Twisted!

PROLOGUE

Bruce Sprocket had been raised on Mills and Boon novels.  His mother had been an incurable romantic, quite possibly the sole reason why Bruce had put an appearance into this world with the total absence of a wedding ring on his mother’s finger; just who his father was would remain a mystery to all, including his mother.

There were to be no bed time stories of the fairy or speaking animal variety for young Sprocket, instead his juvenile mind was impressed with tales of tall muscular heroes, and equally as tall, but perhaps not so muscular, heroines.  The stories were all pretty much of a similar vein; hero meets heroine, heroine dislikes hero, they fight, heroine gets kidnapped, hero rescues her, they fall in love.  The story always seemed to conclude with a fair amount of bodice ripping and panting, then the sea would crash on the shore, the champagne corks would pop, and a volcano, or two, (if the hero was lucky) would erupt.

As Bruce grew into adolescence he had already formed his idea of what a perfect woman should be.  He definitely already was, in his mind’s eye, a conglobation of all the heroes that had ever rescued a maiden, and ripped her bodice, between the pages of Mills and Boon.  All he needed now was a strong willed virgin to make his life complete…….although realistically, and due to modern girls’ fashions, a bodice would have to be considered an optional extra.

The Thursday night Youth Club seemed as good as place as any to begin his quest for love.  Bruce, if not handsome, had no off putting features, including the dreaded acne, a condition, he had overheard, that young females found repulsive. At fifteen he was tall and already there was a hint of a broadness of shoulder about him, so it was not long into the evening when he found himself in the company of a girl called Cindy.  Cindy was at least three years older than he, and fully conversant in the arts of heavy petting and was ready to move to more grown up activities.  Which is why Bruce soon found himself being maneuvered outside to one of the dark and shadowy clumps of bushes on the Youth Club’s lawn.  

For his part Bruce was hoping that a ‘ruffian’ would come and try to steal her away, and thus provoke his hero persona into action in a daring rescue, it was for this reason and this reason alone that Bruce willing went with her, sex for him was something one might get round to after the rescue, a long time after

.

Hand in hand they walked to the far side of the shadowy bushes, away from any prying eyes at the Youth Club.  When Cindy had found a spot that met with her approval she sat down, pulling Bruce along with her.  Before Bruce could suggest they go somewhere a bit more in the open, (ruffians had to be able at least to see where they were before they could make their move at snatching the girl) Cindy had grabbed his head and covered his mouth with hers, sticking her tongue as far down his throat as was humanly possible.

 

The overall impression for Bruce was one of dribbly wetness accompanied by a choking sensation, and it was not in the least how a virgin heroine should behave.  Far worse was to come.  By the time the kiss ended, and it took more than a gentle pushing back on her shoulders by Bruce to get her to retrieve her tongue, Cindy had thrown a leg over Bruce’s thighs, pushed him flat on his back and had slipped her hand not just into his jeans, but underpants too. From the delighted ‘Oo!’ she gave apparently everything she found down there was to her liking, or least she soon hoped it would be.  Bruce, on the other hand, was finding her gropings and squeezings unpleasant to the point of painful,

“Don’t!”  He yelled, pulling her tortuous hand out from inside his clothing.

 

Cindy sat bolt upright, and as Bruce started to sit up too she gave him an almighty shove which sent him sprawling back again.  For one dreadful moment Bruce thought she was going to investigate his nether regions with renewed vigour, but instead she just shouted,

“Wussey little baby, go back to your Mam’s titties till you grow up!”  And with that she jumped up and stomped her way back to the Club house, presumably to find a young man who was fully weaned.  This left Bruce with a feeling of immense relief that he had escaped a fate that no blue blooded hero should have had to endure.

Five years were to pass before Bruce was at last to espy his quintessential heroine.  She worked in the College Library and he would see her each day making her way to the College restaurant.  He would try in vain to get a seat, if not next to her, then in very close proximity.  But she was always surrounded by a gaggle of female work colleagues. (There were actually only three work colleagues, but when you are male, twenty, in love, and unsure what to do next, that is a gaggle.)

The work colleagues held the woman in awe, and little wonder.  Gweneth, for that was the heroine’s name, was a full blooded woman aged thirty and must have stood at least six foot tall, Bruce’s own height.  Although not fat, she had that kind of full figure roundness that some men (particularly Bruce) found so appealing.  Her hair was black and short, and although not beautiful, she had a face that could, at a push, launch if not a fleet of ships then at least a couple of good sized rowboats.  Most importantly was the lack of either wedding or engagement ring, a sure sign in Bruce’s mind, of her qualifications as a virgin.

After a couple of weeks of carefully watching his heart’s desire, Bruce discovered that Gweneth walked home from the Library to her small terraced house via the church graveyard, a lonely and forbidding place, full, Bruce was sure, of untold dangers.  He had also found out, not that it surprised him, but it did further delight him, Gweneth lived alone with her elderly grandmother, Gweneth truly was a caring virgin heroine.

 

His plan was a simple one; he would offer to walk her home through the graveyard.  Nearing her home he would take her firmly in his arms and kiss her.  She would, of course, object and struggle, he would expect no self-respecting heroine to do less.  He would gracefully release her and allow her, blushing and breathless, to continue on her way.  But the next night, and nights thereafter, she would be expecting him, wanting him to be there, her protector on her long perilous journey home.  He would always be there, and then one night he would once again take her in his arms, her hands would at first be on his chest, gently pushing, but then they would move to entwine at the back of his neck and she would respond in kind to his ardent kisses………their lives together would begin at that moment.

There is a well-known, albeit unfinished, saying that goes something like, “The well laid plans of mice and men.” The author should have added ‘and Bruce.’   Gweneth wasn’t particularly interested in being walked home, so Bruce trailed a few feet behind her.  This had the effect of making Gweneth walk faster, until at some point they were both running through the graveyard.  

“This,” thought Bruce panting “Is not going well.”  He lunged forward and managed to catch her wrist.  Digging in his heels to come to an abrupt halt, he pulled her round to face him.

 

Had he seen the fist that her other hand had formed heading toward his jaw he might have ducked, instead he experienced a sharp blast of pain followed by bright spinning lights and then darkness

.  

He came to and looming over him was an enormous policeman, standing to one side of the copper was Gweneth, the copper was speaking,

“…….and you are sure you don’t want to press charges miss?”  

Gweneth, staring down at Bruce with hands on hips replied, “No, silly little twerp got what he deserved, been mooning after me for ages, perhaps he’ll stick to girls his own age now.  But if you could do me a favour and see that he gets home alright, wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him.”  

As he was roughly hauled to his feet by his shirt collar and frog-marched home, Bruce came to the firm decision that perhaps in future, for him at least, heroic virgins should be eighteen years of age at the very least, or more preferably his own age, petite in build, five foot six or under in height, and, most importantly, have no pugilistic skills whatsoever……………..Ten years were to pass before Bruce once again was to find love.

CHAPTER ONE – A GOOD GIRL GOES MISSING.

               

         Beth Coburn was sixteen years old, of average height and quite pretty in a tousled, wild kind of way.  Whilst other, in fact most, girls her age were boasting about their latest beaus, Beth was dreaming of becoming an athlete.  Although perhaps dreaming would not entirely have been quite the right word, from a very young age Beth had been force fed the ambition by first her parents, and then by  whatever trainer would happen to be in charge of the Athletic Club she was currently a member of.  All the adults in her life were adamant that her slender, lithe body was designed by nature to run.  And it was true, she did love running.  The speed her legs could carry her at made her feel free, when the only sound she could hear was the pounding of her heart, the measured gasping of her breath, and the air whistling past her ears.  Whilst running she was able to leave behind the seemingly non-stop haranguing (advice) and nagging (encouragement) of both her parents and trainers.

 

The more encouragement and advice they gave, the faster Beth ran.  And thus it had been since she was three, when, to the near hysterical yelling of her parents, she had left the other toddlers at the Nursery School trailing far behind her in the egg and spoon race.  She now knew of no other way of being, no other course of life to pursue.  She had been so well versed by all in the certainty of her success as a sprinter, that the normal every day trials and tribulations (namely boys) that seem clutter most sixteen year old girls’ lives were absent.  She was what her parents called, ‘A Good Girl.’

Besides the track training Beth was given, there were sessions at the Gym.  Unlike the running track, which was part of a multi-complex of sporting venues and therefore was not open to non-affiliated club members, the Gym was very public, if you could afford it.  There was no running from parent’s or trainer’s words of cajolement at the Gym; here she was constantly under their scrutiny.  Her dislike of the Gym wasn’t helped by a couple of well-oiled and sweaty Adonis’s who had flexed their muscles in Beth’s direction, but they were quickly seen off by her trainer or an ever present parent……or even Beth’s cold attitude.  She despised them for developing what she thought of as ‘useless’ muscle development, they did nothing with them, except twitch them at any female foolish enough to glance in their direction.

 

The only other people she felt any kind of camaraderie with, besides other athletes, were the overweight middle aged men and women who were trying to get themselves into shape for whatever reason was important to them.  The pain and effort they put into the sessions on the gym equipment was accompanied by the spittle laden screams of their personal trainers, urging them on, telling them, as if they hadn’t worked it out already, that there was ‘no gain, without pain.’  She knew that look, trying so hard to please and change the words of near derision into words of praise was now their only goal, forgotten in the red rimmed world of pain was the original reason for ‘trimming up, and getting fit.’   Oh yes, she knew what words could do to drive you on.

There were of course others at the gym, these were not seeking ‘babe magnet’ muscles, or last ditch attempts at a healthier, and hence longer, life.  Neither were they athletes building up endurance muscles, nor even that mysterious group of people who just simply get ‘hooked’ on gut grindingly hard exercise.  They were the staff, employed to stand by machines to ensure no abusive and damaging behaviour occurs either to equipment or persons.  They manned the reception desk; they ensured clean towels were available on demand.  They cleaned, they polished, and they kept the gym running at a level that would justify the owner’s high subscription charges.  And unless some service was required of them, they were by and large ignored.  

The young man employed, amongst other duties, to mop the floors and ensure the toilet paper never ran out was Bruce Sprocket.

To Beth, Bruce was invisible.  He was one of the staff, and not a very important one either.  Of course, Beth was brought up to be polite, but being polite to underlings was something you did if you remembered to, or the occasion dictated.  It was easy to thank someone who made sure that you got an extra-large, fluffy warm towel, but it would never have occurred to Beth that making sure you had enough loo paper to wipe your bum on would even require gratitude.  Bruce, on the other hand, had a head that was full of Beth.  She was proud and well bred.  She was also a prisoner.  He watched with growing dismay at the abuse heaped upon her by her jailers.  He had seen the look of determination as she exhausted her already pain racked body on the torture equipment of the gym.  The harsh words that assaulted her delicate ears were painful for Bruce to hear, for her they must have been heart breaking.  Always with a parent close to hand, Bruce had come to understand that she didn’t physically rebel at her treatment because of a sense of duty.  She was a good and dutiful daughter, caught up in her parents second hand need for supreme achievement, at any cost.  But her eyes had told of her longing to be free from it all, she yearned for escape.  She needed a Hero.

Dutiful and loving daughters do not by their own volition run away, it was beyond their nature to do so.  Bruce seemed to innately know this, (the memory of his early years of Mills and Boon indoctrination were fading fast and that indoctrination, having done its job, had become Bruce’s reality and how he saw the world at large.)   

In days of yore Beth would have been languishing in a castle tower guarded by her possessive father, of course these days she would now be found in a rather well-to-do four bedroomed house on an estate of similar well-heeled properties, but she would still be guarded, and languishing nonetheless.  If Beth was to be rescued, Bruce decided, it would have to be by abduction.  There would be an initial resentment on Beth’s part to this, Bruce knew and fully understood this, but, her anger at him would quickly change to gratitude for release from her servitude to other’s ambitions for her, and given time, that gratitude would turn to love.

Deciding what needs to be done and actually doing it can be leagues apart.  First, the problem of isolating the girl long enough to grab hold of her would be quickly by passed by the problem of keeping hold of her and making sure she didn’t scream.  In the recess of Bruce’s memory there seemed to be something about the abduction of a maiden requiring a saddle to throw her over.  Bruce didn’t have a saddle, neither did he have the horse that was usually to be found under said saddle.  Besides which, he had the feeling that dragging some reluctant nag through town with a screaming girl slung over it would be sure to attract attention, and thus his plan would be foiled……..All Bruce had was a small white van and a really small hessian sack, not even a girl sized sack, more the kind you buy onions in, in fact, exactly the kind you buy onions in.

Bruce was standing by the open rear doors of his van holding the onion sack at arm’s length, regarding it accusingly whilst he waited for inspiration, when a voice behind him said, “Have you lost something?  Can I help?”

Beth! …….. Bruce turned slowly, and beyond his belief she was alone.  Now was not the time for questioning, now was the time to act.   In one swift action Bruce pulled the small sack over her head, and held it there with one hand whilst he pulled her slight, but sinuous, body into his own by encircling her waist with the other hand.   He felt her rib cage lift to draw enough oxygen into her lungs to scream, but instead of voicing her dismay at his treatment of her, and before she could even begin to struggle, her body slumped, lifeless, into his arms.

 

Panicking Bruce almost let her go, fearing he had killed her, but then the overpowering stench of musty onions reached his nose, he had gassed her into unconsciousness with the sack.  Lifting her carefully in his arms, he slid her into the back of the van.  After tenderly covering her completely with a blanket, he shut the doors and went to the front of the van, climbed in, fired up the engine and drove away.   Nobody saw him, nobody stopped him, and nobody would ever have any reason to suspect him.

CHAPTER TWO – “NOW WHAT DO I DO?”

                  

         As Bruce drove home with his sleeping prize, his warm and fuzzy revelry about a future full of romance was interrupted by the thought of, ‘Now what do I do?’  What on earth was he going to do with Beth once he got her home.  He did have a few things in his favour, for a start he now lived alone in the semi-rural terraced cottage he once shared with his mother.  His mother’s incurable romanticisms had got completely out of hand when she developed a form of dementia.  Believing she was once again an eighteen year old siren, she became a danger to herself and a nuisance to the local population of young men.  She had been sent to flirt out her days in a state run care home for the delusional on the other side of the town.

  

The front of the cottage was hidden from the road by an overgrown garden and a couple of leafy trees, his neighbours were either deaf or daft, and in the case of his immediate neighbour, both.  The rear garden was surrounded by a six foot hedge and backed onto a field containing a couple of elderly, and sometimes noisy, donkeys.  The cottage also had stout and lockable doors to every room, especially the cellar.

Bruce’s luck held, it was dark when he arrived home and there were no lights on in the adjoining cottages, their occupants taken to their beds early, having hopefully removed their hearing aids first as Bruce had a feeling that the next couple of hours could get noisy.  Bruce laid the still slumbering and softly snoring Beth on a pile of sacks which were awaiting collection by the coal man.  Making sure the blanket was tucked in around her he returned upstairs to the kitchen and put the kettle on.

 

He had just finished preparing the tea tray and was filling the teapot with boiling water when the first indications of Beth’s awakening made themselves heard.  It started with a long drawn out wail followed by a scream for help.  He then heard her fumble her way up the stairs, (he had left the light on, but it was a very dim and dingy bulb, near to its life’s end,) reaching the top of the stairs she paused, and then she knocked on the door and called,

“Hello, is anyone there?”  

