Текст книги "Before The Killing Starts"

Автор книги: James Harper

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

Chapter 19

There was nothing Ellie would rather have done than meet with Evan and explain everything to him. Unfortunately that that wasn't one of her options at the present time. After they'd finished at her hotel room Juan and José had put a sack over her head, tied her wrists and stuffed her into the trunk of their car. It was a little melodramatic, a bit of overkill, since she couldn't exactly see where they were going from inside the car's trunk, so what was the point of the sack?

To get her in the right frame of mind, she supposed.

They'd driven across town and hustled her into a building and one of them pushed her down a short flight of stairs into a basement. She'd stumbled and slipped off the stairs, fallen screaming through the air, unable to see where she might land or even put out a hand to break her fall, but the other one had been at the bottom and caught her. They thought it was hilarious. Pricks. They pulled the sack off her head just long enough to stuff a dirty rag into her mouth and sat her on a hard wooden stool. They tied her ankles to the stool's legs and tied her thighs to the seat so the whole of her body below the waist was fixed firmly in place. Then they tied another piece of rope to her wrists and threw it over one of the exposed rafters above her head. They pulled the rope taut so her arms were stretched out above her head and tied it off on a cleat fixed to the wall. One of them had given the rope a quick tug which nearly jerked her shoulders out of their sockets and looped the rope one more time around the cleat.

After they'd finished trussing her up, Juan—she assumed it was him from the smell of cigarettes—stood in front of her. She could feel his presence looming over her, hear his heavy breathing, but what was he doing? She could smell damp and something else she couldn't identify. Nobody said a thing or made any kind of noise. She could hear the blood pounding in her ears, taste bitter bile in her mouth. She was aware of a sudden shift in front of her. Pain exploded in her foot and screamed up her right leg, flooding her brain with white light, as he stamped down viciously on her instep. Her scream shattered the stillness even with the filthy rag in her mouth. She tried to twist away but she was tied tight. The stool flexed and creaked but didn't move. It was bolted to the floor.

'Hurts, doesn't it,' Juan said with a laugh and stamped down again.

Through the blinding pain she heard him say fair's fair, after all.

'You just wait here, Chico will be here in a minute,' one of them said, she couldn't tell who.

They turned out the light and left her alone in the darkness.

It was more like an hour than a minute before anybody came back. As each minute dragged out her mind ran through all sorts of horrible scenarios. By the time she heard the door open and the light went back on her stomach was twisting like a worm on a hook, a nervous spasm making her whole body twitch. She was in exactly the state they knew she would be.

She couldn't tell how many of them there were. Nobody said a word. She heard one of them walk across the room and put something down next to her. It sounded like it was a small table. Then a number of metal objects were dropped onto it. She was aware of somebody standing next to her, looking down at her. She gasped as a hand grabbed hold of the sack over her head and pulled it quickly off. Juan was standing next to her with the sack in his hand. There was nobody else in the room.

'Have a look on the table before the sack goes back on,' he said.

Ellie closed her eyes and turned her head the other way. She didn't want to know what was on the table. She could imagine what it was; she didn't need to look at it as well.

'Go on, take a look,' he goaded.

She clamped her eyes shut tighter and tried to think about anything apart from what she knew was sitting a foot away from her thigh. But the trouble with having her eyes shut was that she couldn't see anything at all, couldn't see him raise his hand and the first thing she knew about the vicious backhand slap he gave her across the mouth was the stinging pain as her head snapped sharply to the side and her lip split. She let out a cry but it was lost behind the rag in her mouth.

'That made you open your eyes, eh?'

She looked up into his leering face but still didn't look down at the table. She closed her eyes again. She didn't want to look at his face either. She felt the sack land in her lap and heard him walk round behind her. She felt one hand grip her chin tightly, the other one clamped hard on the top of her head. He twisted her head towards the table. His strong fingers dug into her flesh. She couldn't stop her head from moving. He held her head still, facing the table.

'Take a look.'

She knew she was going to. She couldn't help herself. She didn't want to know but not looking wasn't going to make it all go away. And she knew the morbid curiosity that lives inside us all—the sick thing that makes us want to look at a car wreck on the freeway hoping to see some blood and guts and severed body parts—would make her open her eyes. He didn't have to do anything. If he'd left her another two minutes she'd have turned her own head.

