“Bitch,” he said and began to dress.
Stella lay as left, conscious the blood from a split lip wet her chin, staring at the ceiling, her mind swirled in self-contempt, then loathing and hate for the animal now leaving the house. Tears mixed with the blood, tears driven by all-consuming rage. Wileman had been right. Hate came so easily, hate for the hand which fed her, for the one who had abused her, but mostly hate for herself.
Time passed, she had no idea how long, time meant nothing. Then a face appeared above her, a friendly, female face with motherly concern.
“I’m Diane Hopper,” the woman said. “You’re safe now. I’ve brought a doctor and one of our security personnel. We need to take some DNA swabs and your statement. Need to get that lip cleaned up. Rape is a serious crime. Caswell could spend his life in jail should a complaint be made.”
“You knew this would happen, what this guy would do?” Stella sat, lowering her legs and pulling at her skirt.
“We know nothing, only our orders. So let’s get started.” She beckoned the doctor.
Stella remained wrapped in self-loathing, complying with instructions, signing the sworn statement, allowing treatment to her lip. The clothes Diane Hopper produced from a case represented a full outfit with price tags Stella only dreamt of.
“Welcome, Stella, to the House of Wileman. I’m instructed to inform, you now have a new position, Head of UK Research and Development. Mr Wileman said by now you would understand the need for past events. He also said be careful. Richard Caswell is a very violent and dangerous man. Oh, and Stella, don’t report anything to the police. Starway’s security will handle this.”
When they had gone, Stella dressed, cold to the caress of the expensive lingerie, the silk blouse and business suit. All fitted perfectly, all had been planned. Staring into the mirror she examined her puffed lip, her bruised cheek and discoloured eye. Yes, she understood. She had been used. Wileman now had the threat of a rape charge over Caswell and her hatred of him. Hatred enough to kill. She shivered. If they were capable of doing this just to trap Caswell, what might they do to her if she failed them? Yes, she understood. With hatred came self-loathing and fear.
CHAPTER 2
Her back to the door, Danielle fussed over the kitchen worktop not realising Sean had entered. For seconds he surveyed her trim outline, then joined Rebecca, his hormonal fourteen year old daughter, at the table.
“Hi Dadda,” she said, not looking up while frantically scribbling homework.
“Breakfast!” Danielle called. “Eat now or be late for school.”
“I’ve gained half a pound,” Rebecca said. “I don’t do breakfast.”
“Half a pound for a young woman is nothing, please eat your cereal, it’s slimming.” Danielle placed croissants and coffee before Sean as Rebecca scooped cereal onto a spoon, holding it in the air while still scribbling with her other hand.
This appeared to satisfy both and Sean glanced between the two, his gaze slipping slowly from Danielle, her slight smile, her boyish face and pageboy hair cut always a pleasure to see. At forty he figured maybe he had started suffering middle-aged fantasies, for he never failed to imagine a sensual presence in her eyes, same time he also saw a barrier forbidding him to cross. Something about her stance, her manner and strong will made him suspect. Camilla, his ex-wife, had found Danielle through friends. Sean had no objection, she kept house, cooked his meals, looked after Sophie during the week and both girls when Rebecca visited weekends. Not that male desires had ever nudged him to cross the unspoken line, but he suspected Camilla was vindictive enough to have deliberately set him up to share house with a mature twenty-nine year old PhD student with preference for her own gender. Who cared? She was a great cook. Pity she had handed in her notice, her study time in England having run its course.
Sophie strutted in, posing at the threshold, one hand on her hip, the other against the frame. She wore her new prep school uniform, box-pleated skirt, white blouse and primrose tie. Sean felt pride and love brush the world aside.
Danielle clasped hands. “Oh Mademoiselle, vous êtes elegant et si belle. What style, what poise – please to join us for breakfast.”
Sophie’s model walk was not textbook. Sean kissed one cheek, Danielle the other.
“So my first week at boarding school,” Sophie said. “But I am taking my computer games.” She drew a yellow play station from her skirt pocket.
Sean placed an arm to encircle her shoulders and Sophie leant her head against him. For seconds he closed his eyes. All Camilla’s demands for private schooling in exchange for unrestricted child access were worth such moments.
“My eight year old little girl is growing up, leaving home.”
“But I’ll be back next weekend, every weekend we’re not visiting Mum. So just watch out.”
“Yeah, well I’m going to be a real meanie. When Danielle leaves, the housework gets left so when you two visit you’ll be scrubbing, washing and cooking.”
“Dadda.” Rebecca looked up, chin on curled fist. “Don’t fib, you wouldn’t do that. You’re the biggest softy going. And we love you for it”
“Children, who would be a father?
“You would Dadda.” Sophie hugged him. “Because we know you’ll get a lovely housekeeper to do everything while you take us to the theme park. But if you really want us to work ... but you wouldn’t, would you?
“OK so I get a housekeeper, but who’s going to look after you, my little sweetheart?”