Bruce crossed the kitchen and from the other side of the door he answered her,

“Beth, I want you to stay calm and listen, I……….”  

But listening was not on Beth’s agenda, hammering her fists on the door, she screamed at the top of her voice,

“Let me out, you pig, you monster, open this door right now.  Help, somebody help…..I’ve been kidnapped, HELP ME!!”

After ten minutes of Beth beating on the door and screaming even Bruce was struck with admiration at the girl’s staying power and tenacity.  Then slowly, but surely, the hammerings became the occasional slap with the flat of her hand, and her screams reduced to hoarse sobs.  Judging that she had well and truly exhausted herself, Bruce once more crossed the kitchen to stand at the cellar door.

 

He guessed that Beth would now be sitting on the other side, so he too slid down and leaned his back on the door,

“Beth, listen to me, I’m not going to hurt you in any way, I promise, do you understand what I am saying to you?”  

Bruce heard the girl give one more sob followed by a sniffle, her voice was rasping,

“What do you want?  Why have you got me locked up in here?  Where am I?”  

Her voice was beginning to climb in hysteria so Bruce quickly cut in,

“Beth, I am going to unlock the door and let you out, we can talk, and I promise I shall answer all your questions. OK.”  He heard a muffled mumble from the other side of the door, so he repeated, only louder,

“OK?”   

After a brief pause, he heard her “OK” and unlocked the door.

As the cellar door swung open Bruce stepped back and took in the sight of his love.  Her once white track suit was covered in coal dust, her hands looked sore from the beating she had given the door.  Her face, also blackened with the coal dust, had streaks made by her tears and the snot from her nose.  Beth’s hair, never sleek at the best of times, was tangled and the strands that had escaped from her plait stuck out or up in black dusty disarray.  And she had about her an all pervading stench of mouldy onions.

 

Bruce felt a tiny moue of distaste run through him, but consoled himself by thinking, ‘Nothing a good scrub wouldn’t cure.’  Before Beth had taken a couple of steps into the kitchen, he asked,

“Would you like a shower?  And then perhaps something to eat and drink, before we talk that is.”   

Beth’s hands came up to cover her face, and then moved to her head to grasp a couple of good handfuls of her own hair.  Her voice remained low, but full of horror,

“Please no, not that, please don’t, I beg you please.”  

Bruce was totally confused, did the girl have a phobia about showers?  

“Well,” he said, hoping to put her at her ease, “I can run you a bath instead, if you prefer.”  

Beth’s hands had returned to her face, where they rubbed her cheeks vigorously, they ceased long enough for her to say, “You’re not going to, to r-r-r-rape me?”  

Bruce caught her wrists, but didn’t pull her towards him, she really was very dirty and smelly, he was appalled by what she had said,

“No, of course not, I’ve rescued you to, to, well certainly not to do that to, look, have a shower and something to eat and I can tell you all about it……..the bathroom door locks on the inside, you’re perfectly safe.”

Beth was calm, worryingly so, as Bruce led her upstairs.  He showed her where the bathroom was and then his Mother’s bedroom, telling Beth as he took a clean bath robe from the chest of drawers,

“When you are done come back here, you are free to use this bedroom as your own, there are clothes in the drawers and wardrobe, please help yourself.  Honestly Beth, once you have had a shower and a change of clothes, and then some food and a hot drink, things will seem so much better, even more so when I have told you what is going on.  OK?”  

Beth disconcertingly nodded her head, and accepting the bathrobe he held out for her, she went into the bathroom.  Bruce waited until she had locked the door and turned the shower on before he made his way down stairs.

Bruce sat once more at the kitchen table.  He felt deflated, this was all too much of an anti-climax.  He wasn’t quite sure what he had expected when he rescued Beth, yes a bit of yelling and screaming, yes she would be confused, and perhaps he shouldn’t have taken her down to the cellar where she had got disgustingly grubby.  But where was her pride, (her nose had actually formed a snot bubble at one point, the thought of that nose made Bruce shudder in disgust.)  When he was watching her at the gym she had seemed so full of life and spirit, OK she was being held captive to her parents’ ambitions for her, but Bruce fully understood that, once he too had to cope with a demanding parent, his rescue had come via a visit to the doctors and a Committal Form.  

He gave a heavy sigh, Beth hadn’t even tried to open the bathroom window to look for a means of escape, she had just meekly and obediently did as she was told.  She was so pretty though, when she wasn’t all snotty and coal dusty that is.  Perhaps when she came downstairs dressed in clean clothes his love for her would rekindle.  His mother had bought some really fashionable things when she was delusional, Beth would look a knock out in them.

He turned with high expectancy when he heard her come down the stairs……..and his heart plummeted to his boots.  She was wearing one of his mother’s latest purchases, a ‘onesie’ that was patterned to give a rough approximation of a cow.  Wrapped around her wet hair was a towel, and on her feet were a pair of shockingly pink fluffy slippers.  Bruce had never seen anything so ridiculous in his life, (except on his mother,) but worst of all, as he stared at her face, she looked very, very, young.

 

Remembering his manners, Bruce stood up and pulled a chair out for her saying,

“Beth, do sit down.  The soup is still heating up, but I’ll pour you a cuppa.”  

Beth plonked herself down on the kitchen chair, where she sat slumped with her head bowed.   He poured out her tea, and receiving no response to his offer of sugar or milk, he pushed the cup and saucer toward her.  Giving a frown he asked her, “Beth, how, err, um, how old are you?”  

Without looking up she answered, “Sixteen…….what do you want?  My parents aren’t wealthy you know, they can’t pay a ransom if that’s what you were after.”  

She raised her head and looked directly at Bruce.  There were dark smudges under her eyes, whether they were from stress or the residue of mascara Bruce wasn’t sure, but her face was very pale.  To give himself time to think, Bruce took the saucepan of soup off the hob and reached for the bread rolls, behind him Beth’s voice was quiet and trembled as she continued to speak,

“Let me go, please let me go.  I shan’t tell anyone about you, where you live, nothing.  Just let me go, I want to go home, please, pleeeeease, I beg you.”

Bruce felt his irritation toward her grow.  She should be tossing her head in defiance at him and yet at the same time, looking at him with interest under lowered lids, she should be secretly admiring his daring at rescuing her, but she wasn’t, she was whining to go home, like a baby, like a five year old child, like a frightened sixteen year old.  Leaving the bread rolls he spun round and sat opposite to her, he grabbed hold of her wrist and held it firmly when she tried to pull away, he no longer felt any need to be kind and patient, he shouted at her, “Listen, you ungrateful little bitch, I rescued you, I took you away from a life that was as near to slavery as makes no difference.  Without me they would have used you up, ran you like a machine and when you could no longer put in a winning performance, you would have been discarded, dropped, thrown away.  Here, with me, I would have treated you like a lady, my lady.  I was willing to give you my heart, but you’ve broken it.”

At last Beth found a spark of spirit, and yelled back at him, “Your heart can’t be broken, you haven’t got one you mental weirdo, you’re warped inside.  Who DO you think you are? You think you are some sort of hero, well if you are, then you’re nothing but a sad, failed, twisted excuse of a hero.  I WANT TO GO HOME….NOW!!”

  

Bruce’s fist, which had been balled at his side, was raised, but as he looked into Beth’s eyes and saw the defiance and anger there, he knew he would not, could not, strike her.  Although none of this was his fault, he found it hard to lay all the blame at her door.  She was just a kid, she hadn’t asked to be rescued, he was almost sure she hadn’t meant to fool him by wearing makeup that made her look older than she was.  He was the adult here, he would give her the benefit of the doubt.  He turned back to the hob and poured the soup into bowl and placed two bread rolls on a plate.  He put both bowl and plate in front of Beth,

“Eat,” he said, and much to his surprise, she did.

CHAPTER THREE – LIFE GOES ON

         Beth awoke the next morning to bright sunshine pouring through a gap in the curtains.  It took her a moment or two to work out where she was and what had happened.  She no longer felt the fear that had gripped her last night.  He wasn’t going to hurt her, of that she was sure.  Whether he intended to let her go any time soon she was not so sure of.  

During the night she had needed to use the bathroom and after going had ventured down the stairs, much to her annoyance at the bottom of the stairwell was a door, as often found in old cottages, and it was firmly locked.  Not daring to try the doors to the other two bedrooms in case he got the wrong idea, she returned to bed.  

Turning her face once more toward the intruding sunlight, she gasped as she realised she had overslept.  She should by now be track side, having completed her warm ups, and be getting ready for her first time-trial run.  But she wasn’t, she was in a very comfortable bed, and there was no one yelling at her at all.  She had been drugged, kidnapped, locked in a dark cellar, frightened out of her wits by some nut job and yet, despite all that, she felt good about having a legitimate excuse for lying in.

She turned her head away from the window to see if there was a clock on the bedside table.  Her eye caught a square of white paper on the carpet in front of the door.  A note, her kidnapper had written her a note?!  Clambering out of bed she crossed the room and snatched it up.  The handwriting was very neat and precise and it read,

‘Beth, I have to go to work, but I promise we will talk over what to do next tonight.  I have left a tray of sandwiches, flask of tea etc. outside your door, I hope it is enough.  Until tonight then, regards Bruce.’  

Regards Bruce, what sort of a kidnapper ended a note like that?  Beth shook her head, he really was a weirdo.  She opened the bedroom door, and as promised in the note was a tray containing a Tupperware box, a flask, another small container with what looked like sugar in it, some powdered milk and a tea spoon.  There was also a plate of buttered toast, presumably for her breakfast, which was now cold and a bit soggy.  She placed the tray on the bedside table and taking a slice of the soggy toast decided to look through the cupboards and wardrobe to see if there was anything decent she could wear.

She first looked in the bottom of the wardrobe.  It had been there last night that she had found the Primart bags containing the brand new ‘onesie’ and bedroom slippers.  She was in luck, tucked at the back of the wardrobe were yet more Primart bags, these contained a couple of pairs of jeans and some underwear, all brand new and unworn.  The jeans and knickers were fine, if a little on the large size, but she discarded the bras, modern and fancy they may be, but they would have been ridiculously too big for her.  Hanging up in the wardrobe were several tops, she sniffed at them, they smelt freshly laundered and clean, she took one that was to her fancy off the rail.

 

She placed her choices on the bed and grabbed the dressing gown off the hook on the door.  A good long, hot shower was called for before planning what to do next.  A sudden thought stopped her dead in her tracks.  He had said this was his mother’s bedroom, and yet all the clothes were modern, for girls her own age.  She quickly returned to the wardrobe and threw both doors open.  Quickly sliding colourful modern designs along the rail she at last came to a set of clothes that her own mother, or perhaps more likely, her Gran would have worn.  So, she reasoned, if these were his mother’s clothes, then whose clothes was she about to put on?  And what had happened to the owner of them?  The fear from last night returned, she had to escape, and she really had to escape before he returned.

Bruce knew the police would be crawling all over the Gym when he arrived at work.  They were looking for ‘clues’ no doubt into Beth’s disappearance.  They wouldn’t find any of course, they had interviewed him along with all other members of staff, and they seemed particularly interested in his van.  But it wasn’t Bruce that had to explain his need for a van, his boss had quite ably done that for him.  Anxious that no bad publicity should descend upon his establishment and that his employees were beyond reproach, The Boss had been quick to point out that Bruce was responsible for transporting various exercise equipment to clients’ homes where it was rented, along with a personal trainer, for an exorbitant fee.

 

The police had established that for some reason Beth had wandered from the Ladies Room through a back door and into the staff car park, much to the chagrin of the investigating officers there was no CCTV in the car park.  Bruce, along with everyone else, swore they had seen nothing.

The police eventually departed, they were inclined to follow the line that it was probably a case of a young sixteen year old running off with some boy, that she would eventually turn up they seemed to be in no doubt.   The Gym staff stood around in huddles, whispering and occasionally giving a gruff laugh, what else would a young, and very pretty, girl run off for if not a sly bit of ‘how’s your father’ with her secret beau.  Bruce was slightly miffed at the explanation, Beth wasn’t like that, but he was grateful that the investigation was being directed away from him, it gave him more time to decide what to do with Beth.

  

If he could, he would have just taken her somewhere safe and let her go, but she could identify him, he couldn’t face going to prison, he really couldn’t, he had always thought of it as a dirty place.  His thoughts and the staff’s gossiping was brought to an end by The Boss loudly clapping his hands and yelling,

“People, people, I know this is all very exciting, but back to work, life goes on, or at least it does if you want a wage at the end of the month that is.”

Beth by-passed taking a shower and quickly dressed.  Another scout round her prison showed that the two other bedroom doors, and the door at the foot of the stairwell, along with all the available windows were still firmly locked.  (She had in fact tried the bath room window after she had turned on the shower the previous night, and she had tried the bedroom window when she had been ‘sent’ to bed by Bruce.)

 

She returned to ‘her’ bedroom and stood looking out of the window.  Out of the corner of her eye she caught a movement.  It was hard to see fully into the next garden because of the over grown hedge, but she could see intermittent glimpses of someone in the garden.  She banged as hard as she could on the window.  They must have heard her, but gave no response.  For a brief moment Beth caught sight of the person’s head, white haired and be-speckled, the chances of them also being deaf were high.  She tried one more time, with the same result.

 

Resting her head on the window pane Beth could feel the tears of despair welling  up in her eyes, as she turned her head she could see yet another person in the garden on the other side, she could see him clearly, and he was waving furiously in her direction.  Her heart leapt, at last she was going to be freed, she returned his frantic waving.

 

She wished her heart wasn’t thumping so loudly, she could just make out what the old man was shouting up to her, he was saying,

“How are you?”  

Taking a deep breathe she yelled back,

“Help me, he’s kidnapped me, phone for the police.”  

She listened carefully as the man replied,

“Good, good to hear it, must say you’re looking well, good to see you back again.”  

And giving one last wave he disappeared toward his house.  Beth looked down at her clothes, the old man must have mistaken her for someone else, either that or he was a bit daft in the head.

 

As a fat hot tear rolled down her cheek, her trainer’s words rang in her ears, ‘I’ve never known crying achieve anything worthwhile.’  There was a box of tissues on the dressing table, and as she went to reach for them she stumbled against the dressing table stool.  The stool wasn’t one of those flimsy ones that come in the form of a flat-pack, this stool was heavy oak, sturdily made.  She looked from the stool to the window and back to the stool and smiled.

Half an hour later Beth stood in front of the bathroom mirror carefully wiping off the last of the blood from around her nose.  The stool may well have been sturdy, but the double glazing was sturdier.  The stool had simply bounced off the window, and on her third attempt the momentum of her swing had caused it to arc round and collide with her nose.   She wondered if she should have just tried hurling the stool at the window, but it would probably have bounced off anyway, flying who knew where.  Yes, she did want to escape but, no, not at the cost of her life.  She looked down at the blood stains on her top and sighed, well, if she lacked anything it certainly wasn’t a change of clothes.  Returning to the bedroom she bundled the stained top up into one of the Primart bags and stuffed it at the back of the wardrobe.