She opened her eyes.

And closed them again. But it was long enough. A long, thin filleting knife—the sort of thing chefs or fishermen use for gutting fish—sat on the table, and, next to it, a pair of gardener's pruning secateurs, spring loaded for quick repeated cuts, red non-slip plastic covering the ergonomically shaped handles.

'Good girl,' he said, patting her on the head before pulling the sack back over her head.

She listened to him walk away across the room and turn out the light. Apart from the fact that her head was in a sack, she didn't need any light to see what was now imprinted on her mind.

They didn't leave it another hour this time—they knew they didn't need to. Ten minutes max. The door opened and the light went on. She could tell there were more of them this time. There was a buzz of anticipation in the room. Somebody walked briskly towards her. She could feel the spring in his step; almost imagine the twisted, eager smile. He pulled the sack off her head. She blinked into the light. Juan was standing in front of her, and José was there too, and of course, Chico. He was dressed in black pants and a black shirt—the sort of thing a priest wears—and she could see the white square of his roman collar at his neck. She'd heard the stories, she knew what that meant.

Juan went to stand with José as Chico crossed the room and stood in front of her, smiling down at her. She flinched as he stretched out his hand and touched the side of her face.

'Ellie, how nice to see you again. What happened to your mouth? Somebody hit you?' He looked round and Juan and José replied with it-wasn't-me shrugs.

She tried to say something through the gag in her mouth.

'Shush,' he said, stroking her face, 'save your breath for later.'

Behind him, Juan or José sniggered.

Chico let his hand drop from her face and stepped away from her. 'Okay, who wants to start?' he said.

The two guys made a big thing of you go first, no after you, I insist. José took a step back with a little bow and a flourish, so Juan stepped up to the table. He took a moment deciding before selecting the filleting knife.

'Be careful, that thing's sharp,' José called out from behind him.

Juan grinned and leaned in towards her. She tried to back away but her bottom half was rock solid on the stool and any movement just increased the ache in her arms. Over by the wall José told hold of the rope and pulled it taut. Ellie gasped into the rag as her whole body was stretched tighter than a nun's chuff. Juan's grin grew bigger still as he looked down at her breasts straining against her blouse, the buttons stretched almost to breaking point. One by one he hooked the tip of the knife under the buttons and cut them off with a quick flick of the wrist until they were all gone, her blouse hanging open. He took hold of the material and pulled it up around the back of her head and cut it away until all that was left was the collar and a few tattered shreds around her outstretched shoulders.

He stood back and admired his work—and her breasts in her sheer brassiere of course. 'Mmm, mmm. Nice. What a shame,' he said, shaking his head. He walked behind her and ran the tip of the knife slowly down her bare back and all the way up again, up her neck, coming to rest behind her ear. She saw Chico give a small nod and tried to pull her head away but Juan took a great handful of hair at the nape of her neck and pulled it upwards, forcing her head forward, exposing the back of her neck.

'Just a trim, madam?' Juan said and sliced off the clump of hair in his hand before she knew what had happened. Everybody laughed as he put the knife back on the table and dropped the hair into her lap.

She knew it was all just to humiliate her and felt a strange thump of hope in her chest—maybe that's all it would be. They weren't really going to cut her after all, they just wanted to scare and humiliate her.

Okay, job done, guys, you can stop now . . .

Then it was José's turn. She didn't need to see the bulge in the front of his pants to know he'd have liked to carry on what he'd tried to start in her hotel room. He circled round behind her and she knew what was coming before she felt it, the repugnant hardness as he rubbed himself against her back like a badly trained dog dry-humping the pastor's leg. He bent over and reached round her and cupped her breasts in his filthy hands. She felt sick and helpless, violated, and tried to cling to the hope she'd felt a moment before: it's all about the humiliation; all about them and their sorry, sad, misogynistic lives; you're just a piece of meat and a piece of meat doesn't care.

She could think it all she wanted, but she couldn't stop the shudder of disgust as he slid his hand inside her brassiere, gripped her nipple in his fingers and squeezed it hard. Really, really hard. She bit down on her tongue, determined he wouldn't get the satisfaction of a cry or a gasp.

