by Jamie Raven
Danny Shapiro’s name leaped into my mind. He was behind this. Had to be.
‘Open your fucking eyes, woman.’
I did as I was told. It was the other man who had spoken, his voice pure south London.
My muscles went rigid when I saw that he was unbuckling his belt.
‘You’ve got a choice, love,’ he said, a manic grin on his face. ‘If you keep still and let me get my end away, we won’t damage your face. You’ll get to keep your good looks and we’ll just break a few bones.’
I recoiled almost as if he had hit me again.
‘Please tell me you’re not serious,’ I screamed at him. ‘This can’t be happening.’
His jeans dropped to his ankles and he barked out a laugh.
‘There’s no point me wasting a golden opportunity, love. You’re a tasty bit of crumpet and I ain’t had a poke in weeks.’
I shot a glance at Leather Jacket, who was standing to one side with his arms folded across his chest.
‘Did Danny Shapiro send you?’ I said. ‘Is that what this is all about?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know anyone named Shapiro.’
I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach and my chest started pumping for oxygen.
‘Now take your coat off, turn around and bend over the table that’s behind you,’ the other man said. ‘I’ll do the rest.’
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My muscles seized up and my limbs turned to jelly. But my heart continued to thrash around in my chest as he stepped out of his jeans and kicked them away from him.
He was just over an arm’s-length away from me so when he lashed out with his fist it landed smack in the middle of my stomach. I doubled over, grunting as the air went out of my lungs.
‘We ain’t got all night, bitch,’ he steamed. ‘So be sensible and do as I say or so help me I’ll make sure that even your own kid won’t recognise you.’
The thought of Rosie waiting at home for me was like a bolt of electricity. It fired up my anger and released the invisible grip on my body.
And it prompted me to charge forward like a raging bull and straight into the bastard. He was caught unawares and lost his balance. We both went crashing onto the floor and I laid into him like someone possessed. I managed to smash my head against the bridge of his nose and he roared in pain. Then I shoved my knee into his groin and felt a shiver of satisfaction when he cried out again.
Immediately Leather Jacket was pulling me off him by the hair and throwing me across the floor. My head struck the side of a wooden workbench and the pain ripped through me.
Before I could recover he was standing over me and threatening to ‘kick the shit’ out of me. I braced myself by curling up like a hedgehog. But once his mate was back on his feet the first thing he did was force me onto my back and tell me that he was going to make me wish I had never been born.
‘We’re gonna fuck you good and proper,’ Leather Jacket said. ‘And after that we’re gonna see to it that you end up in hospital with a body so broken you’ll be stuck there for months.’
Leather Jacket’s mate started to take off his pants and I felt a corkscrew twist in my gut.
Then the sound of a phone ringing stopped him and he looked up and pinned back his shoulders.
It was Leather Jacket’s phone, and as he snatched it from his inside pocket he threw out a heavy sigh.
‘Shit,’ he said when he peered at the caller ID. ‘I have to take this.’
He stepped across the room to answer the phone and his mate started swearing.
I lay there gasping for breath, the blood throbbing in my temples, while they put raping me on hold. It was surreal. Horrendous. Unbelievable.
I tried to get up but the shaven-headed perv put his shoe on my chest to stop me moving. He pressed down hard enough to make me squeal.
I rolled my head from side to side, looking for something within reach that I might be able to use as a weapon. There was nothing and I felt a crushing despair wash over me.
Leather Jacket ended his phone conversation and stepped back into my line of sight.
‘Put your jeans back on,’ he ordered his mate. ‘We have to go.’
The other man took his shoe off my chest and grimaced.
‘Are you crazy? What are you on about?’
‘There’s been a change of plan. So just do it.’
‘Jesus, man. We haven’t—’
‘And we’re not going to. So get a move on.’
‘What about her?’
‘We’re leaving her here.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and I thought for a second that it was a wind-up, until the look of anger and disappointment on the other guy’s face made me realise that this was really happening.
‘You’re one seriously lucky bitch,’ he said to me as he pulled on his jeans. ‘But it don’t mean I won’t get to have another crack at another time.’
The two men then hurried out of the workshop leaving me lying on the floor.
Every imaginable emotion began to churn inside me. Anger, fear, panic, relief …
I struggled to my feet and stood staring at the doorway for a good minute, expecting them to return to finish what they had started.
When I realised they weren’t coming back I broke down in a paroxysm of tears.
39
Beth Chambers
I staggered outside, crying and clutching my stomach. The rain and cold air felt good against my face, which was burning up.
To my relief I found my bag on the ground just inside the entrance to the unit. I picked it up, plunged my hand inside and discovered that my attackers hadn’t taken anything. Clearly theft hadn’t been their motive.
Their intention had been to hurt and scare me, and I was willing to bet that Shapiro had paid them to do so. But then why had they suddenly fled before seeing it through? And who had Leather Jacket taken a call from?
