A Proper Charlie

by Louise Wise

  He moved forward, alert with adrenaline as he followed the music towards a dark corridor. The corridor led to the back of the house and its kitchen. A small battered radio was playing. By the light of a lamppost glaring in from another street, Ben could see the kitchen had been used recently, soapy suds were evident in the stained sink and a fresh bottle of milk was standing by the kettle. Ben touched the kettle. It was warm. Another door was a rear exit to a small back garden, or yard. That door was locked, but a window showed him the yard was empty apart from piles of rubbish and weeds.

  Ben turned and made his way towards the stairs. He began to climb slowly and quietly. For all he knew he could be entering a house of a totally innocent person and he doubted Anthony Lord could talk Ben out of this one down at his not-so-friendly police station. At the top, the landing was dark, and he had to feel his way around. He found three doors; one was open – a bathroom. The second room was empty; not even a carpet on the floor. Ben left it to walk towards the third. But when he opened the door, all it revealed was an unoccupied bedroom.

  Ben stood in the room, his hands on top of his head as desperation rattled his body. His teeth were clenched and he knew if he met with the killer head on he’d gladly do time in prison over his murder.

  His brain teased out a clue, which he grasped. The houses here were old and that usually meant one thing – they had a cellar.

  Ben raced down the stairs not bothering with trying to be quiet, and bounded towards the kitchen. In the kitchen he flicked on the light and looked around. The fridge wasn’t standing snug against the wall as it should have been, and it was twisted so that the owner couldn’t have opened its door. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t put the milk away, Ben thought, as he grasped the fridge with both hands and pulled it out. Behind it was a door, quite cleverly concealed. The cellar door.

  Ben opened it and began to descend the stairs into blackness. Beneath his feet was much debris but from what he didn’t know. And to be honest he didn’t want to know, he even shivered at the thought as his feet stuck slightly with every step. He’d been too sheltered and privileged, he thought, this type of world, even though he knew existed, had never met with his before.

  ‘Uumgh uumgh,’ a strangled voice said.

  Ben recognised the voice. It was Melvin. ‘Keep talking. I can’t see a ruddy… argh!’ There was a loud crash, and grunt.

  ‘Umgh!’ Melvin sounded panicky.

  ‘It’s OK. I slipped and fell in something disgusting. Christ, what is this place?’ His feet cracked something underfoot and Ben was now afraid that if he fell again he might land on something deadly. ‘Are you all right? Is Charlie there?’

  ‘Uumgh.’

  Ben found Melvin when his feet kicked something soft and Melvin yelped. Ben bent down and felt with his hands the other man’s face. Melvin sputtered beneath Ben’s dirty fingers.

  ‘Ugh, uumgh?’

  ‘Sorry, I think I fell in excrement or something,’ Ben said, and pulled off the binding from around Melvin’s face. He remembered the last time he’d became covered in poo and emotion welled up inside him, and all he could think of was, Charlie isn’t here!

  ‘Excrement? Even in serious trouble you refuse to swear and say shit,’ Melvin said sulkily.

  ‘Do you want to be released or not?’ Ben said, feeling down the man’s body towards his hands. ‘Where’s Charlie?’ Ben found his hands only to realise that the man was chained up by handcuffs to piping.

  ‘The abductor… his name is Rick Blither. Charlie was here; b-but the bastard forced her t-to drink something. He’s taken her. Said they were going for a ride.’

  ‘Damn!’ Ben cursed.

  ‘The famous stiff upper lip wavering?’ Melvin said.

  Ben made as if to leave, but Melvin yelled fearfully after him. ‘I’ve been sitting here for hours. Please don’t leave me! The keys are in my pocket… Blither’s some sort of perverse joke.’

  Ben reached down and felt inside Melvin’s pocket. He pulled back with a shriek of disgust. ‘You’ve a hole in your pocket and you haven’t any underwear on!’

  Melvin chuckled humourlessly.

  ‘Ugh! You are disgusting.’ He held his hand out before him as if something grotesque was growing on it.

  ‘I would’ve t-told you which pocket but you dived in without waiting. I don’t want you touching me any more than you want to touch me!’

