The Ring - An Alex Dorring Thriller

by Vince Vogel

  The man, Barker didn’t recognize. He was tall, slim and dressed in a charcoal colored suit. His hair was a neat side parting of blond hair and he wore round-rimmed spectacles on the end of a long, thin nose. He glanced disinterested at Barker as he came in.

  When the detective reached them, the butler said, “Detective Barker, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Carter and the other man stood up. The latter offered his hand.

  “My name’s Peter Kline,” he said.

  “And who is Peter Kline?” Barker asked as he took the hand.

  “I’m a friend of Mrs. Carter,” he replied.

  “A lawyer friend, no doubt.”

  “Yes. I am a lawyer. But believe me when I tell you, I’m only here in the capacity of a friend.”

  “Okay,” Barker said slowly as he came and sat down on a sofa opposite the pair.

  “Would you like some tea, detective?” Mrs. Carter said as she and Kline sat back down.

  It was the first time she’d spoken. As to her offering her own hand, it hadn’t been forthcoming, and now that she was sitting once more, she folded her arms into a defensive position and sat as though protecting her body from some impending blow. Barker wondered what type of blow she expected. One that a lawyer could deflect?

  “I’m okay for tea,” Barker said. “Let’s just get to business.”

  Mrs. Carter glanced over the detective’s shoulder at the butler.

  “Very well, ma’am,” the man said, and with that, like a military soldier being dismissed, he turned on his shoe heels and left the room, closing the doors behind him.

  “So,” Barker began, getting his notebook from his jacket pocket and flipping it open, “let’s get to it. First, I’d like to ask why you weren’t willing to give this interview when we first contacted you?”

  Instinctively, Mrs. Carter glanced at the lawyer. He made a face, as if to say ‘Go ahead’.

  “I’d just been informed that my husband had died,” she said. “I was devastated. I needed a day or two to come to terms with my shock.”

  “Mrs. Carter,” Kline said when she’d finished, “needed a doctor and has been in bed on sedatives since she received the devastating news that her husband had been murdered. The liaison officer you sent to her will confirm this.”

  “She said Mrs. Carter was in bed. That was all.”

  “Isn’t it enough?”

  Barker gazed at Mrs. Carter. She was chewing her nails. His old detective senses—things that were still intact and no amount of new technology could inhibit—were going crazy. He was deeply suspicious. Something was up. What it was, he couldn’t be sure of.

  “Yes, of course,” Barker said. “So my next question gets straight to the point. Can you tell me, in a general sense, what your marriage to Mr. Carter was like?”

  She went pale and visibly shook as she chewed her thumb nail. The lawyer merely pierced his eyes at the detective.

  “Are you accusing Mrs. Carter?” he said.

  “Not at all,” Barker replied. “I merely want to get a general idea of why Mr. Carter—your client’s husband—was in the Belgravia.”

  “She’s not my client,” Kline said. “I told you. I’m here in the capacity of friend and no more.”

  “A friend that’s a lawyer and clearly here to give legal advice. So stop dicking me about.” Then, turning his annoyed eyes on Mrs. Carter, Barker added, “Now, tell me: what was the state of your marriage?”

  The lawyer glanced sideways at her and nodded.

  “It was bad,” she admitted. “Charles always had a knack of doing exactly what he wanted. As his wife, I was merely here to support him in whatever he wanted. Over the years that position—of being no more than another of his many possessions—created friction in our marriage.”

  “Is it true you were seeking a divorce?”

  She went a lighter shade of pale and merely nodded.

  “May I ask who told you that?” Peter Kline asked.

  “I can’t reveal my sources,” Barker said before returning his eyes to the wife. “So you were aware that your husband liked to visit escorts?”

  “Yes, I was. Charles enjoyed letting me know that no matter what I said or did, he would continue to do exactly as he pleased in his life.”

  “What was your sex life like with your husband?”

