by Max Hardy
Bentley crossed the room and sat his large frame down in the seat next to her, compassion entering his grumbling countenance as he looked at her, smiling.
She smiled back at him nervously, her fingers shaking and fidgeting agitatedly on hands sitting on top of her pulled up legs, which were also shaking.
‘I guess it is time.’ she said in a croaky, hoarse voice.
He fumbled around in the plastic bag that he had placed between his legs and pulled out a sealed syringe packet and a small phial of clear liquid. His own hands were shaking as he ripped the seal of the syringe and stuck the needle into the phial, sucking up the contents.
‘Yes. Have you decided where? This is a local anaesthetic. It will dull the pain. Trust me, you won’t feel a thing.’
‘Look at my face. Do you think pain worries me?’ she answered acerbically before continuing. ‘I have decided. My little toe.’ she answered, pushing her shaking right foot forward over the bed, the chipped painted nails of the toes oscillating in and out of view as she clenched them.
Bentley put the syringe on his knee and thoughtfully rubbed his large, dirt-stained hands together, warming them, then reached down and with a tenderness that belied his heavy frame, he gently cupped her delicate foot. She didn’t flinch, even though his podgy fingers slid over her naked sole. In his hands, the tremors of her nervousness began to abate. He picked up the syringe and brought it up to the soft flesh at the end of her little toe. He hesitated, looking up from the needle and into her wide, anxious eyes.
‘Last chance. Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?’ he asked, his own features heavy with angst.
‘Absolutely.’ she said, clearly and concisely, without the slightest hesitation.
‘Okay.’ he murmured and then pushed the needle into her toe, depressing the syringe and offloading its contents. She flinched slightly, reflexes trying to draw the foot away, but Bentley gently squeezed and held it firm.
‘It will take a minute or so to numb your toe. I’ll take some blood in the same syringe. Left or right arm?’ he asked, gently resting her foot on the edge of the small table.
‘Right.’ she answered, stretching out her forearm, showing him the throbbing blue vein in the crease of her elbow. He leaned over and gripped the arm lightly, sinking the needle expertly into the vein and drawing off a full syringe of blood. He dropped it back into the carrier bag and pulled out a half bottle of whiskey at the same time, unscrewing the top and taking a quick swig. He picked a roll of bandage out of the bag next and wiped the end of it over the top of the bottle before offering it to her.
‘You might want to take a swig. Dutch courage.’
‘I don’t need it for courage. I’ll take a swig though: to wish him hell!’ she exclaimed, tensing, anger entering her eyes as she grabbed the bottle.
She relaxed slightly back onto the bed, taking comfort from the warmth of the whiskey as it slid effortlessly down her throat and stretched her foot out over the table, looking down to the curling little toe.
‘You might want to look away now.’ Bentley advised as he unrolled the bandage underneath her foot and then reached back into the carrier bag.
‘No a cat in hells chance! I want to see my pound of flesh. I have to see the part of me that will take all of him.’ she replied forcefully with noticeable acrimony.
‘Are you sure?’ he reiterated, hand hovering within the carrier bag.
‘Sure!’ she stated, simply.
He shook his head slightly, lifting a large wooden handled meat cleaver out of the bag into view, resting one end in a well worn gouge on the table and the body of the blade over the little toe, up to the knuckle, levering it a few times to get the position right.
‘Absolutely the last chance.’ he said, looking imploringly into her eyes.
‘Do it!’ she hissed, taking a swig from the whiskey.
He slammed a fist down onto the top of the blade.
Chapter 10
Rapid eye movement caused her lashes to flutter frantically and caused the skin of the upper lid to ululate uncontrollably as the eyeball strained ineffectually to force open both lids, which were stitched shut. Tiny drips of blood oozed from the holes pierced through the lids, discolouring the black cotton thread of the stitching, making it glisten in the glow of flickering candlelight. Both eyes were cross stitched the same, the pattern parallel, done with fastidious precision. There were seven components to the symbol in the stitching. The first ‘alif’, the second ‘hamzat wasl’, the third and fourth ‘Iam’, the fifth ‘shadda’, the sixth 'dagger alif’ and the seventh ‘ha’.
