Broken Dolls (A Jefferson Winter Thriller)

by James Carol

  We found Marilyn Trent cowering on her knees next to the large American-style fridge in the kitchen. She had a carving knife with a six-inch blade clutched in her trembling hands, eyes wild, strung out and terrified and completely wired.

  The kitchen was a cold, sterile space that was brightly lit with dozens of small halogen spots. Black marble floor tiles, black marble worktops, black cupboard doors. Lots of steel and chrome. A man’s kitchen rather than a woman’s.

  Marilyn Trent had a faded bruise around her left eye from the last time she’d taken a tumble down the stairs or walked into a door. She was wearing a pyjama set, short shorts and a T-shirt top. There were faded knife scars covering her legs and arms, a criss-crossing mess done by someone who liked the way it felt to cut into flesh rather than the neat parallel lines of a habitual self-harmer.

  I stayed by the door with Hatcher and two of his team while Templeton edged towards Marilyn. Slowly. Carefully. Templeton got the job because she was the only female cop in the room. Marilyn was scared half to death and holding a knife, and much more likely to be spooked by a man. Templeton’s palms were up and open to show she wasn’t armed, that she wasn’t a threat. She spoke quietly, stringing together a constant stream of meaningless words designed to reassure. She spoke like she was talking to a scared child or a dangerous animal. Marilyn Trent cowered further into the corner created by the fridge and the wall and made herself as small as possible.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ she whispered.

  ‘Hey, it’s going to be okay,’ said Templeton.

  ‘Please, leave me alone.’

  ‘Put the knife down, Marilyn. William won’t hurt you again. I promise.’

  Marilyn looked at the knife and there was surprise on her face, like she couldn’t work out how it had got there. She let go of the knife and it clattered to the floor. Templeton kept moving forward, slow, slow, slow, taking her time. She kicked the knife out of reach and it skittered across the marble floor. Then she crouched down in front of the cowering woman and helped her to her feet. Marilyn resisted to start with, but Templeton’s gentle persistence paid off.

  ‘Sir, you’ve got to see this!’

  Marilyn froze to the spot, startled. Her eyes darted in the direction the voice had come from. She was looking down at the floor like she could see through the black Italian marble. Another shout, the voice urgent with excitement. I sprinted from the kitchen, Hatcher on my heels. We found the basement door and hurried down the stairs.

  A short corridor led to a room that was as brightly lit as the kitchen. Black was the dominant colour here, too. The walls were black, the ceiling, the PVC floor covering. There was a rack, an iron maiden. The large king-sized bed had a black leather mattress and plenty of places to attach knots. A clothes rail held a variety of outfits in leather and PVC. Maids’ outfits, nurses’ uniforms, a one-piece affair in red leather with a matching gimp mask. There were shelves for Trent’s extensive collection of sex toys and gadgets and DVDs. The TV fixed to the wall was huge, at least sixty-inch. The room smelled stale and musty like a locker room, a choking mix of sweat, blood and semen.

  ‘Looks like we’ve got our guy,’ said Hatcher, and for once he almost smiled.

  51

  ‘Wakey-wakey Number Five.’

  Rachel’s eyes flickered open and she saw Adam smiling at her. There was so much she hated about him, but that smile was right at the top of the list. She had eaten all the spaghetti hoops and, even though the last couple of mouthfuls made her gag, she’d forced the food down because she wanted the full dose of the drug.

  A few hours’ escape from this hellhole had seemed like a good idea at the time, except it didn’t work like that. Drug sleep wasn’t like real sleep, it was more like an alcohol-induced sleep. You didn’t wake up feeling refreshed, you woke up feeling like crap, like you’d lost a slice of time.

  Rachel remembered crawling onto the thin, stained mattress and pulling the blankets over her, and then nothing until now. She felt cheated and wished she hadn’t eaten the food. Her head was filled with cotton wool and her limbs were heavy. She felt detached from her body and was having trouble thinking straight. Messages were going out from her brain but they weren’t getting through.

  ‘You must be thirsty, Number Five.’

