Time to Play (North East Police) (6 page)

Without saying a word, Marlo put the box down and turned to leave. Ali felt like an idiot. Her lips were pursed as she strode past him into the corridor.

‘First class jerk,’ he muttered to himself as he watched her walk back into the corridor. He could almost hear his mother’s voice in his head, echoes of a conversation they’d had some weeks ago.

‘Ye need to learn not to take everything to heart. Ye’ll ne’er find a girl if you dinnut start accepting that not everything’s gunna go yer way, Son. Ye’re more like yer father than ye know. He held it all in, too, overreacted at wee things. His shoulders would’ve taken the weight of the world. As would yers. Let things go.’

It had pleased him that she thought he was like his dad, even if she had meant the comments as a negative trait.

‘It’s why ye’re single,’
she’d said.
‘Women know when men are hiding somethin’. What happened up here wasnae’ yer fault.’

‘Nope, not going there, Mum. Get out of my head.’ Ali purposefully put his mother’s words to the back of his mind and turned his attention back to the file boxes. He had a job to do and brooding would not get it done.

3
^rd
November, 1415 hours – Sunderland City Police HQ

Marlo had paused outside the MIT office door, listening as Ali had called her a jerk. She tried not to feel hurt. Maybe Connor was right; maybe Ali was a tosser.
Or maybe it’s you. You did almost call him a clumsy oaf. He’s not exactly gunna thank you for it, is he?

Huffing to herself, she made her way to the nearest stairs, and headed back down to the car park. Time to get back to the office. She still had her statement to finish up from the incident the day before. The rumour mill had already spread the word that it wasn’t thought to be murder. Grant’s ex-girlfriend had reported that he’d been to her house, got into an argument with her current boyfriend then smashed a window before running off through the woods opposite. The woods led straight to the River Wear, and it had been dark. The post mortem had been scheduled for that afternoon, so no doubt the dive team would hear the outcome through the grapevine.

As she drove back to the dive centre, she let her mind wander to the training exercise that morning. The water had been brisk, and there was low visibility due to the weather churning the sea bed which had been an issue. She hadn’t even been able to see her hand in front of her mask. Connor had been stand-by diver, and Sharpie had sunk a reflective weight for her to recover. She’d used the jackstay search technique, a method of searching across a given line then a diagonal direction. It made for an efficient search and she had eventually pulled the weight to the surface. Methodically they’d worked through each team member diving and recovering until it had been time for Marlo to return to shore for the meeting.

Turning the tunes on the radio up loud, she slowed down a little, and sang along to Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics. There was something about eighties music that called to her soul.

3
^rd
November, 1615 hours – Wear Street, Sunderland

Nita couldn’t stop shaking. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. She kept having flashbacks of bad things; things she didn’t want to believe could have happened to her. But she knew they had. Her dress had been torn, she had bruising to the sides of her breasts and she had a burning sensation between her legs.

She could only remember the person responsible as a monster. Whatever they’d injected into her had numbed any pain, but she remembered his eyes, dark like a sharks, as he grunted above her. She’d been floating on clouds, seeing things that couldn’t possibly be there but at the same time, she saw things she knew were real. Her sense of time had altered and it had felt like he had kept her pinned to the bed forever. He’d forced her to drink salt water, slapped her face and said something to her, ‘whore’ she thought it was, though she didn’t know what it meant.

And now she’d been put in a different room. Another girl was laid on the bed next to her. Her eyes had rolled back in her head and there was vomit at the side of her mouth. It smelled like she had soiled herself and Nita crinkled her nose.

She wished the shaking would stop. She yearned for something but it wasn’t food or water; she’d already eaten the sandwich that had been left for her.
More bread. Didn’t they eat anything normal in this country? Wherever she was.
She started to cry as memories of the evil shark filled her mind. Curling into a ball, she sobbed until there were no more tears. And even then she rocked, the movement oddly comforting to her. Nita wondered where Elvie was. Had the same thing happened to her friend? Was she even alive?

Suddenly the door opened, and the evil shark entered. Shaking her head fast from side to side, she scooted to the back of the bed, praying if she pushed into the wall hard enough then she would go right through it.

It didn’t work.

She watched as he checked on the girl on the other bed, tilting her head sideways so she didn’t choke on her vomit. Slowly he turned back towards Nita, and her shakes turned to terrified shudders as the shark seemed to swim towards her.

‘Shhh. I’ve got a little something to make you feel better,’ he said, grabbing her arm. The syringe only had a small amount of brown liquid inside, but as soon as it entered her system, Nita felt like she was swimming with the evil shark. She couldn’t stop him now if she tried.

And she did try.

‘Noh,’ she muttered, flailing her arms in his direction. But he pinned her beneath him easily. He held her still with one arm, and used his other to pull down the zipper on his trousers. Nita tried to wiggle from his grasp but this made him angry. His hand around her throat made her gag, she couldn’t breathe. Her small hands grabbed at the hand round her throat, and even through the drug-induced haze, she felt searing pain as he pushed into her. Nita was seeing flecks of black in her vision; tears fell from her eyes as he pounded at her mercilessly. He grunted loudly, his hands squeezing her throat even tighter as he suddenly stilled and juddered with a cry.

Unable to fight the black spots any more, Nita sank into unconsciousness.

Chapter Five

3
^rd
November, 2045 hours – Ryhope, Sunderland

As he opened the door to the room, he could hear her crying. That would stop soon, usually within the first couple of weeks the girls cried less. He would be glad when she did: he hated people crying. It always reminded him of
her.
The one he tried his best to forget when he was in this room. The one that had caused him all the pain he felt then, and still felt now. The one who made him do what he did.