As she selected another clean top she wondered if she might not have jumped to conclusions about the owner of the clothes.  What if….. what if his mother had died and a young relative had come to stay for the funeral………….it still didn’t explain why the young relative didn’t take her clothes with her when she left.  Some were brand spanking new, and the others had no wear to them at all.  There was only one reason why a person would no longer need their clothes, well perhaps there were a couple, but the one that kept trying to force its way to the front of her mind was, was, NO, she didn’t want to go there, it was too horrible.  He’d ample opportunity to really hurt her last night, she had seen that fist raised and about to strike, but he hadn’t, he had served her supper instead.  He seemed desperate to please her, but confused by her, she apparently was not what he had expected.  Perhaps if she conformed to what he wanted her to be he could be taken off his guard and she could escape, or she could sweet talk him into letting her go.  But what, or who, did he want her to be?  He had said something about her being ‘his lady’ and he had also written in his note that ‘we would talk about what to do next.’  Not I, or me, but we.  OK, she could do lady for him and converse in quite a grown up manner, especially if it meant it would buy her some time to work out a plan of escape.  Her tummy gave an ominous rumble, eat first she decided, and get ready for his lordship’s return after.

CHAPTER FOUR – TALKING AND LISTENING

         Whilst Beth sat on the edge of her bed that early evening, awaiting Bruce’s return and wearing, what she hoped, was appropriately grown up clothes, her parents were sat in Interview Room One of the local Police Station, clasping each other’s hands and awaiting Detective Inspector Harry Penvelly.  Talking to the parents of missing children was not something that Harry looked forward to, and certainly not in this case as there was really nothing that he could say to them this early into the investigation into their daughter’s disappearance.  But they had insisted on seeing him and not the Liaison Officer appointed to them.

As he entered the room the only thing Harry was aware of was their eyes, so full of pain and confusion, and yet still holding the hope that he, Harry Penvelly, might bring them.

Harry had seen those eyes too many times before, they were the eyes of parents struggling to live with the knowledge that their child was missing.  Should the child be found alive, even if not always well, then those eyes would change in an instant and would not give Harry a backward glance, he would be lucky if he even received a thank you.  But, should it be the worst outcome, the misery in those eyes would deepen and the hope would go, to be replaced by an irrational cold hard stare of accusation, directed at him, Harry Penvelly, the man who had failed them and their child.

He sat down opposite them, and opened what he knew would be a very difficult conversation.  

”Mr and Mrs Coburn, I really have nothing more to report on Beth’s disappearance.  I can only repeat what I have said to you before, that in ninety nine point nine per cent of these cases involving young teenagers it turns out that the youngster has run away, usually with a boyfriend, and turns up safe and well, and much to the wiser, a few days later.  There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to indicate that anything bad has happened to Beth.  We are doing all we possibly can to find her, and we will persuade her to come home, if we can.”  

Harry had to say that last part, but he knew it was walking on thin ice.  Sixteen was, in Harry’s opinion, far too young to be leaving home, but the law was clear on the matter.  The age of consent was sixteen and if Beth refused to return home, and wasn’t deemed to be in any danger, then there was little Harry could do about it.

Mr Coburn cast an anxious glance at his wife before replying, “Our Beth wouldn’t run off, she isn’t like that.  She doesn’t have a boyfriend, please Mr Penvelly, give us some credit for knowing our own child.”  

There wasn’t an awful lot more Harry could say to them.  Teenagers by their very nature took risks and kept secrets, especially from their parents.  But telling them that would in no way convince them of it.  Harry hoped in his heart of hearts that she had run away, the alternatives made for unpleasant thoughts.  It wasn’t a kidnapping, there was no reason for it to be a kidnapping, the abductors would gain nothing in holding the girl to ransom.  The only other possibility was one Harry certainly wasn’t going to voice to the parents at this early stage, abduction, either to supply the growing sex trade, or abduction for personal gratification by person or persons unknown.  But except for the fact that she had mysteriously left her handbag and mobile phone in the Ladies Room, (and so far this was the only thing that had rankled with Harry) there was absolutely nothing to go on, not even the other fact of her not having packed any clothes, after all ‘an on the spur of the moment’ run away wouldn’t have.  Beth Coburn had simply vanished into thin air.

Harry took them through one or two details about Beth’s life as a budding athlete, and her daily routine.  He already had this information, and more, but he knew that the parents would find a small respite from their worry by feeling they were doing something positive, even if it was only going over details again.  

As Harry rose and once more gave the parents reassurances that they, the police, were doing all they could, and to bear in mind it was early days and Beth in all probability would turn up, Mrs Coburn asked,

“Do you think we should make flyers, you know, missing posters and leaflets to hand out?  The Liaison Officer seems to think not at the moment, but surely……”

She left the sentence unfinished, the appeal obvious.  Harry inwardly sighed, but said in a matter of fact way,

“The officer is correct, by the time you have the flyers printed Beth could be home, but if she turns up a day or so after you have posted them, then both ourselves here at the Police Station and your own phone line could be swamped with calls swearing that they have just seen Beth anything up to fifty miles away in the last few minutes.  I don’t know why people do that sort of thing, they just do.  It really is best to wait a while.”  

Harry didn’t add that an abductor could panic at the flyers and decide that keeping Beth alive was not a risk worth taking.

Beth, of course, was in no immediate danger.  She had heard Bruce come in the front door, and a few moments later he unlocked the stairwell door and called for her to come down.  Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, Beth did so.

Bruce turned to greet her as she reached the bottom of the stairs.  Her apparel was an improvement on last night he had to admit.  She was wearing a brown skirt, the hem not too far above her knees, and a caramel coloured polo neck jumper.  Unfortunately the bright pink fluffy slippers were putting in another appearance.  A pang of pity made Bruce smile at her instead of frowning, she had made an effort, you couldn’t ask much more of the kid.  That she had been crying was obvious from her nose, which was red and sore looking.  He forgave her the bright pink slippers……….but what the hell was he going to DO with her?

”I hope you like fish and chips,” he said as she sat herself down at the kitchen table.  Beth cleared her dry throat and replied,

“Yes, yes thank you,……..Bruce, when you said we would talk, does that mean you………”  

“BETH, please, I’ve just got in from work, can it at least wait until after we have eaten?”  

The harshness of his reply and the impatience in his voice, shocked and frightened Beth, she bowed her head and mumbled,

“Sorry.”  

Their take away was eaten in silence, Bruce had no trouble finishing his meal, Beth felt as though she had a lead weight sitting in her gullet and merely picked at hers.  She once again was feeling scared, Bruce was unstable, she was sure.  Then another thought occurred to her, once more a piece of advice from her trainer, ‘One step at a time, achieve each goal completely and you will conquer the world.’   She hadn’t fully understood what he had meant by it at the time, but now she wondered if Bruce thought along similar lines.  Perhaps he could only handle one step at a time, he had planned to talk after they had eaten not before.  Disrupting this line of thought caused him to become impatient and angry.  Okay, she thought, I’ll wait until you’re ready.

A cup of tea was pushed in front of Beth, and as she looked up at Bruce he smiled and said,

“Right then, now we will talk, I’ll start, and please Beth no interruptions.”  

He smiled at her again and shook his head in a sorrowful way, “Oh Beth, Beth, Beth, what am I going to do with you?  I would have thought by now you would have come to realise what a lucky girl you are.  I, at much danger to myself, have taken the trouble to rescue you from a life of abuse and misuse.  No, no, don’t look at me like that, I know you love your parents and they love you, BUT, they have been caught up in the second-hand glory of their ambitions for you.  I bet they have never asked you what you want, have they?  Well, have they?  You can answer when I ask you a question, you silly thing.”  

Beth took a risk and answered,

“No, they haven’t.”  

Bruce nodded in a self-satisfied way before he continued, “No, I thought not.  I fell in love with you, you know, near broke my heart when I found out how young you were.  But I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and allow that you didn’t fool me on purpose, I am not a pervert you know, I don’t fall in love with little girls.  Make-up, it is one of this sad world’s evils.   Now then, here is what is going to happen in the short term.  You will stay here.  Look upon it as a kind of holiday, a break from all that you have been put through.  I will unlock the bottom stair door whilst I am at work, that way you can make yourself a sandwich or a cup of tea.  There are books in the front parlour, help yourself.  And if you want to listen to music, there is a small radio over there on the counter.  Needless to say you can’t leave the house.  Questions, you must have questions, ask away, I’m listening and will do my best to answer them.”

Beth knew she had to be careful in what she asked, or at least how she put things.  Bruce was a control freak, and now was not the time to upset his scripted view on things.  She cleared her throat and asked her question,

“I was wondering if it would be possible to telephone my Mum and Dad, let them know I am OK, they must be sick with worry.”  

Bruce threw his hands up in the air, which made Beth automatically duck, but he ignored this and replied in an over-the-top jovial manner,

”Now it’s me being the silly, of course, of course, fancy me forgetting, I bought a pay-as-you-go mobile on my way home for just that purpose.”  

Beth silently observed that here was a man who had no younger siblings, his condescending attitude was typical of those who had no idea of how to talk to teenagers.

 

Bruce had half turned and was fishing the mobile out from his jacket pocket which was hung over the back of his chair.  He offered it in her direction, and as she went to reach for it he snatched it away from her.  

“Ground rules first missy, one, I will dial the number and hold on to the phone so I can hear what is said, and two, you will tell them you are safe and well and will be home soon, that will make them think you left of your own free will.  Now, put your hands on the table where I can see them.”  

Beth did as she was told as Bruce came round the table to hover over her.  She gave him her Mother’s mobile number, he pressed the buttons as she said them, and then leant over so they both could listen.  After a few rings she heard her Mother’s voice say,

“Hello.”   

“Mum, it’s Beth.”

Her mother’s hysterical outburst and questions gave Beth a chance to fight down the tears and the need to simply scream down the phone for her parents to come and rescue her, to take her home, to make her feel safe again.  Once her mother had calmed down enough for Beth to talk, she repeated the message Bruce had given her to say.  Beth looked up at Bruce and he silently mouthed at her, ‘I have to go now, will call you soon.’  Beth nodded and repeated this also.  Bruce stood upright and switched the phone off.

 

Regarding her thoughtfully he said,  

“Patience Beth, I’m not a murderer or a rapist, I rescued you in the firm belief that love would blossom between us, but, as I have explained, that is not possible.  I have no wish to hold you prisoner, but you have to see it from my point of view.   If I were to release you now, I could get into a lot of trouble, even lose my job.  People can be so quick to judge.  They might even send me to jail, then who would visit Mother at the home?  No, far better to wait until you are fully reassured that I have done nothing wrong.”   

Beth’s head had snapped up at the mention of his mother, and before she could stop herself the question had sprung from her mouth,

“If your mother is in a home, then whose clothes am I wearing?”  

Bruce’s face darkened, he spun round, looked up at the clock, and shouted,

“IT’S YOUR BED TIME, GO TO BED YOU ANNOYING CHILD, GO TO BED NOW!”

CHAPTER FIVE – AN ABANDONED SEARCH AND AN UNEXPECTED RESCUE

         Harry Penvelly had called off the investigation into the disappearance of Beth Coburn the day following Beth’s phone call. The call had come just as her parents were leaving the Police Station, they had hurried back in with the news.  Once more they sat in front of Harry in the interview room, they still had an air of confusion about them, but they were relieved, happy, hopeful, looking forward.  

In between carefully repeating the conversation between Beth and herself, Mrs Coburn would put her hand over her mouth to stifle an excited laugh and then say,

”………but why, why oh why, why would she want to run off?”  

Harry knew it was time to stop questioning them, the mother was going through what was termed as ‘relieved hysteria,’ that strange condition which causes the sufferer to want to both laugh and cry at the same time.  He told them to go home and get some rest, they would talk again the next day.

As they rose to go Mr Coburn looked directly at Harry and asked,

“Mr Penvelly, you must have experience of run-a-ways, why do they do it when they are loved and well cared for, Beth never wanted for anything.”  

Harry paused a moment before answering, as diplomatically as he could,

“Sometimes Mr Coburn they feel, rightly or wrongly, that they are being pushed too hard.  Sometimes they feel that they need to just kick over the traces once in awhile.”  

Both parents’ faces had a look of total incomprehension, Harry realised that, at this moment, they just didn’t get it. They both loved Beth deeply and believed that pushing her to even greater athletic achievements was what responsible, selfless parenting was all about, their reward, and the only reward they ever sought, was being able to  revel second hand in the success of Beth becoming the best, the fastest, the crème de la crème amongst the world’s fastest sprinters.  In short, an Olympic Gold Medal winner.  But never once had they asked the kid if she felt the same way, wanted the same thing, they just assumed that she did. Hopefully, and before Beth got home, they would ‘get it’ and give no cause for Beth to abscond again.  

Once more Harry left a thought unsaid, in all his years of dealing with runaway teenage girls, and no matter for what reason they had run away, they had never, ever, ever, forgotten to take their handbags with them.

Harry had explained his worry over the forgotten handbag to his Superiors the next morning.  But they had decided that it was just too flimsy a reason to waste valuable resources on investigating further.  If the parents were convinced about the authenticity of the phone call then nothing more would be done.  Beth Coburn was alive and well and had stated that she expected to return home soon.  End of case.

Beth’s parents had come up with no objections to the closing of the case, but Harry had given them the reassurance that the Liaison Officer would call round from time to time to check on how they were doing, and, of course, they were to let Harry know the moment Beth returned home.  He would want to talk to her.  

With handshakes all-round the parents left, leaving Harry still feeling uncomfortable about that bloody handbag.  It had contained all her make-up, a purse with a £20 note and some loose change in (no plastic,) a couple of tampons (her mother had confirmed Beth was due on in a few days,)  a few receipts, some glucose tablets, house keys, a nail file and nail scissors, a small plastic Mickey Mouse and Beth’s mobile phone.  Harry wondered whose mobile Beth had used to call her Mum.  Boyfriend?  Girlfriend?  Abductor?   Who was feeding her?  Who was housing her?  Where was she?  Harry sighed, he had to let it go, there was nothing more he could do without authorised ‘resources’.  He pulled the brown file of his next case toward him and got on with being a copper.

Beth had a problem.  Well, she was more than aware that she did in fact have several, but her most immediate problem was being heralded by stomach cramps.  She was due on her period and had no sanitary wear.  She knew she was going to have to broach the subject with Bruce, but had no idea how.  She had thought of tearing up the already stained top she had hidden in the wardrobe to make some kind of pad, but if Bruce found out she didn’t dare contemplate his reaction.  This was not something that could wait, she was going to have to tell him, ask him, to go to the chemists and buy some tampons.  Oh God, she thought, as if life wasn’t enough of a misery.

Once more they ate in silence.  When her cup of tea appeared in front of her Beth looked up at Bruce,

“Um, Bruce, I wondered if you….. I need…., if you could please….”   

Beth stopped, it wasn’t going well.  Bruce leaned back in his chair, he seemed amused at her discomfort.  After a pause he said,

“Come on girl, spit it out.  I’m not a mind reader you know.   What is it you think you ‘need,’ what can I have been so negligent in not supplying you with?”   

An edge had crept into his voice, a very clear warning that Beth must be careful about what she said next.  Oh well, thought Beth, time to grasp the nettle,

“I’m due a period and have nothing to……..to…….you know, thingy.”  

Not exactly grasping the nettle, but at least she had got most of it said.  Bruce sat upright and looked at her through half closed eyes.  He opened and shut his mouth a couple of times, as if practising what to reply, finally he came up with,

“Ah, you mean woman thingy, thingys?”

Hoping to god they were talking about the same thingy Beth answered,

“Yes, I haven’t got any.”  

