Rankled (The Cardigan Estate Book 8)

by Emmy Ellis

  George collected thin strands of pre-cut rope off the table and got on with tying McFadden’s ankles to the front chair legs. The smell of going-cold wee wafted up, bringing that childhood memory thundering back to life. He stood and used the longer length to bind the whimpering man to the back of the chair, winding it around and around so his arms were clamped by his sides, their usual tactic.

  “Please, I swear to God, I won’t tell anyone what I know about Princess.”

  “We know you won’t,” George said, finished with his task.

  Greg laughed. “Dead people can’t talk, you twunt. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?”

  “Specifically,” George said, “that if you fuck about on The Cardigan Estate, you’ll end up here, in this bastard chair, God rubbing his hands because he won’t have to give you a new home, the Devil laughing because he’ll gladly hand you a nice hot place to stay. You’ll be so warm your arse will be on fire.” He glanced at Greg. “Shame the chimney place has been razed to the ground. We could have barbecued him.”

  “B-barbecued?” McFadden’s trousers gained a darker stain, seeping upwards from between his legs.

  Greg sighed. “Dirty bastard. I’d say his arse is on fire already, George, wouldn’t you?” He stared at McFadden. “Have a spicy curry for your tea by any chance?”

  McFadden hung his head, the stench of shit rising.

  “That’s put me off the madras I planned on having later,” George said.

  “Fuck me, bruv, cheers for that.”

  George roared with laughter and walked to the table. Selected a tool. Went to stand in front of McFadden. “Oi. Look at me.” He held the weapon up.

  McFadden raised his head. Stared. “No. No, please, no.”

  George rammed it into the man’s cheek. McFadden screamed, his face turning purple. George twisted the implement for good measure so it burrowed into the side of the bloke’s tongue.

  “He’s not a fucking wine cork,” Greg shouted over the din, attention on the corkscrew.

  “He may as well be.” George chuckled. “Look at all that lovely red spewing out of his gob.”

  He wrenched the corkscrew out, gratified some flesh had attached itself to the curves of the silver spiral. McFadden growled, teeth clenched, eyes bulging. George sniffed to show how bored he was and waited for the bloke to be quiet.

  Two minutes it took, then McFadden got the gist: to shut up. Blood from his injured tongue poured over his bottom lip and down his chin, a magnificent claret waterfall.

  “Now then, did you get yourself some insurance against Ollie Ford by taking pictures of the ones he sent you?” George asked. “You know, of the earring and Princess with blood all over her face? Much like yours looks, I should imagine.”

  “No,” McFadden gasped out. “Ollie’s my friend. I’d never shaft him.”

  “Commendable, but you may well do that in a minute. Torture has a habit of loosening tongues, much like my corkscrew. So, how long were you following her for?”

  “I’ve…I’ve been watching on and off since I came out.” He sounded drunk, what with his tongue. “So a…couple of—oh fuck, my tongue hurts.”

  George shrugged. “It will do. It’s got a fucking hole in it. How long?”

  “A couple of years. When Ollie got out, he…he asked me to go the parlour, do what I did.” It took him a while to say it. Slurred words, his tongue swelling. “That was the end of my part in it. He’s got someone…someone else who’s been seeing her for years, and I’m talking a long…time. Please, let me go. Please.”

  “Someone else?” Greg came to stand in front of McFadden, holding a hacksaw. “Who, and what were they doing?”

  “Oh my Jesus fuck, no. Please don’t use that on me.”

  “Answer my question,” Greg barked.

  McFadden neighed like a fucking horse. “They…they acted like a punter, went to see her every week, chatted in his car. He’s like me, he’s just doing what Ollie wants. Doing a mate a f-favour.”

  “Who?” Greg raged at him, bending over.

  McFadden screamed in fright, blood spraying, and George had the urge to laugh so hard he joined McFadden at the pissed-himself party.

  “N-Nigel.”

  Greg positioned the hacksaw blade level with the parting of McFadden’s lips. “Nigel who?”

  “J-Jones.”

  Greg smiled. “There’s a good boy. I like loose lips when it benefits us. Anyone else involved?”

  “No, I swear it.”

  “Then we’re done here.”

