by Helen L Lowe
‘But we’re going to finish it tonight, aren’t we?’
‘Yes,’ he said, checking his watch. ‘We’ll give him three hours and do the next two scenes straight through but get some water into him - I don’t want him passing out with dehydration.’ He walked back to Julian. ‘Come on, let’s get you down.’ They lowered the spreader-bar and brought the exhausted Julian down to his knees.
Pete held a large bottle of water to Julian’s lips. ‘Drink it.’ He tipped the bottle up and the water poured into Julian’s mouth, making him cough and splutter. Pete punched him hard on the jaw. ‘Drink, damn you.’
John stood watching the scene, and for a fleeting moment felt sorry for Julian. The poor bastard had been manipulated by the pigs, and now he was just fodder for the lucrative porn industry. He would be useful for a few months and then a decision had to be made. Either way, he was toast.
‘Ok, that’s enough,’ John said. ‘Get him cleaned up.’
Jim, a pretty young submissive John had used in many films, threw neat alcohol over the wound on Julian’s chest and over the many open wounds on his back. They left him lying face down, still spread-eagled on the bars.
‘Pete, you’re with me - I’ve got something to sort out at the gym,’ John said, giving him a meaningful look. ‘We’ll start again here at eleven thirty and I’ve got someone coming over to watch the last scene.’
‘Is it the pig who’s been here before?’
John nodded. ‘He asked if he could watch Hartmann being fucked.’
CHAPTER 33
9:30 p.m. Thursday 30 March
DCI Chase drove past Erikson’s Gym on Fulham Road. He noted the surveillance car parked just a few yards away and Erikson’s Bentley parked directly in front of the gym. He turned right into Radcliffe Gardens and right again into an access road that led to the various carparks for businesses on the Fulham Road. He parked in the carpark for a supermarket next door to the gym which gave him a clear view of Erikson’s staff exit.
At 9:55 p.m., when he was halfway through the ham sandwiches his wife had made for him, he saw a silver-haired man carrying a large package come out of the gym and walk over to a white Ford transit van. Chase recognised him as Pete Symmons, a petty crook and lifelong friend of Erikson’s. The sandwich got dumped back in the bag and he pulled out of the carpark and followed the van at a discreet distance. He realised that he was completely ignoring the advice he had given to the team, to work in twos, but things were getting desperate.
He followed the van over Putney Bridge, up the high street and up Wimbledon Park Side past Putney Heath on the left. When the van turned right into Windmill Road going towards Wimbledon Common, he pulled up against the curb and waited a minute before following with his headlights turned off. The van followed the road around to the left and pulled off onto a dirt track to stop by an old building. Chase parked further back away from the dirt track and did the last 100 yards on foot. There was a wooden sign with the words ‘Windmill Barn’ etched out.
He crept around the building and saw a light go on, lighting up a flight of metal steps coming down from the first floor. He was trying to decide whether to call for backup when the door at the top of the steps opened and a man came down carrying a stack of boxes. Chase felt in his pocket for his gun and ran to the back of a row of bins that the man was walking towards. Now, standing closer, Chase could see he was of slight build and should be easy to overpower in a struggle. Chase moved up behind him and pressed his gun into the man’s back, using his free hand to cover his mouth.
‘Take it easy, fella,’ Chase whispered into his ear. ‘Just do as you’re told and you’ll be fine.’
With the man’s face pushed up against a wall, Chase slipped handcuffs on his wrists behind his back and turned him around to face him. He held his ID badge in front of his face.
‘DCI Chase – and your name?’
‘Teddy.’
They walked up the steps with the gun pressed hard into the man’s neck.
‘Right Teddy - how many in there and where are they.’
‘Two - they’re in the kitchen.’
‘Where do these steps lead to?’
‘The studio.’
‘You better be telling me the truth.’
