The Girl in the Empty Room

by Neil Randall

  Chapter Eleven

  As the overhead conveyor belt clunked and rattled, Aaron grabbed a plucked turkey from a hook with one hand, and drove a long serrated drawing tool, like a giant corkscrew, up into the bird with the other, twisting and pulling, the entrails splashing into the blood-stained pit below. Such was the noise, the clamour, he didn’t notice the two plain-clothed police officers, one male, one female, walking into the outbuilding, scrunching over straw and sawdust. Only when the belt juddered to a halt did he turn his head.

  “Who are you?”

  “Detective Inspector Daniel Hepworth.” He took out a wallet and showed Aaron his identification. “We need to ask you a few questions, Mr Wells.”

  “Questions? Why? What about? I – I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  “No one said you had,” said Hepworth. “But a young woman of your acquaintance, a Miss Jacqueline Franklin, went missing yesterday afternoon. No-one has seen or heard from her since. Her house was broken into, lots of damage done to her property.”

  “Jacqueline?” Aaron said her name like he’d never heard it before.

  “That’s right,” Hepworth replied. “You do know her, don’t you?”

  “Erm, yeah, yeah I do. We’re, erm…friends.”

  “Good. If you’d like to come this way, then, your line manager has been kind enough to let us use his office.”

  ***

  “Let me get this straight, Mr Wells,” said Hepworth. “You claim that, for the last week or so, you and Miss Franklin have been grooming men and women on dating websites, meeting them in town, and then deliberately infecting them with a sexual disease?”

  He nodded and lowered eyes red and brimming with tears.

  “Why, Mr Wells?” Hepworth glanced at Priestly – this was the last thing either of them had expected to hear. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  No response.

  “Okay,” said Hepworth. “Let’s recap on what you’ve told us so far. You met Miss Franklin in a pub one night. You had unprotected sexual intercourse. A few days later, you noticed a rash of some kind. You visited your GP who diagnosed a possible S.T.I., and advised you to book an appointment at the main hospital for a full sexual health check.” He checked his notes, turning a page. “That evening, the Tuesday, I believe, you called round to Miss Franklin’s house to confront her, and she told you that she had knowingly infected you with said S.T.I., that she was trying to get back at the man who’d originally infected her, to get back at all men like him, men who exploit women. And during your subsequent conversation she persuaded you to help her, to sign up for a dating website, to meet local women and infect them, too. Is that just about the gist of it?”

  No response.

  “Mr Wells, you’re going to have to respond at some stage. Do you not understand the seriousness of the situation? Miss Franklin has been missing for some time now. She’s the mother of two young children. If she doesn’t turn up soon we’ll have to open a full-blown criminal investigation. And in the light of the information you’ve just given us, you will undoubtedly be considered one of the prime suspects. Moreover, to have gone around deliberately infecting sexual partners like this could well lead to a whole host of separate criminal charges.”

  “What?” Aaron sniffed and lifted his head. “But – But I’d never do anything to hurt Jacqueline. I love her. We’re gonna get together, properly, once this whole thing is over.”

  “What whole thing? What are you referring to?”

  “Her plan, to infect the whole town, to make all those bastard men sit up and take notice, to change their ways.”

  “I – I see,” said Hepworth. “And did Miss Franklin tell you how many men she’d slept with since contracting the infection?”

  “’Bout seven or eight, I think she said?”

  “And did she mention any names to you?”

  “No, not really. But you could probably find out if you could access her profile on the dating website we’ve been using – meetyournewlover.com.”

  “Meet your new lover,” Hepworth repeated, slowly. “Okay. And the old boyfriend, the man who originally infected Miss Franklin, did she tell you his name? Was he a local man, to the best of your knowledge?”

  “Erm, yeah, yeah he is, but I only know his first name: Jason. And I don’t know what he does or whereabouts he lives, just that he’s from ’round this way, and that Jacqueline hates the bastard. Her friend Katie could probably tell you all ’bout him.”