  ‘I’m in a hurry, you moron!’ Ben yelled unfairly. He bent and roughly searched through Melvin’s other pocket and pulled out a single key. He unlocked the cuffs after several cursed attempts, and without waiting to see if Melvin was all right, he turned and ran from the room.

  Outside, Ben kicked the crumpled car in frustration. When that didn’t help, he kicked it again.

  ‘Like that’s going to do any good,’ Melvin said behind him. Ben turned around so furiously that Melvin jumped back several paces. He looked a mess. His short blond hair was matted with dried blood, which streaked his face and distorted the slogan with spots on his T-shirt. And his body was jittering all over the place, as if his nerves had become electrified.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Ben asked at last. He knew Melvin didn’t like him because of his involvement with Charlie, but that didn’t mean he had to dislike him in return. He and Charlie were close and that meant something to Ben.

  Melvin looked like he was about to cry. ‘What if sh-she’s d-dead?’ he said, his chin beginning to quiver. ‘I c-couldn’t bear it.’ He covered his face with his hands and took several deep breaths as he tried to control himself.

  Ben was at a loss. He hadn’t had very much experience with women, and none with wailing men. Slowly he reached out a hand and circled Melvin’s shoulders, but the other man reeled back.

  ‘Don’t!’ he said. ‘Don’t be nice, I couldn’t bear it. We’ve no time anyway,’ he wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Blither mentioned moving another “friend” – his words. I think someone was in the boot.’

  Ben turned to stare at the car he had just kicked.

  ‘I didn’t see her. I m-must’ve disturbed him as he moved her to another car. C-Charlie was in the c-cellar already when I got here.’

  Ben moved to the rear of the car, and placed an ear against the boot.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ Melvin yelled. ‘I said, I think someone was in the boot. They aren’t there now. Blither took them and Charlie somewhere else. We have to find Charlie!’

  Suddenly a song shattered the quiet: They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-haaa! Ben spun around in shock.

  ‘It’s my mobile,’ Melvin said apologetically. He sniffed and gave a little hic-cup before taking it out and answering it. ‘It’s my legman,’ Melvin said to Ben, referring to a colleague. ‘I texted him for info on Charlie earlier. Go on Mick.’

  Ben watched Melvin’s face, as he took the call, for any reassurances over Charlie being found. But Melvin’s face remained drawn and ashen.

  ‘Well?’ Ben barked as Melvin replaced the phone in his pocket.

  ‘Police have had reports of a disturbance on Brunel Road.’

  ‘That’s on an Industrial Estate,’ Ben said.

  Melvin nodded, and began walking along the path. ‘It’s a couple of miles. We’d better hurry.’

  Ben began to follow. ‘Are you sure Charlie’s connected?’

  ‘Mick wouldn’t have bothered if it wasn’t important. Come on, if we hurry we might get there before a man walking his dog finds her body.’

  ‘That isn’t even remotely funny,’ Ben said tight-lipped.

  ‘Wasn’t meant to be,’ Melvin said, flinging words over his shoulder as he walked. ‘The police are there already according to Mick. The hoes have been found. Dunno if they are alive or not. Mick didn’t say.’

  Ben suddenly stopped trying to keep up with him and began to run the other way, shouting, ‘My car’s this way.’

  FIFTY THREE

  Charlie was dimly aware of having seen Melvin in a dungeon of some sort b
efore she was made to drink some kind of liquid. It’d burned her mouth, and Rick the Prick half dragged, half carried her out to a car as her mind disappeared behind a fuzzy barrier of fading colour.

  Charlie hadn’t known how long they’d driven, only that the car was different to the other and it was now stationary. Clawing hands pulled her out of her nice and comfy seat. She struggled to stand, but someone had taken away her legs and she collapsed onto the hard concrete floor.

  ‘No, no, no,’ that voice jumped into her head again: that insincere, false and overbearingly nice voice. ‘You’re not to wake up yet, my love. Need to hide you somewhere nice and cosy.’

  She shuddered away from it, but strong hands reached around her shoulders and lifted her up. She stared blankly up at his face before her head drooped onto her chest. Her head felt too huge for her neck.

