“David did have a crush on Tara back in school,” admitted Helen. “But he wouldn’t do this… how do you know David, Seb; what were you doing there anyway? I didn’t know you knew my brother,” Helen snapped, trying to get her head around the thought that her brother could do this.
“Well,” he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret forever, he may as well get it out in the open, besides, it would be a relief.
“David and I are lovers, of sorts,” a hush came over the group. Franco budged along the sofa in a knee-jerk reaction.
“Oh my dear God!” Anton popped another chocolate in his mouth, how come he hadn’t noticed? He must be losing his touch.
More silence.
Eventually, Helen’s laughter broke the ice; building in crescendo, she laughed and laughed, unable to control herself. They all turned to look at her; she was becoming hysterical.
“You have to be joking,” she gasped as she caught her breath. “All those years I was beating myself up about you, in love with you, making a fool of myself… you were gay…that is too much, how bloody funny.”
“Why funny?” said an indignant Seb, deflated at the reaction to his news.
“’Cause so am I,” laughed Helen as she planted a kiss on Josie’s lips.
“You’re having an affair with a hooker?” replied Seb, aghast that Helen was gay.
“Yep, I love her; whatever, besides, she’s coming off the game,” Helen gazed adoringly at Josie, Josie flushed, not enjoying the attention now focused on her.
Anton and Franco looked on in amazement, Franco took a chocolate. Anton reached for the brandy bottle and topped up his teacup. He’d only come around to give his condolences to Franco about Maria’s press story. They were nothing on this lot. He’d lived such a sheltered life, he sighed.
“Is anyone in here straight?” asked Franco.
When no one answered, all eyes turned to Michael. He gave a cheeky grin and shrugged his shoulders.
“Sorry, Boss; you’re in the minority,” he smiled. “Now, can we get back to the problem at hand, Tara?”
“We have to go get her,” Anton topped up cups with brandy.
“If she’s there,” snapped Helen, still in disbelief.
Ignoring her, they discussed their options, to go to the police or to go to the apartment themselves.
It was finally agreed to raid the apartment mob handed. Michael talked them through a plan.
Knocking back their drinks for courage, they filed out the front door. Anton insisted they arm themselves, and dished out kitchen utensils as they left. He hadn’t had so much fun in ages. He felt like a member of an elite SAS hit squad. He would put the flowers in water later.
They all squeezed into Franco’s Mercedes, Anton lying across the two girls and Seb in the back. Franco, a little nervous of everyone’s new admissions, sat safely in the front passenger seat, keeping a watchful eye on Michael’s gear changing. He hoped Tara was still straight.
As they pulled away from the curb, two plain-clothes coppers in an unmarked car arrived to interview their suspect. On seeing the Mercedes, they changed tack and followed at a distance.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
As they pulled up to David’s apartment, Josie recognized the address.
“Oh shit, I should have known it, but he always wore a mask. David is a new client of mine, into S&M. Bloody hell, who would ’ave thort it,” she went quiet, wondering what he may be capable of, feeling very frightened for her friend. “Sorry, ’el, but your bro’s a weirdo.”
Helen was busy dialling her phone.
“Who are you callin’?” demanded Michael, spotting the police car tailing them in the mirror.
“T, she’s gonna pick up, be fine, on a beach somewhere and laugh at all of this,” answered Helen, but there was no answer.
“Do you know anything helpful about the property, Josie, the layout, any weapons?”
Michael spoke in a hard military tone that cut the atmosphere. The seriousness of the situation began to dawn. Anton gave a squeal, clutching his weapon of choice, a spatula.
“Well, there is another entrance via the garden. He has French windows in the living room.”
“Right, Anton, once we’re in I want you to run through the flat and open those doors, we may need it as an exit point, ok?”
Seb and Anton winked at each other, Michael sounded so macho when dishing out orders.
“Yes sir,” clipped Anton in his best soldier-alert voice.