He put his mouth to her ear. 'I'm gonna hang this on a chain 'round my neck,'  he whispered, the loathsome piece of misogyny slipping from his mouth as if there was nothing more natural, and gave her a last, spiteful tweak.

 He stood up and hooked a couple of fingers under her brassiere between the cups and yanked hard. The clasp at the back came apart and her breasts fell free, although they couldn't fall very far, of course, since her arms were stretched so tight over her head. He picked up the secateurs and opened and closed them a couple of times like an alligator's jaws. Ellie's shook her head violently, her eyes bulging in their sockets. She tried to scream but all you could hear was a desperate, muffled noise in the back of the throat. José gripped the brassiere and pulled it so that the shoulder straps pulled tight around the back of her arms, pulling her forward on the stool, arching her back like she was offering herself to him. He snipped first one, then the other cleanly in two, the straps putting up as much resistance as a blade of grass. Her body snapped backwards again and he dropped the secateurs back on the table and walked away.

'Do you like gardening?' Chico said to her, picking up the secateurs. He opened and closed them a few times like José had done.

Ellie just shook her head. She didn't even try to say anything. What could she say, even if she didn't have a filthy rag stuffed in her mouth? And all she could think was: maybe it isn't just about the humiliation.

'These are made in Switzerland, you know,' he said waving the secateurs in front of her face. 'The best you can get. Used by professionals the world over because of their strength and durability. See the shape of the handle'—he held them out for her to see—'that spreads the force required evenly over all the fingers. Not that we're going to be cutting anything that needs much strength today.'

There was an appreciative murmur from behind him. The main event was getting under way.

He opened and closed them a few more times. 'And see that'—he pointed to a groove on the blade—'that's a sap groove so that the sap, or any other fluid for that matter, flows away and doesn't gum up the blades. So you're ready for another quick cut.'

He turned to the guys behind him. 'Anyone got a pencil?'

José fished in his pocket and handed him one. She couldn't start to imagine why he was carrying a pencil around in his pocket.

'Watch this,' Chico said to Ellie. He put the end of the pencil in the jaws of the secateurs and snipped. The blade sliced through the wood like it wasn't even there, the end of the pencil dropping to the floor. He made a couple more quick cuts, the blade looking like it was eating up the pencil, little round slices dropping to the floor one after the other.

'Impressive, eh?' He smiled at her and she felt the whole of the bottom half of her body go weak. She had a horrible tingling sensation in her bladder and knew she was about to wet herself.

'What else have we got that's about the diameter of a pencil?' he said, staring at her exposed breasts. 'But softer.'

'Hey, Chico,' Juan called from the other side of the room.

Chico pulled his eyes away from Ellie's breasts and turned to face him. He raised an eyebrow as if to say: this better be important.

'You're never going to get a good grip on those nipples. They're way too soft.'

Chico made a show of taking a closer look. 'Damn. You're right. What are we going to do? You need to get a good firm grip if you want a nice, clean cut. We don't want any ragged edges.'

'Leave it with me,' Juan said with a grin.

He disappeared out of the room for a minute. Ellie heard a faucet running and then he came back in with a paper cup full of water.

'Let's see if this helps,' he said and threw the cold water over her breasts.

Ellie tensed as the water hit her and knew without looking down that it had the desired effect. Please let it be about the humiliation.

'There you go,' Juan said. 'Always works.'

'Much better,' Chico said. 'Much easier to get hold of.'

'Just one more thing,' Juan said, as Chico was about to take hold of her nipple. 'Is it okay if I video this on my phone?'

Chico nodded and slapped the secateurs against his palm impatiently while Juan got his phone out and tried to find the video icon.

'Is it going to spurt or just sort of dribble out?' Juan said, once he'd located it. 'The blood I mean.'

'Hell, I don't know,' Chico said.

'Spurt, I think,' José called from behind them, although they both knew he was guessing.

'It's just I don't want to get too close if it's going to spurt,' Juan said. 'I don't want to get blood on the phone. I only got it yesterday.'

'You should have got some of those peel-off screen protector things,' José said.