Drops of blood meandered down the side of her nose in a river of salty tears that merged with beads of sweat pouring from open pores, all heading for her nostrils. They were trying to flare, but the stitching stopped them. They pulsed, along with the short frantic pants of her sobs, forcing a trail of clear snot through the tight thread that joined the effluence of her eyes and flowed down the philtrum to her mouth.
A mouth that jittered, muttered and mumbled, through lips ruddy with the blood of the puncture wounds from the needle that had pierced them, weaving an intricate hashed stitch that sewed them shut.
She was naked. Naked and strapped on her back into a wicker frame positioned in the middle of the room. The frame was woven in an arc, forcing her back to bend at the base of the spine, her torso angling down towards the floor. The arms continued that descent, to be cradled in the curve of wicker and then held tight by leather straps. Her head rested on a small support just before the floor, further straps securing her neck and forehead. Long black hair flowed back over onto the floor, exposing her ears. Ears also stitched closed.
Her legs were cocooned in wicker stirrups, positioning the thighs in the air wide apart, the bottom part of the legs bent down at the knees, back towards the floor. The weave encasement creaked as she tried to force her legs against it, the muscles of her flat brown stomach seething from side to side as she convulsed and strained against her restraints.
Gentle Anasheed chanting filled the air, flowing from speakers hidden behind long swathes of pure white silk that flowed out from a central ring placed directly above the wicker frame toward each corner of the room, where the flickering candles sat on marble stands. The floor was marble also, with an indented circle surrounding the frame.
He was naked too. Tall and lithe with a shock of black hair both on his head and face. He was whispering the same chants that were coming from the speakers as he viewed his handiwork on her left ear, plucking the stitches to make sure they were taut. She flinched when he did, the volume of her muted moans rising to the level of the chants.
He trailed a hand from her ear, up over her face, the tips of his fingers tickling the threads on her left eye, then pushed a thumb hard into the socket. Her whole body arched in agony, the pain she so wanted to scream just a guttural growl, lost in her restricted throat.
He walked down towards her open legs, one hand snaking over her breasts and down her stomach, the other dragging a small, stainless steel trolley behind him. He let his hand rest on her stomach, feeling the susurrations of her abdomen, before raising it, balling a fist and slamming it forcefully into her belly button.
She convulsed and urine spurted from between her open legs and liquid faeces dribbled out of her sewn up anus. His chanting paused as he watched the flow of liquid, a tongue snaking out of his mouth to lick his lips, young eyes full of fervour and desire, his semi erect penis becoming obviously more aroused.
He took a Musallah from the base of the trolley and rolled it out on the floor between her open thighs, a small niche at the top of the matt pointing directly to her exposed vagina. He knelt on the musallah and recited incantations, head touching the matt, before looking up, directly at her shaven pubis.
On top of the trolley was a gleaming scalpel, clean and unused. Sitting next to it were a number of used tapered suture needles, with one left unused. He picked up the scalpel in one hand and with the other, reached
up and placed a thumb and forefinger on her clitoral hood, pulling the skin roughly back, exposing the glistening clitoris below.
She started to shake frantically, her body pulsing in its leather bindings, her legs twitching either side of his focused, determined eyes. His fingers pulled further back, leaving a few millimetres of flesh around the hood. He raised the scalpel to the top of her left labia majora and deftly sank the blade into the skin, the slightest trickle of blood oozing from the incision. She tried to move her hips as she groaned under the intensity of the cut, but his hand held her firm and with great dexterity, he cut a swathing arc all the way around her clitoral hood in one motion, blood spurting up onto her pubic mound and down onto her vulva. Suddenly, he leant his head over the gaping cut and sank his mouth over it, sucking in the flowing blood, taking the loose flapping skin between his teeth. His erection stiffened as he drank her life juices and then with one fierce jerk of his head, he ripped the semi severed mound from her clitoris.
