And how could he forget Joe Winterton?
His heart took on a slow, painful thump. There was an animal cunning about that one he had despised from the start, but the day he interfered with their practices, they had to punish him. The steel hose had been Schiller’s idea, and a stroke of true genius. Hard steel delivered severe pain without leaving scars - no proof of what they had done but the bruises, and even they had faded over time.
No, the only lasting damage they intended was psychological, a drip feed of fear and threat.
With a shuddering breath he attempted a fourth call, itching to disclose this latest report... that more recently, a man had been spotted sneaking in and out of Maisie’s flat. So who was he?
It was time to step up their surveillance.
******
“Funny how the mind works, in’t it?” Joe reflected one morning. “I’m starting to remember things...”
We had just stepped outside the house and I was about to lock the door, but the echo of his words pulled my head upright. “Like what?”
“Schiller. That thug of Mortimer’s, his name was Schiller...” He let out a hollow laugh. “Remember the dry white board just inside the door, listing the staff on duty? Whenever Schiller’s name appeared someone always crossed the Ls.”
“Shitter!” I chuckled back. “Trust you to remember that!”
With our conversation echoing to the sound of laughter, I knew I had made the right decision inviting him to stay. The warm surround of protection he wove around my life was a bonus and I enjoyed his company. Thankfully there had been no more nightmares and as the days ensued, I noticed a change in him too. Giving him a roof over his head had effectively broken the cycle of unemployment, poverty and homelessness.
Actively seeking a job, Joe was happy to do voluntary work to fill up the empty hours. So when Matt needed an extra pair of hands in the charity shop, he had leapt at the chance. Not only did it count as work experience, it reignited a glimmer of self-worth in him.
Unlocking my car, I could hardly suppress my smile when he climbed into the passenger seat next to me. I was on my way to work anyway but had plenty of time to drop him off at the Job Centre first.
“What are your plans today?”
“Who knows?” he said. “I saw a couple of supermarket jobs advertised but you can only apply online.”
My heart swelled with pride, since once inside the Job Centre, he would get all the help he needed, using their in-house computer facilities. Who would recognise the forlorn, broken character I had stumbled across in the beach shelter, in this clean-shaven man, his tousled dark hair gleaming?
Turning the key in the ignition, I was sure the road had been clear, but the moment I pulled out, an unfamiliar black car loomed in my wing mirror.
Strange. It definitely hadn’t been there before. Perhaps they were after my parking space.
As I reached the top of Annandale Avenue, I slowed at the junction. Funnelled into the roundabout amidst a river of moving traffic, I clung to the middle lane. The one notable feature of this roundabout was its shape and size; a sprawling configuration that had earned it the name ‘Bognor Square-about.’
Conscious of Joe chattering next to me, I tried to concentrate on what he was saying but a tightness gripped my chest, my heart picking up speed. I was not too late to catch another flicker, a dark ink stain in my wing mirror. The same car was lingering in the middle distance, before I swerved onto Hothampton flyover.
I stole another glance in my mirror and sure enough, the car had chosen the same exit. Black as midnight with heavily tinted windows, this did not appear to be any ordinary car.
It couldn’t be following us, surely? Was I being paranoid?
My panic spiralled. The things Joe had divulged about Mr. Mortimer and now Schiller, were not lost on me, the notion of danger...
A sea of cars clogged the dual carriageway. Moving into the outside lane, I put my foot down, praying there were no speed patrols. As long as I drove carefully, I could safely deliver Joe to the Job Centre without detection.
Hands tight on the wheel, I shot around the next mini roundabout, past the park entrance, then back in the direction of town.
Confident I had lost my pursuer, I finally pulled up outside the Job Centre.
Joe seemed oblivious to my anxiety, but seeing him bounce back warmed my soul, allowing me to temporarily forget the black car. Added to the glow in his complexion, his newly-found confidence radiated itself in his smile.
“Good luck,” I wished him with heartfelt sincerity.
“Thanks, Maisie,” he said and with a final backward glance, strolled up to the door with a spring in his step.
Only when he disappeared inside the Job Centre, though, my heart sank into my chest. The car had not gone. Paused by the entrance of Hotham park, I was sure I could feel the pinprick of eyes zooming in on me. I so wanted it to be a coincidence; that its presence had no bearing on anything else unfolding in our lives.
If I was right, I had nothing to worry about.
But what if I was wrong?
Fear speared through my mind as I considered the ramifications. The driver would have spotted Joe, clear as day, walking from my car and into the Job Centre.
The more disturbing question was whether he had been recognised.
Chapter Sixteen
Hannah Adams. Registered Psychotherapist and Counsellor. West Sussex
Client: Maisie Bell
18th March 2015
A blanket of cloud hung across the sky, the air damp with mist.
But hidden inside Hannah’s therapy room, the gloom lifted, replaced by pastel walls and the gentlest of light. I felt the warmth of her smile as it settled on me.
“I had to see you,” I began. “I realise it’s a little sooner than scheduled.”
Hannah glanced at her note pad. “Okay, so why don’t you start by telling me what brought you here today?”