I pulled out my phone as I stepped cautiously through the open gate onto the pavement. The street was still deserted. No sign of Leather Jacket and his mate, thank God.
I stood there on the pavement, clutching my phone and not knowing what to do with it. I was still in shock, shaking all over, feeling light-headed and dizzy.
Suddenly a bolt of nausea hit me, and I couldn’t hold back the vomit that burst out of my mouth and into the gutter.
I wiped my mouth with a tissue and straightened up. My eyes were swimming with tears and it was hard to see the keys on my phone. But after a while I managed to tap out 999.
‘I need the police,’ I said in answer to the operator’s question. ‘I’ve been attacked.’
I gave them my name and location and told them my attackers had run off. And no, I didn’t need an ambulance.
‘Just stay where you are then, Miss Chambers. The police will be with you in a few minutes.’
I didn’t want to stop there. I wanted to go home. But I knew that I had to hang on so that I could explain to the cops exactly what had happened.
I had the presence of mind to ring home and tell Mum I was going to be late. I didn’t tell her why, though, and before she could ask I hung up.
The urge to break down in tears again right there in the street was almost unbearable, but I resisted. I was gradually regaining control of my senses, and as I did so a rush of thoughts and questions left me breathless.
Who were those men? Why did they target me? How did they know how to find me? Did one or both of them follow me from Clapham Junction? Or had they been waiting at the station along the road?
The police, when they arrived, had a bunch of other questions for me. I sat in the back of a patrol car to answer them and I was struck by the fact that it didn’t seem to them like a huge deal. Was that because I hadn’t been raped or badly beaten? Or was it because my bag hadn’t been stolen?
A couple of detectives arrived. A man and a woman. I didn’t know them, but they said they had heard of me. They made me go through it all again. This time I went into more de
tail. Told them what Leather Jacket had said to me.
We’re going to make you pay for whatever you’ve done wrong.
No, I didn’t know what he’d meant by that but I told them that I’d been threatened by Danny Shapiro, and that I was sure he was behind it.
‘Are you prepared to make an official complaint about that, Miss Chambers?’ the female detective asked me. She was plump and in her forties, with a face that seemed strangely out of balance.
‘Is there any point?’ I said. ‘He’ll only deny it and you’ll never be able to prove it.’
I then went back into the workshop with the detectives and explained what had happened and where. They asked me if the men had touched anything, and I answered truthfully that I couldn’t remember.
‘And you’re sure that you didn’t know either of these men?’ she asked.
‘I’m positive,’ I said. ‘The one in the leather jacket pretended to know me to get my attention on the street.’
‘So have you any idea what made them halt the attack on you and run away?’
I told her that I didn’t, and I could see that she wasn’t sure what to make of it. I couldn’t blame her for that. I didn’t know what to make of it myself.
The detectives made notes and took all my details but it was obvious to me that they would not be putting too much effort into finding the two men who had attacked me.
‘We’ll circulate their descriptions and check CCTV cameras around here, including those covering the station.’
I was asked again if I wanted to go to the hospital to be checked over but I said it would be a waste of time. I wasn’t seriously hurt. My left cheek was sore and my stomach ached, but it could have been much worse.
They gave me a lift home and said they’d be in touch. I thought it unlikely that I’d hear from them again. Before the night was out they would no doubt be dealing with victims who were in a much worse state than I was.
My mother was looking out of the front window when the police car pulled up in front of the house. It was nine o’clock so I was hoping that she had already put Rosie to bed. I’d been wrestling with how much to tell Mum and how much to hold back. Before walking through the front door I decided to tell her I’d been the victim of a random attack.
I thought I’d be able to stick with that as I ran through what had happened. When the tears came again, though, my resolve began to slide into the insanity that was engulfing me.
I couldn’t hold back. I told her about the threats from Shapiro and his enforcer, Frankie Bishop, and then about Tamara Roth and Peter Kline, and how I’d found out that Ethan was on Shapiro’s payroll.
She struggled to take it all in and her hands balled into fists as she listened. She then spent the rest of the evening fretting over me and threatening to murder Danny Shapiro.
‘You need to calm down, Mum,’ I said. ‘It’s not good for your blood pressure. In any case I can’t be sure he was behind it.’
A long hot bath helped to ease the soreness out of my muscles and made me feel half human again.
Meanwhile my mind continued to seethe with vivid images from inside that workshop, and with the thought of what would have happened to me if Leather Jacket’s phone hadn’t gone off when it did.
When I finally went to bed I curled myself into a ball, knees up to my chest. Yet I couldn’t sleep. I rewound the whole awful experience in my head and played it from every angle.
It was as clear as a printed page that my attackers had been acting on orders.
We’re going to make you pay for whatever you’ve done wrong.
And:
You’ll get to keep your good looks and we’ll just break a few bones.
Those statements were surely an obvious indication that they’d been told to give me a beating and that they didn’t really know why. Raping me had been their own idea, an opportunity too good to miss.