Bruce leapt to his feet, “Oh little Bethy, why didn’t you say so, awww so shy, that’s cute.  But you can talk to me about anything you know, even…….thingys.   Upstairs, upstairs, and I’ll pop out and get you some.”  

Ushering Beth up the stairs and locking the stairwell door behind her, Bruce grabbed his jacket, keys and wallet and with a bounce in his step left the house.   He was called upon to once more rescue a damsel in distress, only this time he wasn’t just a Hero, he was a New Age of Enlightened Man Hero.

His buoyant mood lasted right up until he faced the Assistant Chemist at the local Boots Store.  Looking at him through small, ‘I’m not taking any nonsense’ eyes, she snapped,

“Yes?”  

It was Bruce’s turn to feel abashed and awkward,

“I err, um, I want…..well not I personally you understand, my er, friend wants……”  

The Assistant Chemist sighed and butted in with,

“Natural, ribbed, extra safe, or comfort?”  

Bruce was nonplussed, and blurted,

“I don’t kno……what?”  

The Assistant once more sighed, and in a world weary voice asked,

“What kind of condoms do you…. does your ‘friend’ want?”  Bruce’s mouth fell open in shock, he shook his head furiously, “No, no, you’ve mistaken what I……. no, my girlfriend, she’s, she’s, her monthly, thingy, hasn’t got any…..thingys.”

With tightened lips the Assistant reached beneath the counter and placed two packets on top.  

“That’ll be £3.20.”  

Bruce paid and grabbing the packets left the store hurriedly, he didn’t check, he just fervently hoped he had made the right purchase.

As he drove home he went over and over his visit to the Chemist, in particular the Chemist’s Assistant.  He hated people like her, like his Mother.  Always belittling him, always looking for ways to trick him into looking foolish.

His Mother was a world’s expert at putting him down.  First she would build him up, instructing him on what a true man should be like.  And then, then when he behaved in a way that was exactly as she had described, she would start with her derisive remarks, ruffling his hair, calling him her ‘ickle, wickle, hero,’ and then, then when he could feel the tears of frustration form, when his hands would ball into fists, when a scream worked its way up from his guts and before it broke from his lips, she would encase him in her arms and croon softly in his ear,

“There, there, little man, Mother’s here, nothing will hurt you, no one will harm you, I will take care of you.”  

This may have been acceptable when he was a small child, but when it continued on into his adulthood, it became insufferable.  

Well, he had taken care of her alright.  Not that she hadn’t brought it upon herself.  Her flirting with young men, some younger than himself, and dressing up in clothes far too modern, and her un-motherly bouts of drinking alcohol, it had all been done for the sole purpose of making him a laughing stock in the town.   Well, she could wear what she liked in the home, flirt with whoever took her fancy, it would not reflect on him, and she was happy, and so she should be, he had rescued her from herself.

As he neared the bridge over the river a shape caught his eye as it hurtled from the bridge parapet and into the dark waters below.  A dog?  No, too big.  A deer then?  Yes, a deer.  Bruce pulled over and leaving his van scrambled down the river bank.  Bruce liked deer, they were such shy, gentle, unassuming creatures.  He couldn’t bear the thought of one struggling in the water, perhaps injured by some uncaring car driver.  And there had been a car crossing the bridge as the poor creature had been thrown into the river.  He had to rescue it.

 

Squinting in the fading light he saw a shape floating on the water.  It wasn’t far from the bank so he only had to wade out knee deep.  The shape was being caught in the flow of the river and Bruce managed to grab hold firmly as it drifted, with increasing speed, past him.  

To his surprise what he had caught hold of wasn’t fur and skin, but cotton and wool.  His muscles complained as he hauled the shape on to the river bank.  Bent double to regain his breath and to ease the scream of pain in his back Bruce looked at his rescued ‘shape.’  It was a woman.  Dropping to his knees he pushed the wet hair away from her face, her perfect face, she was beautiful. The face of an angel, a princess, Bruce was enraptured.  Then it struck him that the spoiler for this perfect face was its blue tinge, she wasn’t breathing.

Bruce couldn’t bear it, he had risked drowning to save a corpse?  A perfectly, beautiful corpse, he felt cheated.  Instinctively he turned her onto her side, and as he did so she coughed, the coughing became retching so Bruce sat her up.  He held her upright in his arms until her spluttering ceased and became laboured breathing, and then when her breathing became more measured Bruce put his hand under her chin and turned her face toward him.  Her eyes fluttered open and to Bruce’s delight her eyes were blue, even in the fading light of the evening he could make out the bright sapphire hue of them.  

“Hello little mermaid,” he said.

 

He held her firmly as she struggled to move away from him, “There, there,” he crooned softly, “Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you, you’re safe now.  I rescued you from the river.”  

She ceased her struggling and turned to look up at his face.  “The river?” she asked.  

“Don’t you remember?”  Bruce kept his voice soft, to scare her would be an unforgivable crime.  

“Do you remember your name?”  

Please, thought Bruce, don’t let her name be Cindy or anything like that, for some reason the name Cindy filled him with disgust.  

“Yes,” she whispered, “My name is Dorcus.”  

The sound of her name filled Bruce with a jolt of excitement, it ran through him like electricity, awakening his senses, the tingling sizzled its way down to his very finger and toe tips, and then returned to start it’s wonderful, exquisite journey through him again…….Dorcus, how could her name be any other…….Dorcus, fate, karma, whatever, had brought them together…….Dorcus, a Greek name meaning a doe deer.

CHAPTER SIX – DORCUS

         Dorcus's arrival was frantic.  Bruce had carried the wet and now shivering young woman into the house, carefully heeling the front door closed behind him.  His yells for Beth to come and help turned into angry demanding screams before he remembered that he had locked her upstairs when he had left the house.  Having nowhere else to put her, he placed Dorcus on the kitchen floor, propped up against a kitchen cupboard.  Unlocking the stairwell door, and before Beth could fully enter the kitchen, Bruce screamed into her face,

“Duvet off the bed, towels, lots of towels.”  

The manic look on Bruce’s face told Beth now wasn’t the time to question, now was the time to obey.

 

Beth helped Dorcus get out of her wet clothes, keeping the duvet modestly wrapped about her, Dorcus gave more help in this task, and of towelling dry her hair and body, then Beth would have credited the seemingly dazed and ‘out of it’ condition the young woman appeared to be in.  Beth had also had the foresight to bring a pair of thick fleecy pyjamas down from one of the drawers in her bedroom.

Whilst Beth had been helping Dorcus get dry, dressed, and warm, Bruce had disappeared.  By the time Dorcus had been sat at the kitchen table, with her hands wrapped around a mug of hot sweet tea, he had once more put in an appearance.  Beth noticed that he was quiet and calmer now than he had been earlier, he seemed thoughtful as he stood at the hob warming a saucepan of soup.  On the counter next to where he stood were two familiar packets.  His purchase for her from the chemist, not exactly what she wanted, more the type her mother used, but she certainly wasn’t going to complain.  Bruce saw her looking at them, he pointed at them with the wooden spoon he was using to stir the soup, indicating that she should come and take them.  As she picked them up off the counter, he said in a quiet, tired voice,

“Go to bed Beth, not Mother’s room, the one to the right of the bathroom, that’s your room now.”

Later, as Beth lay in the uncomfortable single bed that was almost the sole piece of furniture in her ‘new’ and much smaller bedroom, a knock came at the door,

“Beth,” it was Bruce,

“Beth, do you need to use the bathroom?”  

“Er, no, no, I’m fine, thank you.” replied Beth, puzzled.  

Her puzzlement didn’t last long; she heard the key as it was turned in, and then withdrawn from, the bedroom lock.  Bruce had never locked her in the bedroom before.

A deep concern filled Beth, not for herself, but for Dorcus.  She had seen the way Bruce had been looking at her when she had returned with the duvet and towels, and again just before she had come to bed.  Beth’s gran would have called it ‘soppy,’ but it was worse than that.  Bruce’s head had been pushed forward in Dorcus’s direction, similar to the attitude people take when they are straining to hear what is said.  His eyes were soft, some might have said dreamy, Beth would have called them wet, resembling the eyes of a trout she had once seen at the fish market.  His mouth was slightly open, and it wouldn’t have surprised Beth if a string of drool hadn’t begun to run down his chin.  He had, without a doubt, been gawping at Dorcus.

Was Dorcus in any danger from being raped by Bruce?  Somehow Beth didn’t think so.  She had seen the look on some men’s faces when they had watched her working out in the Gym.  Their faces had betrayed the fact that their thoughts were being governed by the southerly migration of their brains to their dangly bits.  Bruce’s face hadn’t been like that when he was looking at Dorcus, it was more, more, passive-obsessive-possessive, bordering on idiocy.  Was that a proper term?  Well, if it wasn’t, then it should be when applied to Bruce.  So why had he locked Beth in her room?  Then it dawned on her, of course, it was to stop Beth going to Dorcus’s room during the night and questioning her, finding out her story before he had a chance to do so.  Beth smiled as she relaxed and wriggled to find a less lumpy place on the mattress.  It would be interesting to see how he had planned to keep her from talking to Dorcus the next day, when he was at work.

The next morning, as Bruce replaced the receiver of the only phone in the house, which was in his bedroom, he was surprised at the breathless excitement he felt at ‘pulling a sicky,’ he couldn’t think why he hadn’t tried it before.  But he had a genuine reason for doing it, Dorcus.  She had obviously been through a lot, and would still need him close to hand for the reassurance that he would keep her safe.  Whatever, or more likely, whoever, had caused her to leap into the river could still be a danger to her.  He had to know, he had to prepare to protect her, but to do that he had to know who he was protecting her from.  And he had to find out before that snotty little brat Beth did so, she was a conniving little minx that one, he shook his head in disbelief, how on earth had she managed to convince him that she was older than she was.  If anyone needed dumping in a river, it was that one, he was sorely tempted to do so, but first she could make herself useful.

Bruce unlocked Beth’s door.  She was already up and dressed.  He had decided that continuing any pretence of politeness towards Beth was a complete waste of time, she was a downright nuisance, and had failed to show any gratitude for all he had done for her.  Having her around now Dorcus was here was an inconvenience.  

Holding the door wide open he indicated with a nod of his head that she should leave the room.  As she passed him he said,

“Make some toast and tea and bring it up on a tray to Dorcus’s room, I am going to check on her and see how she is feeling this morning.  When you have done make yourself scarce, go back to your room and stay there until I tell you to come out.  Don’t force me to lock you in again Beth, so for once do as you are told and be a good bo….girl.”

As she hurried down the stairs Beth thought, ‘Whoa!  Did I just hear right, did he nearly say boy, what kind of a Freudian slip was that?’

Beth had discovered during her brief ‘run of the house’ freedom that there was a downstairs loo, just off the entrance hall.  She made this her first grateful port of call before returning to the kitchen.  Along with a plate of toast and a cup of tea for both Dorcus and Bruce she added a mug of coffee and a plate of toast for herself, she had no idea how long Bruce was going to insist she made herself ‘scarce,’ and she had no intention of starving whilst she did so.  She placed her mug and plate outside her bedroom door and carried the tray over to the main bedroom.  Needing both hands to hold the tray she gently tapped on the door with her foot.  The door, which hadn’t been closed properly, swung open.

Bruce was sat on the dressing table stool beside the bed, faced toward the open door, he was wringing his hands.  As Beth came into the room he didn’t even look up from his concentrated study of Dorcus’s sleeping form.  Dorcus was very, very pale.  Her blond curly hair was fanned out over the pillows, Beth gave a slight frown, it looked very staged, very ‘Sleeping Beauty-ish.’  She gave a small cough and Bruce jerked his head up.  

“Beth!  What do you wa……Oh, yes, breakfast.”  

He stood and crossed the room, all but snatching the tray from Beth, slopping tea into the saucers.  He stood staring hard into Beth’s face, as if trying to make up his mind about something.  He looked distraught.  Then taking a sharp breath he said, “Beth, take a look at Dorcus, is she…. does she look…… just take a close look at her and tell me she is alright.”  

‘Oh God,’ thought Beth, ‘What has he done to her?’

She had to edge past Bruce to reach the bed, he appeared rooted to the spot, reluctant to even turn round and watch what she was doing,  he gripped the tray the same way a drowning man would grip at a straw.  Beth leaned over the prone Dorcus, placing her finger tips on what she hoped was the right place to feel a pulse in the neck, she had seen it done on TV programmes.  This close she could see Dorcus’s pale and waxen pallor, it looked chalky, powdery, and her skin smelt slightly of talcum powder.  Beth slide her finger tips down Dorcus’s neck a little further, still seeking an elusive pulse, she hadn’t taken her eyes off the young woman’s face, hoping if she couldn’t find a pulse then she would see her breathing.  Dorcus’s eyes shot open, a smile bent her lips upwards and then she winked, lewdly.

Beth shot upright with a gasp.  

“God no, no,no,no,noooooooo,”  wailed Bruce, mistaking her reaction to Dorcus’s performance as his worst fears realised.  He had managed to turn round at Beth’s gasp and in time to see Beth straighten up in shock, but Dorcus’s face was hidden from his view by Beth’s body.  He had seen neither smile or wink.  Not breaking the contact of her eyes with Dorcus’s Beth said,

“Bruce, she’s OK, really, it’s just that she smiled, and, and, I think she is just exhausted.”  

This brought another smile and wink from Dorcus, this time in acknowledgement.

Bruce put the tray on the bedside table, and pushing Beth unthinkingly to one side he murmured,

“Thank you God, thank you….” And then in a louder voice, “Beth, get out, go back to your room.”  

A raspy whisper came from the bed, “No, no please I need her, I need to go to the bathroom, I need her help.”  

Bruce had by this time dropped to his knees beside the bed and was holding Dorcus’s hand.   

“Of course my dear, of course,” he crooned, and then in a harsher tone,

“Beth, get over her and help Dorcus.”  

As Bruce stood and moved to allow Beth back to the bedside, Beth shot him what she hoped was a black look, the look he gave her in return was thunderous and full of warning.

Once Beth had supported Dorcus in the short walk to the bathroom and had slid the bolt firmly across, locking the door, she turned to ask her what the hell she thought she was playing at.  She got as far as opening her mouth when Dorcus’s arm had shot out and her hand had gripped firmly around Beth’s throat, cutting off words and allowing just the barest minimum of breath.  With her lips close to Beth’s ear Dorcus’s whisper was furious and  frightening,

“Listen very carefully and keep your silly mouth shut, I need time to think things through, and you need to do all that he tells you to do, do you understand?”  

Beth gave a nod, Dorcus continued,

“OK, I’m going to let you go now, make any sound to make him suspicious and I’ll break your bloody neck.”  

Beth stood frozen, leaning up against the bathroom door, whilst Dorcus used the loo.  When she had finished she came back to where Beth was standing, Beth flinched as Dorcus turned her round to face the door, pulled back the bolt, and put her arm across Beth’s shoulders.  Realising that she was required to go back into ‘helping Dorcus’ mode Beth slipped her arm around the woman’s waist.  They returned to the bedroom and their mutual jailer.

Bruce fussed around plumping up her pillows and generally making sure Dorcus was comfortable, he proudly indicated the tray of breakfast and asked if she was hungry.  Dorcus weakly shook her head but added that if he left the tray, then perhaps later she might try to eat some.  She looked into Bruce’s eyes, and said,

“I don’t know how to thank you, you have been so kind, more than kind, like a hero, you were so brave to risk your life, but I am so tired.  So very tired, I know it is a lot to ask, but could I rest here, with you and your sister, in this house for a couple of days, just until I feel strong again….and then, I wouldn’t impose on you further, I would leave….”