  ‘I’m going to be nice to you,’ he said. ‘If you’re nice to me, that is.’

  She aimed a kick at his shin with a non-existent foot. She only realised it made painful contact when his hold loosened and she crashed to the ground. She rolled away, and began to crawl, like a baby, away from him.

  She didn’t know where she was; the location wasn’t familiar and when she tried to focus the images swam before her eyes. The motion made her feel sick. The drink he’d given her had been laced with some sort of drug, her befuddled brain realised. She was grateful that it masked her fear, but she could’ve done without the lack of feeling to her limbs.

  She was aware that a pair of black boots walked slowly beside her crawling body. She stared at them, thinking dumbly how shiny they were. She edged forwards, her hands falling over themselves. On her elbows, she stared at the boots in amazement. They were lengthening! Growing into shoes that clowns might wear. Weird. She shook her head, dislodging the image, and the boots became ordinary once more. She raised her head and peered up at him; squinting as bright sparkly lights danced before her eyes.

  His face was within a halo of fairy lights. ‘You really should stop fighting, you know,’ he said. ‘It’ll only get you hurt.’

  Charlie sat, wobbling, back on her heels. ‘Howsh you out,’ she muttered.

  His smiled widened. ‘You’re drunk,’ he chided.

  Charlie stared up at him in confusion as he began to unzip his fly.

  *

  ‘Brunel Road,’ Ben said slowing the car and pointing to the street sign. A police car, its sirens and lights flashing overtook them at speed. Ben floored the accelerator automatically, and Melvin was thrown deep into his seat. He struggled to sit forward again, and urged Ben to catch up with the police car.

  They squealed around corners, overtaking a lorry. The lorry gave Ben a blast of its horn, but it became a mere distant object in the rear-view mirror.

  Melvin jabbed at buttons on his window until he found one to roll the window down. ‘I can hear a helicopter,’ he said. He stuck his head out of the window. ‘It’s way over there, towards where the cop car went.’ He came back inside; Ben hadn’t caught any of his wind-swept words. ‘Can’t you make this thing go any faster?’

  Ben was breaking all speed limits as it was, but the road was too bendy to go a decent speed. Ahead he could see the red light of the helicopter and aimed towards it. The police car had long vanished around the bending road.

  Swinging on the wheel Ben hurled the car around a corner, and ahead could see the road ended up in the car park of the car giant Toyota, with Pump It gym on its left.

  ‘Shit!’ cried Melvin. ‘Where’d the cop go?’

  Ben wrenched on the wheel, and with a squeal of wheels turned it around and raced off in the opposite direction.

  ‘Must have missed a turning somewhere.’

  Melvin was sitting so far forward his forehead was almost touching the window screen. He jabbed somewhere to his left. ‘There! In there.’

  ‘But that’s just a car park, the chopper is way over there,’ Ben said. He felt sweat dampening his skin, his palms were slipping on the wheel.

  ‘Just do it! She’s there. I know it.’

  Ben pulled the wheel to the left almost sending the car up on two wheels. He realised a reporter’s nose was almost a sixth sense in journalism; he only wished he had it.

  The car’s tires spat out gravel and flung it up over the car in a pile of dust.

  ‘She’s here, I know it,’ Melvin repeated.

  ‘You better be right or I’ll –’

  ‘You’ll what?’ sneered Melvin.

  Ben glared at him in the dark of the car. ‘If I ever find you encouraged her exploits as a prostitute your job at Core is over.’

  ‘Exploits? Christ, she was researching her novel! You make it sound as if she really were a whore.’

  ‘Where now?’ Ben snapped. He was glad to hear from her best friend’s mouth that she wasn’t a prostitute, but suddenly found he didn’t care if she was or not. All he wanted was to find her safe. He looked at the helicopter in the rear view mirror. ‘We’re going further away!’

  ‘No, we’re not. Keep going, the road will turn soon. Trust me.’

  Sweating profusely, Ben pressed further on the accelerator and as Melvin promised, the bend in the road turned the car, and once again Ben found them heading towards the helicopter. It was still circling, its lights piercing the ground in an eerie green light.