Muted screams streamed from her stitched mouth, strained in a throat with sinews stretched in agony, vibrating in time with the agitation of shock that overwhelmed her.
He whispered in time with the chanting, picking up one of the curved needles from the tray and running the tip of it through the smeared blood on his lips before dropping it down to her riven, bleeding flesh and pricking it into the exposed tissue, circling her most tender spot.
A red dot appeared on her belly button, then steadily moved down towards her pubic mound. He stopped the pricking, confusion entering his dilated, crazed eyes as mesmerised, he watched the dot move all the way down her bleeding vagina, lose itself for the briefest of moments in the gap between them, then reappear on his chest, stopping in line with his heart.
Panic quickly overtook the confusion as his eyes moved from the dot into the room, following the oscillating red beam that danced in disturbed dust all the way back to one of the flowing swathes of white silk which billowed gently, darkness swaying in its folds, a shadow morphing as he focused his eyes, a shadow holding a gun.
‘Right now Imam, you have a choice. There is an AK-47 assault rifle fitted with laser targeting sights pointing directly at your heart. Stay perfectly still and we won’t shoot you. Move even one millimetre, and we will.’ came a voice from directly behind him. A female voice.
His eyes were darting between the shadow behind the silk, down to the needle he held pressed against the clitoris, to the scalpel he still held in his other hand, head not moving one iota as they did. Sweat started to pop on his brow as adrenaline coursed through his veins, controlling the panic, focusing his mind, focusing his thoughts, focusing his actions. His senses were now attuned and acute, and he could feel someone behind him and hear their rapid breathing above the timbre of the chanting.
‘And what choice will I have after that?’ he asked, eyes now back on the shadow that was moving closer to the edge of the shifting silk, the targeting light not budging from his chest as it did. He was imperceptibly clenching the hand that held the scalpel, the timed movement rolling the blade forward through his fingers, angling it upward.
‘That choice will depend on your people and what they think of the atrocities you have enacted upon poor, defenceless women like Perdip Tousivuna who is lying there in front of you, mutilated. You do remember her name, don’t you?’ The voice was even closer now.
He smirked, still cajoling the knife forward in his hand as he watched the shadow step from behind the flowing silk, into the flickering candlelight. He saw the black laser sights of the AK-47 first, then the steady finger wrapped around the slightly depressed trigger, before taking in a tall, muscular dark haired man with a dark beard, dressed in a tight fitting Harlequin outfit, totally at odds with the Russian weaponry he held. He looked brazenly into the Harlequin’s unflinching, sparkling green eye that was levelled down the sights, staring directly at him.
‘My brother, the infidel lover, traitor to his faith.’ he sneered at the Harlequin before spitting in his direction.
‘Do you think I ever forgot Perdip’s name? Or the taste of Perdip’s blood. Or the taste of Perdip’s cunt. Do you really think my people will see ridding Allah’s kingdom of one more whore an atrocity? I know Allah won’t.’
‘Allah might not, but I sure as hell do!’ her voice whispered directly into his ear.
A flash of intensity shot through his eyes at the closeness of the voice and in an instant he was thrusting the hand that held the scalpel upward, towards his ear, towards where he thought her head would be. As he did he started to turn his body sideways on to the Harlequin in front of him, moving his chest out of the firing line and his shoulder into it.
There was an audible whoomp, over in an instant as a single shot was fired, the bullet smacking forcefully into the Imam’s shoulder, skin, bone and blood spurting out of the exit hole left by the bullet as it thudded into the wall behind him. He screamed as the bullet hit, the impact knocking him backward, his still rising arm flying through thin air where he thought the voice was, before following his torso as it landed on the stone floor with a heavy thud. He tried to sit up as quickly as he had fallen but a black, leather heeled boot smacked into the side of his face, dazing him. A second later the same boot was thrust down onto the hand holding the scalpel, breaking all five fingers as it ground the hand into the stone.