  McFadden had one second to appear relieved, to believe they’d let him go, then Greg pressed the blade between the man’s lips and pushed with both hands. And there was him, moaning at George for choosing a Cheshire whenever he got the chance in their younger years. Seemed he’d changed his mind on that.

  The scream was music to George’s ears, as was the parting of skin as Greg sawed back and forth. He was eventually met with resistance—the blade had stopped at the jaw hinges either side—so he withdrew the weapon and stepped back. More blood gushed, and the bottom flap of skin flopped down, revealing red-stained teeth and gums. The blade had sliced through the middle of the corkscrew hole in the cheek, leaving half-moon cutouts.

  Funny what you noticed when inspecting a man in pain.

  George sighed and moved to the table. Stroked the circular saw, the one that chopped people up into inch-wide slices. He liked that bit. All the gore.

  McFadden screamed on, and George winced. It was proper grating.

  A gunshot silenced the twat. A faint pattering on the back of George’s suit jacket meant blood and brain had probably landed on it. Good job it was being burnt in the fire later.

  “Thank fuck for that,” George said.

  “He was getting my goat.” Greg came and stood beside him. “So, Nigel Jones.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Stands to reason we’re going to do him an’ all.”

  “We’ll talk to Amaryllis first. See if it’s true and she knows him.” George rubbed his chin. “Bugger, I didn’t ask if she’d want anything from the Taj.”

  “If you think I’m eating curry after what you said about old shit-pants there…” Greg slung the hacksaw on the table.

  George laughed. “Give over, you wet willy. If you can squirt tomato sauce on your burger after seeing blood, you can eat a tikka or whatever.” He turned to McFadden who had an exit wound in the side of his head. “Come on, let’s send a message to Clarke to find the whereabouts of this Nigel, then get this dopey bastard chopped up.” He smiled at what he was going to say next. “Instead of a curry, why not have a shish kebab?”

  Greg glared at him. “Fuck off, George. Just fuck off. You’re not even remotely funny.”

  Chapter Ten

  A wide-eyed Amanda stared at Ollie in the bedsit, her face painted with stark fear. Jenny hoped Ollie was messing about when he’d said by the car that he’d kill the woman ‘sooner’, or that she’d misunderstood him, or it was a daft joke to scare Amanda into staying with them for whatever reason. Why say that, though, then go to sleep knowing she could sneak out and tell the police?

  It didn’t make sense.

  He’d dropped LSD as soon as they’d entered the room. Offered Jenny some. She’d said no, but he’d glared at her until she’d taken it from him and placed it on her tongue, dreading the next sixty minutes. The last time she’d had some, she’d hallucinated for an hour, freaked out of her mind at the terrible things that seemed to be happening. Monsters chasing her. People leering at her with massive grins, fangs descending, the weirdos turning into vampires. The sky going red, the heavens opening to deliver rain that was blood, thick and drenching the ground in a copper-smelling flood.

  He’d prompted Amanda to join them on their trip, and she’d done the same as Jenny by placing it on her tongue, probably too shit scared not to. He’d said they were going to have a party of their own, they didn’t need a rave. Amanda apparently needed to know what a real par
ty was, to understand why Ollie went to them, so she could know her son better, seeing as so far she hadn’t given a shit about him.

  Jenny thought she’d misheard him on that last bit, though—son—and when he’d called Amanda Mum. That was just weird.

  To begin with, they’d had fun, or Jenny and Ollie did anyway. Amanda may have been faking it, but with LSD in her system, she might have forgotten how she’d wound up in the bedsit, so her smiles could have been genuine, her seductive smile designed to get Ollie to fancy her.

  “See, a slapper,” he’d said. “I told you my mum was one, Jen, and now you can see it for yourself.”

  Ollie had put some music on, and they’d danced, the acid taking over, erasing everything he’d said in the car and on the way into the house—“Get in there, you stupid bitch!” and “Don’t touch anything until you get into my bedsit, got it?” and “Shut up whining or I’ll slit your throat.”

  Now, the music was off, the room silent apart from their heavy breathing.