As they approached the doorway, Chase was ready for action but when he got a glimpse of the inside he could see there was no one around. They were halfway across the room before Chase saw a naked man lying face down on the floor tied in a spread-eagled position. His back was covered in deep welts and blood. It took several minutes for him to recognise Hartmann. He dragged Teddy over to a sofa at the end of the room and pushed him onto the floor behind it; glancing around quickly he could see ropes, chains and gags all around the place and he used a rope to tie up Teddy’s ankles and tie them to his handcuffed wrists. He gagged him with a studded leather gag.
* * *
10:15 p.m. Thursday 30 March
Julian had been drifting between wakefulness and various levels of sleep, the pain from his back preventing anything that could be considered restful. When he woke up fully, the hopelessness of the situation hit him head-on. Thinking about what would happen when the filming started again sent his mind into spiralling panic. If Erikson brought Sam on, as he had threatened, Julian knew he would lose all self-control. How would his relationship with Sam ever recover if they were forced to perform some kind of sexual act? Just the thought of it made him want to break down and weep. Somehow, he had to turn this horror, this fear, into something positive; something that would satisfy his need for revenge. Erikson had to be punished.
He felt a familiar double beat in his chest, and listened to the pounding in his ears as his heartrate picked up. At this point, his own physical and mental health didn’t matter anymore because there simply wasn’t the time or energy to give it credence. It had been replaced with his overriding responsibility to get Sam out of there alive.
He heard a noise and, immediately alarmed, held his breath as footsteps came towards him. He shut his eyes to feign sleep and waited to hear Erikson’s voice or the hoarse chuckle he was beginning to dread but when a hand touched his right shoulder, he instinctively knew it wasn’t threatening. He opened his eyes to see Chase.
‘Are you ok?’ Chase said. ‘Your back’s a mess.’
‘Never mind me - Sam’s here.’
Chase was undoing the strapping on his hands and wrists. ‘Ok - but we’ve got two men in the kitchen to sort out first.’
Julian shook his head. ‘Three - and when Erikson comes back with a policeman he knows, it will be five.’
‘I’ve already got one of them tied up - and Erikson’s still at the gym.’ He helped Julian to his feet. ‘Did Erikson give a name for the policeman?’
‘No - but whoever it is had a particular interest in watching me in Erikson’s latest film – it must be someone who knows me.’
‘I can guess who,’ Chase said.
Julian went over towards the wooden platform and looked at the table covered with drug paraphernalia. There were glass and disposable syringes, needles, bottles, glass vials, white powder, white tablets, a couple of large spoons, rubber tubing, cigarette lighters, aluminium foil, and the bottom half of a beer can. There wasn’t one syringe or needle on the table in its own sealed sterile sleeve. He remembered Erikson using a glass syringe and rusty needle to give him the heroin and the thought made him cringe. He searched but couldn’t find the small rubber topped bottle that he had hidden in his jacket. It contained more diazepam and Joe gave it to him as backup. He picked up a plastic syringe and needle that looked new but it was empty. It could be the one Joe had given him.
‘Are you coming?’ Chase said, walking towards the door to the hallway.
‘Wait.’
Julian searched for his clothes and found them in a pile on the floor behind the platform. After getting his trousers back on, he searched the left inside pocket of his jacket and grinned when he found the bottle, two spare sterile syringes
and half a dozen needles. Obviously, when Erikson found the loaded syringe in the right inside pocket he hadn’t bothered to check the left. Julian looked at the label on the bottle to check the dosage. When he had prepared the injections, he shoved them in his trouser pockets with the spare sterile needles, ready for use.
He followed Chase out into the hallway with two sets of handcuffs in one hand, ropes in the other and a selection of gags in his pocket. They passed what looked like the main door into the apartment. There was a letter box and stacks of unopened post lined up against the wall. There was a phone on the floor. Voices were coming from the kitchen further down the hall and Chase signalled to Julian to stay back against the wall, out of sight. He watched Chase open and shut the main door with a bang, before pulling a handgun from his coat pocket. The men in the kitchen stopped talking and there was a brief silence.