“It’s Joe. We’ve found each other again.”
Yes, it was definitely time to come clean about Joe.
Hannah’s face twisted into a frown, pen poised. “When did this happen?”
I described the day I had bumped into him along the seafront. With a storm of childhood memories brewing, I was surprised we still hadn’t discussed them in depth. Yet Joe seemed cagey, his fear of Mr. Mortimer as evident now as it had been in the past and with the hint of a threat still dangling.
“Maybe this is an opportunity to capture your own memories,” Hannah said.
“Yes, I suppose so. Seeing him again feels strange but you’d think he could have told me a bit more...”
Hannah seemed unfazed. “It doesn’t matter, you’re here now and no two people’s memories are alike. Just tell it your own way, Maisie, and without anyone else swaying your judgement.”
She was right. In every session to date, the memories had belonged to me alone.
“Looking at your notes, the last time we spoke you mentioned a flashback. So I’d like to take you back to the laundry room, the day Joe locked you in. Why do you suppose he did that?”
Joe. I could picture him now, those great big eyes like pools of melted chocolate.
“I was invited to a party,” I said, “one he seemed desperate to stop me going to.”
Black clouds covered my mind as the past started to creep in. Two identical red party dresses were draped across our beds but oh, the smooth, glossy texture of satin, the matching red ribbons and shiny ballet pumps.
“Ramona and I were the only ones invited,” I added dreamily.
Ramona was my room mate. I often wonder what had happened to that pretty black girl with her afro hair and smiling brown eyes. She had definitely been one of the livelier children.
“Mr. Mortimer told us we had been chosen specially to attend this gathering, a treat with some girls from the other homes. Ramona was so excited. He mentioned there would be adults there, people who might want to foster us.”
“But Joe tried to st
op you going,” Hannah’s voice echoed.
“As soon as I mentioned the party, he freaked out. Said it was a trap. He’d been to one himself and - and...”
“Go on.”
I fidgeted in my chair, restless.
“They were driven to a big country house in the middle of nowhere. In fact, it sounded like a lot of fun to begin with - party food, video games, music and Sky TV... they could watch what they liked. But later in the evening the hosts brought a bowl of punch out. He said it made them sleepy.”
“Do you wonder if it was drugged?” Hannah pressed.
“That’s it!” I gasped. “He warned me not to drink it!”
I heard a rustle of fabric as she shifted her position. She seemed agitated suddenly, the friction of pen on paper progressing with increasing speed.
“Something happened at the party he went to, something bad, and that was why he tried to stop me going. Ramona was furious. Said there was no way she was going to miss out and that she had already tried her dress on.”
I held my breath, almost frightened to continue.
“So Joe had this idea to hide me. We sneaked downstairs to the laundry room and he locked the door. Told me to ‘sit tight’ and as soon as they were gone, he would come back...”
“But that didn’t happen did it?” Hannah’s voice tolled on the periphery.
“No. For some reason they cottoned on. Sussed out our game and one of Mortimer’s henchmen came down and got me.”
“Henchmen?”
This time I was the one who became agitated, twisting and wriggling, a rush of terror sweeping over me. Two scary looking thugs wandered into the spotlight, one dark, one blonde, both heavily muscled men.
“They were employed for security - we thought they looked more like bouncers. The upshot is I was taken to the party after all.”
I bit my lip, though it was pretty much as Joe described, a journey that ferried us some distance from London until we arrived at a secluded country mansion.
“A big black car came to collect us. A posh one, like a limousine and there were two girls already in the back seat, wearing identical dresses and red ribbons. The interior of the house was luxurious but I remembered Joe’s warning when they brought the punch out...”
“This is good, Maisie, you’re doing really well,” Hannah said.
Her voice hung in the air with a mysterious echo, fading in and out like a weak radio signal.
What happened next though, took me by surprise, as if a light bulb in my mind had exploded. I was flung into panic, the blackness around me intensifying.
“Have you remembered something else?”
Yes! Something was lapping on the shore of my mind, a sense of weightlessness as if I was floating. It was the memory of the red ribbon that had triggered it. I could hear a whispering sound in the distance.
Spikes of cold shot through me, the vision of a ribbon fluttering past my face.
“Oh my God! I saw a red ribbon in my dream!”
I couldn’t explain it but I could sense the danger pouring in, a vortex of all-consuming evil that had no form but threatened to swallow us as we lay there. I knew we were powerless... but was I the only one who saw those spidery branches encircling us from above? Heard the whisper that sliced through the darkness?
‘Silence her!’
I imagined a red ribbon restraining me, a hand pressed over my mouth.
“Relax,” Hannah urged, “take deep breaths now.”
Except I couldn’t. My breath was coming faster and faster, a thickening in my throat that brought a cry erupting to the surface.
“Ssh,” she kept soothing me. “Don’t panic, you’re safe, Maisie and no-one can hurt you... but I think it’s best I bring you out of your trance now.”
Chapter Seventeen
Ten minutes after leaving the Salvation Army headquarters Joe let himself into the house, using the spare key Maisie had arranged to be cut for him. Delivering leaflets for the latest homeless appeal, he found the work not only fulfilling, but it served a painful reminder of his own plight.
