Deadly Sins

by Laura Read

  9

  Deception

  The wet cold world swam before her eyes as she woke, clear vision lost to her. Her hair was matted to her face, her arms stretched out, the sharp ground dizzyingly encircling her body and stabbing her with its hard, fragmented surface. She moved to prop herself up on her hands and saw her arms covered in black gravel, scratches and blood. Nausea and pain flooded her whole body. She gagged then vomited. Her stomach empty, her bile was pale and watery.

  Breathing heavily and coughing, she felt her head clear slightly. Her skull pounded; her vision blurred whenever she moved her head, preventing her from thinking clearly. Tentatively she reached to feel the swollen wound at the back of her head, her hand coming away sticky and red, coated in congealed blood.

  The rain lashed down on her frozen body. Her indistinct reflection in the puddle beneath her was distorted by raindrops. She was a faceless, immaterial apparition. In the darkness she wondered where she was and how she arrived there, her memories disjointed.

  She looked around, slowly taking in the tall wooden fence, the fire escape and red-brick building next to her. Hearing a nearby door opening on the street, music and voices escaping into the rain, she realised she was outside the club.

  Her head abruptly flooded with images: creeping down the fire escape, kissing Vincent as his hands worked to undress her, watching him undress, kissing him again, feeling her head smash against the wall. Then emptiness and indefinable anguish.

  The realisation seeped into her consciousness that she had been raped, bruised and torn, left broken and bleeding. Grief at losing part of herself washed over her and she began to cry, lying on the ground in agony, not knowing what to do, feeling utterly alone.

  Yet wasn’t this what she suggested and didn’t she lead Vincent to this conclusion? Her plan had been to stage a sexual assault and announce that Webster was the rapist; she didn’t discuss or rehearse this with Vincent. This was her fault and this suffering her punishment for plotting to kill someone. It didn’t matter what she wanted to happen because she was to blame for her own wretched situation.

  She’d always seen the way Vincent looked at her but she never thought that he could do this, didn’t think he’d hurt her in this way. She’d been wrong to trust him and right to fear him.

  She tried to steel herself; she didn’t want to lose herself to emotion. She needed to focus on the practicalities of her plan and why she came up with it in the first place. The first stage of her scheme was complete: she was in a beaten disarray and could claim that she’d been raped. Now she had to decide whether to follow through and make the next move: tell her father it was Webster who assaulted her. Or she could reveal the name of her true assailant. She had a third option: she didn’t have to tell anyone she was injured. She could stagger home, hide her wounds from passers-by, and never speak of this night again.

  She knew what she had to do. Rising slowly, naked and aching, her head and purpose felt clearer. Stumbling in her heels, she bent down to remove her scraped patent shoes. She brushed gravel from her body and found her bra in the dark, twisting in pain to fasten the wet material behind her chest. Then she picked up her torn dress and encased her body in the thin green fabric, hoping she could hide her pain and bruised body beneath her clothing.

  Holding her dress up with one hand and shoes in the other, she made her way towards the gate in the fence. Unfastening two bolts, she opened the gate and was blinded by the bright streetlights.

  She’d go inside the club and be seen by security; wait for her father to arrive. Then she could go home. Vincent would be inside the club and she’d have to face him, but she’d adopt a neutral face and not be afraid of him. After all, in his own sick way he had helped her.

  The noise from the club grew louder as she neared the entrance, sidestepping broken glass on the pavement. Two girls leaving the club gasped as she stumbled past, watching over their shoulders as she walked unsteadily towards the building. She longed for a mirror.

  Suddenly she felt a hand grasp her arm and pull her around. It was Sean. He could see how hurt she was, not just physically but emotionally, and the defences she built moments before crumbled. She burst into tears, her whole body shaking. Sean looked both sympathetic and angry, reflecting what she felt days ago when she saw what Vincent had done to him.

  He wrapped her in his leather jacket and walked her inside the club towards the security office. She felt protected under the wing of his arm, realising she was right after all that their paths would cross again in the future.