Rebecca shuffled books into a briefcase and stood from the table. “Don’t worry, Papa, she’s got big sister to mind her.” She came round the table, her fitted skirt high over mid-thigh.
“That skirt’s too short,” Sean said, sitting straight.
“Father, get real.” She helped herself to a Ryvita. “I’m wearing 70 denier black tights, they’re the decency item. The skirt’s simply for school rules. Tell him, Danielle.”
“Les filles seront toujours des filles et les pères, toujours des pères. Eat and be happy. Tomorrow skirts maybe long and computer games a bore.” She sat sipping coffee while the girls ate. Concentration lasted two minutes.
“Dadda, take us somewhere special next visit, please. You know Bradley took us for lunch at the Park Lane Hilton in his new Mercedes, then to the cinema. So you gotta do better.”
Sean grimaced at visions of his ex-wife’s partner, a pink shirt, highlighted hair. “Let’s be original. Let’s sightsee London top of a number 9 bus.”
“Cool.” Rebecca cracked another biscuit and moved from the table. “Can’t wait to tell my friends.”
Danielle stood and started stuffing textbooks into a monstrous shoulder bag. “OK, mademoiselles, we are late. Cases in car. Make sure you have your school work.”
Sean watched his two daughters gather equipment as they hurried from kitchen to hall, assembling coats, cases, sports bags and carriers. He hated this moment. It was Camilla’s method of absent torture. The school was only forty minutes away. Danielle could have fetched and carried, she had time. He rose when Sophie came for her hug.
“Miss you already, Dadda,” she said, clinging around his waist.
“Miss you too, little sweetheart. Have a good week.” She stretched on tiptoes as he bent to kiss her.
Rebecca came next, embracing with both arms, her cheek against his chest. Silence said more than words. Sean kissed her head. “Take care, my lovely. Call mid-week.”
“Rely on it. Bet flash Brad’s never been on a number 9. Love you, Dadda.” She returned the kiss.
Sean watched them depart in Danielle’s ancient Citroen. He felt sadness. His girls were growing up, soon they would be growing away, vulnerable to what lay out there.
The new warmth of early spring and the tranquillity of the English countryside gave Sarah little comfort. For the first time in her career she was perplexed by indecision; to tell her partners of Richard Caswell’s unscrupulous behaviour in marketing PKL shares, or join in his deceit. Torn betwe
en conscience and ambition, even on her walk she found indecision over which path to follow. Her normal route to the right led through pine and dappled sunlight, the left fork traversed meadowland to Rattlers Wood, a place of dark and heavy deciduous trees, a place never visited.
She chose the left fork. Logic told her it was foolish, she would be late back for her meeting, late back to reveal that for two years PKL had used subliminal psychotic induction to influence sales and make their games the best selling in Europe. With substantial shares and sale distribution rights, her company had much to lose.
“This way gives me time,” she spoke in whispered excuse as she walked, her hands thrust in pockets, her gaze on distant sheep. Inside her jacket she clasped her mobile, occasionally turning it in her fingers. Why walk to a place she did not know if not to gain time?
She put her indecision down to conscience and a desire to escape. Since reaching level ten of the PKL video game and entering Princess Kay-ling’s Garden of Serenity, the compulsion to visit Rattlers Wood had grown steadily. She enjoyed walking into the unknown to explore where the inhibited feared to tread. Like the use of Ben, her young gardener. Why shouldn’t she satisfy the licentious frustrations of a single woman nearing middle age? It kept her slim and conscious of appearance. She desired more eccentricity in her life than addiction to a computer game, even if such addiction had resulted in making her a wealthy woman. PKL was heading towards becoming the best selling computer game ever; providing they didn’t get caught. She picked up a stick and thrashed the grass.
“How could you be so stupid, so greedy?” she said aloud, as if Caswell was beside her. Five days ago she had felt pride on reaching level ten. The first person ever, the first person to walk through the gate into Kay-ling’s Garden of Serenity. But for the first time also, the screen showed graphics without action. Without the distraction of moving characters, her keen eyes became drawn by the flickering pulse of words which read the same as the constant thought in her mind. Buy PKL shares. Realisation and anger came immediately. Throughout the hundreds of hours playing PKL, Caswell had influenced her to buy PKL shares. She held thirty percent of their stock. To tell the truth would cripple her finances plus those of every shareholder.
Richard’s denial had come with sharp anger.
“Rubbish. Absolute fucking rubbish,” he had shouted. “You’re losing it woman, becoming addicted with visions of fantasy. It’s a game, not real. Maybe we should check your distribution contract for a mental health clause.”
But when she downloaded the following programme, the Garden of Serenity had been overwritten. More suspicions; and still he had not agreed to an investigation.
Ahead of her, at the boundary of Rattlers Wood, raucous crows tussling on the ground caused her to hesitate. Go into the forest or turn back?
Puffball clouds dotted the sky and the air was still, perfumed with the scent of spring. Sheep dotted the meadow. Looking one way she saw the perfect rural setting but looking the other way she found more crows sitting on the wire, all watching her with bright, hard eyes. Those on the ground fought over the carcass of a dead ewe, the victim of some rogue dog. They picked out its eyes, flapping their wings and squabbling while plucking putrid flesh.