  

Beth, who was being totally ignored, her presence forgotten. was feeling recovered from being attacked by Dorcus, and safer now that she wasn’t locked in a small room alone with her, thought, ‘For goodness sake Bruce answer her, she couldn’t fish any harder if she tried,……  Huh!  Your ‘sister,’ I suppose that’s me, I wonder when that was decided.’  

Bruce’s brain finally caught up, having stopped to bask for a while in the glory of the words ‘hero,’ and ‘brave.’  He once more took hold of Dorcus’s hand, this time he held it to his lips, his words came with a tremble in his voice,

“Dorcus, my own sweet doe, my lady.  Stay as long as you wish, I shall look after you, keep you safe from harm.  This evening, after we have eaten, and perhaps if you feel strong enough, you can tell me your story, how you came to be in the river.”………..

‘Oh, please,’ thought Beth.  ‘Someone pass the sick bucket, he sounds and acts like one of those gormless characters in one of Gran’s romance novels.’

CHAPTER SEVEN – FRIEND OR FOE?

         The weekend saw Bruce still dancing attendance on the apparently bedridden Dorcus.  Whether Dorcus had told Bruce how she had ended up in the river or not Beth had no idea, she was not allowed to be present during their conversations.  Once she had completed whatever ‘chore’ Bruce had set her she was sent once again to her room.  There seemed to be a silent acceptance that, as far as Dorcus was concerned, Beth was Bruce’s younger sister.

 

Beth found that she actually looked forward to Bruce calling her to perform a task, usually for Dorcus, it was certainly a step up from whole days of boring idleness.  She was however taken aback and embarrassed by having to sit on the dirty linen basket whilst Dorcus had a bath, to be on hand in case ‘poor Dorcus’ should feel faint.  

Beth had closed her eyes whilst Dorcus had stripped unashamedly in  front of her, only when she had heard the woman get into the deep, sweet scented bubbles did she dare to open them again and try to strike up a whispered conversation.  Dorcus had narrowed her eyes like a spiteful cat at this, and had pressed a finger to her lips whilst nodding toward the bathroom door.  Beth heeded the warning, although how Dorcus might know if Bruce was outside the door listening or not she had no idea.

Bruce hadn’t been listening at the bathroom door.  He had been sitting at the kitchen table thinking.  Tomorrow was Monday.  He didn’t dare take another day off work, what if they sent someone round to check on him?  He was convinced that Dorcus had no recollection of how she had ended up in the river.  He had been full of shame and remorse when he had tried to press her to remember, and her eyes had filled with tears.  His poor, beautiful Dorcus, she could hardly rise from her bed.  How could he have been so cruel to make her cry.  If his useless dowdy lump of a sister didn’t need carefully spelled out instructions on what to do around the house, then maybe he would be thinking more clearly.   

Sister?  Bruce shook his head to clear it, of course Beth was his sister, how else could her presence be explained, all this worry over Dorcus was making him forgetful.  He nodded slowly, making a decision, he would go to work tomorrow.  He was the man of the house, his womenfolk relied on him to do the right thing.

The following morning Beth was once again locked in her room.  Bruce had let her out first thing to do the breakfasts and ‘see’ to Dorcus.  But as he had ushered her back to her room and locked her in he had said,

“I’m off to work.”

And then he was gone.  She had heard the front door close behind him.  Not knowing whether she was pleased or not at being left alone in the house with Dorcus she sat on the bed.

  

She knew Dorcus was more than capable of moving about, she had heard her late at night exploring the house.  How Bruce hadn’t heard her was a mystery to Beth, he must be a very deep sleeper.  

The sound of the key in the lock made Beth shoot up the bed, her back pressing uncomfortably against the headboard.  Defensively she drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.  It wasn’t Bruce unlocking the door, she knew it wasn’t Bruce.  When Dorcus had first arrived Beth had hoped that they could be friends, colleagues who would jointly plan their escape.  But now Beth felt a cold shiver at the thought of Dorcus entering her room.  She may be nervous and wary of Bruce, but she was just plain terrified of Dorcus.

Dorcus entered the room and waved the key in Beth’s direction,

“Da-dah! The idiot left it on the kitchen table, thank-you Brucey baby!” she said, triumphantly.  

She stopped and frowned at Beth’s lack of response.  Realising that the girl was frightened she came over and sat on the bed, placing a hand on Beth’s arm she softly said,

”You don’t have to be scared of me kiddo, I’m not the one who’ll hurt you, look, I’m sorry if I seemed to cut up a bit rough before, I had to get Bruce to trust me, it was important that he had no suspicions about me at all, for both our sakes.”

Beth looked up, still feeling unconvinced she asked,

“Are you with the police?  Have you come to rescue me?  Like a sting operation?”  

Dorcus threw back her head and laughed, when she had done she looked at Beth for a moment or two before continuing, “You are a fanciful little thing aren’t you, like him.  You could be his sister you know, yes, I know you’re not, but he now thinks you are, hold on to that thought it could be useful.  Your picture was in the local rag when you first disappeared and the police came round asking if we knew anything about you.”  

Beth couldn’t quite understand what Dorcus meant by that last part, but there was a question she had to know the answer to, if Dorcus wasn’t with the police, if she hadn’t set Bruce up to get into the house, then,

“How did you end up in the river?”  

Dorcus grinned, and giving Beth’s arm a friendly pat replied, “My pimp threw me in from out of his car.”

Beth’s eyes opened wide at this unexpected snippet of information given in such an off handed manner, stumbling over the words she said,

“You’re a….you….you’re….”  

Smiling Dorcus filled in the gaps for her,

“I’m a prostitute, a whore, a tart, any word you chose would be a pretty accurate job description.”  

Still feeling stunned, Beth asked,

“But why?  Why did your um, er, pimp throw you in, and, and, why do want to stay here…….oh, oh, of course, you don’t, you just want to take Bruce off his guard, so you can escape……please, don’t leave me here, please take me with you, please….”

Dorcus caught hold of Beth’s shoulders and gave her a little shake, saying as she did so,

“Whoa, slow down, calm down, when I decide to leave of course I’ll take you with me, I could hardly leave you here with that nutter.  You do know he’s insane don’t you, I mean properly insane.”  

The words, ‘decide to leave’ burned into Beth’s mind, could it really be that easy, would Dorcus be able, when she was ready, to say,

“Come on then kiddo, it’s time to go.”  

But when would Dorcus be ready to go.  Beth voiced her concern,

“Why can’t we go now, we’ll be home by the time he gets back from work, please Dorcus let’s go now.”

Dorcus removed her hands from Beth’s shoulders, and her face became serious.  

“I can’t, not yet, look perhaps if I told you everything it would help you to understand, to be patient, and not to give the game away.  Bruce believes I have some sort of amnesia, and nothing must be said to persuade him otherwise.”  Checking that she had Beth’s attention Dorcus sighed and went on with her story.  

“My pimp had discovered that I was holding back, not giving him all the money due to him that I was making from the, er, clients.  Chucking me in the river from his moving car was by way of a little warning.  It would have been his intention to drive up the road a ways, find a place to turn round and come back to get me, by the time he had returned our mutual hero had already dragged me out and brought me back here.  The river was just a warning, the real punishment would come when he discovered where I had hid the money and just how much of it there was.  I had developed certain specialities that he didn’t know about, and was getting my own client list.  I was raking it in, hard work, yes, but I have enough money now to follow my own dreams.  To employ a number of high-class girls, have only an elite, and wealthy, clientele.  I’m twenty six years old, I’ve been working on my back since I was thirteen, I’ve used my brains as well as my body and avoided the serious STDS and drugs, I deserve this break, I deserve something better than pimps and second rate johns out of this world.”

Dorcus paused, letting the feeling of justification wash over her.  She continued,

“Of course, when Jake, that’s my pimp, had got back to the river and found me gone hopefully he would have assumed that I had drowned and got washed down stream.  I bet he ripped my flat apart looking for my money.  But don’t you see Beth, if he had dragged me out of the river instead of Bruce, if he discovered where I now was, it wouldn’t just be my flat he ripped apart, it would be me.  I have to lay low until everything dies down, until it is safe to get my money and buy a train ticket to as far away as possible from this town.”

Beth was appalled, the word prostitute was just that in her world, a word.  She had no idea, no inkling of its true meaning, of the violence that came with it.  Even so, Dorcus’s problem was not hers, this gave her the courage to say,

“But you could get me out now, this Jake isn’t after me.”  Dorcus’s face went from serious to hard in an instant,

“Selfish little bitch.” She snarled, “You don’t see, you don’t get it at all do you?  Alright, let’s say you return home tonight, after your loving family had welcomed you back into their arms the police would turn up.  And after the police the newspapers.  And you see Beth dear, therein lies my problem, I really don’t trust you enough to keep your big mouth shut.  With you rattling around in the outside world again, telling all and sundry where you were held captive, and who you were held captive with, I could kiss the arse goodbye to my money and my life.  The police would ‘rescue’ me, Jake would find me, oh yes.  You don’t think policemen use whores? They have needs like any other man, and Jake keeps his trap shut about it.  There are some high ranking officers who owe Jake.  I would make a wonderful thank you gift.”

As quick as lightening Dorcus grabbed Beth by her hair and yanked her forward towards her.  

“Listen, listen, listen, you will behave, you will do as you’re told.  I will take you with me when I go, I promise, I can’t say clearer than that.  Also there is something else you should be aware of, Bruce will kill us, it’s his only option in his crazy world, he won’t see it as killing, his life is like a book he is writing at the same time as living it, he will write our deaths off as something else, and then move on to a new chapter, who knows, he won’t even mourn us, because for him, we would never have existed.  The only, only, way we can survive is to make this story last as long as possible for him, the moment it starts to go wrong, we’re dead.”  

Dorcus gave Beth a hard backward jerk hitting her head on the head board.  She then released Beth’s hair and stormed out of the room, locking the door behind her.

Beth’s terrified sobs racked her body.  She didn’t want to die, she wanted to go home, she wanted her parents, she wanted her life back.  She curled foetus like on the bed.  She refused to believe that Bruce would kill them, she had realised that he was sick in his head, but not all, in fact very few, mentally disturbed people were killers.  He had never shown any indication that he was violent.

 

But he didn’t have to be violent, did he?  What was it Dorcus had said, that he would write their deaths into his story, make them plausible, make them not his fault.  Making things not his fault, making things fit into his warped view of life was what Bruce did.  Beth was shaking now, her teeth chattering together.  She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t handle it.  She had to get away, but she couldn’t see how.  And Dorcus, what was Dorcus?  Friend or foe.  

Suddenly and unexpectedly Beth wanted Dorcus back in the room.  Rough she may be, but she had promised to get her out, she knew how to get out.  If Beth stood any chance at all, then it would be by listening to Dorcus.  She clung to the thought of Dorcus being her salvation like a frightened toddler clinging to its comfort blanket.  Beth’s sobs softened to become the occasional snuffle as exhausted sleep crept over her.

Beth was awakened by Dorcus slapping her foot.  

“I found twenty quid tucked into a book downstairs so I’m just popping out for some fags, I’m absolutely gasping.  I’ve put some sandwiches and a cup of tea on the side there, when you have finished wash your cup and plate up and put them away, remember, as far as Bruce is concerned you have been locked in here with nothing to eat all day.”  

Beth groggily looked at the plate and cup on the dresser, then the impact of what Dorcus had said hit her.  

“But,” she gasped “They’re locked, all the doors are locked, I’ve checked, how, how……what if you’re seen.”   

Dorcus gave a short bark of a laugh, then said,

“Ha! My Granny had an old house like this, she used to leave what she called a spare-spare key on the lintel over the back door.  I had a little feel around and voila, it’s filthy, probably been up there donkey's years, I doubt if Bruce knew about it, in fact I’m sure he didn’t.  The actual spare key is bound to be hung up in what would have been the outside loo, or under a plant pot.”  

Beth was impressed.  Dorcus continued,

“There is bound to be a newsagent close by, if there isn’t then it looks as though I’ll be packing the dirty habit in, cold turkey.  No one is actually watching out for me, I’ll just be one more faceless customer buying a packet of fags, I’ll be back soon, promise.”

The days were passing and everything was settling down into Bruce’s version of domestic bliss.  Dorcus was regaining her strength if not her memory, and she was turning the house into a home.  Bruce would hurry home from work and often find her preparing dinner.  He objected at first, saying that Beth should be doing that chore, his heart quickly melted to butter at the hurt look on Dorcus’s face whilst she told him that she wanted to cook for him, and that she actually enjoyed cooking, more so because it was for him.  He insisted however that Beth did the washing up, Dorcus had raised no objections to this.

He still kept the outside doors and his bedroom locked.  The outside doors because of the unknown danger that Dorcus could still be in.  (He had once gone to the back door to bring something in from the garden, Dorcus had thrown herself against it screaming for him not to open it, she had then thrown herself into his arms sobbing and begging for his protection.)  His bedroom he kept locked because he couldn’t stand the thought of his nosey little sister (sister? There it was again, that niggle of doubt surrounding Beth) poking around his things.  

He was in fact the man of the house, his womenfolk were protected and cared for by him, he knew that they looked to him for all their needs.  It may be only the simple side of heroism, but it was the little things that mattered in the long run, Dorcus had often told him this and he had no reason to doubt her.

 

He was still concerned about the phone calls Beth was permitted to make on the mobile.  Dorcus had carefully explained to him that Beth, poor soul, needed to do this, it made her happy for some reason, and that they ought to indulge her as she wasn’t doing any harm.  When Bruce had asked Dorcus who it was Beth was phoning, Dorcus had replied,

“The talking clock, but please Bruce don’t tell her that, it would be too cruel, it would destroy her.”  

As Beth had never gone off to make the calls in secret and had always returned the mobile to him afterwards, he let it go, but deep inside of him he didn’t like it, he didn’t like it at all.

Bruce’s ‘womenfolk’ were finding maintaining the charade of domestic bliss mentally exhausting.  As Dorcus had carefully explained, they had to develop a role for themselves that was acceptable to Bruce.  Create a bubble of a world that worked in Bruce’s mind and kept them safe.  Beth therefore became the slightly idiot younger sister who did dull, but really necessary, chores around the house, she didn’t get in anyone’s way, and she did as she was told (this part Dorcus had really hammered home with Beth’s head on the headboard.)  Dorcus was the forlorn princess, the rescued maiden, pure, wholesome and needy.  She was the one that guided and manipulated Bruce into believing that he was still in charge, still writing the story for them.  Burst that bubble and Bruce would write a new script that didn’t have them in it.

Dorcus was an expert in knowing the needs of men, and no fancy, over-priced Harley Street physiatrist could rival her expertise of how men thought.   She was fully aware therefore that if she had introduced sex into the equation then both Beth and herself would die.  Bruce didn’t want sex, he wanted romance.  He saw Dorcus as an icon of purity, a non-sexual object for his adoration.  Keeping him convinced that quiet domesticity was a kind of romance was difficult, but she was being aided in this task by a quarter of Valium added to his evening meal.  She had found the bottle of pills stashed carefully away, sellotaped to the back of the dressing table.  She didn’t want to knock him out, she just wanted to keep him happy and open to suggestion.

