by Nigel Cooper
John Kramer was going to be in for a little surprise when he discovered there was no note, no instructions as to the whereabouts to his boys. Dean made that bit up, but he was going to be true to his word and return the boys unharmed and intact. He figured he and Snowy would take them in the car – with pillow cases over their heads so they could not identify them – then drop them on the High Street half a mile away from their house and tell them which way to walk to get home, at least that was the plan.
Dean arrived back at the bungalow and, being discreet, made his way to the main door at the side and let himself in. He went straight into the kitchen and took the Billingham camera bag out of his rucksack and checked its contents.
‘Holy fucking shit!’ he said, a huge great smile on his face as he looked at all those wads of £50 notes. He went to the living room to tell Snowy the great news, but Snowy wasn’t there. He went back to the kitchen, grabbed his balaclava and pulled it on while walking through to the back bedroom. The bolt was not slid across, Snowy must be inside with them, he thought. He opened the door and, shock horror, no Snowy and no twins, nobody. Panic hit as Dean ran, praying, to the bathroom in the hope that they were in there. He kicked the door open, empty, they weren’t there either. He headed back into the hallway, the bungalow was empty, no sign of anyone.
Just then the side door opened and Snowy appeared out of nowhere.
‘What the fuck, man, where were you? Where the fuck did you go?’ said Dean, looking beyond Snowy, expecting to see the twins right behind him, but he couldn’t see them so he ran up to the door in case they were just outside.
‘I just popped out to buy some ciggies, man. Well you were fucking ages. I needed a smoke,’ he said.
‘Where are they?’ said Dean, scanning outside the door and turning back to Snowy.
‘Who?’
‘The fucking twins, retard, who do you think?’
‘Chill, man, they’re in the bedroom, where they’ve always been. Don’t worry, man, they’re locked in, they’re not going anywhere.’
‘Is that fuckin’ so, they’re not there you fucking’ moron!’ said Dean.
‘What? No, that can’t be, they were locked in, the bolt was across and everything, there’s no way they could have got out,’ said Snowy, making for the bedroom. But, when he got there the door was unbolted and the twins were nowhere to be seen.
‘Fuck!’
Chapter 7
Father Derek Stanton quite often took a stroll around the perimeter of Histon Road Cemetery. His church, St Catherine & St Benedict, sat on the northwest corner of the cemetery. Today, as usual, Father Stanton took his afternoon walk, anticlockwise, around the perimeter. The large trees that border the cemetery partially obscured the houses just beyond, giving the impression that one could be in a more rural location. It was so tranquil walking along the south edge of the cemetery, the greenery, the ancient headstones, the calming sounds of the wind rustling through the leaves. Sometimes, on a good day, it was enough to stop the screaming in Father Stanton’s head, but the calmness within never lasted.
As he approached the southeast corner he glanced between the trunks of two large trees towards the little isolated bungalow. Father Stanton had noticed that the bungalow hadn’t been occupied for a few months now. Previously, if the elderly couple had been sitting in their back garden, Father Stanton would wave to them through the trees as he passed. When Lilly’s husband passed away a couple of years ago she stopped going out into the garden, and now that Lilly had passed, there had been no signs of life at all – until today. Father Stanton took a reflective glance in the direction of the bungalow as he ambled around the cemetery and that’s when he noticed two young boys, four of five years old perhaps. Even from this distance, though the opening in the trees, Father Stanton could clearly see that they were good looking little boys with blonde hair. He also noticed that they were in some kind of distress, they were banging their little hands hard against the window and, although the sounds were muted, Father Stanton could clearly see that they were shouting, screaming even. He knew, was sure, that nobody had moved into the property since Lilly had passed, so he ventured though the large trees to get a closer look. As he leaned against the garden fence he thought he could hear them screaming ‘Help!’ It was clear that their eyes were red and their faces streaked with tears. Father Stanton looked around, then dashed around to the side of the bungalow and rang on the side entrance doorbell. He waited, no answer, he banged on the door, hard, with the edge of his fist, still no answer. He looked left and right, there was nobody around. The bungalow was also partially obscured from the main road because of its set back location and the dense conifers out front. Father Stanton looked down at the door handle and then reached out to try it – bingo. He pushed the door open.
‘Hello?’ he said, venturing into the hallway. No answer.
He stepped further into the bungalow, cautious. He looked into the kitchen, nobody, then he stepped further into the bungalow and put his head around the living room door. ‘Hello?’ Still no sign of life. On his way to the bedrooms at the back he pushed the bathroom door open, vacant. The only two remaining rooms were, he suspected, bedrooms. One was ajar, the other was bolted locked from the outside. Father Stanton, cautious as always, pushed open the door and looked inside, nobody. He stepped up to the bolted bedroom door and put his ear up to it. He heard the two young boys that he’d seen at the window crying and sobbing inside. He slid the bolt across and pushed the door open. As he stepped inside he looked over his shoulder, behind the door just in case somebody else was in the room hiding, but there wasn’t anybody, just the two young boys standing there, backs to the window, looking at him, sobbing, all red-faced and snotty.
