Broken Dolls (A Jefferson Winter Thriller)

by James Carol

  ‘So what’s the story? Is he working alone?’

  ‘No. Adam’s the submissive and his mother, Catherine Grosvenor, is the dominant.’

  ‘So, his mother’s alive?’

  ‘Just. There was a car crash two and a half years ago. Adam was driving. He ended up with a broken arm, but Catherine Grosvenor wasn’t so fortunate. She suffered a C4 fracture and is paralysed from the neck down. She spent almost a year in hospital. Halo traction, operations, the works. After she was discharged she went home and Adam took responsibility for her care.’

  ‘That’s why you wanted the medical companies checked out. Adam would need medical equipment to look after his mother. You suspected this had happened.’

  I nodded. ‘Either this or something similar. Something that left Catherine Grosvenor incapacitated, like a stroke, or motor neuron disease. It explains the lobotomies. Catherine Grosvenor is alive but she’s reliant on Adam for everything. Eating, getting dressed, going to the toilet. She wants the victims to suffer like she’s suffering.’

  ‘But they’re not aware of their condition so it’s not the same.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. This is a symbolic act.’

  ‘She got out of hospital eighteen months ago. That was around the time Charles Brenner was murdered.’

  ‘That was the trigger,’ I agreed. ‘Catherine Grosvenor is almost at the end of her life. Her looks have gone and now her body is failing, too. She’s a very angry woman, and Adam bears the brunt of her anger. He’ll have been abused since he was a kid. Psychologically and physically, but it’s likely he suffered some sort of sexual abuse as well.’

  Hatcher was nodding. ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’

  ‘There’s more. Get a photograph of Catherine Grosvenor in her prime and you’ll be looking at a brown-eyed brunette who’s confident and self-assured. Just like Sarah Flight and Margaret Smith and Caroline Brant and Patricia Maynard. And just like Rachel Morris. It’s not just Adam she’s taking her anger out on. She looks at these women and sees all the things she has lost. Her looks, her youth, her mobility. So she gets Adam to torture them while she watches, and she plays dress-up with them because for a time she can remember what it used to be like to be young and beautiful.’

  ‘What about Catherine Grosvenor’s husband? Where does he fit into all this?’

  ‘He doesn’t. He died when Adam was a kid.’

  ‘Natural causes?’

  ‘According to the coroner it was a heart attack.’

  ‘But you’re not convinced?’

  I shook my head. ‘Catherine’s husband cheated on her and I’m sure she murdered him, and she got away with it. Nobody worked it out at the time because nobody dug hard enough. They looked at her, saw a heartbroken, distraught widow with a young son, and they stopped looking. Dig deeper and you’ll find I’m right. All the victims’ husbands were unfaithful. That’s not a coincidence. All the victims were angry wives whose husbands had wronged them. That’s no coincidence either. Catherine Grosvenor is reliving her past, Hatcher. The victims represent the person she was thirty years ago.’

  68

  Adam dragged a chair over to the side of the hospital bed, slowly, eyes fixed on Rachel. The legs scratched against the vinyl floor covering and let out a high-pitched screech. A shiver ran through her and she tried to hide it. She stared at the wall through the nearest bouquet of flowers and told herself everything was going to be all right. Even though she knew it was a lie, she kept repeating that thought in her head. It’s going to be all right. It’s going to be all right. It’s going to be all right. Adam wanted a reaction, but he wasn’t going to get one. He turned the chair so it faced the television screens.

  ‘Number Five will sit down.’

  Rachel complied and Adam grabbed her arms. He pulled them behind her, then fixed her wrists to the chair back with cable ties, securing them tight enough for the hard plastic to dig into her skin, but not tight enough to cut off her circulation. Next he fixed her ankles to the chair legs and clicked the cable ties tight. Rachel stared at the wall. She wanted to escape back to the beach, but the memory eluded her.