  Hepworth nodded to Priestly, gesturing for her to make a note of that.

  “And when was the last time you saw or spoke to Miss Franklin?”

  “Oh, I’m, erm…I’m not sure. We both went out and met people last Friday – her ex-partner had the kids for the weekend, see – and we met briefly afterwards and made arrangements to speak later in the week, but it were always her that contacted me. She didn’t like it if I tried to get hold of her, said it freaked her out a bit.”

  “I see.” Hepworth scribbled down a few notes of his own. “And where were you on the day Miss Franklin went missing?”

  “Here, at work. You can ask anyone, you can check my timesheet, when I punched in and out, didn’t leave the factory or main site all day, always have my lunch in the canteen with the rest of the lads. They’ll vouch for me all right.”

  “Okay, Mr Wells.” Hepworth got to his feet. “Thank you for your time. You can get back to work now. But I must warn you, we’ll need to speak to you again, and the information you’ve provided us with today could, as I mentioned before, lead to charges being brought against you. For the time being, I would advise you to contact all the women you’ve had unprotected intercourse with recently, informing them that they may have contracted some kind of infection. That way, you’ll at least have tried to right the grave wrong you and Miss Franklin knowingly perpetrated.”

  ***

  “What do you make of all this, Di?”

  She blew out some air and placed her phone on the dashboard. “I don’t really know. The lad is clearly a bit simple, a bit of a yokel, I suppose you’d say, but still, how’d the Franklin woman persuade him to go around infecting people with a sexual disease? Who’d agree to that? It’s beyond the pale. It’s sick. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Agreed,” said Hepworth. “But I’m certain Wells is telling the truth. A story like that is far too unlikely to have been a product of his limited imagination. And if nothing else it sheds a little more light on the message spray-painted on the bedroom wall: see how you like it.”

  “What? So you think it was an act of revenge – smashing up all her belongings like that?”

  “Maybe. Then again, it doesn’t really explain why she’s gone missing. But for now, I think we should work from the premise that one of the men she slept with recently is involved in her disappearance.” He slid a key into the ignition. “So we better get over to the local station and check her laptop again, see if we can’t access the dating website Wells mentioned.”

  Chapter Twelve

  When Hepworth accessed the website, he was directed straight to Jacqueline Franklin’s profile.

  “Right.” He clicked on her message folder, finding hundreds of old electronic conversations. Starting from the bottom of the page, he scrolled up, reading each message intently, jotting down notes every now and then, the name and email address of each man. Soon a clear pattern emerged; the way Jacqueline would start out asking general questions: What type of music do you like? What do you do at weekends? Do you have any hobbies? All very innocent, the typical kinds of questions a person would ask when trying to get to know somebody on a dating website. But then, after contact had been established, perhaps a little rapport built up, usually based upon common interests, Jacqueline became increasingly flirtatious (and these changes could take place within a matter of minutes, in the exchange of a dozen or so instant messages).

  One of her favourite lines, one repeated to many different men, was:

  I don’t usually fe
el this kind of instant connection with someone. Maybe we should have a drink together – soon as possible – that way we’ll know if there’s really this much chemistry between us.

  On nearly every occasion, the man receiving the message had responded positively, suggesting that they meet within the next few days. But, invariably, there was no follow-up message after, presumably, the night out in question, so Hepworth had no way of finding out what had happened when they met for the first time.

  He wrote the words one night stand in the margins of his notebook and circled them a few times.

  As he read on, the same pattern continued, the same messages were replicated over and over again, suggesting that she had taken to copying and pasting old messages to new potential dates, only it was clear, by the sheer volume of men she was now approaching, and discarding (presumably because they were unsuitable), that she had decided to ratchet things up a level.

  One of the more recent messages (and this was after over three hours of scrolling and reading and taking notes) immediately caught Hepworth’s eye. It was from a Jonathan Reynolds, the angry expletives and exclamation marks almost jumping off the screen.

