Twenty Years a Stranger (The Stranger Series Book 1)

by Deborah Twelves

  There was no time to properly thank my saviours, who were talking to the police by the side of a lorry. I felt something vibrate in my pocket. My phone. At least I still had that, but everything else was gone, including my bag and purse. I reminded myself that it was just stuff, all of it was replaceable. The paramedic spoke kindly to reassure me as he worked and assessed me for further injuries.

  ‘You are a lucky lady. This cut on your leg is superficial and the breathing will start to get easier now with the oxygen. Just try to relax. It must have been terrifying for you in there. I’ve seen how quickly those car fires can get a hold.’

  The horror of the moment I realised I was trapped and believed I was about to die came rushing back to me. Tears were streaming down my face and I was shaking uncontrollably.

  ‘I just don’t understand it. The car is not even that old. It’s not long had its MOT and it’s been running fine, no problems at all. It doesn’t make any sense that the doors and windows wouldn’t open,’ I sobbed.

  ‘My guess is it was some sort of electrical fault which caused the central locking system to fail, but the accident investigation team will find out the details. Don’t you worry about any of that. Right now we need to get you to hospital for a proper check-up, just to be on the safe side. The police will no doubt come and see you in there. Is there anyone you’d like to call?’

  I got him to call Frieda for me. There were already several missed calls from her and naturally she was worried, as I hadn’t shown up for our meeting. She was in town and by the time I got to the hospital she was already there waiting for me. I was taken to a little side room in A&E and told a doctor would be in to see me shortly. Frieda was allowed in to wait with me.

  ‘Oh my God, Grace, what happened? I couldn’t believe it when you told me you were being taken to hospital.’

  ‘I know. It still doesn’t feel real to me. The car literally just set on fire. It happened so quickly and I just couldn’t get out. I tried everything, I really did, but the doors wouldn’t open. I swear to God I thought that was it. If those guys hadn’t turned up….’

  ‘Don’t even think about it. You’re safe now, that’s the main thing. It’s just so weird that it set on fire like that…but the police will find out what caused it.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’

  I looked at her, debating whether to say out loud what I was really thinking.

  ‘Frieda…there was something else. This is all going to sound far-fetched, but the spare car keys were missing when I wanted to use them this morning. I know exactly where they should have been and they just weren’t there. The more I think about it, the more I think Daniel must have taken them. He’s always snooping around in the house when I’m not there. What if he did something to the car? He was acting really weird last time I saw him, saying the car looked good and he was glad I was looking after it. Like he knew something I didn’t.’

  She looked at me doubtfully.

  ‘Well, we all know he’s a lying, cheating arse-hole…but do you really think he would go to the lengths of sabotaging your car, knowing you could be seriously hurt, or even killed?’

  ‘Yes. I do. He blames me for everything. Everything he’s lost in the divorce…the bankruptcy…the lot. He says that if it wasn’t for me and all my ‘meddling’, he wouldn’t be in this mess. And something else has been bothering me…hear me out, because I’ve been thinking about this a lot. What if he did have hidden cameras in the bedsit in Stainsford and we missed them? What if he’s known all along I was in there?’

  I hesitated.

  ‘I’m scared, Frieda. Really scared of him. I honestly think he might hate me enough to want me dead.’

  The one that got away

  Daniel

  Daniel took a sip of his coffee and put down the paper with the headline facing upwards.

  Local woman escapes car fire horror

  Not the headline he had been expecting to read.

  He kicked the table leg in frustration. She was like a cat with nine fucking lives, that one. Everything was going wrong for him at the moment and he was majorly pissed off about it.

  Women. It all came down to them. They were the cause of all his current troubles. Fucking bunch of manipulative witches, the lot of them. If he could just wind the clock back, he would never have got involved with any of them. They were all the same at the end of the day. It was always great at the beginning when they were trying their hardest to please him with sex, doing whatever he wanted, dressing up in suspenders and stockings, just like the whores they really were underneath. He despised their pathetic eagerness to satisfy him with their mediocre blow jobs and role play games.

  That fat bitch, Jane, was the worst of the lot. She was happy to take it any which way if she thought there was something in it for her, he thought to himself, sniggering as he remembered all the home videos bearing testament to that fact. He certainly did not need pills to get it up when he was allowed a bit of peace and quiet to watch the videos on his own in the flat. It never failed to turn him on seeing just how far he’d been able to go. In fact, he noticed with a smirk, he was getting hard just thinking about it. Jane would be out for at least another hour and he thought briefly about indulging in a little light relief there and then, but decided against it. There were more pressing issues to be addressed. He picked up his mobile, scrolled through his contacts and selected the number listed as BSS. A woman’s voice answered after three rings.

  ‘Well hello, stranger,’ she drawled, with the gravelly voice of one who smoked forty a day. ‘I was wondering when we were going to hear from you again.’

  ‘I’ve been somewhat preoccupied, as you well know.’

  ‘Yes, indeed. How are your ‘troubles’?’

  The woman’s sarcastic tone did nothing to improve his foul mood.