He couldn’t wait to share his news, the prospect of having an interview lined up with a major supermarket a huge step up the ladder for him, the thought of contributing to her bills even better...
So lost was he in his reverie, he was unprepared for the sight in front of him. Braced on the edge of the sofa, chewing her fingernails, Maisie glanced up at him in fear.
“Joe, why have we never talked about those parties?”
The question froze him mid-step and he could no longer dodge the elephant in the room. Unnerved by her expression, he turned to hang his coat up.
“Dunno.”
“Yes, you do. You’re hiding something.”
“What’s brought this on?” he asked gently.
“I went to see my therapist,” she said in a monotone. “It’s amazing what comes back when you’re in a mild hypnotic trance, but I remember why you locked me in the laundry room. You took an awful thrashing for trying to protect me but what exactly were you protecting me from, Joe?”
A sudden dread ran into him. “Does it matter? Whatever happened, we can’t change it and I don’t wanna dwell on the past. We need to move on...”
“I-I can’t move on,” she shivered. “My work’s been affected, my foster parents are worried... they thought the therapy would help get to the root of my traumas.”
“Okay, okay,” he tried to shush her, “just let me get my coat and shoes off and I’ll stick the kettle on. Would it help if you told me a bit about the nightmares?”
His movements slowed as she described them. Joe said nothing, listening mesmerised as she spoke of a sinister dark forest, a ring of trees...
It was when she related the chants that he felt a chill judder down his spine.
“A red ribbon fluttered past my face,” she croaked.
Fear filled her eyes, dragging unpleasant memories in its wake.
“Ramona and I wore red party dresses and red ribbons when we went to the party...”
Yes, he too could remember the ribbons they wore.
Equally sinister was the red ribbon wound around that message he had found at the halfway house. A message laced with threat that told him everything he needed to know and, now he thought about it, exactly who was responsible.
No wonder she looked at him as if she had seen a ghost.
“What if that scene in the forest happened on the same night?” she gasped. “They brought a bowl of punch out like you said they would and I tried not to drink it but I must have had some of it. My memories are vague - there’s a huge black hole between the end of the party and returning to Orchard Grange.”
Joe’s hands gripped the kettle tighter as he poured hot water into the cups. It was hard to concentrate on making tea when the words flooding from her lips filled his mind with horror.
“Hannah wondered if the punch was drugged.”
Placing the mugs down on her coffee table, he felt his mouth run dry. Deep down in her subconscious mind, a chilling scenario was unravelling.
But could he bear to fill in the blanks?
“Your punishment wasn’t just for hiding me.” She held his gaze as the final piece of the puzzle slid into place. “But for warning me not to drink it!”
“Yes,” Joe confessed. “You’re spot on. Now let me ask you something. You remember Ramona being at the party, but did you ever see her again?”
“No,” she whispered. “Where do you suppose she went?”
“A different home perhaps? There was more than one and Mortimer owned them all - private homes - I overheard him talking...”
Picturing Mortimer’s cold, twisted smile tied another knot in his stomach.
“What do you mean ‘a different home?’” Maisie pressed. “Are you saying Orchard Grange wasn’t the only children’s home you lived in?”
He had been eleven years old when he was put into care, the residents all boys. Lurking on the edge of an industrial estate
, that house resembled a prison more than a children’s home...
Joe closed his eyes.
Everything had ticked along okay until that party. The matching outfits, a fancy car turning up to collect them, before he and five other boys were spirited away into the unknown. They had been having the time of their life, until the onset of oblivion blurred the rest out...
“So what do you remember?” She was looking at him intensely now.
Joe swallowed deeply. “The boys wore identical outfits too. Loose black tunics and trousers, clothes to chill out in - red neckerchiefs, a bit like the shit you see boy scouts wearing.”
Maisie sank deeper into the sofa cushions, her eyes never leaving him.
“Sounds like some kind of uniform.”
“Hmm,” Joe murmured. “That’s what I thought. Trouble is I don’t remember much about the party other than what I told you, and then I was moved on to Orchard Grange.”
In another dark recess of his mind rose the memory of several days spent in sick bay before that, his brain foggy from the pills they had forced down him, his gut torn with a pain so intense... They told him it was a severe bout of gastric flu, the reason he had to be isolated. But Joe suspected something far worse; the fear someone had messed with him evoked a sickening sense of violation.
“Why did they hurt you so bad,” her voice ebbed in the background, “if all you were trying to do was warn me?”
“Cos they were up to something illegal!” he snapped. “Consider the effort those bastards went to, to drag you to that fucking party. I had a horrible feeling you were at risk... and Mortimer was hiding something.”
“But I don’t understand,” she balked, “if your suspicions match mine, then how could he have got away with it?”
Joe took a large gulp of tea, relishing the hot liquid as it swilled down his throat. It afforded him time to consider his next words.
“Think about it, Maisie, we never went to school. A lot of kids got moved around, some from different counties, up north and God only knows where... We had no contact with the outside world.”
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