  It was the lawyer’s turn to go pale. Then red as rage rose up in him like bile. Barker had asked the question purely for this reaction from the so-called ‘friend’. It confirmed a suspicion.

  “What are you getting at?” the lawyer asked.

  “I’d like to learn about Mr. Carter’s sexual preferences.”

  “I don’t see why—”

  Peter Kline stopped when Mrs. Carter placed a hand on his arm.

  “It’s okay, Peter,” she said softly.

  He glared wrathfully at the detective, then shook his head and relented.

  “For the last ten years,” Jaqueline Carter began, “I haven’t had any sexual relations with my husband.”

  “What was it like before?”

  She rolled her eyes, went red in the cheeks, and looked away at the open windows, her gaze trying to catch on something out in the garden, something that might take her away from here. But it was no good. With a bitter face, she turned back to him.

  “He was a sadist,” she said. “And, as such, his major joy in any sexual relationship is fear and pain. Seeing it on the face of his partner.”

  “And how did he do this?”

  She closed her eyes and a tear rolled along her long, well manicured eyelashes. She was like the house and the grounds around it. Well manicured. Like all the possessions Barker saw in that place.

  “He liked to introduce a knife into things,” she said. “He enjoyed tying me up and holding it to my throat while we made… well, while we had sex. Or at least it was sex to him. To me, it was horrifying.”

  Barker wrote all this down in the notebook before asking, “So you stopped having sex ten years ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was this your choice?”

  “No. It was mutual.”

  “Why?”

  “He said he no longer found me attractive. I was too old.”

  “And how old was that?”

  “I was thirty-six at the time.”

  “That’d be young for me,” the old detective said.

  “Not for men like Charles, I’m afraid.”

  “So he liked them young—do you have any proof of this?”

  She glanced sideways at Peter. He nodded. Mrs. Carter leaned forward to a black handbag on a glass coffee table. She snapped it open and retrieved something. It was a USB memory card. She offered it across to Barker.

  “Wait a second,” he said as he dug his hands into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Pulling out a rubber glove, he held it so that when he took the USB, he was taking it with the glove. He then retrieved an evidence bag from the same pocket and slipped the USB inside.

  Holding it up to his eyes, he asked, “And what is this exactly?”

  “I found it yesterday in his safe,” Mrs. Carter informed him. “It’s full of… terrible things.”

  She lowered her eyes at that moment.

  “Can I ask why you’re giving me this?” Barker asked.

  Kline decided to answer for her. “Isn’t it obvious? Mrs. Carter wishes to help you in your investigation of her husband.”

  “We’re investigating his death, Mr. Kline. Not anything else.”

  “But this will give you a picture of him. Establish what type of man he was and therefore who may have sought to kill him.”

  Barker nodded and placed the evidence bag in his jacket pocket.

  “Okay,” he said, going back to his notebook. “Did your husband often visit the Belgravia?”

  “Yes. He frequented it often. Every time he was in London. Which for the past five years has practically been all year round. Most of the buildings his company is in charge of or are building are in the city.
It makes sense that he stays there.”

  “So he would frequent the Belgravia often?”

  “He has a flat in Mayfair. I have the number. I often can’t get ahold of him there and when I call the doorman, I’m told he’s not present. That he’s gone to his club.”

  When she said this last word it was as though she was saying a terrible curse that made her nauseous to pronounce. As though it was vomit she had to chew down.

  “And what—in your view—is the Belgravia?” the detective asked.

  “I’m not stupid,” she said. “In my social circles, there’s many rumors about such places.”

  “And what are those rumors?”

  “That it’s a brothel.”

  “What type of brothel?”

  “One where husbands cheat on their wives.”

  “Did your husband cheat on you often?”

  “As often as he could.”

  “Did you love your husband?”

  “I’m sorry,” Peter Kline interrupted, “but where is this questioning going?”

  “To the truth,” Barker said, staring across the room into the lawyer’s eyes.