  The party had very much ended. Ollie held the flick knife out in front of him, his eyes sparkling from his trip. The blade was clean; he’d washed off the dried blood smeared on it from the bloke he’d stabbed earlier, saying he’d used bleach then scrubbed the kitchen sink afterwards, leaving no traces. Jenny felt sick, petrified, but not as petrified as Amanda must be. Jenny wasn’t the one with a knife pointed her way, and she was close to the door so could run if she had to.

  But was this really happening, or was she hallucinating like before?

  If Ollie had something weird in mind, or, God forbid, murder, could Jenny whack him on the back of the head with the black vase from the windowsill and help Amanda escape? Jesus, how she wished she’d stopped that other woman in the parking area and asked her to take Amanda home. This wouldn’t be happening then. All Jenny would have to worry about was whether the man at the rave was all right.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Amanda asked, her voice trembling.

  It had a slowed-down quality to it, but Jenny wasn’t sure if that was because of the drug haze, how she was processing it.

  “You’ll see.” Ollie stared at her, grinning.

  Jenny studied him. His teeth seemed overly long, like a rabbit’s, and the skin on his face sagged as if melting, drips on it similar to a wax candle. She was seeing what wasn’t there, she knew that for certain now, so maybe he wasn’t really holding a knife. Maybe she’d conjured it up because of what he’d done to that man at the rave.

  “Jenny,” he said, “in the top drawer there are some ties. Get them out. Three.”

  “Why do you need those?” she asked, but she had an idea she knew already. He was going to tie Amanda up. Jesus Christ. “Ollie, pack it in now. The joke’s gone far enough.”

  “Joke? This isn’t a joke. This is what we wanted. She’s our first victim.”

  What? Jenny laughed. She couldn’t help it. This was all so absurd.

  Amanda sobbed and backed to the wall between the bed and the sofa, pressing herself to it. Jenny could tell what she thought, that in her hallucination, she could fall backwards through the plaster and bricks, the wall melting like Ollie’s wax-drip cheeks, and find herself in the driveway of the house next door, where she could get to a phone for help.

  “Yeah, she’s our victim all right,” Ollie said.

  “Victim?” Jenny parroted, all the laughter gone, dried into a rasping husk that she realised was her breathing.

  He huffed out air, clearly frustrated, and spoke to her as though she were thick. “We’ve talked about this, Jen.”

  “No, you have, but not this. You said about killing your mum, not anyone else. And it’s just something you say, not what you do—I didn’t believe you bloody meant it.” Her voice sounded as if it came through a long tunnel, echoing, ghostly. “Stop it. Please, just stop it and let her go and get a taxi.” She turned to look at Amanda, needing to fix this. “He’s fucking about, love, I promise. Just trying to scare you because he’s off his face. He won’t hurt you.”

  Ollie giggled, high-pitched, and it was so odd coming from a man. “Amanda, you get the ties.” He waved the knife. “Go on.”

  She appeared as if she’d had a beacon of hope handed to her, a light shining to show her the way: if she complied, maybe he’d set her free.

  Jenny could understand the woman doing whatever she could to survive. She’d do the same if she could move, but it was as though her feet were stuck to the floor.

  Amanda opened the drawer, keeping one eye on Ollie and that knife, and pulled out three ties: black, red, grey.

  “Jenny, sit on the chair,” Ollie said.

  She frowned. “I’m already sitting on it.” The dining chair was side-on to the sofa, her back to the window, her front facing the bed. What had happened? Before, Jenny had been at the table, close to the window, close to the vase. When had she sat? Who’d moved the chair? Bewildered by the speck of missing time, she glanced from Ollie ahead to Amanda who stood beside her.

  He nodded. “That’s it. You do whatever I say, Jen.” He tilted his head at Amanda, then back to Jenny. “Tie her ankles to the chair legs and her wrists behind her back. Hurry up.”

  Was he talking to Amanda or Jenny?

  More missing time.

  Jenny stared down. Each ankle was bound to the chair by a tie, the red and black ones. She tried to get up, but her wrists were not only behind her but attached to what she assumed was one of the wooden strips in the ladder-back. Material chafed her skin. It had to be the grey tie.

  “Ollie?” She gawped at him, puzzled.

  He faced the sofa now. Didn’t look her way. He gazed ahead, and Jenny swivelled her eyes in the same direction, nausea lurching up her windpipe. Water, she needed a bottle of water.