‘Do you live here?’ asked Stanton.
‘No,’ said one of the boys, sobbing. ‘We were brought here in a car.’
‘Your parents car?’
‘No, they were wearing masks,’ he said.
‘It’s ok, come with me,’ said Father Stanton, extending both his hands.
A hint of relief crept into their sad expressions as they walked over to Father Stanton.
* * *
The room, if you could call it that, was no ordinary room, it was a basement, but it looked different to a typical basement. The stonemasonry work of the walls that arched across the ceiling and down the other side and the old cobble stoned floor suggested that this room was old, very old, hundreds of years perhaps. It even smelled old, funky, but there was also another smell – fear. The room was about the size of somebody’s living room, ten by eighteen feet or thereabouts, but without the comforts of a living room, quite the opposite in fact. Although it was a crypt, it hadn’t been used for that purpose for many years. However, somebody had been down here recently and installed some furniture and a few bits and pieces, but not to use it as any kind of living quarters. At one end, up against the stone wall, was an old white metal frame bed, single, like one of those old Victorian hospital beds. Either side of it were two sturdy looking wooden chairs and then on either side of the chairs, but several feet to the front, were two lights, but not of the regular household lamp stand variety, these were video camera lights, the type used to light a set. In this instance, the old white metal bed was center stage.
Along the left hand wall was an old trestle table with various instruments, tools and other items laid out on it: a hammer, pliers, secateurs, knives (sharp knives) of various shapes, lengths and sizes, a handheld portable butane gas torch to name a few. But there were other items too, sex toys: vibrators, large rubber strap-on cocks, two leather gimp masks, gags, whips, various lubricants and oils and, two pairs of pink fur covered hand cuffs.
At the opposite end of the room, and slightly to the right, pointing towards the bed was a digital camcorder mounted on a tripod. The two camcorder lights either side of the bed were switched on, illuminating the set. No thought had gone into any sort of creative ‘modelling’ to create the illusion of three-dimensionality to
the scene, this was simply a case of lighting everything up so no detail would be hidden away in a ‘creative’ shadow.
The fold out LDC screen on the camcorder showed a medium/wide composition, taking in the bed, the two chairs either of it and the trestle table up against the left hand wall. The camcorder was positioned such that the bed was composed at a right angle, the bottom right corner of the bed being closest to the camera, upon which was a young boy, blonde, about four years old. He had been stripped of his clothes and tied to the bed, wrists and ankles, with leather straps with buckles. The boy was laying on his front, naked except for a black leather strap that had been attached around his head, the small red rubber ball attached to the strap was jammed into the boy’s mouth, designed to mute any screams. Next to the bed his twin brother was strapped to one of the chairs, his ankles and wrists also tied and he too had been stripped of his clothes and had a red rubber ball gimp strap strapped around his head and mouth. Both boys were shaking and sobbing, terrified for their lives.
The red record light started to flash on the digital camcorder’s foldout LCD screen as somebody pressed the record button. The audio level meters started to twitch as the camcorders microphone picked up the sobs of the boys.
Then, a man dressed in full clergy dress stepped into the camcorders frame from the left hand side. In addition to his black clergy uniform, he also wore a full-head black leather gimp mask with holes cut out for the eyes and a zipper across the mouth, the zip open. The audio decibel meters on the camcorder started to climb a little higher as Jamie’s anxious and petrified muffled cries increased in volume. His twin brother, Edward, tied face down on the bed, could not see what was going on. The man slowly removed his white clerical collar and placed it on a vacant space at the end of the trestle table. Then he removed his clergy uniform until he was down to his underpants, vest and socks. Taking his time, he removed his socks first, then his vest, then, to Jamie’s horror, his underpants. He turned to face the boys and just stood there, motionless, totally naked except for the scary looking black leather gimp mask, a stark contrast to his pasty white middle aged body, a body that looked like it hadn’t seen much exercise in thirty years or more. Jamie was terrified; his sobs and noises getting more desperate now. Then, the man turned to the trestle table and picked up a small light blue bottle of lube and what looked like a small kitchen paring knife.
He turned, slowly, and walked to the foot of the bed and looked down at the boy. The decibel meters on the camcorder started to complain as they peaked into the red zone as Jamie’s muted blood curdling screams echoed around the old abandoned basement crypt.
The voices inside Father Stanton’s head were ordering him to do things, bad things – he felt compelled to oblige.
Chapter 8
Helen heard John coming in the front door, she ran out into the hallway.
‘Well? What happened?’ she said.
‘Nothing, nothing happened,’ he said, flustered and angry. He paced past Helen and headed for the kitchen to pour himself a stiff drink.