  You skanky fucking bitch! This morning I woke up with a rash on my penis. You did it on purpose, didn’t you? Or are you such a filthy whore, falling in and out of bed with all-comers, you didn’t even know you were infected with something! I hope you’re fucking ashamed of yourself. But I doubt a common slag like you has much of a conscience. All that bullshit about men degrading women! Ha! What a joke! You’re degrading yourself. You’re the worst kind of slapper there is. Mark my words. I’ll get you bloody back for this, if it’s the last thing I ever do!

  Chapter Thirteen

  In the early evening gloom, Michael Babb got out of the SUV, slamming the door shut behind him.

  “All right, Jason?” he called out to a skinny, shaven-headed young man stood in front of the house.

  “Yeah, yeah, MB,” Jason shouted back, raising a shaky, uncertain hand in greeting, “– all’s good.”

  Adjusting the collar on his camel-skin coat, Babb walked up the garden path, running an appraising eye over the two red-bricked former council properties that had been knocked into one, taking in each newly-fitted window, the skip outside, crammed with the old rotten frames, busted-up furniture, a cracked plastic bath tub, tables and chairs, curtain rails.

  “You got the place up and running, all spick and span, then?” he asked. “’Cause I don’t want any fuck-ups. I want the next lot straight in, rooms allocated, contracts exchanged, rent books signed, paperwork filed, everything above board. You get me?”

  “Yeah, I get you, Mike. There shouldn’t be any fuck-ups. I’ve spent all day clearing stuff, loading it into the skip. All the rooms are ready, just the way you told me – six to a room.”

  Babb put a hand on Jason’s shoulder – he flinched wildly, as if fearing a blow to the face.

  “Whoa! You’re a bit jumpy, ain’t you?” He grinned and gave Jason’s cheek a couple of light slaps. “Come on, then. Let me have a look at the place, then we can sit down and talk about your duties.”

  ***

  “You know something, Jason? People warned me about giving you a job.” Babb glared at him across the kitchen table, as if to emphasise the point. “They told me you were a waste of fucking space, that you’d let me down.”

  He unscrewed the cap from a bottle of Budweiser and slid it across the tabletop.

  “Now you know what I need you to do, don’t you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I need you to run this place like a fucking borstal. I need you to get my workers to the factory every morning, and run ’em back here at night. I need you to get ’em food to cook, basic stuff, just enough so they won’t fucking starve. Ha! And I need you to collect the rent each week, money for the utilities, gas and electric. If those fuckers think they can come over here and have a free ride, they’ve got another thing coming. Should be thankful our borders are wide open, eh?” He took a swig from his own bottle of beer. “Any questions?”

  “Erm, no, I, erm…don’t think so. Everything seems straightforward. I’ve got me own room downstairs, the office, like, got to get the girls up in the morning, load ’em in the van, drive ’em out to the factory, and pick ’em up at the end of the shift. Simples.”

  “It better be,” said Babb. “I don’t want no hassles, no comebacks, no police or social services sniffing ’round. Far as we’re concerned these girls are legit, hard workers looking for a bit of gainful employment, jobs none of the wasters ’round here want to do.” He took another swig of beer, a longer, deeper one this time. “And, Jason, on no accounts are you to start screwing ’round, sneaking birds into your room at night. If I hear ’bout any nonsense, you’ll wish you were never born. You’ll be meeting my old mate Mr Machete. Okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, understood, MB, no funny business. I’m seeing some girl from town now, anyway.”

  “Really?” Babb leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table. “Talking of birds, did you hear about your ex, that she’s gone missing?”

  “My ex? Which one?”

  “That fucking nutcase, Jacqueline, the druggie, the one with two kids, the twins. Didn’t collect ’em from school the other day, her gaff had been turned over, smashed up, and no one’s heard from her since.”

  “Bloody hell! No-one told me that. Don’t surprise me, though, not right in the head that one, off her face half the time, and got a helluva temper on her. Yeah. I was well out of that relationship, I can tell you.”