In a day or two the pills would have been used up, but in a day or two she would be able to leave, she would need to leave, he wasn’t getting a large dose but Dorcus had a feeling that because of Bruce’s insanity his withdrawal symptoms from even that small amount could be deadly, for her and Beth.  She was sure Jake, her pimp, would have calmed down about the money by now,  she still needed to hide out here, for just that couple of days more, just to be sure, but only on her terms.   Plus she had the added nuisance of Beth.  Dorcus was hard, prostitution did that to you, but she wasn’t mean or cruel.  She knew what would happen to Beth if she was to leave without her.  Beth was just a kid, Dorcus couldn’t leave her behind when she left, she couldn’t live with the consequences of what Bruce might do to her.

The slightly spiked dinners Dorcus was preparing for Bruce had an added bonus.  Already a deep sleeper, Bruce was helped into an even deeper slumber by the Valium.  This meant that Beth and Dorcus could slip outside into the back garden at night for a breath of fresh air.  It also nearly led to their downfall.  Dorcus couldn’t remember what had caused them to have a fit of the giggles as they came in, but they had managed to quell the worst of it and not awaken Bruce as they went upstairs to their respective rooms.

It was the next morning as she came down the stairs and saw Bruce heading toward the back door, key in hand, that gave rise to a horrified feeling at her stupid oversight when  Dorcus remembered she hadn’t locked the door when they had come in last night.  The key was still in her pocket.  She darted in front of Bruce and threw herself at the door, screaming,

“No Bruce, no, they’ll get you, they’ll kill me, don’t let them in!”  

There was no way she could get the key from her jeans pocket and into the lock and out again without Bruce seeing, risking that she may be going ‘over the top’ with her act, she threw herself into Bruce’s arms sobbing,

“Oh Bruce, save me, save me.”

By this time Beth had come over wondering what all the fuss was about.  As she passed Dorcus entwined in Bruce’s comforting arms, Beth felt something cold and metallic being pressed into her hand.  Then Dorcus fainted.  Bruce swept her up and carried her through to the main part of the kitchen.  Understanding fully what had to be done, Beth quickly locked the back door and returned the key above the lintel.  Breathing a sigh of relief Beth almost welcomed Bruce’s harsh voice as he shouted,

“Beth, for crying out loud, get your useless backside in here and help me with Dorcus.”

This then was how life was being played out for Bruce, Beth and Dorcus.  Each had a very different reason for being there, in that terraced prison of a house, but their reasons for staying there were closely intertwined.  The bubble was about to be burst however, and the story brought to an end. Circumstances beyond the threesome’s knowledge, if not beyond one of the threesome’s control, had already been set in motion.

CHAPTER EIGHT – RIDDLED

         The first circumstance occurred on about the fourth day after Dorcus’s ‘rescue.’  It came in the form of Aggie Smite, (Agnes Smith), or Smelly Ol’ Aggie as she was more popularly known on the streets.  

Aggie wasn’t really old, had she remembered she would have been able to put her age at around thirty five, but syphilis left untreated for too long, coupled with the daily diet of cheap booze, had scarred her face, warped her bones, and addled her brains.  Aggie was an ex-prostitute, but was no longer able to ply her trade, mainly because of her looks, her unpredictable mental instability, but mostly because of her stench, proving rather surprisingly that even pimps and the sleaziest of sexual sleaze-balls have standards.  She made a little money in the summer, when the windows could be left wide open, by cleaning the working girls rooms.  In the winter she begged.  Or hung around outside the town’s posher restaurants until the Maître D’ would rush out, and then he would be the one begging,  for her to go away, which she was quite willing to do if presented with a parcel of food scraps and a ten pound note.  As no hostel for the homeless would have her, Aggie made her home on the streets.

She became the first circumstance at the front desk of the Police Station.  The Duty Sergeant, Bert Applewhite was standing about four feet behind the desk arguing with her.  (Aggie’s breath could drop a cow, the Duty Sergeant had a heavy cold so four feet was reasonable, but still very brave.)  “Mr Happles,”  Bert didn’t bother to correct Aggie, it was pointless, besides it detracted from working out what she was trying to say.  

“Eyes riddled with it!” she complained,  

“So you’ve said Aggie, at least half a dozen times, and I’ve told you, this is a Police Station, you need to get yourself to the Clinic and get it sorted.” Said Bert, he was trying to be kind, but he was alone in this task, the other officers having disappeared to who-knows-where at first sight of Aggie.  “No, no, no, you’re a daft brush Mr Happles, I needs to speak to Mr Pennywelly.” Explained Aggie,

“No you don’t,” replied Bert with a certain amount of indignity, “I’m sure Mr Penvelly doesn’t want to know what you’re riddled with!”  

“He do, he do, coz eyes riddled with it!” wailed the now desperate Aggie.

 

Detective Sergeant Bob Halmer had taken that unfortunate moment to walk down the stairs from his office,  he wrinkle his nose in disgust, and spied Aggie, before he had chance to turn on his heel and high tail it back to the safety of his office, Aggie spotted him.  She pointed a wavering finger in his direction and yelled,

“An’ eyes not talking to that long streak of cow’s piss either……Eyes want Pennywelly.  Eyes riddled eye tell you, riddled!!”  

Bob stopped in his tracks, not daring to take a breath of the noxious air, he said, “I’ll tell him you’re here Aggie.”

“YOU DID WHAT?!”  

Harry’s face infused red with anger.  

“But, sir, she’s kicking off, you know what happens when she does that, it took the cleaners three weeks to get the stench out last time, two of them resigned on the spot.”  Much to his horror Bob could hear the whine in his voice,  Aggie could still do that to a man, bring him to his knees, have him begging for mercy, alright, it was for altogether different reasons than when she was much, much younger but……Harry’s voice broke through Bob’s revelry,

“Correct me if I’m wrong Bob, but here am I, up here in my nice clean office, a fully-fledged Detective Inspector.  Downstairs is Duty Sergeant Bert Applewhite, an admirable and capable officer when it comes to handling and sorting out the trivial problems of the General Public, of whom Aggie Smite is one.  But you, you, you gormless article have to go and upset the natural balance of things…….   Alright I’ll see her, it’s the only way we’ll get her to leave, put her in the cell with the extractor fan full on, tell her the interview rooms are full.”

 

Bob looked suitably ashamed as he phoned down and gave the long suffering Bert instructions on what to do with Aggie, Bob could hear her still wailing in the background.  As he put the receiver down he looked up at Harry and said,

“I’m sorry sir, really, I’ll just make myself scarce and…”  “You’ll do no such bloody thing, Bob, you’re coming with me to sort out Ms Aggie Smite, this is something I refuse to suffer on my own.”  

Harry took a jar of Vaseline out of his desk drawer and pushed a large dollop up each nostril.  He was about to put the jar back when he changed his mind and offered it to Bob, who was well known for his queasy stomach.  Vaseline was often used to plug up the nostrils when attending the autopsies of rotten, stinking corpses, their aroma hadn’t a patch on Aggies, and Harry hoped the Vaseline would make things, at the very least, bearable.

As they neared the cells Harry, determined that Bob should in no way feel that he had been forgiven just because he let him have a couple of dollops of Vaseline, asked,

“What was it you said she called you Bob?”  Bob told him.  Giving Bob a wicked grin as he pushed the cell door open, he replied,

“Well, she didn’t get that wrong, did she?”  Harry took one step into the cell, did an immediate about turn and bending double in the corridor he gasped,

“Bloody hell!  She’s on form today!”  

From the cell a voice, doing its best to sound seductive, squawked,

“Haireeeeee Pennywelly, don’t you be a shy boy, come on in.”  

It was Bob’s turn to grin as he mouthed at Harry, “Hairy?!”  Harry took two enormous gulps of air to keep him going, shot Bob the blackest of looks, and re-entered the cell.

There are difficult interviews, there are very difficult interviews, but the one with Aggie should have come with a health warning notice.  Bob had the foresight to bring a small tape recorder, so in between them taking turns to refresh their oxygen supply outside the cell they were able to let Aggie run her course without the need to keep interrupting her for clarification of what she had said, not that they had any intention of doing so anyway, fighting the impulse not to take a breath was taking precedence over listening.  Should they have nothing better to do they could decipher it from the tape later in the sweet smelling comfort of their office, they might even find it entertaining.   Once they had established that she didn’t need any medical intervention for what she was riddled with, it being presumably guilt, the interview passed, if not quickly enough, then quicker than they had feared.  When they had finished Harry arranged for the canteen to send up a pre-pack of bacon sandwiches and slipped a fiver in the paper bag they were contained in.  He knew Bert Applewhite would have no end of difficulties persuading her to leave without her having received this ‘little gift.’

Harry and Bob returned to their office, Bob slipped the tape recorder into his desk.  With perfect unspoken understanding they left to go to their respective homes, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, either of them could do, or even want to do, until they had spent at least an hour under a very hot shower.  

The tape recording of Aggie’s ‘riddleds’ was forgotten. It wasn’t deemed important, it had been part of the means of getting Aggie and her obnoxious smell from out of the Police Station.

CHAPTER NINE – AN INTERPRETATION

About a week after Aggie unriddling her guilt onto Harry, Bob was rifling through his desk drawer looking for staples.  His hand closed around the small tape recorder.  Bringing it out he waved it at Harry, who was the one in need of the staples.  

“That’s not staples, try again.”  Harry informed him.  

“I know sir,” said Bob, “But are we going to do anything about it, or can I wipe it clean?”  

“I suppose,” said Harry with a sigh, “We best get it interpreted, just in case it holds the answer to every cold case on the record book, do you know anyone who speaks Aggie?”  Bob took a breath and opened his mouth as if to say something.  He paused, frowned, gave a little nod, seemed to come to a decision, and finally said,

“Actually sir, I think I do.”  

Harry had watched his face, fascinated. He had been about to tell Bob that he was joking and to go ahead and wipe the tape.  But now he was intrigued.  Coppers never questioned each other about their ‘sources of information.’ So Harry would never ask who this wizard that could straighten out words and meanings after Aggie’s poor addled brain had dealt with them was, instead he just said,

“OK, fine, if you can get them to type or write out a transcript, that would be great.”  

Even though there was absolutely no enthusiasm in Harry’s voice Bob beamed, but under his pleased expression Harry thought he could detect just a sous son of worry.

“Tracey?”  

“Mmm?” Tracey replied as she turned to face her boyfriend, “Do you remember your Great Uncle Simon?”  asked Bob, “Of course I do,” replied Tracey, frowning, “It was me that told you about him.”  

She hung the tea towel over the oven door rail.  She instinctively knew she wasn’t going to like where this was going, she was suspicious of just why Bob would be asking about her uncle.  The trouble with having a copper as the love of your life was that you were often used as a sounding board for all kinds of weird and wonderful hypothesis.

They took their glasses of wine through to the lounge and curled up together on the sofa.  Bob gave a short but completely false chuckle,

“Your Uncle Simon, what a character, I remember you telling me……”

Tracey leaned forward and picked up the TV Times from the coffee table, hoping this would give Bob the hint.  It didn’t, and he continued,

“….that when his brain tumour was playing him up he used to talk nonsense, well, everyone else thought he was talking nonsense, but not you, you could understand everything he said, is that right?”  

“Yes,” said Tracey, putting as much coldness and warning into the word as she could.  

“Well,” said Bob, watching her face carefully, “I’ve got this tape recording of a woman with a very similar brain disorder to your Uncles and I was wondering if you could translate it for me seeing as you could understand what your Uncle was saying.”  

He said this in a rush, with no pauses, he needn’t have bothered, Tracey’s reaction would have been the same had he said it in prose, or made it into a love sonnet.  

“BOB!!”  she shouted, slamming the TV Times onto the floor, “This is the bitter limit, it’s bad enough when you bring your work back here to my  home to do, but now you’re bringing your work to my home for ME to do.  NO Bob, no, no, no.”

“Detect…..”  Bob started, Tracey cut in and finished it for him,

“Detective Inspector Harry Penvelly asked you to, and, of course, you couldn’t say no”  She put in as much spite into this as she could.

“Actually,” said Bob, feeling aggrieved and a little hurt, “He didn’t, I told  him that you would.”

As the words hung in the air between them Bob knew he had made a mistake.  

“BOB, HOW COULD YOU, go home, just go home now before I say something we both regret.”  

She stormed out of the room and as he heard the back door slam behind her he knew she would be having a cigarette.  It was strange, most girls packed up smoking when they met someone they were serious about, but Tracey had started smoking not long after they had met.  It worried Bob, but it never occurred to him what the cause may be.  Knowing that he risked it being flushed down the loo, he left the little tape recorder on the coffee table and went home.

A week passed, an uneasy truce had been called between Bob and Tracey, so long as they didn’t mention Uncle Simon, wonky brains, or tape recorders, and most of all Detective Inspector Harry Penvelly.  Bob wondered if he would ever to see the little tape recorder again, he assumed that his fears for it meeting its end in the sewer system had been realised, he was about to find out that he was wrong.

 

Lying on the desk in front of Harry was a large brown envelope, Harry was chuckling over it.  

“Look at this Bob, someone’s got a wicked sense of humour, do you recognise the handwriting?”  

Bob leaned over his boss’s shoulder and looked at the envelope, he felt the blood drain from his face,

“No,” he lied, “It’s er, very humorous.”  

Written on the front of the envelope in Tracey’s handwriting was, “To the Lord and Master of us All, The Grand Vizier Harold Penvelly, esq.”

As he slit the envelope open he asked Bob, “What’s a Vizier?”  

Bob couldn’t take his eyes off the envelope, he could feel the hairs on the nape of his neck stand on end, what had Tracey done?  What had she sent to Harry?  The little tape recorder slid out first, followed by a sheath of papers.  On the top of the first page was typed, “Transcript of Interview – Italics my interpretation.”  Relief washed over Bob in warm waves, transfused with his love for Tracey, in a voice more commonly heard in a boudoir he answered Harry’s question, “An Eastern Ruler.”

As they read the transcript, the enormity of it sunk in.  When they had finished Harry whispered, “Get them to bring Aggie in, it wasn’t guilt she was riddled with, it was fear.”

This then is what Aggie was trying so desperately to tell them.  She had been witness to three things.  Some part of her brain that was still able to function had connected them.  The first incident had held no particular interest to her at the time, until she witnessed the second.  The third made her a witness to information that could kill her.

 

Aggie had heard the rumours that Dorcus had been cheating Jake out of his money, and had been moonlighting on the side.  And so had Jake.  Everyone, that is everyone in the know, had expected Dorcus to show up bruised and battered and Jake to be spending like a sailor on leave.  That hadn’t happened.  Dorcus had disappeared and Jake had put the word out that he wanted her found, for a little ‘chat.’  (He hadn’t, as Dorcus had hoped, made any assumptions that she had drowned and been washed down stream, he had rightly guessed that she had somehow escaped.  He was, after all, vastly more experienced than Dorcus at throwing errant whores off bridges.)  

Aggie had been down by the river on the night Jake had thrown Dorcus off the bridge as a foretaste of what was to come.  In her hiding place on the opposite bank she had clearly seen Bruce pull Dorcus from the river and put her in his van.  The same man and the same van that just a few days earlier had been responsible for that little girl going missing.