  In the office, Tony stood immediately when he saw Angela, looking at her in horror. The room was dark, the limited space taken up with a large table, mismatching chairs and vending machines. The walls were covered with posters of naked women and in a corner hung a television with a loud wrestling match onscreen.

  ‘Sit down,’ Sean told Angela.

  She collapsed into a chair, dropping her shoes on the floor next to her.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Tony.

  ‘Fuck knows,’ said Sean. ‘Find Vincent.’

  Tony ran out of the room and closed the door. Angela stared at the door, not fully realising what was happening around her. Her world was a fog of incoherent thoughts and loud noise, through which she was floating, waiting for her next ordeal.

  ‘Angela?’ Sean crouched down in front of her face so her glossed-over eyes focused on him.

  ‘Why are you still here?’ she asked.

  ‘I wanted to speak with you. I didn’t see you leave...’

  Angela became quiet and Sean stood again, holding his head as he thought.

  ‘Did Vincent do this to you?’ he asked, finally confronting her. ‘You made that stupid deal with him to save me but I never thought you’d follow through on it.’

  Angela remained silent, clutching the lapels of Sean’s jacket tightly in her hands. Her body shook uncontrollably, her chipped red nails digging into the brown leather. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. She tried again. ‘It wasn’t him.’

  ‘Sure,’ Sean said sarcastically.

  ‘It wasn’t!’ Angela protested.

  Sean sighed and bent down to crouch in front of her again. ‘Why are you lying to me? I know it was him. I left you with him.’

  ‘Why do you care who it was? Why do you care that I’m hurt?’ she snapped, turning away. After he’d ignored her for days she had a reason to be angry with him. She couldn’t let him know the truth.

  ‘Of course I care that you’re hurt… You saved me that night.’

  ‘You never thanked me for it. You didn’t even speak to me the next day.’

  ‘Look… I’m a cop. Your father is the boss of an organised crime family –’

  ‘Who you’re taking bribes from!’ she shouted at him. ‘You’re not a saint.’

  ‘I’m not a fucking saint,’ he admitted. ‘But you helped me that night and if it wasn’t for you, I might not be here now. I want to help you, so tell me who hurt you.’

  She looked at his sincere blue eyes and wished that she could tell him. She wanted to trust him, but she’d placed her faith in Vincent and he’d betrayed her. She didn’t know whether Sean would break her trust too.

  ‘I can’t,’ she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Sean sat back on his heels. ‘You mean you don’t want to.’

  The door opened and Vincent stepped into the room, followed by Tony on his heels. The lieutenant stopped in the doorway and looked at Angela, saying to Tony over his shoulder, ‘Call Leon.’

  Tony shuffled away to make the call.

  ‘Why are you here?’ Vincent asked Sean.

  ‘I stayed for a couple of drinks,’ Sean replied, standing up.

  Vincent’s sharp eyes glowered at Angela. He hoped she hadn’t said anything to the detective. ‘Well, now you can leave,’ he told Sean.

  ‘I’ll stay. I’ll drive her home.’

  ‘No need,’ said Vincent. ‘I’ll do it myself.’

&n
bsp; ‘I’m staying.’

  Vincent raised his voice. ‘I’m giving you an order to leave, now, detective.’

  Sean looked at Angela, waiting for her to give the final judgment.

  ‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ Angela said softly, looking down at the floor.

  She knew this scene echoed that of the other night and she wondered whether she would call him the next day instead of neglecting to do so.

  Sean shook his head in disbelief. ‘Fine! I’ll leave you alone with him again.’

  He strode out of the room. When the door closed, once more Angela’s fear swarmed back into her chest. She held tightly onto Sean’s jacket.

  ‘What the fuck did you say to him?’ Vincent turned, grabbing Angela by the shoulders to look her in the eye.

  ‘Nothing! I promise. I didn’t say anything.’

  Vincent studied her face to see whether she was telling the truth. He let her go. ‘You’d better not be lying to me... Your dad will be on his way – he’s around the corner at a meeting – and when he gets here, you need to tell him that it was Webster. He attacked you in the alley. He knocked you out and when you came to, you walked back to the club to get help. That’s your story.’