  “It’s okay,” Mrs. Carter said, once more placing a hand on Kline’s arm. Turning her melancholy eyes back to the detective, she said, “Believe it or not, but for every fault that man had—and he had many—I once loved him very much. Admired him even. But over the years, that love has eroded to indifference. Because I came to acknowledge that I was no more than property to him and that men like Charles don’t love. They own. And as he was epicurean in his tastes, he wanted to own and consume the whole world, including all the young flesh. Look on that USB, Detective, and you’ll find out exactly where my husband’s deviancy led him.”

  “When was the last time you saw your husband?”

  The question shocked her. During her speech, she’d become emboldened. The fingernails were out of the teeth and the arms had uncrossed themselves. She’d pushed her imposing bosom out and was becoming almost fearsome. But with the sudden question, she shrank back down and became lost for words.

  “I’m afraid Mrs. Carter has already given you enough of her time,” Peter Kline said.

  “Where were you on the day of your husband’s death?” Barker put to her.

  “I was here alone,” she mumbled through her fingers, the nails wedged between the perfect white teeth.

  “I hope you’re not suggesting Mrs. Carter had anything to do with her husband’s death,” Kline stated.

  Barker ignored the question and simply stared at Jaqueline Carter. She was completely pale and trembling like a leaf. Soon she would fall from the tree.

  Peter Kline stood up sharply. He was a tall man and he stood over Barker like a statue threatening to fall on him.

  “That’s enough,” he said. “You need to leave.”

  Barker sat motionless on the sofa, his eyes pierced and staring straight at Mrs. Carter.

  “Where were you on the day of your husband’s death?” he repeated.

  “She was here with me,” Peter Kline suddenly announced.

  Barker glanced up at him.

  “You can confirm it?” he asked.

  “The house staff can. We were here all day and night. They’ll confirm it all.”

  Barker nodded to his own thoughts. He wasn’t convinced, but it was no good going for the throat just yet.

  “Now, if you’ll be so kind as to piss off,” the lawyer barked down to him. “It would be most welcome.”

  “Okay,” Barker said, folding away his notebook and standing up. “Thank you for the USB and I’ll see myself out.”

  He smiled down at Mrs. Carter, but she didn’t look up at him. Instead, she held herself tightly as though she expected her body to slip through the floor any moment. Maybe that’s what she wanted, Barker suggested to himself.

  As the detective reached the door, Peter Kline had one last thing to say.

  “And in the future,” he said, “the next time you speak to Mrs. Carter, you go through me.”

  Barker didn’t answer. He didn’t even turn around. He simply opened the door and waved the lawyer away as he stepped out of the room.

  In the hallway, the butler was waiting for him.

  “I’ll see you out, Detective,” he said snootily.

  “I’ll see myself out,” Barker grumbled. “Unlike them, I can find my own way to most things.”

  With that, he left the house and got back in his car. Sitting on the carriageway before the red brick, ivy coated manor, he checked his phone. He’d left it in the car, as he often did. He wasn’t part of the new generation that took theirs everywhere. He hated to be interrupted by it.

  There was a missed call from DC Harriet Green. So he called her.

  “Hey, Bobby,” she said in her usual cloying manner.

  “What’s up?”

  “The DCI wants you to go visit the parents in Somerset. Get things started with them.”

  “Can’t someone else do it?” Barker complained.

  “No, he wants you down there because you’ve got experience with them from ten years ago.”

  “John Hudson had more to do with them than me.”

  “Yes, but John Hudson doesn’t work for us anymore. You do.”

  Barker shook his head and gazed up at the Carter manor. In a top window, he saw a shadow standing between the gap in the curtains. When he looked up, the curtains flickered and the shadow stepped away.

  “I’ll head down there now,” Barker said. “But it’ll take me three hours.”

  “That’s cool. What did you get from the wife?”

  “She handed over a USB. Reckons she found it in a safe in Carter’s office.”

  “What did she say was on it?”