  Adam left the bedroom. Footsteps along the corridor, then on the stairs. His footsteps faded out of earshot and the dead silence was filled with other sounds. The wind in the eaves, the snow hammering the windows, the creaks and groans of the old house, the rhythmic pulse of the heart monitor, the soft breathing of Adam’s mother. The television screens were dark and reflective, four black mirrors that cast distorted reflections that looked like melted wax creations.

  Rachel glanced over at the bed. The old woman caught her staring and smiled warmly. Rachel looked away quickly and stared at the TV screens. If they’d met outside of this time and place she would have viewed Adam’s mother as just another harmless old woman who whiled away her twilight years having afternoon tea with her slowly diminishing circle of friends. She might even have felt sorry for her. And how wrong she would have been.

  Like her father had told her so many times, you judged a person by their actions, not their words. How many times had she seen news reports where neighbours and friends of some psycho shook their heads and expressed their disbelief? He was just so normal, they’d say. He kept himself to himself. He couldn’t possibly have done the things he’s been accused of. Back then, Rachel had wondered how they could be so clueless. How could they not know? Now she knew.

  ‘Camera four zoom in,’ the old woman said. Her diction was perfect, every word pronounced with care.

  The picture on the bottom-right screen got larger, green and black resolving into a clearer image. Rachel could see Sophie thrashing back and forth on the thin mattress, struggling against her restraints, fighting to get free.

  ‘Camera three zoom in.’

  The picture on the bottom-left screen got larger. Sophie on the mattress from a different angle, feet first rather than head first. The beep of the heart monitor had dropped back to seventy-eight. Rachel stared at the screens so she wouldn’t have to look at Adam’s mother.

  She watched the old woman’s warped reflection in the glass. The only part of her body she seemed able to move was her head. Everything from the neck down was completely still. Adam’s mother suddenly started to blink rapidly and the heart monitor beeped quicker. Rachel glanced over. The old woman’s eyes were watering and she was desperately trying to clear her vision. A tear slid across the make-up on her cheek. Except this wasn’t a tear. Adam’s mother was incapable of tears, incapable of love. The only emotions she experienced were the darker ones. Hate, anger, loathing.

  Rachel could sense the old woman’s frustration, her utter helplessness. The irony of the situation struck and, despite everything, Rachel felt a small wicked glow light up inside her. If she hadn’t been bound to this chair, she could have helped the old woman. Then again, if she hadn’t been bound to the chair the temptation to put a pillow over her face would have been too great. She had no idea why Adam hadn’t done that years ago. Living with his mother must have been hell. If he chose to he could kill her easily. It wasn’t like she was going to put up any sort of fight. And if he didn’t have the bottle to do that he could walk away at any time, just head out the front door and keep on going and never look back.

  But he chose to stay here. The old woman was completely vulnerable, yet she held all the power. Rachel didn’t get it. She doubted she would ever fully understand what was going on there. The dynamic of their relationship was just too screwed-up for her to comprehend.

  All four screens suddenly flared white, like the basement was ground zero for a nuclear blast.

  ‘Night vision off,’ said the old lady.

  The pictures changed to colour, the definition got sharper. Sophie stopped struggling. She lay there totally still on the mattress, arms pulled tight behind her back, and stared at the door. Her grey top was soaked through with sweat and she was breathing hard. Rachel glanced at the top-left screen. The door was closed, so was the dog flap. She looked back at th
e bottom screens where Sophie was still staring at the door, body tense, eyes wide and alert.

  ‘Sound on.’

  Sophie’s breathing filled the bedroom. Rapid, shallow breaths. Scared breaths. Rachel looked back up at the top-left screen and saw the door swing open. Adam entered, the garden snips in his right hand, the cattle prod in his left. Rachel had told the policewoman what had happened to her, so she knew what was coming next.

  Her mind would be in overdrive right now. It would be filled with thoughts of pain and escape and retribution, a whole jumble of random useless ideas and images. Adam walked past the chair and disappeared from the top screen, reappearing a couple of seconds later on the bottom screens. There were two Adams now. One screen favoured his left profile, the other his right.

  Adam held up the snips and Sophie let out a small gasp that sounded like a shout through the bedroom speakers.