  Rachel nodded and Adam held a large two-litre bottle of water to her lips and motioned for her to drink. It crossed her mind that the water might be drugged, then she realised she didn’t care. She took a greedy sip, and another. Adam pulled the bottle away.

  ‘Number Five will drink slowly.’

  He held out the bottle again and Rachel took another sip, slower this time. It didn’t taste as though it had been tampered with, but how would she know? She’d heard of Rohypnol, but didn’t know if it had a taste or not. Her experience of drugs was limited to over-the-counter painkillers and a few prescription medicines. Adam screwed the lid back on and smiled his charming smile.

  ‘I’ve decided what your punishment will be,’ he said.

  Rachel felt the water churn in her gut. ‘Please don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything you want.’

  ‘I know you will.’

  ‘Anything,’ she repeated.

  ‘Denial, anger and now bargaining,’ said Adam. ‘You’ve done well, Number Five. The others reached the bargaining stage much sooner. Next we’ll get depression, which tends to be the longest part of the process. And then, finally, we reach acceptance. I’m looking forward to breaking you.’

  ‘Please don’t hurt me.’

  She hated herself for begging, but couldn’t help it. She wanted to be unconscious again, wanted to lose herself in the dark. Adam was here to punish her and there was nothing she could do to stop him. It was payback time.

  ‘Number Five will get in the chair.’

  Rachel got unsteadily to her feet and the room swayed all around her. She reached out for the wall and used it to steady herself, shutting her eyes until the vertigo passed. Then she took a long, deep breath and walked towards the chair. Adam’s eyes followed her, and she fought the urge to turn around and look at him. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  Rachel had almost reached the dentist’s chair when she stumbled and fell. She tried to put her arms out to break her fall but her reactions were too slow. She hit the ground face-first. The sickening thud of her head hitting the tiles was accompanied by a sudden, urgent pain that left her breathless. When she turned over, Adam was crouched down beside her, studying her face. He reached out to touch her nose and she shrank away from him.

  ‘Stay still.’

  She froze. Adam sounded different. His usual self-possession was gone, the confidence, the arrogance. He sounded concerned, and he hadn’t called her Number Five. It was the first time since they first met that he’d spoken to her like she was a person. Adam reached out and Rachel forced herself to keep still. He ran his fingertips over her nose, checking it carefully from bridge to tip. His hands were soft, the hands of someone who’d never done a day of work in their life.

  ‘You’re lucky. It’s not broken. Number Five will be more careful in future.’ The confidence was back, the arrogance. ‘The chair,’ he said.

  It took Rachel three attempts to struggle to her feet. She didn’t want to crawl. It was a matter of principle. Whatever shred of pride and dignity she still possessed, she wanted to keep. She made her way to the chair carefully, one foot after the other. More than once she almost fell, but somehow she kept going.

  She reached the chair and collapsed into it. Adam fastened the straps. Legs, arms and head. He checked them one at a time, pulled them tight to make sure they were secure, then left the basement. He returned with the heart monitor, switched it on, fitted the cuff over her finger, then left again. The beep from the monitor jumped around the room, slow and steady, the remnants from the sedative keeping her pulse in check. If she hadn’t been drugged it would be racing into dangerous territory by now. Heart attack territory.

  ‘Would that be a
bad thing?’

  Rachel tried to look over her shoulder to see who’d spoken, but the straps had reduced her movement to a series of spastic jerks. It was a woman’s voice, that much she was certain of. Had Eve snuck in here? She almost called out Eve’s name, but then she realised that it wasn’t Eve’s voice she’d heard, it was her own. Rachel couldn’t believe how close she’d come to calling out Eve’s name. That would have been bad for Eve. Bad for her too. What would Adam do if he discovered they’d been talking? Would he beat them? Would he stop Eve bringing food?

  She glanced up at the nearest camera and imagined Adam sitting in a room watching her struggle against the straps, imagined him listening in while she slowly lost it. She took a deep breath, did a slow count to ten, told herself to get a grip. Time passed. How much, she wasn’t sure. She tried to count off the minutes and seconds, but her head was too foggy to keep track.