  “Any idea where she could be, though?” asked Babb, scraping away at the Budweiser label with his thumbnail.

  “No, none at all. We, erm…didn’t exactly part on very good terms, had to change my bloody mobile number ’cause she kept pumping me abusive texts, couldn’t accept that I didn’t want nothing more to do with her.”

  “Is that right? Well, if you hear anything, if the Old Bill comes round asking questions, make sure you tell me first, eh?

  “Yeah, yeah, course, Mike. I’ll give you a call straight away.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  After scrolling up and down Jacqueline’s Facebook page, searching for what she couldn’t have said, Katie came across a link Jacqueline herself had posted, a link to a site dedicated to conspiracy theories. This in itself wasn’t all that surprising. In the past, Jacqueline often went off on one about 9/11, J.F.K. and Marilyn Monroe, subliminal messages in advertising, especially if she’d been smoking weed. Only this looked different. Curious, Katie clicked on the link which directed her to an article entitled:

  True C.I.A. files, Selective Pestilence, The U.S. Government’s Early Experiments in Population Control

  The account you about to read was found at the home of former C.I.A. agent Ronald Arthurs (name changed for reasons of national security), in the hours following his mysterious death. Former Special Ops, Arthurs had served with distinction in Vietnam, receiving a Purple Heart for bravery in the field, and was recruited by the agency in the mid-nineteen seventies. His remit, and this is, of course, an area of much conjecture (not to mention vociferous official government denial), was to conduct a series of social experiments, whereby known homosexuals in prison, those serving short to mid-term sentences, would be injected with a synthetic virus, one which attacked the immune system, and which was transferrable exclusively through sexual intercourse. Once they were released it was Arthurs’ job to keep them under strict surveillance, monitoring their activities closely, where they went, who they interacted with, and who they became involved with sexually.

  To counterbalance his findings, Arthurs, a lone operative throughout, performed the same experiment on female prostitutes in the area. In a seeming sting, he had dozens of known sex workers arrested and brought to a local police station. On threat of long prison sentences, the women agreed to take part in a bogus medical trial, a single injection that supposedly reduced the risk of sexual infection, but which was the same injection administe
red to the homosexuals. They were then released back into the community, to be monitored in the exact same way.

  If the findings were positive, if the virus spread through delinquent sectors of society, causing widespread fatalities, the C.I.A. hoped to use similar tactics on a much larger scale to eliminate undesirable elements, thus exerting control over recent swells in population.

  This is Arthurs’ story, as recorded in his private notebooks.

  Subject A

  On the first Tuesday of the month, two physicians accompanied me to the penitentiary, where G. had been heavily sedated. A tall, rangy, fairy-come-transvestite, G. insisted on being called by a woman’s name – Rosetta – and was, apparently, saving up for a sex change operation. Several months ago, G. had been arrested in the bay area for soliciting, trying to pick up men outside a nightclub, offering sexual favours for cash, presumably to fund his drug habit, even though a gram of powder, a whole load of uppers and downers, and a few sticks of marijuana had been found in his handbag – enough dope to have constituted a long stay in the country jailhouse, if it weren’t for a history of mental health problems.

  We administered the injection at midday, waited for the subject to come round, before informing him that, due to a procedural error on behalf of the arresting officers, he was free to go without charge.

  Day One

  G. lived in an apartment block in a rundown area of town, all rusted fire escapes and shabby, threadbare clothing draped over makeshift clothes-lines, above a pretty grim-looking Chinese restaurant. There was a park across the street, with a kid’s play area a little further down, a liquor store and a diner, a movie theatre and a whole series of bars, faggot joints G. was known to regularly frequent. Not much traffic passed the building, allowing me pretty much free access to park my sedan in an out of the way spot, with excellent vantage points of both the front of the building and an alley-way that ran round to the rear. If G. made any kind of a move, there’s no way I could miss him.