Then the boots straddled him as the legs within, dressed in black and white silk pantaloons dropped down onto his chest. A heaving bosom in a white blouson, black pom pom’s for buttons, leaned over him. A black ruffle framed a slender white painted neck that carried an elegant white painted face and green eyes made up black, a single black tear painted onto her left cheek, looked down at his squirming features in disgust. She thumped a hand encircled in a black ruffle cuff directly onto the bullet wound in his shoulder, leaning over his face as he once again screamed in agony.
‘You believe your God would think that the mutilation and murder of five women was just, just because they were whores? Is that what you believe?’ she spat into his face, her nose touching his, her simmering emerald eyes, full of anger, penetrating his shocked, agonised glare.
‘It is his will, everything I do is his will. Everything I do is in his name. For Allah!’ he answered, defiance entering his pain filled tone.
‘Understand this Imam. I do not fear you. I do not fear your god and everything I do, I do in my name. Never forget my name.’ she growled, eyes shining as she sank her fist harder into his bleeding wound.
‘My name is Madame Evangeline.’
Chapter 11
‘Not here Chris, my boss is in the car!’ Tait pleaded, standing on the doorstep to her flat, her boyfriend brooding in the doorway, his dark expression directed towards the beaten up Volvo parked up at the other side of the road, towards Bentley who was staring at him intently, listening in on the over loud conversation.
‘You told me you were his boss now. Is that another lie? Another one of your convenient excuses?’ he shouted over her head, pushing her hands off his sweaty running top as she tried to direct him back into the hallway.
‘I told you I had been put in charge of the case. I didn’t tell you I was his boss. He is still a DI. I know you are pissed I was out late again last night, but I explained that, you’ve seen the story on the news.’ she whispered, pleading.
‘Just excuses Annie, always excuses with you. Just do one.’ he shouted, pushing her forcefully out of the door, causing her to stumble on the step and stagger into the sidewall between the houses. ‘And if you can’t be home at a reasonable time, don’t bother fucking coming home at all. Have Fancy Dan over there put you up, or put one up you, if he hasn’t already.’ And with that last vitriolic slur, he slammed the door shut.
‘Chris, don’t be an arse!’ she shouted at the unresponsive solid oak door, tears smudging her mascara, her eyes already puffed and panda.
She knelt down and picked up the contents of her bag from the path where he had thrown it earlier. She ga
ve the flat one last forlorn look, then, arms crossed protectively across her chest, she turned and walked toward Bentley’s car, opened the passenger door and slouched into the ripped and dirty leather seat, sighing in time with the rustle of the empty crisp packets she sat on.
‘I’m sorry about that Sir.’ she said apologetically, not looking at him, not able to, but searching out a tissue from her dishevelled bag.
‘It he usually that much of a twat?’ Bentley asked conversationally as he started the car and pulled out of Great Stuart Street with its precise and well kept rows of Georgian Houses and into the arc of Randolph Crescent, a semi circle of even more opulent buildings, some converted to flats, most offices and consulate buildings.
‘It’s not his fault. I should have called him.’ she answered, flipping down the dirty sun visor, which fell off at the hinge and plopped into her lap. She looked at Bentley wide eyed and surprised. ‘I am so sorry about that!’ she continued, lifting the visor and clumsily trying to fix it.
‘Don’t worry about it, just use the mirror like that. It’s a bit cracked and probably a bit dusty. Part of the job, being out late. Does he not understand that?’ Bentley asked as he turned right onto the A90 and headed off towards the Police Headquarters on Fettes Avenue.
Annie raised the visor to her face, trying to gauge from her reflection how much of the smearing around her eyes was her makeup running and how much was the dirt on the mirror. She started to dab at the makeup anyway.
‘He’s just a bit jealous, that’s all. It doesn’t help when I don’t let him know what I am doing. He tries not to be jealous and we are working on it.’ she replied, most of the smudged makeup now rubbed away.
‘Really? I think you need to grow a pair and tell him how it is. Tell him to get over himself. Can’t abide fucking pussies.’ Bentley replied, his features thoughtful, watching her straighten her face out of the corner of his eye.