  Rachel heard the distant sound of Adam’s footsteps and blinked back the tears. Her throat turned to sand and she felt sick. The noise got louder, the volume creeping up one slow notch at a time. When Adam reached the basement, his footsteps became more defined, the sound echoing off the tiles. Other sounds joined in. The gentle clatter of the objects on the metal trolley, the squeak of the rubber wheels on the tiles.

  He crossed the room and stopped the trolley in front of the chair, positioning it so Rachel could see everything on it. She tried not to look but couldn’t stop herself. She saw the syringe, saw the rubber tubing, saw the knitting needle with the blackened tip, saw the large knife he’d used on her last time. Her blood had been cleaned off and the edge shone again, winking under the halogens.

  ‘Number Five shouldn’t have tried to escape.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Rachel whispered.

  ‘No you’re not. But you will be.’

  Adam tied the length of rubber tubing around Rachel’s arm and tapped up a vein. He pierced the vein with the needle then pushed the plunger and untied the tubing. The beep of the heart monitor sped up past a hundred and a wave of euphoria washed through her. This time she knew what was coming and the euphoria was mixed with dread. Her breath came in sharp, short gasps and her skin felt electric.

  She watched Adam pick up a knife and balance it point-down on his index finger. He moved it back and forth so the lights reflected off the blade. A smile, a shake of the head, then he placed the knife carefully back on the trolley. Next he picked up the knitting needle and ran the heat-blackened tip slowly up her cheek. Rachel shut her eyes tight and moved her head back as far as she could. The knitting needle dropped back onto the trolley and she opened her eyes.

  ‘Maybe next time,’ he said.

  Adam picked up a tool that was about eight inches long. It had a sharp point at one end and looked old. The other end was flat and designed to be hit with a hammer or a mallet.

  ‘This is an orbitoclast,’ he said. ‘When the time comes I’m going to use this on you. I’m going to go in above your eyeball and through the skull at the back of the socket, and then into your brain. And you’re going to be awake when I do this. Very, very awake. I’m going to turn you into the invisible woman.’

  Rachel stared at the object in Adam’s hand, her heart racing. She knew Adam would follow through on what he said. He’d done it four times already. All she could do was try to stay alive for as long as possible and hope the police found her in time, or she somehow managed to escape. It wasn’t much of a plan. It wasn’t any plan at all.

  Adam smiled again and put the orbitoclast back on the trolley.

  ‘That’s one for another day, though. Today I’ve got something really special lined up.’

  He reached for the garden snips and looked at Rachel’s left hand. There was a blissed-out expression on his face and a faraway look in his eyes. Rachel followed his gaze and saw the bloodstains on the vinyl. She looked at the garden snips.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Adam.

  He brought the blades of the snips together twice. Snick-snick. Snick-snick. It was the sound of a tool that had been well cared for and sharpened regularly. Rachel could smell the oil. She curled her hand into a tight fist, fingernails digging into the flesh of her palm. Adam took hold of her little finger and bent it away from the others. He opened the snips as far as they would go.

  52

  ‘I want my solicitor.’

  ‘And I want a supermodel girlfriend and a Caribbean villa,’ I said. ‘Life’s full of little disappointments, I guess.’

  William Trent was on the opposite side of the table from me, Hatcher was to my left. The recording light on the camera aimed at Trent was lit red. We were in the same interview room where we’d talked to Jamie Morris. The room was just as depressing as it had been yesterday. Same scarred table, same battered chairs, same air of despair. The smell of cigarettes lingered, making me crave one. Hatcher saw me dip a hand into my pocket. He coughed and shook his head.

  ‘So what’s this?’ said Trent. ‘Good cop, bad cop?’

  ‘You watch too many movies,’ I replied.

  ‘I know my rights. I don’t have to say anything until my solicitor gets here.’

  ‘Like I said: you watch too many movies.’

  For a while I sat and sipped my coffee and said nothing. I looked at my watch and followed the second hand as it ticked around the dial. Six degrees for every passing second. Three hundred and sixty degrees for every minute. 21,600 degrees every hour. 518,400 degrees every day. 189,216,000 in a standard year. 189,734,400 in a leap year.