  FIFTY FOUR

  Charlie giggled. A bald man stood over her with his flaccid penis hanging loose from his trousers and Charlie somehow found the scene highly amusing. Deep in her subconscious she realised she should make an effort to control herself and fight back, but the drug or whatever the man had put in the drink had rendered her a bundle of nervous giggles.

  Her brain distorted the image and the penis grew and shrank before her astonished eyes. She fell back on her elbows and watched as Rick slowly lowered his trousers.

  ‘Take off your clothes,’ he commanded huskily, as he fondly took hold of his penis. He slowly massaged it into life. ‘Take them off,’ he said again as she stared at the member in his hands. She snorted and then laughed loudly, as if she’d just seen the funniest thing.

  ‘God damn you!’ he said, his face flushed. He knelt beside her and fumbled with the buttons on her blouse. Charlie flapped him away and accidentally smacked him aside the head.

  The blow, together with his trousers around his ankles, caught him off balance and he fell across her cursing loudly.

  Charlie chortled and fell back. She ‘ouched’ to herself when her head made contact with the ground. ‘Where’s me bed gone,’ she muttered. She peered up at Rick as he untangled himself. ‘Who’s you?’

  Rick struggled with his trousers, pulling them up. Then he lurched for her and grabbed the front of her blouse; popping the buttons. Charlie watched them ping off and thought how beautiful and shiny they looked as they bounced onto the ground.

  She moved to grab one and held it between finger and thumb as Rick, murmuring to himself, tugged at her bra. She held the button up to the moonlight, and then felt a chill around her chest. She glanced down in surprise.

  Her breasts were exposed and bathed in the lamplight. ‘Oh,’ she said.

  Rick made a low sound in his throat and stood to pull down his trousers and pants.

  ‘Not Y-fronts,’ Charlie giggled. ‘No, no, not Y-fronts. I refooooose to be raped by someone wearing Y-fronts.’

  ‘Will you shut up!’

  Charlie sobered. She held out the button. ‘Button it,’ she said, giggling again. Her elbows gave out and she crashed to the floor feeling as if the weight of the sky had fallen in on her.

  Rick cursed her. She laughed and pushed off an imaginary object. ‘Where’s me buttons gone,’ she said, but something caught her attention in the sky as she lay on her back.

  It was a UFO. Its green light swept the ground in the distance, and as it came near its noise made Charlie roll over and slap her hands over her ears.

  Rick swore, and pulled up his trouser. He jabbed at her on the thigh with his foot.
‘Get up. We’ve got to get out of here.’

  ‘You-eff-o.’ Charlie rolled back and pointed at the sky. ‘You-eff-o.’

  ‘It’s a helicopter, you stupid girl. Now get up!’

  ‘Take me to your leader,’ she said and gave a loud laugh.

  *

  ‘Stop!’

  Ben slowed the car and looked at Melvin impatiently. ‘What?’

  ‘Stop. Reverse.’ Melvin had his head out the window and was looking down the road they had just come up. ‘Can you hear that?’

  ‘I can only hear the chopper,’ Ben said throwing the car into reverse and swerving back up the road. The helicopter was loud and hovering over a factory unit somewhere in the near distance.

  Melvin pulled his head in; he was smiling. ‘In there,’ he said and pointed towards a car park of a furniture warehouse. ‘Listen! I heard ... there! Hear it?’

  Ben swung into the car park, and as the helicopter moved away to complete a circuit of the area its noise lessened, and Ben opened his window and listened hard. Then he heard what Melvin heard, and felt tears of relief spring to his eyes: only Charlie Wallis could produce a giggle and then a full belly laugh.

  Ben stopped the car, and men looked at one another and then fell into each other’s arms.

  ‘She’s safe,’ Melvin cried.

  ‘I know,’ Ben sniffed back.

  They pulled away simultaneously and pretended to find an intense interest in their surroundings until Ben leaped out with a yell, ‘Charlie!’

  Melvin followed, and both men headed towards the laughter in the car park. Their car lights picked out Charlie lying on the floor next to a pile of pallets, and a fast disappearing, black-clad, figure who must have heard their approach. The man was bumping into storage boxes and tripping over discarded plastic packaging in his haste to escape.