  Amanda sat on the sofa, the knife handle sticking out of her stomach.

  “Oh my God!” Jenny couldn’t breathe. She tried to suck in air, but her lungs seemed to have shut down. Then they worked again, and she hauled in a huge breath.

  What was happening? She had to get away from here.

  It rankled that she couldn’t get up to help the woman. Rankled that she couldn’t stand because she had no energy. Rankled that she was even here with this madman, a bloke she’d thought was lovely but who’d turned into a terrible monster.

  Blood coated his hand where he must have plunged the knife in. “The silly cow stabbed herself, how stupid is that?”

  What? Had he ordered Amanda to do that and Jenny had missed it? But what about the blood on him? A tic played by his eye, something she’d noticed happened if he wasn’t telling the truth. Only small things, like whether he’d put the rubbish out after a weekend at the bedsit.

  He was lying, lying about Amanda doing it.

  Why?

  “I…I didn’t,” Amanda said, the words breathy. “Please, please let me go…” She stared down at her belly, and her eyes widened as if she only now saw what he’d done. “Oh God. Oh fuck…”

  Hadn’t it hurt when he’d shoved the knife in?

  Blood coated her white top, a growing stain so scarlet, so vivid it hurt Jenny’s eyes. Maggots appeared around the hilt of the knife, falling out of the wound and rolling down her tummy to settle at her crotch. No, no, Jenny was seeing things, that was all. The knife, the blood, the maggots. She blinked, and the maggots were gone, but the rest was still there.

  “You…you need to call an ambulance,” she said.

  Ollie laughed. “What for? We’ll get nicked, and my mum will live.”

  “Your mum?” Jenny’s forehead hurt from frowning so hard.

  Ollie pointed at Amanda. “There. Can’t you see her?”

  “That’s not your mum! It’s Amanda, a girl we picked up.”

  He dove forward, yanked the knife out, and swung round to aim it at Jenny, the tip almost touching her chin. “Don’t lie to me, Jen. Not you, never you.”

  Amanda cried out.

  “I swear to you, Ollie, that isn’t your mum.” />
  He swallowed, clearly confused, and turned to face his captive. Threw his head back and laughed again. “Oh, it’s her all right. Look at her!”

  He opened the top drawer and pulled out a rolled-up pair of socks. Wedged them into Amanda’s mouth, pushing them deep. Her nostrils flapped where she tried to regulate her breathing, and she let out muffled words.

  “Oh God, Ollie, please stop his now.” Jenny couldn’t take her attention off that poor woman who’d gone to a rave for fun, never believing her night would end here, like this.

  “I can’t. I’ve got the bloodlust, Jen. It’s forcing me to do it, to get rid of my mum. She upset me so much, all the time as a kid. She didn’t hurt me, but her words were worse than any slap. She deserves this, don’t you understand?”

  “But we’re in your bedsit, and if we get caught, all that blood, it’s going to pin it on you.”

  “And you.” He stared at her with marble eyes. “You’re in this as much as me. You said you wanted to kill Gail. We’ll get her next, don’t you worry.”

  “No! No, I didn’t mean that.”

  “Well, I did.”

  He danced in front of Amanda, swiping the knife left and right, the blade edge catching her face each time. Blood castoff drenched Jenny’s cheeks on every right-hand motion, the scent of old pennies strong from the wet splat under her nose. As Amanda gurgled and lifted her hands to stop his attack, Ollie carried on.

  Jenny closed her eyes. This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be happening.

  She opened them again. Amanda’s skin was sliced to ribbons, and the blood kept splatting on Jenny’s face, her clothes, the sofa, the wall, the bed, the drawers, the ceiling—everywhere. He’d caught Amanda’s neck at some point, and thick blood oozed from the slice.

  Abruptly, Ollie stopped and knelt in front of Amanda, the top of his arm so close to Jenny she could reach out and touch him if she wanted to.

  She didn’t. She never wanted to touch him again.

  He sat on his heels, shuffled back, and lifted one of Amanda’s bare feet, propping it on his lap. “You’ve always liked a pedicure, haven’t you, Mum. You’d rather pay for one of those than buy me shoes, stuff I needed.”