  ‘So what?’ said Trent. ‘We just sit here? Aren’t you going to try and get me to confess or something?’

  I drank some more coffee. Then I reached into my pocket and fished out the after photographs I’d stolen from the evidence board. I dealt them out in the order the women had been abducted, slapped them down like they were playing cards. Sarah Flight, Margaret Smith, Caroline Brant, Patricia Maynard. I watched Trent for a reaction, but got nothing except mild curiosity. The last photograph dropped down onto the table. Trent looked up at me and grinned. He was completely relaxed. Too relaxed. He was breathing easy and there were no twitches or any other signs of stress.

  ‘Are those your girlfriends? They don’t smile much, do they? I can see why you want a supermodel.’

  ‘You think this is funny,’ said Hatcher.

  ‘Actually, I do think it’s funny.’ Trent grinned again. ‘You know, when I get out of here I’m going to sue you for wrongful arrest. I should get myself a nice six-figure sum for all the pain and suffering I’ve been put through. I’ve got a great lawyer. The best.’ Hatcher’s hands balled into fists and then relaxed again. Trent saw this and his grin widened. ‘What are you going to do, Mr Policeman? Are you going to beat me up? Break an arm, maybe? A leg? A couple of ribs? I reckon that would add at least another twenty grand to the settlement, maybe even thirty.’

  ‘Where’s Rachel Morris?’ said Hatcher.

  ‘She’s that woman who was kidnapped, isn’t she? The one who’s all over the news?’ Trent paused and looked Hatcher straight in the eye. ‘The one who’s going to get sliced up and have her brain cut out.’

  ‘Answer the question. Where is she?’

  Trent shook his head. ‘No idea. I’ve never met her.’

  I drank my coffee and watched the two men go back and forth like this for a while, winding each other up. Hatcher’s face had turned red and he kept clenching and unclenching his fists. The vein in his neck was pulsing. I was watching Hatcher particularly carefully, ready to jump in if he blew up and took a swing at Trent. Hatcher getting suspended on some dumbass disciplinary charge would be a disaster.

  I waited until the moment was right, then asked the question I’d been waiting to ask. My voice stayed casual, like I was asking about the weather, or today’s specials.

  ‘So what does it feel like to cut into flesh?’

  Trent turned and stared at me. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Yes you do. I know why y
ou were kicked out of med school. I saw Marilyn’s scars. So what’s it like?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Skin’s quite easy to cut through, isn’t it? It’s when you dig deeper that you meet resistance and things get a bit tougher. Cutting into muscle, now that’s where the real fun begins. You can’t really do that with your wife, though, can you? So what’s the deal? Have you got a thing going with a funeral parlour? I mean, you have money, and money can buy you whatever you want, right? Even some quality one-on-one time with a corpse if you know the right person. And my guess is you’ve made it your business to know the right person.’

  Trent looked deep into my eyes, trying to outstare me. There was puzzlement in his gaze, like he couldn’t work out where the hell I was coming from. Trent broke away, then looked back at me. For a fraction of a second his grin morphed into a knowing smile. His eyes lit up and he licked his lips, his hands slid down towards his lap. Then the mask came back down, and his hands went back onto the table.

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said.

  I was finished here. Trent had told me everything I needed to know. Hatcher followed me into the corridor. The walls were grey, the linoleum was scuffed and past its best, and the strip lights cast a dull glow over everything because the covers hadn’t been cleaned since for ever.

  ‘He’s not our guy,’ I said.

  ‘He’s got to be,’ said Hatcher.

  ‘It’s not him. Did you see how excited he got when I started talking about slicing up dead bodies? I thought he was going to start jerking himself off.’

  ‘Which is as good as a confession in my book. We know that Cutting Jack gets off on using knives on his victims.’

  ‘His live victims,’ I corrected. ‘Trent gets off on cutting up dead bodies. Granted, he’s a sicko, but he’s not our sicko.’

  ‘What about the wife? She was covered in knife scars.’

  ‘The wife’s a poor substitute for the real thing. He uses her to hold his urges in check while he’s waiting for his connection at the local funeral parlour to come up with the goods.’