  “Terrible things. So I’m guessing underage pornography. I’m guessing it links him to possible involvement with Jess Rawly. If he likes them young, then a fifteen year old girl being in the room fits with that.”

  “You better get it to us before you leave for Somerset.”

  “Yeah. I’ll bring it in. Then head down.”

  17

  The manager of the Belgravia was a man by the name of Kenneth Anderson. Since the death of Charles Carter, he had been on tenterhooks. Like seven years ago when the bomb had gone off and Ali Bulgravi had been assassinated, it was terrible publicity for such a clandestine and secretive place. Therefore, the Belgravia had been shut to everyone. Not that their clientele would want to come anywhere near the place, now that the eyes of the country were once more upon it.

  Anderson pulled up outside the white columns of the place and was glad to find that the press wasn’t there. He got out of the car and approached the front entrance. At the top of the stone steps, he punched in the security code. But as he did, he felt a presence behind him. Pressing enter and hearing the lock click, he turned around to find a masked man.

  “What the—?” was as far as he got. The man grabbed him, forcing him into the building, and it was then that he saw the second masked man coming up behind. The first man pushed him against a wall inside and held him there. The second closed the door behind them. Anderson’s eyes bulged as he saw the hunting rifle the second was holding, widening further as the eye of the barrel rose and stared at him.

  “Take us to the office,” the first man said. “Or he’ll blow your chest apart and we’ll watch you choke to death on your own blood.”

  Already choked with fear, Anderson nodded. The men marched him into a lift and they rose up through the floors. Along the way, Anderson went to ask a question, but before the second word was out, the butt of the rifle smashed into his belly and he keeled forward, only just catching his breath as they reached the top.

  They hauled him out and he guided them to a door at the end of a corridor with the word Office written on a plaque. He tapped in a code to the door and it snapped open. The one who held him by the scruff of the neck forced him backwards through the door, his arms flailing as he fell down onto an office chair. The ma
n with the rifle leaned it against the wall and closed the door. He came to Anderson and pulled a roll of duct-tape from the pocket of his wax coat. Then, while the other held Anderson to the chair, he wrapped the tape around him until he was fixed.

  When it was done, Dorring came before him and took something from his pocket. He held it out in front of Anderson’s eyes. It was a pair of pliers, the light sparkling off their ends. Otis came around the back of him and grabbed his hair by the fringe, pulling the head tightly back against the headrest of the chair. Dorring put the pliers away in a pocket and took the roll of duct tape from Otis. He wrapped it around the forehead of Anderson and the back of the rest, so that his head was held tight to it. Once this was done, Dorring took something else from his pocket and held it before Anderson’s eyes. It was some sort of device made up of two metal frames with a hinge on one side and then a ratchet attached to this, so that it could be opened up like a jack. Also attached was a leather belt.

  “Do you know what this is?” Dorring asked.

  “No,” Anderson breathed.

  “It’s a Jennings gag. Named after its inventor. Do you know what it’s used for?”

  The manager shook his head.

  “Let me show you.”

  Dorring swooped forward and grabbed Anderson’s fat chin in his hand. As he squeezed the cheeks and brought the gag closer, Anderson made sure to close his mouth tight. Dorring wasted no time. He shot a jab into the mouth and the manager instantly tasted blood.

  “Two ways,” Dorring said.

  Anderson understood. He opened his mouth. Dorring attached the gag inside, the top frame running along the top teeth and the bottom running along the bottom. He attached the belt around the back of the headrest, so that the gag was secure. Then he adjusted the ratchet until the mouth was fully open and you could see all the way down Anderson’s wide throat.

  Standing back, Dorring took a pen and paper from his pocket.

  “Right handed or left?” he asked.

  Anderson went to talk, but it came out in a hiss that was barely recognizable as a human voice.

  “Wiggle the fingers of whichever hand,” Dorring said. “It’s impossible to talk with the gag inside.”

  Anderson wiggled the fingers of his right hand.