He watched as the girl looked up, her face swollen and bruised with blood crusted down her chin and onto her neck. She held her left hand to her chest as she watched him warily, and he knew she was silently begging him to leave her alone.

He couldn’t though.

It was how it was. ‘
C’est la vie,’
as his dearly departed mum used to say.

It was almost as if he had woken up one day a completely different person. One minute he had been normal, then the next he had been… this.

He had a compulsion to find out what made people tick, to help them become immune to the pain of life so they wouldn’t have to suffer like he had. So they wouldn’t have to make the choices he had to make.

Frowning, he realised the girl had defecated in the cage, and there was a strong smell of urine.

She would have to clean that up. He wouldn’t tolerate a dirty cage.

Unbolting the cage door, he reached inside and grabbed her spindly arm. The right one, not the left. She whimpered, but allowed him to pull her forward, and he heard the scrape of her backside on the bottom grate of the cage.

His thoughts wandered, and he didn’t take the care he should, startled as she let out an agonised scream. Glancing down he realised her injured foot had caught on the side of the cage. She turned to a lead weight in his arms, and he felt his back twinge in response as he struggled to hold onto her.

Half-dragging, half-lifting, he pulled her from the confines, and placed her into the chair. Her ankle was now bent at an odd angle: bent like that it would catch every time he needed to move her. Making sure she was unconscious, he pushed it back into place and methodically tied a bandage round to hold it in position. He felt it crunch under his fingers, and heard the fluid built up inside squelch.

Going to the workbench, he placed a few drops of antiseptic into a bowl and filled it with cold water. Turning the camera on, he turned to face her.

Taking great care, he said ‘It’s time to play,’ and proceeded to wash the dried blood from her face and neck before continuing. ‘Day five. Subject six passed out today. This is the fourth time a subject has fainted after catching the broken foot on the cage. It may be time to review my storage methods. She is still being resistant and vocal, though less today than on day three. Today I will give her pain relief, the next stage will occur after the weekend.’

He felt her start to stir as the cold cloth caressed her face, and slowly she opened her eyes. He watched as confusion turned to terror as she registered him close to her. ‘Shhh, it’s time to play,’ he soothed.

He felt an intense pain surge through his groin as the girl’s knee connected with as much force as she could muster. Belatedly, he realised he had forgotten the restraints.

Tears pricked at his eyes as he dropped to his knees, his hand cupping himself as he struggled to breathe through the melee of stars now invading his vision.

He felt more than saw the girl get off the chair and hop towards the door, and pushing his pain to one side, he leapt to his feet and grabbed her by the hair, dragging her head backwards with a hard yank. She screamed as her weight adjusted and she landed on her bad ankle.

No longer gentle, he shoved her back into the chair and deftly applied the restraints.

What girl wants to escape playtime? Doesn’t she realise I’m trying to help her? She needs to be able to cope with the pain.

He was confused, he’d been nice. He’d been washing her face ever so gently when she’d come around. Now she would have to be punished.

As her eyes finally focussed on him, he said, ‘I don’t tolerate naughtiness. Escaping is naughty. Now you will have to be punished.’

He unclipped his belt buckle and pulled the leather free from his trousers. Seeing her eyes widen and her head shake, he understood what she thought. It was what she knew after all, all the girls in the brothel he’d got her from did.

But raping her wasn’t his intent.

Twisting the buckle end of the belt around his hand, he extended his arm and swung it round with force. The leather strap connected with her thigh with a resounding slap and she gasped loudly. He repeated the motion another four times, surprised that the most noise she made was a whimper.

That’s good, she’s learning to cope with it.

Finally, he removed her from the chair and put her back in the cage, putting a couple of sandwiches inside, along with a bottle of bleach and a cloth.

Happy she would be fine, at least for now, he locked the cage door and replaced his belt before leaving the room with a smile.

4th November, 0620 hours – Ryhope, Sunderland

He had just enough time for a quick check on her before he had to leave the house. Normally he would leave it longer, but there was a bad feeling burning in his stomach that no amount of Alka-Seltzer was settling.

He knew the minute he entered that something was wrong.

She wasn’t crying, and the smell of bleach was so powerful it almost overwhelmed him. Pulling the neck of his jumper over his mouth, he walked further into the room.

The girl was inside the cage, her red eyes open and glassy, obvious burn marks to her mouth and around her nose. Her head sat in a pool of vomit and her skin had blistered on her arm where it had been laid. The screw top from the bleach bottle was clutched inside her hand, and the bottle lay on its side next to her, obviously empty.

I can’t believe she did this. She’s a coward. After a week of teaching, I thought she was stronger than this.

As he made his way closer to her, he realised she had also managed to get a tool off the workbench. The screwdriver was tucked under her, the open wounds on her arm congealed with blood as it had seeped from her.

She was definitely determined. What a waste.

He didn’t understand. Why would anyone choose this option? He was teaching her how to deal with life, that it was painful but that she could become immune, and this was how she repaid him? By killing herself in his room, with his bleach?

Now he would have to clean up, find another girl, start from scratch. He sighed loudly.
Why does everything I touch turn to shit?

He felt himself drift off in his mind, trying to remember when everything actually had turned to shit.

It had been years.

He barely even recalled the exact moment. Not anymore.

Slowly he hung his head, and just for a moment he muttered a quick prayer for the girl. However she had chosen to die, it probably would have been the end result anyway. He had helped her all he could.

He glanced at the clock on the wall; he’d have to deal with the mess and the body later. For now, it was time to leave or he’d be late.

4
^th
November, 0645 hours – Car park, Dive Team HQ, South Shields

‘Marlo, wait up,’ came Connor’s voice from behind her as she made her way towards the front entrance of the building.