Chico had had enough of this crap. Juan would ask to do a sound test in a minute if he didn't get on with it. He turned back to Ellie and gripped her nipple hard between the fingers of his left hand and pulled. She felt her bladder release its load and felt a warm, almost comforting, wetness soak into her jeans, a dark stain spreading out from her crotch. Her whole body started to shake. He carefully placed the open jaws of the secateurs around her nipple and closed them ever so slightly until they just held it but without breaking the skin. Ellie stopped making the frantic noise in the back of her throat and went rigid, not daring to move or even make a sound. Chico pulled her nipple harder still making her gasp and adjusted the position of the jaws as if he was trying to make up his mind about what was the perfect spot for the cut.

'She's wet herself,' Juan said, as if Chico hadn't already noticed the dark stain about twelve inches below his hands. He moved round and panned down with his phone, then back up to her breasts.

Chico let go of her nipple and threw the secateurs back on the table in disgust.

'Jesus Christ, you two,' he shouted, 'how am I supposed to do this with you interrupting me every two seconds? I feel like somebody's picked me up and dropped me in the middle of a kindergarten. You'll be asking if I can hold your little peepee while you go weewee next.'

Juan stopped the video, a look of disappointment on his face. He tried to delete what he'd already taken and ended up deleting a whole bunch of other stuff. José looked at his feet and said nothing.

'I think we need to just get right down to it,' Chico said. 'She's not going to tell us anything if we keep fooling around like this.'

Ellie couldn't believe what the maniac was saying. If they'd just get the gag out of her mouth she'd tell them anything they wanted to know. How the hell was she supposed to tell them anything? She nodded her head violently up and down, desperately trying to make eye contact with him so he could see her desire to do whatever he wanted.

But he wasn't looking at her—he was looking down at the table next to her. Looking at the knife. Making up his mind. How did he expect her to tell him what he wanted if he wouldn't take the gag out of her mouth?

'Do you like movies?' he said.

She nodded, her head in a floaty sort of daze at the bizarre twists and turns of his mind.

'I've got something of an obsession about them, myself,' he said, sounding like he was about to tell her a bedtime story. 'It goes back to when I was a young man. Maybe I'll tell you all about it one day. I could tell you now, if you like?'

He looked at her as if he was expecting an answer. He raised both eyebrows expectantly and then shook his head.

'No, maybe another time. I should probably go for counselling and all that psycho-babble.'

Tell the guy to book you a double session, in fact make it the whole damn day, she thought.

He picked up the knife and felt the tip with his thumb. A bright red prick of blood appeared. He wiped it on his pants leg.

'How old are you? Twenty-eight? Twenty-nine?'

She nodded.

'Then you weren't even born in 1970 were you?'

She shook her head.

'That was the year the movie Soldier Blue came out. Maybe you've seen it?'

She shook her head again.

'I wouldn't bother,' he said. 'It's very dated now, but at the time they called it the most savage film ever. The thing is, you young people have such high expectations nowadays, you'd probably think it was quite tame. But I remember it well.'

He pricked the end of his thumb again. Another bright spot of blood appeared and he wiped it gently on her breast, starting at her collarbone and running all the way down to her nipple in a wavy line. She shuddered and the whole body tremble that had momentarily subsided started up again.

'There's this scene,' he carried on, 'where the soldiers attack an Indian village. Revenge for something or the other, it doesn't matter. And the soldiers do all kinds of dreadful things, raping and killing and all the rest of it. Kids getting trampled by the horses. One woman gets her head chopped right off by a soldier's sword.'

Ellie looked at him in horror. His eyes had glazed over; he seemed to be in a dream, re-living the movie in his mind.

'But there's this one part in amongst all the killing and everything else that really sticks in my mind.'

He seemed to snap out of his reverie and looked directly at her. Maybe to make sure that she was giving his story her full attention.

'One of the soldiers gets hold of an Indian woman—and she's naked of course—and he wrestles her to the ground . . . and then . . . he slices off one of her breasts with a knife. A long curved knife, just like this one.' He sliced at the air in front of her eyes with the knife as if cutting off an imaginary Indian’s breast.

'You might not think it's much, but it was really shocking at the time.'

She didn't know whether she wanted to cry or scream or laugh at this madman. What the hell was he going on about? She might not think it was much? It sounded a pretty big deal to her right now.

'José, slacken off the rope,' Chico called. 'I'll never get a proper grip on her tits while they're stretched almost flat like this.'

José let about a foot out and her arms dropped, mercifully relieving the screaming ache in them. But her breasts dropped back into place as Chico predicted, giving him plenty to get hold of. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and bent forward and dabbed her dry.