Sarah turned away. She wanted the solace of rural England, not its dark side.
A fence post gave support as she braced herself to precariously straddle long legs over the wire, finally hauling herself onto the far side. She had no right to be there. Rattlers Wood was private land, the property of some trust or forestry company. The sort of place she liked to visit with Ben. Sex had always been a favoured indulgence, particularly with someone fifteen years her junior. Sex gave a break from computer games, from the stress of business and money. It gave the woods new meaning and a reason for her to explore new places. Somewhere here was a spot for future use. She had visualised it in her mind, a vision which had been there for weeks, as if in a dream. It was a Kay-ling kind of place, a circle of trees where grass lay open to the sky. A beautiful and secret place, a place of sanctuary.
Without sheep the grass grew calf deep and then gave way to new bracken interspersed with areas of flat leaf mould. The smell of budding foliage grew intense. Within minutes of moving from the boundary she was totally enclosed by trees. Her sense of isolation became overwhelming, as if the world outside had been severed, her thoughts and conscience free to decide. Accumulation of wealth could not be used as an excuse, she thought. She had morals, ethics. Children and young people played these computer games. Subliminal psychotic induction had the premise of evil.
She found the clearing within three hundred metres of entering the forest. It was as she had imagined, tall grass and warm sun in a surrounding wall of leaves. She had seen it many times. Where? She thought, how?
“Buy shares, visit Rattlers Wood,” she whispered. “Oh dear God! No.”
A branch cracked and bushes rustled. Sarah stood motionless, listening to a second single crack of dead wood, realising she was not alone. She saw him over her left shoulder, a square faced young man, clean-shaven, his mouth open, his eyes staring, no movement, no expression, as if a wax dummy.
“Knew you’d come,” he said. “The Colonel is always right. I’ve been watching you, waiting days for you to get here.”
“What do you want? I don’t carry money,” Sarah said, unable to prevent a quiver in her voice. Should she run? She was no longer fit, instead she fumbled for her mobile.
His speed was startling. As he closed the gap between them she screamed, her feet slipping on damp leaves. Next moment she was thrown full stretch on the ground. One of his hands pinned her throat, strangling her voice as another hand unfastened her trousers. He was immensely strong, stronger even than her terror. She thrashed, punched and kicked, her half-choked cries startling crows out of the trees and into the sky. The next moment he twisted her over, her face rubbing into leaf mould as he lifted her legs, yanking her trousers around her ankles.
“Welcome to Zoby’s world,” he said, pressing her shoulders to the ground. She screamed again, screamed to the crows and the empty forest, feeling the brutal pain of him thrusting inside her.
CHAPTER 3
Traffic jostled for position both sides of the motorway, never allowing Sean to test the five-year-old Mercedes allocated from the motor pool. Cars were constantly swapped between team members so no outside observer knew which vehicle belonged to whom. The front hubcaps were missing, one wing was re-sprayed, but the engine purred to perfection. He allowed an hour from his home in St Albans to the team’s covert operations office in Cricklewood. An hour of thought and contemplation, mostly on his work, but frequently on his ex-marriage and access to his daughters. Camilla claimed her infidelity had resulted from his neglect and constant absence at work. His crime, she insisted, and counter-accused with accusations of his own infidelity. Though innocent, he knew such accusations from an operational view point would be hard to disprove. In the balance lay unrestricted access to his daughters. For certain Camilla stayed determined to play the offended bitch and kept a constant presents by her insistence on Danielle to innocently intimidate and frustrate with French charm, beauty and sensual presence, a temptation from which he stood forbidden; plus her insistence on private education to cripple his finances. The rewards were no legal recriminations, no open court battles to twist his daughters’ love, instead he had them most weekends, had their happiness and the chance to see them grow.
Such thoughts drifted between car noise and the constant ring of his mobile, mostly from his office in Cricklewood, but this time from Cobbart, his boss.
“Sean, have something for you, urgent.”
Sean drove straight to the Serious Organised Crime Agency headquarters in Pimlico. The message had been urgent.
His chief’s office lay in its usual shambles of organised chaos. Files were piled high, the desk littered with notes and computer printouts ready for shredding.
Chief Superintendent John Cobbart sat in an untidy
bundle of pinstriped suit, dandruff and half-rimmed glasses, his manner gentlemanly, his expression inscrutable. Sean gave respect to the man, he even liked him, but the divide of seniority always remained.
“How are those girls of yours?” Cobbart asked, waving him to a seat.
“Growing fast.” Sean sat. “One already thinks she’s a woman.”
“Ah, for days of long ago,” he paused. “You remember Superintendent Sammy Sinclair?”
“He had a bad end.” Sean visualised the man, balding, red-faced with a gut bulging from an enlarged liver. He had once lectured when Sean was a cadet at Hendon Police College. The man had shown a sharp-witted brain; drink only kills so much of a person.
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