I knew in my heart that Danny Shapiro had sent them. Who else could it have been? It was his way of stopping me from working up the story and revealing what I knew.
I let out a long, dramatic breath and reached for the phone on the bedside table. It was late, but I was certain he’d be up, either off his head on coke or screwing some whore.
‘Hello, Beth,’ Ethan said when he answered. ‘I didn’t expect to hear from you tonight.’
He sounded wide awake and coherent.
‘Of course you didn’t,’ I said. ‘You thought I’d be in hospital.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t what me, Ethan. I was attacked by two men in the street on the way home from the press conference.’
‘Jesus. Are you all right?’
‘No, I’m not all right. And don’t pretend you didn’t know it was going to happen. They were sent by your friend Danny Shapiro.’
‘I swear I knew nothing about it, Beth.’
‘Well, I don’t believe you.’
‘Look, just forget about that for a second and tell me what happened. Please. How bad was it and did you call the police?’
‘Of course I called them,’ I said. ‘But I don’t believe for one minute that they’ll find the fuckers.’
‘So what did they do to you?’
‘Why don’t you ask Shapiro? He’ll know. That’s why I’m calling. I want you to tell him from me that if his aim was to scare me into dropping the story then it hasn’t worked. In fact I’m now going to double my efforts to make sure the truth about his alibi gets out. And then …’
A sob reared up in my throat suddenly and I couldn’t finish the rest of what I wanted to say, so I ended the call and switched off my phone.
My heart was thumping in my chest, and hot tears of rage were streaming down my cheeks.
I was glad I’d made the call, though. I’d needed to get it off my chest now, tonight, as I knew that in the cold light of day I might chicken out.
I could already hear a tiny voice in my head telling me that I should throw in the towel – because the next time Shapiro’s thugs came for me I probably wouldn’t get to walk away in one piece.
40
Ethan Cain
Cain poured himself a large brandy in the hope that it would help to get him through the night. Beth’s call had given him something else to feel guilty about, on top of the fact that she had seen him with Frankie Bishop. That alone was enough to get him royally fucked. He just had to hope that she kept it to herself, at least until he had a chance to talk to her.
Meanwhile, this whole wretched business was getting messier and more dangerous by the minute. It was also making him feel increasingly vulnerable and powerless, and he had no control over the events that were impacting on his life.
This attack on Beth was yet another shocking development. It didn’t sound like she had been seriously hurt and that was a relief. But was that because Danny had told his goons just to put the frighteners on her? Would he get them to put her in hospital next time?
Cain looked at his watch. It was midnight and he decided it was too late to call Danny to confront him. He’d arranged to see him tomorrow anyway so he would raise it then.
Nevertheless he was eager to know more about the attack on Beth so he called CID in Peckham. He managed to speak to one of the detectives who attended the scene and she filled him in. But what she told him left him confused. It didn’t make sense that the two attackers had suddenly fled after one of them received a phone call. What in Christ’s name was all that about?
Cain paced the floor of his living room, his nerves shrieking in spite of the brandy. A feeling of despair clawed at him as he tried to focus his mind on what he should do. It wasn’t only Beth he had to worry about. The investigation into Peter Kline’s disappearance was now well under way. His house had been searched and his neighbours questioned. Luckily only one of them had seen the two men walking up his driveway and she hadn’t been able to give a detailed description. But maybe someone else would come forward, someone who could ID him and Frankie Bishop. Then he really would be up shi
t creek.
41
Beth Chambers
I woke up in a spasm of panic. My eyes were wet and I realised I must have been crying in my sleep.
A peek at the clock on the bedside table told me it was 5 a.m., which meant I’d only slept for about two hours.
It had been a hot and horrible night. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what had happened to me, and when I did drop off my two attackers appeared in a nightmare.
I could already feel the anxiety stirring in my gut so I was forced to remind myself that I’d actually had a lucky escape. I could have been waking up in hospital having been gang-raped and badly disfigured. That was the thought I had to cling to. The positive spin. It was the only thing I could use to resist the pull of a dark depression.
I decided to have a shower before going downstairs in the hope that it would make me feel better. It did, but only a little. One of the detectives had warned me that the shock would take several days at least to leave my system, and I could well believe that.
To my surprise my mother was already up, hunched over a mug of tea at the breakfast bar. She hadn’t got much sleep either, and she looked terrible. She was obviously badly shaken and worried about me, and I was beginning to wish that I hadn’t told her the whole story.
‘I can’t believe you’re going to work,’ she said. ‘You should stay at home. You can’t possibly be in the right frame of mind to do your job.’
‘I’ve got to, Mum,’ I said. ‘I can’t sit here all day feeling sorry for myself. I think it’s best to carry on as though it didn’t happen.’
‘But it did happen, Beth, and you can’t just shrug it off. What if it happens again and the next time they really hurt you?’
‘I can’t let the fear of that stop me doing what I do, Mum.’
‘You’re not thinking straight, my love. And you’re not thinking about Rosie. Being a mother comes before being a reporter.’