'Won't get a good grip if they're all slippy either,' he said.

Almost gently he took hold of one of them and lifted it slightly, exposing the pale underside but not stretching it flat like it had been before. He put the tip of the knife in the crease where it met her rib cage and pushed gently. She felt a sharp prick of pain. She closed her eyes and felt the tears start, stinging the back of her eyes.

'I can do this nice and quick or slow and careful. You decide,' he said, pushing again with the tip of the knife, harder this time, breaking the skin. He squeezed her breast hard digging his nails into the soft flesh.

Uncontrollable sobs wracked her whole body. Hot, salty tears ran down her cheeks and dripped off her chin onto the top of the breast he was holding up. Her nose was starting to block up with snot and soon she wouldn't be able to breath. She'd suffocate if they didn't get the gag out of her mouth soon.

'What's it gonna be, Ellie? How about a foxtrot? Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow . . . slow, slow, quick, quick, slow . . .'

Juan circled the stool, his camera extended towards her, his tongue in the corner of his mouth in concentration.

'A crying shame to cut off such a lovely thing,' Chico said, working the tip of the knife into her flesh.

'Don't worry, she's got another one,' Juan said and everybody laughed. Except Ellie of course.

Chico let out a short, playful laugh and gave a quick flick of his wrist. The blade opened up a three inch cut on the underside of her breast faster than the eye could follow. Ellie screamed behind the gag and started choking. She couldn't get enough air through her nose. He pulled the knife away, let go of her breast and dropped the knife back on the table. She looked down and watched the blood pouring down her stomach from the stinging cut, soaking into the waistband of her jeans, mingling with the piss and the sweat and God knows what else. Anybody sniffing her snatch blindfolded would have concluded she'd had one, seriously bad day.

Juan ducked and dived around Chico with his camera trying to get the best view.

'It's just a scratch,' Chico said and clamped his hand over her mouth and nose. She bucked wildly against his hand but it was like bucking against a brick wall as it fell on top of her. He put his other hand around her throat and pulled her tightly into his body. He heard and felt her gagging noisily in his hands, remembered as if it were only yesterday the dreadful sounds of his father choking to death on his shoulders in the desert, and when he felt the thrashing start to subside, thought enough's enough and pulled his hand away, ripping the rag out of her mouth as he did so.

She heaved in a great lungful of air and started coughing and choking. Chico gestured at José who let the rope go completely and her arms dropped like stones. Her whole body crumpled and she folded in two at the waist, her whole body heaving and shaking.

Chico looked down at her sweat-soaked back, breathed in the acrid smell of fear rising from her armpits and left her like that for a minute. Then he grabbed a handful of her hair as best he could after the mess Juan had made and pulled her back into a sitting position.

She started to say something but he put a finger on her swollen lips. She couldn't help herself wincing.

'Shush. You've got just one chance to make things right here.'

She nodded dumbly.

'I want my money back—'

She kept on nodding like her life depended on it, which it probably did.

'—and I want Dixie's head on a spike.'

Her mouth dropped open in surprise. Had she heard him right? He carried on before she could find the words to say anything.

'Not literally, of course.' He chuckled. Chuckled, after what he'd just done. 'I might do that later. But I want you to bring him to me.'

He thought for a second and smiled at her.

‘You know, I really like you, so I’m going to make it even easier for you. If you think it’s going to be a problem getting him back here’—he gave a soft, you’re only a woman after all shrug—‘you can kill him yourself.’ He held up a finger. ‘But I want proof.’

'Why can't you—'

Chico shook his head. 'I think he's in the wind now. And if I'm right, I won't be able to get close to him.'

'But—'

He put his finger on her lips again. She shuddered at his touch. 'I'll let you know when I want to hear ifs and buts. I’m already cutting you a lot of slack here. I know you two had something going. You can get close to him. I can't. He trusts you.'

Ellie started coughing again and covered her face with her hands. If only you knew.

'I don't know what the situation is between you two now, and I don't care. You've got a straight choice. It's him or you. And remember, I found you once, I'll find you again and next time we'll do this for real.'

He turned to Juan and José. 'Get her cleaned up and bring her upstairs. And get that stupid phone out of my face.'