  Angela frowned defiantly at him and whispered fiercely, ‘That’s it? You’re not going to say that you’re sorry? You don’t feel anything? Not even when you raped me and left me for dead?’

  ‘You asked me to,’ Vincent said through gritted teeth.

  ‘You think I planned it like that?’ Angela asked, her voice breaking. She stopped to breathe and regain control of her emotions, promising herself that she wouldn’t cry in front of him. ‘You know I didn’t.’

  ‘You wanted it to look realistic,’ Vincent defended himself. ‘You wanted your dad to believe that Webster did this to you. That’s why I didn’t just have sex with you and give you a couple of bruises. I did what Webster would have done. And I didn’t want you to remember it.’

  ‘You did what you’ve always fucking wanted!’ Angela argued. ‘You wanted to fuck me and hurt me at the same time. Don’t pretend that you didn’t.’

  Vincent fell silent.

  ‘You don’t care about anyone, do you? You don’t care what you just did to me. Don’t lie and tell me that I wanted this, because we both know that I didn’t.’

  ‘We both want Webster dead,’ he said. ‘I did this because you asked me to.’

  Angela wished that she could go home. Suddenly she realised that she didn’t know where her bag was, containing the keys to her apartment, and she’d forgotten to claim her coat before she walked out on the fire escape. ‘My coat’s still in the cloakroom. And I don’t know where my bag is.’

  ‘Is it upstairs?’

  ‘I don’t know! Maybe. Or it’s outside…’

  ‘Shit. Wait here. I’ll find it,’ he said, walking towards the door.

  ‘I’ll say it was Webster,’ she told him before he left. ‘But you can’t justify what you did.’

  Vincent stopped to look at her. ‘And did you tell the cop it was Webster?’

  ‘I said it wasn’t you.’

  ‘Good. I don’t trust him. Neither should you.’

  Before he could leave, the door opened and Leon entered the room. He went towards Angela with concern in his aged eyes and sat down on the chair next to her. His hair showed more grey flecks under the bright lights in the room. His shirt and grey trousers were crumpled underneath his woollen coat.

  ‘What the fuck happened?’ Leon asked, his voice soft but full of anger.

  This was Angela’s time to make her final decision: to lie or tell the truth to her father. After talking with Vincent, she needed to lose the anger laced between the words she uttered moments before. Once more she allowed the fragile emotions attached to her trauma to envelop her and she adopted the role of a victim. Disguising her face with apathy, she told her father the fabricated facts.

  ‘I was walking home,’ she started, forming the story in her mind before speaking. ‘I was alone, but I’ve walked home from the club hundreds of times before. Then he grabbed me and dragged me into the alley...’ She paused for dramatic effect and sank back further in her chair, clinging at the lapels on Sean’s jacket again. ‘He tore my clothes off and started hitting me. Then... he raped me and kept beating me. I passed out and when I came to, I was just lying there on the ground. He’d gone.’

  Leon screwed his eyes shut. ‘Did you see what he looked like?’

  ‘I know who it was,’ Angela whispered.

  She looked up at Vincent briefly, his body still and face focused on her, waiting for her answer. Angela’s eyes met with her father’s again, he too waiting for the name of her assailant. Angela inhaled deeply to steady her nerves. Then she said, ‘It was Webster.’

  Leon slowly took in Angela’s lie that Damien had betrayed him, the anger building in his body, rising from his chest. His shoulders hunched, he stood and lifted the chair next to him. He raised it above his head then charged towards the wall, letting out a soul-shattering scream as he hurled the chair against the grey painted bricks. Repeatedly he smashed the chair against the wall. The bricks began to crumble, the chair disintegrating into thin shards upon every impact. When he only held a single piece of wood in his hands, he stopped and his arms fell to his sides, the wood dropping from his hand to the floor.

  ‘Find Webster and kill him... slowly,’ he told Vincent. ‘Why did I trust that fucking cunt?’

  ‘This isn’t your fault,’ said Angela, hoping he didn’t blame himself.