The back of the Gym was a favourite resting place for Aggie, it was quiet and she could swig her cider and eat her food parcels in peace.  Another quiet and out of the way place for Aggie to hole up was where the Eeyores were.  It took some working out for Tracey to come up with ‘a field where donkeys were kept?  Nothing else seemed to fit.  It was there that Aggie next saw Dorcus.

Bob was to see to the search for Aggie, whilst Harry chased up the name and address of the Gym employee who had the white van.  Bob had been down stairs organising the uniformed officers, when the call came in.  Aggie’s brutally beaten body had been found in a skip.  They had failed her.  And it almost certainly meant that Jake knew where Dorcus was.  

Moments later Harry came down the stairs two at a time, shouting out the address written on the piece of paper he was clasping.  He ended with the words,

“Let’s move it.”  

As the unmarked car followed by a couple of Panda cars wailed their way across town Harry asked,

“What were the uniforms hanging about for, they should be off looking for Aggie.”  

“She’s been found already sir.” Said Bob sombrely,

“Oh no, you don’t mean….oh god, let’s hope we get there before that worthless piece of shite Jake does …. did you put a call out to find and bring him in?  Yes?  Good.  Murders are bad enough Bob, but murders because we have cocked up are the worst.”

CHAPTER TEN – AND SO THE BUBBLE BURST

         Beth felt like she wanted to scream.  Not in any ordinary way either.  She wanted to scream through every molecule, and every atom, that went to make up her being.  It wasn’t just the non stop pressure of having to pre think every word she said,  to be careful in her every action, to carefully and precisely play the part of dopey little sister, that was hard enough, but what Beth’s body needed, what every fibre of her muscles cried out for, was to run.  And run.  And run.

She couldn’t remember a time, a single day, in her sixteen years when she hadn’t felt her legs pumping beneath her, the world rushing past in an eye watering blur.  As a competing athlete she would hunger, like a drug addict, for the adrenalin, oh god the adrenalin, coursing through her veins, bringing a high, a bubbling high that would put an almost erodible and lunatic grin on her face.  And then, when she would look up at the board and see her time, yes, yes, yes!  Beth wasn’t sexually active yet, but she knew what a climax was.  She couldn’t believe that she had treated her life with so much disdain.  She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t connected the highs with the hard work that delivered them.  She wanted it back.  She wanted to hear her parents and trainer goading her into harder work for faster times, she wanted to win, win, win.  The fastest, the best, the champion.

Beth knew that if she chose to she could slip out of the back door, climb the fence into the donkey’s field and run off. Run away from Bruce’s ever increasing meanness towards her and Dorcus’s overbearing and sometimes spiteful control.   Neither Bruce nor Dorcus would be able to catch her.

Dorcus, Dorcus, Dorcus.  Beth felt her life now revolved around Dorcus.  She was like an exquisite blue eyed cat, and like a cat she would purr and emotionally push herself up against you, making you her friend, making you feel special.  Then, when she had got you hooked, got you believing you could do this, hang on in there, see it through, she would coldly ignore you, and it would be Bruce that received the purrs and affection.  Step out of line, a wrong look, a careless word, a false move, then also like a cat her eyes would narrow, and her metaphorical claws would show and Beth would receive a not at all metaphorical painful smack to the back of her head as a reminder when Bruce had gone to work.

Always there was the question, ‘What would happen to Dorcus if she, Beth, ran off?’  Dorcus was beautiful, clever and manipulative, but Bruce was tall, strong and very, very unstable.  He could snap Dorcus in two with barely any effort at all.  But would he?  Beth couldn’t take that risk, couldn’t be the one to cause the violence that Dorcus was positive Bruce was capable of.  The bottom line, the very bottom line was that, if Beth ran off she would have as good as killed Dorcus herself.  She couldn’t even bear the thought of that.

But the need to stretch her legs was overpowering, just for ten minutes, just, she was about to work out, for as long as it took Dorcus to have a good soak in the bath.  The donkey’s field was large, flat, and inviting.

Whilst Bruce was in Dorcus’s room talking to her before he left for work Beth slipped her track suit and trainers on.  They were still grubby and stained from the cellar, but the tracksuit was the only item of clothing in the house that fitted her properly.  Her only alternative to the trainers were the pink fluffy slippers,  that was a ‘no-brainer.’   She slipped her dressing gown back on and clambered into bed.

 

As Bruce was leaving the house Dorcus popped her head round Beth’s bedroom door as Beth knew she would, it was becoming part of their daily routine.  

“I’m for a good long soak, if you need to use the loo, go to the one downstairs, and for crying out loud get up and get dressed”  Dorcus said, she gave Beth one last hard stare before she disappeared.  Beth waited until she heard the bolt on the bathroom door being shot across before she pulled off the dressing gown and crept silently downstairs.

Dorcus stepped into the deep, hot bath.  She needed to think.  She had given Bruce the last quarter Valium two nights ago.  Already his mood was becoming more sombre, and the way he looked at Beth last night, almost as though he was having difficulty placing her, figuring out where in his story she fitted.  It was making him more antagonistic towards her.  The kid was in real danger.  It was more important than ever that Beth did exactly as she was told, just for one more day, tomorrow they would go.  Dorcus couldn’t wait to get her life back, she was sick to the back teeth of Bruce, Beth, this house and the whole insane set up.  As she sunk into the bubbles she dreamed of the life she had planned for herself, it was a good dream and made her feel happy, it had kept her going and kept her strong, she started to sing.

The back door key was where it was always kept, on the lintel above the door.  Beth almost dropped it in excitement as she put the key in the lock, before she turned it she paused, just to make sure Dorcus hadn’t got out of the bath for some reason and was coming down the stairs.  She could just hear Dorcus’s voice,  Beth almost snatched the key from the lock, then she listened a little harder, Dorcus was singing in the bath!  With a broad grin Beth unlocked the door and stepped into the garden.  She was trembling slightly, this was the very first time she had been out here without Dorcus in attendance.  Taking a deep breath she slowly jogged to the end of the garden, still breathing deeply to feed her muscles with the oxygen they would soon need, she climbed over the fence and into the donkey’s field.

She jogged at a moderate speed down the short side of the field, her breathing now regular and measured.  At first she thought she could hear the echo of her footfalls on the hard earth, but a quick glance over her shoulder told her that she had company.  The donkeys were trotting behind her and gaining on her quickly.  Beth threw her head back and laughed, thinking, ‘Let’s see shall we, let us see just how fast a donkey can run.’  As she turned in to the long edge of the field, Beth kicked off, her speed increased with every step and the far, and third corner of the field approached rapidly, once she reached there she would slow down and jog back to the fence at the bottom of the garden.  The donkeys had kept up with her, but hadn’t passed her, and as the three came to the garden fence Beth bent double, regaining her breath, she was laughing, she had so needed that run.  

As she climbed back over the fence one of the donkeys nuzzled her leg hard, nearly knocking her off.  Beth leaned back and rubbed the woolly fuzz between his ears,

“No need to be a sore loser,” she told him, “You are dealing with the very best here!”

She walked back down the garden, and put her hand on the door knob and started to turn it…….

Bruce hadn’t driven far on his way to work when the ‘clunk, clunk, clunk’ noise coupled with the difficult steering of the van signalled a flat tyre.  He managed to pull over onto a grass verge and went to the back of the van.  The spare was also flat, as a pancake.  Gritting his teeth in frustration he reached for his mobile, and swore.  He had left it on his bedside table.  He didn’t want to wave a passing motorist down, all they would offer him was advice, he didn’t need their puerile opinions on what was wrong with the van, he knew that.  There was only one thing for it, he would have to walk home, it wasn’t far, only about twenty minutes or so.  From there he could ring the garage and his workplace.  He hoped it didn’t mean he had to take another day off work.  He prided himself that in all his working life he had taken only one day off work, and that was because he was sick, and now it looked as though he would have to take another, and for such a stupid, senseless reason.  With his mood becoming increasingly darker he set off towards home.

When he arrived home he ran upstairs, Dorcus was just coming out of the bathroom as he unlocked his bedroom door.  “Bruce!” she said, surprised.  “Are you OK?  What are you doing home at th….”  

Bruce roughly cut her off, “Where’s Beth?  Don’t tell me the lazy little bitch is still in bed.”  

Sensing his evil mood, Dorcus tried to field it away from herself,

“Hasn’t she got up yet?  I told her ages ago to get up and dressed.”  

“Well you obviously didn’t tell her loud enough!” Bruce snapped back at her.  He had retrieved his mobile from his bedroom, thankfully Dorcus had the sense not to follow him in there.  As he relocked the door he snarled at her,

“I need to make a phone call, I’ll be in the back garden, stay in your room and make sure Beth stays in hers.”  As he went back downstairs Dorcus opened Beth’s bedroom door, she wasn’t there.  

“Oh no,” she gasped as she realised the possibility of what the stupid kid might have done.

 

Dorcus had got half way down the stairs when she heard Bruce’s enraged shout of,

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?”  

As he had tried to unlock the back door and found it was already unlocked he had seen the doorknob turn, giving the door a forceful shove outwards he had knocked Beth backwards across the little paved patio, she landed heavily on her backside.  The door had collided with, and broken, her nose, which was now bleeding heavily.  Through water laden eyes she saw Bruce take the couple strides towards her which was the oh so short distance between them.  Desperately she turned and tried to scramble to her feet and get away.  Bruce had reached down and grabbed her long plait, winding it around his hand he headed back into the house, dragging Beth half stumbling, half suspended by her hair along with him.  Dorcus reached the bottom of the stairs in time to see Bruce enter the house, Beth didn’t quite manage to step over the door ledge and fell, Bruce didn’t stop, he dragged the now downed girl into the kitchen, pushing his way past Dorcus.

Renewing his grip on Beth’s hair he started to shake her, the blood from her nose splattering on the work counters and floor.  His voice had lost all control and came as a hissing scream, adding spittle to Beth’s blood.  

“How did you get out, HOW-DID-YOU-GET-OUT?”  

Beth could feel a hot burning sensation on her scalp as her hair was being forcibly yanked out by the shaking, her nose was a painful throbbing misery,

“DORCUS!” she screamed, “Dorcus, help me!”  

Dorcus looked from Bruce to the struggling Beth, and as calmly as she could said,

“It looks as though you have been a naughty girl Beth.  Bruce, lock her in her room and you can decide what to do with her later.”

Had Beth taken the time to understand that Dorcus was trying to save her things may have turned out differently, had she stopped struggling and allowed Bruce to take in the reasonableness of Dorcus’s words then she would have gotten away with little more than a broken nose and a certain amount of hair loss at the very worse.  But she didn’t, the pain and terror she was feeling, and the seeming betrayal of Dorcus, led her to fight for her survival, in the only way she could, by screaming the truth at Bruce, by making him see the reality of their lives, in short she was to burst his bubble, put an end to the story he had scripted for them all.

“We’ve been going outside for ages, you moron, you were just too stupid to find out.  Dorcus found a key.  And she’s not your princess, your lady, your beautiful doe, she’s a common whore, a prostitute who does it with lots of men for money.  She’s using you to hide out here from her pimp.  AND I’M NOT YOUR BLOODY SISTER, you stole me, you pervert, you twisted filthy creep”   

Bruce had stopped shaking her, and was now staring at her, the veins in his forehead standing out, a twitch pulling at his eyelid.  For a brief moment Beth thought she had gotten through to him, he had slightly relaxed his grip on her hair.  Dorcus was standing to one side, her hands covering her face. Suddenly his grip tightened, worse than before, he took a large step toward the cellar door, and fiddling with his keys which he still held, he opened the door, switched on the weak light and with all his strength threw Beth in, untangling his hand from her plait as he did so.

The force of her projection into the cellar made Beth fly head first, missing the first few concrete steps, but not the next few.  As her shoulder made contact she heard the ominous ‘snap’ of a bone before somersaulting to continue her dreadful descent.  Then her feet and legs made contact with another grinding crack.  She had stopped a few steps from the bottom, she was lying back on the steps in an almost lounging, sitting  position, it was this that was preventing her from sliding the rest of the way down.  As she tried to move the first wave of pain hit her.  She went to scream but that just doubled the intensity of the pain, groaning instead she could hear voices above her from the kitchen, as she slipped into unconsciousness she wondered whose they were, it seemed as though she should know, but they were such a long way away.

As Bruce released his grip on Beth he had spun on his heel and grabbed Dorcus by the wrist as she made a bolt for the back door.  

“Bruce, no, please darling no, she’s lying, you know what a little liar she has always been, BRUCE!”

The first blow from his fist that was still holding the keys had caught her on the side of her head, the second full into her face, the third and final one on her shoulder before quickly transferring his hold on her from her wrist to the back of her jumper, taking two quick steps forward, and having not said a single word, he launched Dorcus down the cellar steps.

Dazed and shocked, and not fully understanding how it had happened, Dorcus found herself upright, standing about halfway down the flight of steps.  She could feel herself teetering though, and as she looked down she saw Beth’s unconscious body lying just below her.  If she fell on the girl, she could kill her, bending her knees Dorcus pushed herself forward and up, hoping against hope that she would clear Beth,  …   she did.

Without turning the cellar light out, Bruce calmly closed the door and locked it.  Looking around the kitchen he saw Beth’s bloodstains on the counter and floor and Dorcus’s sprayed up the wall near the cellar door.  He sighed as he hung his keys up on a hook over the sink, noticing as he did so that the metal key ring ornament was bent almost in two.  ‘That’s a shame,’ he thought to himself, ‘I wonder if I can get it fixed.’  It was cast in the form of Superman and had been a Christmas stocking filler from his mother, he was really rather fond of it.  He reached beneath the sink and pulled out a small plastic bucket, filled it with hot water and added beach.  He hadn’t noticed that the tomato ketchup bottle had sprung a leak and  had spurted around the kitchen, he would have to throw it out, he couldn’t be doing with cleaning up this sort of mess every time after he had eaten.

After he had scrubbed the kitchen clean Bruce sat at the table, thinking.  He really ought to visit Mother.  She had been so ill, and hopefully they would let her come home, if only for a weekend.  It had been alright having the house to himself, but he was now feeling a bit lonely living with no one to talk to.  He would tidy up her room and make sure everything was just so, she had left it in a bit of a mess.  He would buy a big bunch of flowers for her when he visited her next at the  Hospital, and, yes, a large box of her favourite chocs, she deserved it.  If a dutiful and loving son couldn’t be his Mother’s Hero, then he didn’t deserve to be one at all.  For Bruce Beth and Dorcus now no longer existed, he was weaving a new story.

CHAPTER ELEVEN – JUST IN TIME AND TOO LATE

         Beth came to and was hit by another blast of pain, she looked down her body and past her buckled legs and feet to see if there was any way she could move to a position which would possibly be less painful to be in.  She saw Dorcus.  Dorcus was slumped over what looked like a pile of paperback books, old books, some of them had their front covers missing.  Beth guessed that she must be unconscious as she would never have allowed herself to be in such an undignified position.  She was belly down over the books with her backside sticking up in the air.  One side of her skirt had ridden up revealing a round, firm buttock.  The front half of her body was sloped towards the floor with her face, half turned toward Beth, resting on the concrete.  

“Dorcus,” Beth croaked, and even though the pain coursed through her again she continued,

“Dorcus wake up, I’m hurt bad, you have to help me, you have to get out and find help, Dorcus please.”  Beth noticed that Dorcus’s eyes were half open, surely that couldn’t be right?  And her head, her head was at an impossible angle to the slope of her body.  Beth felt as though she was falling through long splinters of glass, each and every one of them piercing her through and through.  Then darkness, total and complete, fell over her as once again her body sort refuge from the pain in unconsciousness.