  ‘Turn over,’ said Adam.

  ‘Go to hell.’

  Adam held up the cattle prod. ‘Turn over or face the consequences.’

  Sophie glared and Adam lunged forward. He jammed the cattle prod into her stomach and held it there while she howled in agony, held it there longer than he needed to. The louder she screamed, the wider his smile got. He put down the cattle prod and grabbed hold of Sophie’s shoulder, flipped her roughly onto her front and pushed his knee into the small of her back.

  The first snip cut through the cable tie around her ankles and the second snip cut the tie that bound her wrists. He jumped to his feet and bounced back from the mattress, gracefully, keeping his distance in case the policewoman retaliated. Sophie rubbed her wrists and ankles and glared at him. She winced when she touched the raw spot on her stomach.

  ‘Sit on the chair.’

  Sophie didn’t move.

  Adam jammed the cattle prod into her stomach and followed her as she squirmed across the mattress. Her agonised howl was worse than before, higher-pitched and more desperate. Adam stepped back and the noise subsided. Sophie was lying on her side curled into the fetal position, biting back her sobs, her breathing ragged and harsh.

  ‘Sit on the chair,’ said Adam.

  Sophie hesitated and Rachel was sure she was going to defy him again. Adam waved the cattle prod back and forth in a tick-tock motion. Sophie glared, then walked across to the dentist’s chair. She sat down and Adam buckled her in tight.

  He left the basement and returned with the trolley. He parked it in front of the chair, picked up the chef’s blowtorch, lit it. Adam reached for the knitting needle and heated the tip in the flame until it glowed. Sophie shrank back in the chair. Her face was filled with fear, eyes frantically searching for a way out.

  ‘Please stop him,’ whispered Rachel.

  The old lady smiled sweetly. ‘Earlier you said you believed in judgement, my dear. This is judgement.’

  69

  It was blowing a blizzard by the time we reached junction nine of the M1. I’d eased the Maserati back to seventy, but that was still way too fast for the conditions. For the last couple of miles I hadn’t said a word because I needed all my concentration to keep us alive.

  The roads got progressively worse the further we drove from the M1 and the snow got deeper. My speed was right down now, but I still almost lost the Maserati a couple of times. The car wasn’t designed for these conditions. It was designed for wide open stretches of straight road. What we needed right now was a 4×4, not a sports car.

  High hedges had turned the lane that led to Waverley Hall into a narrow tunnel, and the wind had pushed the snow into a high bank on the right-hand side. A thick layer of snow covered the road. The Maserati crawled along at ten miles an hour, the tyres struggling for traction on the packed ice beneath the snow. The wipers were still fighting a losing battle. If this blizzard kept up, the road would be impassable within another half an hour.

  Waverley Hall was surrounded by a high wall and hidden by tall fir trees that rose like spectres out of the snow. I cruised past the main entrance and peered through the gateway, stared hard into the snow and tried to make sense of the blurred white shapes. I could just about make out the driveway that cut between the trees for about twenty yards before turning sharply to the right. This tallied with the aerial image we’d gotten from the internet.

  The best way to approach the house was from the east. The area to the front was too open. There was a gravel courtyard for parking cars and an unkempt lawn and too much open space. We’d be sitting ducks. Same for the area to the rear. The grounds stretched for four hundred yards, all the way to the trees that marked the southern boundary. Again, there was far too much open space. The west side was difficult to access, which left the east side.

  I drove to the north-east corner of the boundary wall and abandoned the Maserati in the middle of the road. Then I reached into the passenger footwell, grabbed the Samsonite case, popped the catches and opened the lid. The smell of fresh gun oil hit me the moment the lid went up.

  Donald Cole had done good. The Colt 45 was one of my favourite handguns because it was one hundred per cent reliable. Not ninety-nine per cent, not ninety-eight per cent, one hundred per cent. Back in 1911, the US army had tested some guns and the Colt 45 was the only one to fire 6,000 rounds without a single problem. Whenever it got too hot they dunked it in a bucket of cold water then carried on firing. Add in the fact that it was comfortable to handle and easy to conceal and you had one very impressive weapon.

