious attire, her heels, her perfect hair, the fact that she wasn’t covered in dried vomit.
“Two things,” Maria said, and stopped when she saw Sarah. Her nose wrinkled prettily in disgust. “What happened? Is that vomit?”
“What two things?” Bidderman demanded.
“Oh.” She came back smartly to attention, like a soldier. “I tried to reach you but your phones must not have been working in there.” She pointed to the hospital building.
“Is that the two things?”
“No, no,” Maria said, getting out a cigarette packet sized Tablet. “Firstly, a detective called from the crime scene. A Phillip Lensman. Apparently, a laptop is missing from the Bilkes’ home.”
“A laptop?” Ben said.
Maria nodded.
“The Welcotts confirmed it.”
Bidderman was thoughtful.
“And the second thing?” He asked.
Maria consulted her Tablet.
“The second thing is, Francis Taylor was doing a more intensive search for previous victims, and thinks he identified one you might have missed.”
“Impossible,” Bidderman said, but he seemed unsure.
“A Scott Devlin. The victim suffered a blow to the back of the neck with what the investigating detective believed was a hammer, and was stabbed repeatedly in the face with what was presumed to be a knife. The attacker was never found.”
Bidderman looked at Ben. Ben raised his eyebrows.
“How did I miss that?” Bidderman said quietly, almost to himself.
“Oh.” Maria consulted the notepad again. “Francis said it was probably missed in the initial search because the man isn’t dead.”
Now she had Bidderman’s attention.
“What?”
“He’s in a care facility just outside of Bournemouth called The Lodge.”
Maria smiled brightly and put the Tablet away.
“Let’s go,” Bidderman said, to Ben and Sarah, and they all hurried to their respective cars.
*
CHAPTER 9
She got lost on the way into Poole, and ended up following the one way system around to the Quay…which happened to be very fortuitous, as it turned out.
Poole was a medium sized town along the coast from Bournemouth, and had once been an important trading port with North America. In the second world war, it was one of the main departing points for the D-Day landings in the Normandy Invasion, but with its glory days now passed, it was much like any other coastal town: picturesque, sleepy, provincial; a day trip destination. The Quay was a medium sized horseshoe bay, with pretty sailboats anchored along the docks and bobbing fitfully on the tide. Gulls cried overhead, and retired couples walked the length of the worn sea wall.
Anna pulled into the car park at one end to collect herself, and spied the Arts and Crafts shop across the road. The shop itself was unremarkable, but it sparked a memory in her that might be of some use. She got out of her car, was careful to pay for a ticket, even though she wouldn’t be staying for longer than ten minutes – a parking ticket would kill her, a paper trail putting her in the area, something she definitely did not want – and then dashed across the road to the shop.
A bell tinkled pleasantly overhead as she entered. There were only four people in the shop, three of whom were customers. Stands beside the door displayed small animal figurines in crystal and glass. There was a display of fossils on the wall to her right, and beneath them all manner of Poole memorabilia, some tacky, some tasteful: ashtrays and postcards and fridge magnets, all with picturesque images of Poole at sunset or sunrise.
There was another room at the back of the shop, and Anna moved toward it. Here, the space had been transformed into a sort of gallery; there were paintings on the walls, of the Quay, of churches, of the hills behind the town. Prints of other more famous works of Art sat in racks.
To one side was a revolving wire rack of books of local interest, and Anna turned it, trying to find what she needed, and was not long looking before she did. She picked up the book, took it to the counter, and paid for it in cash.
The woman behind the counter smiled and wished her a good day.
*
“I’m Gemma Adley,” the woman Anna had spoken to on the phone said, opening the door for her. “I’m Anthony’s niece. I look after him. Please. Come in.”
Gemma was about twenty four years old, slight, pale, a very pretty redhead. Anna could see nothing of Anthony in her features at all…which was perhaps a good thing. Anthony had a hard face.
The house on Willow Drive was a detached post war bungalow in beige brick, a tidy residence in a good part of town.
Gemma led her into the living room, which smelled of scented joss sticks and polish. The furniture looked old but comfortable. One of Anthony’s paintings was on the wall, the Quay, in acrylic, surprisingly vivid; it had been painted at dusk, and the quality of light was strange; the painting seemed more real than perhaps the reality had been.
“That’s one of his favourite ones,” Gemma said, noticing her attention on it. “He won’t sell it. Absolutely refuses.”
“It’s good.”
“Do you want tea?”
Anna smiled.
“Coffee, if possible. Black. No sugar.”
Gemma went off to attend to the refreshments, and Anna was free to look around. Anthony mostly painted sailboats and the sea; from his time in the Navy with her father, Anna supposed. He had become moderately successful as a painter when she had been young, but she hadn’t been impressed by his work then. He had gotten better, she saw. There was another, smaller painting, on the opposite wall: a boat at night, a man holding an old style gas lantern up to illuminate the deck. This one was a little less structured, and put her in mind of Turner.
The place seemed curiously bare but for the paintings, as if the owner’s attention had been captivated by that one interest alone. There was however a platoon of framed photographs on the sideboard against the back wall. Anna scanned the faces but could not see Scott among them. So. The false son had been erased. As thoroughly as an artist could erase a person.
Gemma came back with a tray and placed it on the table in the centre of the room.
She made an apologetic face as she poured tea for herself from a white china teapot into a matching china cup.
“I’m sorry, but since we spoke on the phone, he’s kind of…lapsed again.”
Gemma passed her cup to her.
Anna took it.
“Can I ask what’s wrong with him?”
Gemma made a disappointed face.
“That’s the thing,” she said. “The doctors don’t really know. I’ve been told that it’s similar to Alcoholic Dementia, but Anthony never drank. Not to any great degree anyway.”
“I’m sorry,” Anna said.
“We all are.”
Not all of you, Anna thought.
“You look after him?” She asked.
Gemma smiled.
“We take turns, but…I probably do it the most. I don’t mind. The thing is…it’s progressive.” A miserable look came down over her features before Gemma flicked it away with a shake of her head. She smiled again, but there was hurt in it.
“How long does he have?” Anna asked quietly.