  ‘I’m working on it. In the meantime perhaps you’d like to remember who pays your wages.’

  ‘Oooh, easy tiger,’ she mocked. ‘I assume you’re calling about this weekend?’

  ‘Is everything in place?’

  ‘Of course. All sorted. Twelve of our regulars on the guest list and twelve of our escorts signed up and ready to deliver. Will you be there yourself?’

  ‘Probably. I could certainly do with the distraction.’

  ‘Well I’m sure we can help with that,’ she said with a low chuckle.

  The woman looked around her at the various outfits and paraphernalia on display in Stainsford’s Big Sexy Superstore. Their customers were primarily men, who perhaps felt that the plus size women’s lingerie section in Debenhams was not quite for them, and they prided themselves on their extensive selection of sex toys, outfits and aids, but more importantly on their discretion. The man she knew only as Mr D, had set up the store initially to feed his own habit, she assumed, but it was doing a roaring trade and there was now the added spin-off of the little soirees he had come up with the idea for. Invitations to the parties were always in high demand, offering a select clientele the opportunity to indulge freely in whatever fantasies they wanted, with no inhibitions and no boundaries. By putting a strict limit on numbers, they had created a ferocious demand for invitations, which in turn allowed them to drive up the price of tickets. She had to hand it to him; it was a sound business model.

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ she suddenly remembered, ‘I meant to tell you last week. There’s been a woman hanging around here a couple of times now, taking pictures outside. She even came into the store once, looking completely out of place. All seemed a bit weird. Tall, blonde hair…obviously a cheap wig. She said she had been recommended by you, which sounded odd to me, especially as she didn’t seem to know what she wanted. Wouldn’t leave a name. Obviously, I told her nothing.’

  Daniel clenched his fist and felt the rage bubbling up inside him.

  ‘Call me immediately if she shows up again. And have the cash ready for me at 6 pm on Friday.’

  He ended the call abruptly, having no intention of engaging in small talk wit
h her.

  The ‘blonde’ woman was obviously Grace, snooping around again in that ridiculous attempt at a disguise she persisted in wearing. Who the fuck did she think she was? More importantly, how the hell had she found out about his latest business interest? He was more certain than ever that she was tracking him and made a mental note to drive Jane’s Audi Q7 regularly for the moment; his money had paid for the damn thing after all.

  He already suspected Grace of having been in the flat. Nothing he could put his finger on, but call it intuition. The thing that puzzled him, and made him uneasy, was that she had never said anything about it to him and it was most unlike her not to go shooting her mouth off, especially if she thought she had got one over on him.

  She was like a dog with a bone, always had been, which was why she had to go. It had been the same with Julia, snooping around to catch him out in the beginning, then hiring a bloody private detective to follow him. Grace had obviously gone for the cheaper DIY option, but it was no less irritating and he would need to monitor the situation very carefully to find out just how much she did actually know. Then he would deal with her.

  Daniel opened his laptop and clicked on an encrypted file. The last dinner party had been a great success and most of the guests were now regulars. It had all started out as a bit of a hobby but had turned into an unexpectedly lucrative, little business. He had been meticulous in his research and it had taken a good while to build up the niche group of clients on his list. Some of them were business contacts, but the majority had been recruited due to their frequent visits to the shop. All of them had a penchant for doing things a little ‘differently’ and all of them had succumbed to the good old honey trap. Incriminating photographic evidence, gathered from the parties, ensured their continued loyalty.

  Not that he would ever blackmail them of course; that would be illegal.

  He had actually been surprised how easy it all was to manage. Like taking candy from a baby. At a grand a head for each evening they hosted, his targets were all well-heeled; in fact, that was the main selection criteria for securing an invitation. He smiled to himself as he calculated his profits for the planned evening’s work. Good luck to HMRC trying to pin him down on that one. They hadn’t got a clue.

  Daniel opened a file named Gallery and clicked on a video, silently congratulating himself for having hit on such a winning formula. He licked his lips in anticipation, as the camera panned around the room. Ever the opportunist, he casually unzipped his flies and slipped his hand inside his chinos, caressing himself through the material of the silk slip he had taken to wearing underneath his clothes these days.

  A huge table was set lavishly for twelve guests, with white-linen table cloths reaching down to the floor. The diners seated around it were a mixed bunch, all wearing black tie and chatting happily. Some of the men were there with their wives or partners, while others had come alone. So long as they paid up, he didn’t really give a toss. The ‘hosts’ had been recruited carefully for their youth, agility, good looks and legal invisibility. He had left that side of things to his assistant in the shop. Some were male, some female and some he referred to as ‘lady boys’, not being one to adhere to political correctness. Their job description was simple: mix things up and do whatever the guests wanted. He had to admit, the new age of gender fluidity was certainly working to his advantage and the evenings often degenerated into a mass of writhing bodies, almost indistinguishable as individuals, moving seamlessly from one to another in their insatiable quest for sexual gratification.