‘Is that you, John?’
Another silence.
There was the sound of a chair being pushed back and Pete walked out into the hall.
‘John?’
The first thing he saw was Chase’s gun pointed directly at him.
Chase held a finger to his lips and waved the gun directing him away from the kitchen door towards Julian. Pete was handcuffed and gagged before Julian took him back into the studio.
They had to wait four minutes for the last man to get off his backside and come out of the kitchen. Jim was completely unaware of the danger until he saw Chase’s gun pointed at him.
‘Shit man - don’t shoot me.’
‘Hands behind your back,’ Julian said. He clicked the handcuffs on.
Chase followed Julian into the studio to where Teddy and Pete were moaning loudly through their gags and kicking the sofa away from them.
‘D’you mind if I sedate them?’ Julian asked Chase.
‘Be my guest.’
Julian removed all the gags from the men. His responsibility as a doctor to be concerned about them choking on their own vomit was something so ingrained, it was instinct. He gave Teddy and Pete intravenous injections of diazepam and turned them on their sides. He instructed Jim to lie down next to them.
‘Will it kill me?’
‘No, it will just give you a nice long sleep.’
With all three men out of it and out of sight, they went back down the hall to find Sam. They checked all the rooms. The kitchen looked like a drug factory with stacks of white powder in clear plastic bags, a pile of white tablets, a set of scales and hundreds of small plastic bags.
Chase grinned. ‘Looks like we’ve discovered where some of the heroin on the streets has been coming from.’
In another room there were three large animal cages. There was someone curled up in one of them and for a moment Julian thought it was Sam but it was a young lad of about fourteen and he was barely conscious. Julian looked at the youth’s arms and saw track marks. Erikson must have been keeping the lad completely doped up until he was needed for a film. After another frantic search of the whole apartment, Julian was forced to accept the fact that Sam wasn’t there.
‘I’m sorry your son’s not here but we need to get ready for Erikson and Jenkins,’ Chase said.
Julian had to push his crushing disappointment aside. ‘You think Jenkins is the policeman Erikson was talking about?’
‘Yes, I’ve suspected him for a long time - I tried to keep him out of the loop about you helping us but somehow he found out.’
Julian glanced at his wrist for a watch that wasn’t there. ‘What’s the time?’
Chase looked at his watch. ‘Ten minutes to eleven.’
‘We better get ready. Erikson said they would start filming again at eleven-thirty - he could walk through the door any minute.’
CHAPTER 34
11:05 p.m. Thursday 30 March
They closed all the doors leading off the hall and waited in the studio. Julian was hidden behind a false wall on the film set but could see the room and the door that Chase was standing behind. While Julian waited, the pain from his back, which he had barely noticed when he was kept busy, was intense. So it was a painful ten minute wait before he heard the front door slam shut. Erikson walked straight down the hall and through the door into the studio. He stood with his back to Chase and was looking down at the spreader-bars on the floor when Julian came out from behind the set and walked towards him.
He gave Julian an appreciative look. ‘I’ve got to hand it to you - you’re a smart one but you’re no match for me. I’m gonna tear you limb from limb.’
‘That’s enough, Erikson.’
Erikson swung around and saw the gun in Chase’s hand. ‘Huh - a policeman with a gun - that’s a novel idea. So you think you’ve got me, do you? You won’t use that - you have to get permission in triplicate to blow your nose.’
Chase aimed at Erikson’s head and shot just inches above it. Erikson froze.
‘Hands behind your back,’ Julian said. He clicked the handcuffs on and kicked the back of Erikson’s legs to bring him down to his knees. Holding him in a rear chokehold gave Julian the satisfaction of rendering him unconscious.
There was the sound of the front door in the hall slamming shut again and Chase went back behind the door but Julian stayed where he was. Seconds later, Jenkins walked in.