‘What do you mean, nothing happened?’ she said, chasing after him.
‘I got there and did everything he said. He, or they, or whoever the fuck they are, were watching me. He called my mobile and told me to toss it in a bin in the market square and make my way up the road to a public phone box.’
‘What? I’m not following.’
‘He told me I had five minutes to get to a specific public phone box on Jesus Lane, that he’d call me on it.’
‘And then?’
‘Well, I got there and he phoned me. Then he did the same thing again, gave me directions to another phone box and set me a time limit to get there, I had to run. Anyway, he bounced me around a few phone boxes for a while then at the last one he told me to put the money in this trash can next to a bus stop and then he instructed me to get on the first bus that came along. He said two stops down the road there was a note pinned to the back of the bus stop, telling me where our boys were.’
‘Well, what did it say? Where are they?’
‘He told me the note was taped to the back of the bus stop on the other side of the road, only it wasn’t there.’
‘What do you mean, wasn’t there?’
‘Just like I said, it wasn’t there,’ said John, his voice full of mixed emotions: anger, frustration, and self-doubt. He was even questioning his own stupidity for going along with the man's instructions on the phone. He should have demanded he handed over his boys first.
‘You handed over £200,000 cash without even seeing them first? How could you be so stupid,’ she said. ‘Why? Why did you do that? Why didn’t you get our boys back before handing over the money, how could you be so bloody stupid, John,’ she said, stepping forward and banging the edges of her fists against his chest. ‘Why didn’t you bring my boys back? Why, why, why?’ she started to sob and cry as her pounding fists slowed and became weak. John put his arms around her as she sobbed and cried into his shirt.
* * *
‘Ok, exactly, tell me exactly how long you were out of the house?’ said Dean.
‘Five minutes, man, ten tops,’ said Snowy.
‘Where did you go exactly?’
‘Just down the road, to the corner shop.’
‘Where?’
‘Victoria Road Stores, just down the road on the corner, it’s two hundred meters away, man, it’s not like I went to bloody Timbuktu, it was just the corner shop.’
‘Well while you were pissing about buying cigarettes somebody came in here and took them,’ said Dean.
‘Who? Nobody else knew they were here, only us,’ said Snowy.
‘I don’t fuckin’ know who, you tell me, Snowy.’
Snowy shrugged his shoulders, paused for reflection. ‘Did you get the money?’
‘Yeah, I got the money, but now we don’t have the fuckin’ twins.’
‘Well it doesn’t matter does it,’ said Snowy.
‘What? What the fuck are you talking about? Of course it fuckin’ matters.’
‘Well, think about it, if somebody came in here and took them, they’ll hand them over to the authorities and they’ll be back with their parents in no time. Or even if they escaped, which is doubtful, but even if they did, they’re only four years old, somebody will see that they aren’t with an adult and question them. Either way, they’ll be handed over to the authorities and be back home in time for tea,’ said Snowy.
Dean thought about it for a minute and he had to admit, stupid and out of it that Snowy usually was, what he said made sense. Dean started to relax.
‘Ok, you’re probably right, but I’m going to call the Kramers on their landline tomorrow to check, just to be sure.’
‘So, can I see it?’ said Snowy.
‘See what?’
‘You know … the money.’
‘In there on the side,’ said Dean, gesturing towards the kitchen.
A moment later Dean heard Snowy shout, ‘Oh – my – god, we did it, we fucking did it, man. Look at all this fucking money,’ said Snowy, turning to Dean in the doorway.
‘Ok, we need to get out of here, but first, checklist,’ said Dean.
‘Checklist?’
‘Yeah, what we talked about, remember?’
‘Oh, yeah, course.’
‘Right, we always wore our balaclavas when we went into the bedroom so they never saw our faces right?’
‘Check,’ said Snowy.
‘We only ever whispered so they wouldn’t recognise our voices?’
‘Check.’
‘We wore gloves every time we came in here and we never took them off until after we’d left right?’
‘Check,’ said Snowy, holding up his gloved hands.
‘Ok, good, and nobody ever saw us coming and going because we always sneaked through the trees and used the side entrance.’
‘Check.’
‘Ok, good, so let’s grab the television and bag up all the left over snacks, empty packets and anythi
ng else we brought and get the hell out of here.’
* * *
‘We need to call the police,’ said Helen.
‘What? But I thought—’
‘The rules have changed, the kidnappers have our money and they haven’t handed over our boys.’ The thought shouldn’t have entered John’s mind, not while their boys were still missing, but the fact that she’d said ‘our money’ had jarred something inside him. He stood there, thinking. ‘Well? Are you going to call them or shall I?’ she said.
‘What are we going to say?’ he said.
‘The truth, I think we should just tell them what happened, everything. We were only thinking about our boys and we genuinely believed that this would get them back.’