  Daniel watched, increasingly aroused, as the hosts circled around the table, serving food and pouring wine without saying a word, blending perfectly into the background. Some of the girls wore black skirts, short enough to reveal suspenders and no knickers, with peephole bras allowing their nipples to poke out above their low-cut tops. The boys who were clothed wore tight-fitting shirts and trousers, the bulging crotches of which left nothing to the imagination. Several hosts of both sexes were wandering around stark naked, their lithe bodies tanned and oiled. Almost imperceptibly, one at a time, they glided to the end of the table, bent down and slipped under the long white tablecloth. Six of them disappeared discreetly below the table, while six remained above to serve dinner. Daniel clenched his teeth in excitement and felt his erection grow in his hand as he stared avidly at the screen. The scene switched to below the table, where the action was being recorded by several different, strategically placed cameras. The emphasis here was firmly on the unexpected. Silent and cat-like, the hosts crept along the length of the table on all fours, carefully avoiding the feet and legs of the diners, until they arrived at their pre-selected targets.

  Daniel chuckled as one of the girls deftly parted the legs of a female diner, pulled her panties aside and began probing and stroking with her fingers, before burying her face in the woman’s crotch and setting to work expertly with her tongue. The camera, operated remotely, zoomed in on the action. Staring avidly at his laptop, Daniel loved how the woman’s eyes widened and she squirmed on her chair as she desperately tried to continue her conversation with her husband. She was undoubtedly imagining one of the fit young men she had been ogling earlier between her legs, but she was in for a shock.

  Further along, one of the ‘lady boys’ had unzipped the flies of a man Daniel recognised as a business customer, liberating an unimpressively small, but hard cock. The man shuddered with pleasure and groaned, in between debating the current state of the stock market with his neighbour.

  The absolute triumph of it was that none of them had any clue at all as to who was working on them below the table. Daniel got the biggest kick out of seeing their faces when the truth was revealed. The expressions of the ones who claimed to be totally heterosexual were always the best, because the camera didn’t lie, showing them writhing around in blissful ignorance. Despite their initial protestations of shock, they were only too happy to trot off to the private rooms with their escorts afterwards, often several of them at once. Daniel had a little office, where he could sit pleasuring himself while enjoying the variety of activities going on in all areas of the venue on the monitors. It seemed that the average populace of Stainsford and the surrounding area were rather more liberated than one might originally have thought.

  The escorts were good at their job, considering the pitiful amount they earned, but in Daniel’s opinion, that was the price you paid if you were in the country illegally. Throughout the evening, they moved silently amongst the clients in the dimly lit rooms, creating a wonderful atmosphere of ‘anything goes’, happy to do as they were told and adapt where necessary.

  Daniel closed the file and shut the lid on his laptop. He was pleased with his editing, which meant that the video alternated between the scenes above and below the table. He had installed cameras and two-way mirrors everywhere, including the bedrooms and the bathrooms. Guests could purchase a copy of the dinner video and their own private sessions at great cost if they so wished and many of them did. It seemed he was not the only one that liked to watch. His clients were given assurance that all videos and photos would be destroyed 24 hours after the event, but obviously he lied about that and kept the ones he liked best for his own private collection. He had even nicked a few ideas from some of his more inventive clients and tried them out with Jane, Lorraine and a few of his other ‘special friends’. Grace and Anita had always been too uptight for any of that stuff.

  Daniel’s mood soured again as he thought about Lorraine and what she had started. The poisonous bitch had pretty much vanished from the face of the earth, along with a considerable amount of his money and personal effects, not to mention that bloody house she had kept her paws on. She had even got a restraining order against him by lying about his so-called ‘violent’ behaviour. Fucking psychopathic slut.

  And as for Jane. She would be home soon and would no doubt start on him about money again. She would not be happy he had screwed up the other business with Grace either. Not that it was anything to d
o with her really. He honestly didn’t know how much longer he could stand living with her in that house and told himself he was going to have to do something about the situation, sooner rather than later.

  Daniel sat back and rubbed his hand across his face in irritation, asking himself for the hundredth time where the hell it had all gone so terribly wrong? He was not a bad person, he told himself in all sincerity. He never set out to hurt anyone. All he ever wanted was to enjoy the life he deserved and he had put a lot of bloody effort into setting himself up, with the nice house, the cars, the boats, the holidays…. He was a respected local businessman, well-liked in the community and everyone thought he had married the ideal woman in Grace. To be fair, the arrangement had suited him perfectly for a while. Back in the day, when she behaved herself.

  In short, he loved the respectable image of himself that the world saw.

  That was all anyone was ever supposed to see.

  He insisted to himself that it was not his fault if he wanted more. Life was too short, so why make it boring? Why limit yourself to one woman? In fact, why limit yourself to just women? There really was no need.

  Everything in life was a game to Daniel and he always played to win. He had run rings round the taxman for years and when that became boringly easy, he had been forced to look elsewhere for his adrenaline rush. His other lives aside from Grace, the ones with Jane, Lorraine, Anita and, of course, his alter ego in Stainsford, were simply a way of allowing him to indulge in his fantasies like all men really wanted to do, in his opinion. He had continued to push the boundaries ever further over the years, for no real reason other than that he could. He wasn’t doing anyone any harm, so far as he could see.