Helen tried her phone again, no answer. They parked the car in a side street around the corner from the flat. Michael collected up £1 coins from the gang for the parking meter. Not very SAS-like, thought Anton, but no one was safe from London traffic wardens.
Chapter Seventy
It was the third day, time for his angel’s penance.
His phone rang, he ignored it.
She lay still. Black tape covered her mouth, blocking her screams. Red wine splattered her body, staining her blonde hair. Under the heat of the spotlights she smelt like a brewery, her sluttish makeup streaked down her face, but she still looked a beautiful angel to him.
He surveyed her body for the last time as a whole, and thought back over the past few days. She’d been a willing captive, had begged for him, become his puppet. The chase was over and so was her life. He didn’t want to, but, it was time.
“Wake up dear, dissection time.”
Kneeling at the side of the bed, he slapped her face. He wanted her to be awake, to feel the first cut. She started to come around. He laughed at the fear that clambered into her eyes, as she registered the blade in his surgical gloved hand. It was a look that befell all his victims; the laboratory animals, the science professor, Father Michael, Ms Philbeach, the dirty prostitutes, the rent boys and the man who started it all, the Headmaster of Heddington Hall for boys… for perverts more like! He guessed her heart would last out longer than the Head’s had, she was strong, a fighter, he admired her courage.
His phone rang again, he let it ring.
She stared up at him, ashen with fear. He was kneeling over her, holding a blade in his hand, smiling. He was deadly serious, he was going to kill her, carve her up like the photographs in his den. She couldn’t believe it, the loving, kind, fun, man she’d been making love to for the past few days had gone. She didn’t recognize this creature; he was two people, an angel and a devil. How could she have been so stupid? She kicked her legs, bucked her hips. She didn’t want to die.
“Shhhhhh, don’t move angel, you only make it worse, shhhhhh,” he calmed, stroking the wet fringe from her eyes.
“Say your prayers honey, it’s time to die.”
“One ‘Hail Mary’ and an ‘Our Father’ should do it, or maybe two, what’s the going rate for slut absolution these days, I can’t remember? Say two of each, just to be on the safe side.”
He took a wet towel and in one stroke, wiped clean a line of skin from neck to pubic bone, forming a neat strip through which to cut. He leaned in for the first incision. Tara shook her head violently, tears streamed from her staring eyes, she screamed through the black tape that stretched across her mouth.
CRASH
“What the hell was that…?”
In the distance, he heard a loud crash. Straining his ear to the direction of the noise, he listened, he could hear banging, it was coming from his front door.
“What the hell…,” if that was Seb again, he would kill him.
He dropped the blade on the table, and ran out to the hallway, just in time to see an axe coming through the central panel of his front door. The wood splintered noisily as the axe was pulled back through it… what the fuck?
“Who’s there, what the fuck are you doing?” he shouted through the noise as the axe appeared for a second time, crashing through the timber.
It was a bloody burglar, the cheek, he was furious; he pulled at the latch, and opened the door, ready to smash in the face of the culprit, not ready for the horde of bodies that
crashed in on top of him.
Michael was proud of his hit squad. After the door opened, he stood back and watched. They had all heard Tara’s muffled screams from outside the flat window, and from a bunch of nervous wimps they’d fired up into a killing machine.
He was surprised that David had opened the door for them; he’d expected to have at least another five goes with the axe before the door was demolished. But it had opened and his team had crashed in on the shocked David. All manner of kitchen equipment and fists rained down on him. A frying pan to the head finally knocked him out. He hadn’t needed to use his gun.
As David hit the floor, Anton went into action. Screaming like a banshee, he tip toed daintily over David’s prone body and ran the wrong way down the hallway in search of garden doors. He skipped into the bedroom, saw what he assumed was a dead Tara in a pool of blood, and passed out cold at the foot of the bed.