  Leon ignored her, kicking the broken pieces of wood lying on the floor. ‘I’ll drive you home,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll go and bring the car around.’

  He left the room, dark thoughts twisting together in his mind.

  ‘You’re a good liar,’ Vincent told her, following Leon out of the room.

  Angela was abandoned for a second time, sitting in tattered clothes and a borrowed jacket, sick and lost, lacking any sense of who she was. Somehow she had brought about the death of a man she hardly knew, acting out her role perfectly, sacrificing her body and lying with conviction to bring about his execution.

  The worst part of tonight was recognising that she couldn’t place her trust in anyone again, perhaps even herself. She’d convinced herself that planning to kill someone was justified, and by doing so she’d lost her sense of morality. She had no goodness left in her heart. She started to cry bitterly, thinking her future would be as bleak, loveless and empty as her past.

  Vincent grabbed Angela’s coat from the cloakroom, hoping no one would see him and ask why she’d left her coat behind, if supposedly she’d been heading home when she was attacked. Beneath the notes of smoke and spilt beer, the smell of her sweet perfume rose from the black faux fur.

  He didn’t know why he’d chosen to hurt her. Perhaps so he could quash whatever feelings he had for her once and for all, so she’d continue to be afraid of him, like everyone should be. In the back of his mind he’d entertained ideas of having a relationship at some point, but he knew it was dangerous to think of having any kind of future with Angela. Fucking her lifeless body should have ended that train of thought, but instead he could only feel shame and remorse for what he’d done.

  He thought about how her skin had torn open on the gravel beneath him; the cold rain against his back while his chest brushed against her warm bare skin; how her whole body was limp, her wet hair trailing over her shoulder onto the ground. At least she’d been unconscious and he didn’t have to watch how she’d reacted to her injuries, but the memories of how he’d hurt her kept creeping into his mind to haunt him.

  There were more feelings in his heart than he realised, no matter how hard he tried to deny it. Earlier in the security office, he felt his chest tighten when he saw how Angela looked at Sean. She’d never looked at anyone like that before. He saw through her saying that there was nothing between her and the detective: there must be some kind of history there. He longed to kill Sean, he had done
since the night he tortured him, but he didn’t know whether he was being irrationally jealous or instead whether he feared what would happen to the family if Sean betrayed them. The detective was manipulating Angela, and that was dangerous for them all.

  He headed outside into the cold rain once more. He needed to find Angela’s bag – he wished they’d thought more about their plan beforehand. Pushing open the splintered wooden gate at the back of the club, he stopped when he saw Sean leaning against the brick wall, the same wall he pushed Angela against earlier that night. In Sean’s hand was a black bag, the gold strap hanging down on the ground.

  ‘Did you fuck her here?’ Sean asked Vincent, throwing the bag at him.

  Vincent caught the bag, wondering whether Angela had told Sean the truth. He dropped Angela’s bag and coat on the ground, ready to fight.

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ Vincent said. ‘It was a guy called Damien Webster.’

  ‘Webster?’ Sean said in disbelief. ‘That guy that owns the strip club the other side of town? Leon’s new partner?’

  ‘He sells heroin and whores too,’ Vincent told him.

  ‘Yeah, I’ve heard the rumours. They’re investigating him – something to do with where his money came from and smuggling girls into the country… But that makes no sense. Why would he do this? He just partnered with Leon… It must have been you! Her bag is here. The pool room is up there, where I left her with you.’

  ‘Keep your voice down, detective,’ Vincent said, walking towards Sean and hoping no one heard his accusations. ‘It wasn’t me. Angela didn’t want Webster working with Leon, and Webster knew it. He threatened her last night too.’

  ‘She didn’t come back down. I was watching the stairs from the bar; I’d just given up waiting. So how the fuck did she end up outside? How the fuck did her bag end up down here?’

  ‘She thought Webster was watching her, so she went down the fire escape. She left her coat –’ Vincent gestured to the coat he’d thrown down on the ground. ‘And she said that she dropped her bag and couldn’t find it. That’s why I came here, to look for it.’