  I clicked out the magazine and checked the ammo: .45 hollow-points. Nine-millimetre rounds penetrated more deeply, but the .45 had much more stopping power. When it hit something solid all that kinetic energy was transferred to the thing it hit, whereas there was a good chance that a 9 mm bullet was just going to pass straight through. According to legend, .45 hollow-points could be stopped by a wet army blanket. Swap that blanket for a body, and you could see why I preferred .45 rounds to 9 mm.

  I checked the guns over and dry-fired them a couple of times. My preference would be to fire some live rounds to make sure they worked, but that wasn’t going to happen. I pushed the magazine back into the second gun, racked the slide and chambered a round.

  The downside to keeping a round in the chamber was the possibility of an accidental discharge but it was a risk I was willing to take. If you needed to use a gun you didn’t want to be messing around trying to chamber a round. Bottom line: if things got that bad then every single second would count. Chambering a round now could mean the difference between life and death later.

  One of the Colts got stuffed down the back of my jeans and a spare magazine went into my back pocket. I held the second Colt out to Hatcher. The detective just stared at it.

  ‘It’s a gun,’ I said.

  ‘I know it’s a gun.’

  ‘You know how to fire a gun, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I know how to fire a gun.’

  ‘You point it and squeeze the trigger. You keep squeezing until you run out of bullets.’

  ‘I know how to fire a bloody gun, Winter.’

  ‘I’d feel better if I knew my back was covered.’

  Hatcher snatched the Colt from me and we got out of the Maserati. The wind was so vicious it stole my breath away. Heads down, we ploughed into the blizzard. Hatcher was right beside me all the way, a ghostly presence floating through the snow.

  It was hard going. I couldn’t feel my feet or hands, and my eyes stung. We followed the eight-foot-high boundary wall along the eastern perimeter of the property. An inch of snow had already settled on the sloping cap. I counted off the yards in my head and when I reached 150 stopped walking. If my calculations were correct we were now perpendicular with the house.

  Hatcher gave me a boost up and I clambered onto the top of the wall. Snow soaked into the seat of my jeans, freezing my ass. I reached down and, grabbing Hatcher’s hand, helped him up.

  We dropped down into a wood, which was good as it tallied with what we’d seen on the laptop. It also meant that we had a much better ch
ance of getting to the house without being seen. Most of the trees were bare, but there were a few evergreens. The tall thick trunks blocked the worst of the wind, turning it into a manageable breeze, and the sudden silence was eerie, like someone had flicked a switch and turned the blizzard off. We battled through the thick undergrowth, branches snatching at our clothes, creepers and roots threatening to trip us up.

  The woodland went on for about thirty yards and ended at a six-foot wall. I grabbed the top of the wall, my frozen fingers sinking into the snow, then pulled myself up and peered into the darkness.

  There was a kitchen door twenty yards away. To reach it we had to cross an area that had once been used to grow vegetables, but had long been abandoned. This was surrounded by walls on three sides, and the house on the fourth side. There were two small windows on the first floor, both dark. I couldn’t see any signs of life behind the glass, but kept looking a few seconds longer, just in case. Once we were on the other side of the wall we’d be easy targets. I dropped back down and filled Hatcher in.

  ‘You ready?’ I asked.

  ‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’

  Hatcher looked scared, but scared was good. Scared would keep him sharp. I was scared, too. If I looked into a mirror right now my expression would be identical to Hatcher’s.

  We clambered over the wall and sprinted for the house. Hatcher was right behind me. We were out in the open again, out in the blizzard. It seemed to hit me twice as hard as before. My lungs were filled with ice, and the snow lacerated my skin. Those twenty yards felt like twenty miles. I half expected a bullet to hit me at any second. It would slam into me and the first I’d know about it would be when I hit the ground, my blood seeping into the snow.

  We reached the house and pressed up against the wall. Hatcher was breathing hard and actually had some colour in his face.