Jenkins saw Julian and looked down at Erikson on the floor. ‘Well, if it ain’t the clever doctor.’ He took his coat off and rolled up his sleeves. ‘My old sparring partner – but this time you won’t walk away. You’ll have to be carried out by the undertaker.’ He walked towards Julian with his fists clenched.
‘That’s far enough, Jenkins.’
Jenkins swung around to see Chase pointing the gun at him. ‘Gov - thank God you’re here - Hartmann has gone right off . . . ’
‘Shut up.’
Jenkins started to reverse away from Chase. ‘Now, you don’t want to do anything silly - it wouldn’t look good on your record – pulling a gun on a fellow officer.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself - you’re nothing but scum and it’s going to give me a lot of pleasure to put you behind bars. Put your hands behind your back so the good doctor can put the cuffs on.’
Jenkins took too long to follow the order and Chase shot over his head. It was so close it made Julian duck as well. When Jenkins was cuffed, Chase took him by the arm and pulled him towards the door.
‘There’s a phone in the hall,’ Chase said to Julian. ‘I’m calling for backup.’
Julian looked down at Erikson who was beginning to stir. ‘Give me some time alone with him before you make that call.’
Chase shook his head. ‘That’s not a good idea - I can see how angry you are and you’ve got good reason to hate him but we need him alive.’
‘I’m not going to kill him - just persuade him to give me some answers.’
Chase looked at him for a moment and slowly nodded. ‘I guess you’re owed that much - I’ll make the call in ten minutes.’ He pushed Jenkins through the door and shut it behind them.
Julian dragged Erikson over to the centre of the film set and strapped his feet to the spreader-bar. He removed the cuffs to strap his wrists and hands to each end of the spreader-bar that was attached to the winch. When he was stripping off his clothes with a knife, Erikson was fully conscious. The winch brought him up to a standing position, and was locked off when Erikson could only just touch the floor with his toes. Julian looked around the set for the whip and found it with the cattle prod behind the lighting rig.
He walked over to Erikson to stand in front of him. Erikson crumpled up his face in a scowl and a low growl came from his throat.
‘Let’s see how you handle training - nice whip, by the way, where did you get it from - the Tower of London’s chamber of horrors?’ He let the whip fly through the air to hear it crack and was pleased to see Erikson flinch. ‘Now how does this go - oh, yes, I give you a good lashing and you beg for mercy.’ He held up the cattle prod. ‘I’m really looking forward to using this - how does it work?’ He
held it out towards Erikson’s stomach and pressed a button.
Erikson flinched before it had even touched his skin, so it was like a double jerk. He roared and jolted with the shock.
Julian walked over to the cameras that were fixed on stands. He set one up to film Erikson from the front and the other from the back. After turning them on, he took time to get the views just right.
‘Say something John - I need to do a sound check.’
‘FUCK OFF.’
‘Thank you, that’s perfect.’ He walked around to the back of Erikson and let the whip fly again to get the crack. ‘Better prepare yourself, bad boy.’
The first lash barely touched his back and Julian had to take a step closer. The second struck him right across the middle of the back. Erikson made no sound. The third, fourth and fifth made a crisscross pattern and drew blood. Erikson was grunting but not losing his cool yet.
‘You’ll have to forgive my incompetence in using the whip - it’s another first for me, like you said, my life just keeps getting better and I have to admit, it’s quite satisfying. I’ve got the hang of it now, so we’ll start again.’
Erikson groaned.
Julian was grinning when he wielded the whip, he put a lot of force behind it and it sliced through Erikson’s skin like a knife.
Erikson roared.
The next lash sliced through the previous cut to form a cross and Julian was starting to realise why the pain from his back was so bad. After that, he wielded the whip for four steady lashes until Erikson was yelling his head off and his back was covered in blood. He walked back around to the front and looked into Erikson’s face which was contorted in pain. His eyes were tightly closed.
Julian slapped him hard twice. ‘Come on - stay awake. I need you fully conscious.’
Erikson let out a deep growl through clenched teeth and opened his eyes.