 

The police convoy had turned the sirens off as they left the worst of the town’s traffic behind them.  Arriving at a suspect’s home with them still blaring was policing 101 and only happened in the movies.  

Harry had been tapping his index finger on the dashboard, something he did when he was trying to remember something.  

“Of course,” he finally said, “Mary Sprocket!”  

“Sorry?” said Bob, thankful that the infernal tapping had stopped.  

“Mary Sprocket, Bob,” Harry continued, “Oh about two, three months ago she was arrested for drunk and disorderly, it took three of our biggest coppers to get her down to the cells, big woman, and bloody strong.”  

“Oh God, not related to this Sprocket?”  Groaned Bob, not quite seeing where this was leading.  

“Wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t his mum, about the right age,”  answered Harry.  “She got a suspended sentence on the proviso she booked herself into a rehab clinic, but there something about her being in the early stages of  Alzheimer's too, poor cow. There was something she said before she went before the beak, she said,

“God knows what he’ll do if I’m not around.”  

I didn’t think nothing of it at the time, probably thought she was talking about her cat.  And then at the Gym, I was so sure that the girl had run off that I didn’t connect the names.  Another mistake, another not paying attention to small details, I just hope it hasn’t cost anymore lives.”

As they pulled up outside the row of terraced cottages the radio triumphantly announced that Jacob Harrit (the proper and true name of Dorcus’s pimp) had been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Agnes Smith.  

“Well, at least something’s gone right.” Said Harry glumly as he stepped out of the car and looked around.  He sent two uniforms around the side of the last house in the terrace where the entrance to the donkey field was, waiting a while until he was sure they had made their way into position at the rear of Sprocket’s property.  He then stationed two officers at the front gate, to send nosy neighbours away and to keep the road directly outside of the property clear from any member of the public wishing to park there. He placed two officers each side of the front door in case he needed them.  With Bob and his most experienced and largest officer in tow, he knocked on the front door.

The door was opened by a tall, well-built man in his late twenties, early thirties.  Under his mousey brown hair, which was too long to be called neat and too short to be called fashionable, was a totally expressionless face.

“Mr Bruce Alexander Sprocket?”  Harry asked him, flashing his warrant card.  When the man nodded, Harry pushed past him saying,

“May we come in?”  Harry was followed through the door by Bob, but the uniformed officer gave Bruce a little shove, indicating that he should follow the two detectives.

Harry found the kitchen and as Bruce came in he said to him, “Sit down Mr Sprocket.”  He then formally introduced himself, Bob, and the uniformed officer, PC Keen. He nodded at Bob who disappeared to search the rest of the downstairs rooms.  Then leaning with both hands on the table he put his face about six inches from Bruce’s and asked in a cold, sharp voice,

“I have reason to believe that you can tell me the whereabouts of Beth Coburn and Dorcus Heart.”  

“No,” said Bruce, equally as coldly, “I can’t, I haven’t a clue who you are talking about.”  

Harry took a moment to stare into Bruce’s eyes, Bruce neither blinked nor flinched.  Harry stood and indicated to Bob, who had came back into the kitchen shaking his head, to go upstairs and look around.  After a moment Bob’s head appeared at the top of the stairs,

“One door locked sir,” he called down.  Harry opened his hand in Bruce’s direction and demanded,

“Key.”  

With a shrug Bruce got up and retrieved his bunch of keys from the hook.  He dropped them into Harry’s waiting hand.  Harry took the stairs two at a time whilst the uniformed officer pushed Bruce back down into a chair.  

“Sit.”  He said, smiling, but not nicely.

The women were not in the locked room.  

“Where has that slimy git got them?” Spat Harry, who had joined Bob upstairs,   Bob had walked into the room and turned round.  

“Good grief!” he exclaimed at the sight of the wall.  Harry spun around and sighed,

“Unfortunately Bob we can’t arrest him for his taste in artwork, more's the pity.”  There was something vaguely familiar about what was pinned to every space available on the wall, so Harry took a step or two forward and squinted at the nearest ‘artwork.’  The entire wall was covered in the front covers of Mills and Boon novels, the old fashion kind showing handsome, impossibly muscular, men and scantily clad women.  

“Do you think they could be in an outhouse sir?” Asked Bob, “No,” said Harry losing interest in the book covers, “The uniforms would have had a poke about, we would have heard…..where are they, where the bloody hell are they.”  “We could always ask Officer Keen to ask him, un-nicely” suggested Bob,

“No,” replied Harry, “When he said he didn’t have a clue who we were talking about, he meant it, have we got this wrong too Bob?”

Despondently the detectives returned downstairs to the kitchen.  Suddenly Bob looked as though a light bulb had come on in his head.  

“Mr Sprocket, who do the clothes belong to in the two other rooms?”  

“They’re Mothers, I was sorting them out.”  Replied Bruce, totally unfazed.  Bob looked toward his superior but Harry was staring at what Bob presumed was a cupboard door.  “What’s in there Mr Sprocket?”  he asked slowly,

“It’s the cellar.” answered  Bruce, he was becoming fed up with all these ridiculous questions.  

“And what do you keep down there Mr Sprocket?” Snapped Harry.  

“Junk, things I no longer need.” Bruce snapped back.  He half rose from his chair, only to be roughly pushed back down by PC Keen.

“Which key?”  Harry’s voice had taken on a rough, urgent edge as he dangled the bunch of keys in front of Sprocket’s face.  Bruce looked up at him and raised his eyebrows, smiling slightly he said,

“Guess.”  

As quick as lightning Harry grabbed Bruce by his shirt front and pushed the bunch of keys into his face, squashing his lips to the side.  

“WHICH BLOODY KEY, YOU MISERABLE PIECE OF DOG’S SHITE” he shouted.  Bruce reached his hands up and fumbled with the keys until he felt the right one. Harry spun toward the cellar door and unlocked it, taking his pencil torchlight out of his pocket, and followed by Bob, he went down the concrete steps.

CHAPTER TWELVE – AFTERMATH

         Harry and Bob arrived back at their office from the hospital after finding out the extent of Beth’s injuries.  She would never run again, there would be numerous operations to piece the shattered bones in her legs and ankles together.  It would be more than a year before she could even attempt to walk , and then it was expected that she would never be able to do so unaided.  They had bumped into Beth’s father in the hospital corridor.  Nothing had been said between them, there was nothing to say.  They had returned Beth alive, but nonetheless they had failed.  Beth was broken, any dreams she may have had were lost in the cellar.  And Dorcus was dead, they would attend her autopsy in a couple of days’ time, after they had attended Aggies, two more lives they had failed.

Even after a couple of weeks Harry, except for the necessity to talk, was still maintaining a gloomy silence. They were sitting at their desks the atmosphere still full of unspoken guilt, each with their own thoughts.  Then Bob, desperate to break the depressing silence said,

“I don’t suppose he will go to trial.”  

“No,” said Harry, “I don’t suppose he will, he’ll go straight to the nut house, where I hope he rots.”  Bruce’s words were still echoing around in his brain, the cellar was where he put his junk, the things he no longer needed in his life.  Beth and Dorcus had been thrown down there, to be erased from his mind, no longer having any worth or use, like that pile of torn up paperback novels Dorcus had plummeted over, breaking her neck.

Jake had surprisingly confessed to Aggie’s murder, he would only serve five or six years before, if he behaved himself, he was paroled.  He would still be a man in the prime of his life when he got out.  The slate wiped clean, he would be able to continue with whatever dirty little scams he chose, ruining yet more lives.  Ironically Harry had worked out that when he was released he would be the same age as Aggie had been when he had beaten and tortured her to death.  It didn’t seem fair somehow.  But it wasn’t up to him to decide what was and wasn’t fair.  It was up to him to collect the evidence and the suspects and present it and them to the law courts.  And then walk away without a second thought.  But it wasn’t that easy, it would be a long time before the spectres of Beth, Dorcus and Aggie would fade from his mind.  A reminder of what happens when a copper gets too blasé, too over-confident in making the decision of what, or in the case of Ol’ Aggie who, should and shouldn’t be classed as important.

Harry’s mind focused back on Dorcus.  There was something he didn’t quite understand.  From the brief conversation he had with Beth, before he was chased off by a Ward Sister, she had said that she had definitely been thrown down the cellar first.  Her injuries were so severe that there was no way she could have moved from where she had landed.  She had been blocking the bottom of the cellar steps.  There was no room for Dorcus to have walked round her.  Even Bruce wasn’t strong enough to have thrown a woman from the cellar door to the cellar floor, missing every single step.  There had been drops of blood that proved to be Dorcus’s a step or two above where Beth had lain, the boffins had said that the way the drops had fallen indicated that for a brief moment Dorcus had stood still on that step.  Had Dorcus managed to do a standing jump over Beth somehow, and why?  Why would she bother?   Harry had dealings with prostitutes; they were, without exception, a hard bitten lot who put their own survival at the top of any list.  Harry sighed and realised he would never know the answer, all he did know was that if Dorcus had landed on Beth, the way her body had lain on the steps, she would have killed her.  Harry would like to think that Dorcus had saved Beth’s life on purpose, sacrificing her own, it somehow made the world a better place to live in.

EPILOGUE

         What surprised Dr Andrew Spelter, as looked over the notes in front of him, was not that Bruce Sprocket had abducted one woman and killed another, but that he had only done it the once.  In her statement Beth Coburn, the abducted woman, well girl really, had called him ‘twisted,’ it wasn’t a medical expression, but it was an apt one.

Bruce had been deeply impressed at a very young age by his mother in her own beliefs of what a man should be; strong, tall, handsome, a hero always on hand to rescue fair maidens in distress, straight from a story book.  But when he reached adulthood Mrs Sprocket realised too late that what a woman sexually admires in a man is very disturbing when it manifests itself in her own son.  

And so when Bruce tried to live up to what he thought his Mother’s expectations of him were, he quickly found himself being verbally shot down and belittled. She unwittingly demeaned him further, when seeing his frustration at her words and mistaking it for sorrow, she would smother him in motherly love, swearing to care for and protect him, the very opposite of what he adamantly believed should be happening.  He may very well have looked elsewhere in the past for a lady love’s admiration of his heroic traits, but if he had, then he had not troubled them greatly, there was certainly nothing on any police records of him being a nuisance to women.

The trigger for his escalation of ‘heroic deeds of daring do’ undoubtedly occurred when his Mother booked herself into the Rehabilitation Centre for Alcoholics, (although she did have dementia, it was in the early stage, it could well be many years until the condition became debilitating, it was therefore deemed more important to her health that she kicked the booze first.) No longer having a person to whom he actually listened to, and in a way, obeyed, he was at last free to follow his own course.  His attitude to his Mother was interesting.  One week he would be convinced that she was in hospital suffering from Alzheimer’s, another week it would be failing kidneys, and yet another pneumonia.  Never would he accept what the true reason for his Mother’s hospitalisation was.  Alcoholics don’t need heroes, not ever, what they need is booze.  By giving her any disease but alcoholism Bruce could play the dutiful son, the hero-martyr.

If Bruce’s twisted mind could even stand a small chance of being straightened then he had to accept that what he had done was wrong.  Dr Spelter had got the police to supply him with two photos, one of Beth in her school uniform and the other of Dorcus, laughing into the camera, once happy and alive.  Dr Spelter had to get Bruce to recognise the women before they could make progress.  He looked up as Bruce entered the room, accompanied by two warder/nurses.

When Bruce had seated himself the other side of the desk to Dr Spelter and they had exchanged pleasantries, Dr Spelter pushed the two photographs towards Bruce, saying as he did so,

“Tell me Bruce, do you recognise these women?  Have a good look, take your time.”  

Bruce didn’t pick the photos up, instead he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.  But he was staring at the photos and frowning Dr Spelter noticed.

Bruce pursed his lips and after a while said,

“Noooo, I don’t think so, what are their names.  Pretty girls.”  

Dr Spelter told him, tapping each photo in turn.  Bruce started to shake his head and then he grinned.  Looking at Dr Spelter as though they were sharing a private joke, Bruce said,

“Very good, hardy ha, you show me the front cover from a book and ask me if I recognise the two fictional characters.”  Dr Spelter tried to hide his confusion and said,

“These are two photos of actual people Bruce, not a single book cover, try looking again.”  

This time Bruce’s face darkened in anger, his voice became threatening making the warder/nurses take a half step forward.  

“You show me a book cover ripped in two from some crappy novel that was so disgusting that I couldn’t even be bothered to finish it, and then expect me to believe that they were real people, what kind of interview is this?  I tell you what, even if you were to offer me the job I wouldn’t accept it, I couldn’t possibly work for someone like you.”

 

Bruce rose from his chair as Dr Spelter raised his hand towards the warder/nurses indicating that he was in control and they were to do nothing.  Looking up at Bruce Dr Spelter said,

“Please sit down again Bruce, and accept my apologies, I….”  

Before he could finish Bruce cut in, “Of course, of course, I understand, you have to test an interviewee’s intelligence.  What more do you want to know, I believe you have my CV there in front of you, I can’t imagine that I have left anything out.”  

Dr Spelter was stunned at the speed at which Bruce’s mind had twisted the situation to suit him.  There was that word again, twisted.  Bruce had regained his seat and was looking calm, so Dr Spelter decided to press on, using the ‘book line’ as an opening.

“I always give the books I have read to charity,” said Dr Spelter, trying to keep his tone conversational.  Bruce took the bait.  

“Oh not me,” replied Bruce, also in a conversational manner, “I chuck mine down the cellar.”  

“Did you throw this one down the cellar?”   Asked Dr Spelter tapping the photos.

“Yes I did, I didn’t even bother to take the front cover off, it was that bad.  Shame of it was, it started off as a really good story, but went sour toward the finish.”  

Very carefully Dr Spelter asked,

“Why do you take the front covers off?”  

Bruce spread his hands, as though the reason should be obvious, but he answered anyway,

“I pin them on my bedroom wall, it’s a way of keeping a great story going, to relive it again and again in your head.”  

Once more Dr Spelter touched the photos,

“Would you have taken the front cover off this book to pin on the wall, if it had been a great read?”  

“Most certainly, who wouldn’t want two beautiful women pinned to their wall?”  Bruce was leering at the photos now.

Dr Spelter, despite his years of dealing with the criminally insane, felt a shiver pass through him.  Had the story turned out to be a great one, they no doubt would have found Beth and Dorcus, not photos or drawings but actually Beth and Dorcus, pinned to his bedroom wall.  Beth, despite her horrific injuries was lucky to be alive.  Dorcus had died instantly when she had broken her neck.  Being pinned or nailed to a bedroom wall, almost definitely alive, didn’t bear thinking about.  He decided that the session had come to an end, he had a lot to go over, and he would need to consult with his peers.  But before he sent Bruce back to his secure room there was one more question he needed to ask, he already knew the answer, he just had to be sure,

“Bruce, how does a great story end?”

Bruce leaned across the desk and looked closely into Dr Spelter’s face, deciding it was a genuine question, he leaned back smiling, then he shrugged and said,

“Well, my great stories finish when the woman falls in love with the hero, they kiss, waves crash on the shore, that’s a euphemism for sex you know, and then that’s it…..The End.  Time to start a new book.”    

                                             The end

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