Franco rushed in after Anton and fell to her side. His heart sank, she looked petrified, wide eyes stared at the array of scalpels on the bedside table. The bastard was going to cut her up; a cold shiver went down his spine, if they had been moments later?
He tore off the masking tape and fell across her body, holding her, kissing her, wiping her face, trying to clear away the red liquid.
“Hush baby, you’re ok, we’re here now, it’s all ok.”
She was shaking, he tried to soothe her as his fingers pulled at the ties, he couldn’t get the bindings off her quick enough. There was another commotion going on in the hall, he wondered if David had woken up. Sure the others could cope; he carried on tending to Tara.
As Michael and Seb were tying David up, a battalion of police in full combat gear charged in the front and back doors of the flat, simultaneously. It was a scene straight out of an embassy siege.
Slight overkill, Michael thought. They were all under arrest.
Chapter Seventy-One
“Did I miss something? at what stage did Maria die? What was she doing there anyway, Miss Bloody Busybody?”
“No, no, she wasn’t there… you great pillock!” Anton was great but he wasn’t the brightest, sighed Seb.
“The police were investigating her death, a suicide, that’s why they followed us.”
They’d spent hours in the police station being questioned. The investigation turned from Maria to David. It seemed that they had accidentally solved a few unsolved murders from the past; the pictures in the den had the police very excited.
Back at Franco’s apartment, Anton was dishing out tea and brandy again. They huddled around the coffee table in much the same positions they had been in hours earlier, planning the raid. They didn’t want to leave each other.
Tara had been held overnight in hospital for observation, she seemed relatively unharmed, but after the drugs she’d been given, the Doctors wanted to keep an eye on her. The gang had tried to visit after they were released from the police station, but were shooed away by nurses and told to come back tomorrow; she needed sleep.
“My own brother… I can’t believe he could be capable of such a thing!” Helen was mortified. “I know he’s strange, we never really got on… but how did he ever turn out like this? Poor T, I hope he rots in hell.”
“That’s where devils like to be,” said Seb, under his breath. He was ashamed that he’d fallen for David and wondered if he’d been next on his list.
“Don’t beat yaself up ’bout it, babes,” soothed Josie. “’e’s gone now; will be banged up for a long time for all those murders, never mind what he did to T.”
“Unless he gets off for diminished responsibility or being a minor at the time of the offenses,” corrected Michael.
David was a slippery fish and he could afford the best lawyers. This was not over for a long time yet, he feared. They would all have a lot to go through with the trial, especially Tara.
Franco sat quietly, seeing Tara like that had upset him to the core. He wanted to murder David with his own hands. Marie dead and then Tara almost killed. Life was too short; he would see Tara tomorrow and ask her to marry him. He was never going to let her out of his sight again.
With a flourish of bravado, he said it out loud, announcing it to the gang, as if by telling them, it would set it into action. It certainly did. They all went bananas with excitement for him.
“YES,” they cheered in unison, smothering him with congratulations, welcoming the good news.
“Get out the champagne Anton, I’m getting married,” enthused Franco.
“The Sporjakk boys are gonna love this, you’re gonna have to walk down the aisle to ‘Gotta See Her,’” giggled Josie.
“She’s got to say yes first,” pointed out Seb.
“Oooh, I’ve always wanted to be a bridesmaid,” sighed Anton dreamily.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Helen paced the length of Tara’s hospital bed, hissing and muttering to herself. They were alone.
Bending over her friend, leaning in close, she whispered into Tara’s ear as she slept.
“You little bitch. I tried to warn him but he didn’t pick up the phone. We nearly had you… Lady Fucking Muck… next time we will.”
Tara began to turn in her sleep, the noise waking her. Helen straightened up, turned, and walked quietly to the door.
Before closing it behind her, she hissed,
“BITCH!!’
~~ The End ~~
THE DAVID TRILOGY by S C Cunningham
The Penance List
Unfinished Business
For My Sins
www.sccunningham.com
The Penance List Page 36