‘There,’ he said with satisfaction, rising to his feet once more and casting his imposing shadow over me. ‘She’s a live wire, this one, Ramani. Likes to put up a fight. Thanks, that’ll be all.’
I got the feeling he wanted Ramani to think that this was all happening in play. The idea that she wouldn’t approve of having genuine abduction victims in the house gave me a spark of hope. Perhaps I could appeal to her, if all else failed.
‘There you are, and there you’ll stay,’ said Keane with satisfaction. ‘Until we get some sense out of you. Now tell us – when did you and Tom Crowley dream up this little scheme?’
‘It was nothing to do with you,’ I said, tears gathering at the corner of my eyes. ‘Honestly. I just wanted to know what had happened to Mia.’
‘Mia?’
It was Ed who had spoken, and there was a kind of concern, or even alarm, in his voice.
‘Yes,’ I said, turning to Ed, trying to stave off the threat of hyperventilation for long enough to explain myself. ‘Mia. A blogger. Called Mia Culpa.’
‘Oh, lord,’ said Ed.
‘What is this Mia Culpa?’ said Keane. ‘Why do you think I’d know? I’ve never heard of her.’
‘Haven’t you really?’ I said desperately. ‘She had a lover she called J, who was a powerful, influential man. I was sure it was you. She did loads of drawings of him with the face turned away and he looked like you – same height, build, hair…Perhaps you just didn’t know she had a blog?’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t allow blogging,’ he said gruffly. ‘I don’t want people putting two and two together. I don’t need that kind of publicity. You’ve made a mistake.’
‘I’m sure I haven’t,’ I continued. ‘I’m sure J is you. And you sent Mia to this training place called The Academy and she…I don’t know. She never came back? Or you…you did something to her? I don’t know. I want to know. I needed to know – that’s why I asked for Tom’s help…’
‘But this is all bollocks,’ shouted Keane. ‘I’ve got no idea what the fuck you’re on about. You’re making it up. Ed, hand me that cane, I’m going to thrash this nonsense out of her and get to the real truth.’
‘I…don’t think you should do that,’ said Ed faintly.
‘Why not? You got any better ideas?’
Keane grabbed something from the table; presumably a cane. I would have hidden my face in my hands if they hadn’t been cuffed.
‘Don’t hurt me!’ I cried. ‘I’m telling the truth.’
‘She’s telling the truth,’ Ed echoed quickly, over the sound of the cane swishing behind me.
‘What?’ The swishing stopped. ‘You’ve fallen for this cock-and-bull story about a blogger? Come on, Haydon.’
‘I think she’s telling the truth,’ Ed said, his voice still wavering, and quieter than ever. ‘Because I know that blog exists.’
I turned to him, stunned and excited.
‘Do you know her?’ I asked.
‘Do I know her?’ He pinched his lips, gazing miserably into the unlit fireplace. ‘I am her.’
For a strange, swelling moment, nobody spoke.
Then I managed a croaky ‘What?’
Ed sighed gustily and continued to stare into the soot-stained hearth.
‘Yes. It’s a silly fantasy of mine, to imagine what it’s like to be a female submissive. I often dress in women’s clothes for my sessions with Maria. This seemed like a harmless enough way to express…that side of myself.’
‘You’re Mia Culpa?’ I repeated stupidly. Keane was apparently stunned into silence, for once.
‘Yes, I’m Mia Culpa.’
‘You’re a very good artist,’ I said, in an effort to cheer him up, though God knows why I wanted to, given my circumstances.
‘Thanks,’ he said, and a watery smile was directed at me for my trouble. ‘You promise you won’t tell anyone?’
I bit my lip. How could I promise that? Tom would have to know. But I nodded, just to keep Keane’s cane off my back.
‘So…’ Keane’s voice had returned. ‘You were writing a blog pretending to be a woman?’
‘Yes,’ said Ed.
‘That’s none of my business,’ Keane said. ‘But why did you have to bring me into it? She says you blogged about a lover who sounded just like me. What was that about?’
Ed’s usually mottled colouring deepened to an ashamed crimson.
‘I’m really sorry, Judd,’ he whispered. ‘It was stupid of me. But whenever I imagined myself as a sub…I always imagined you as my Dom.’
‘That’s…’ Again, Keane had no words. He coughed, then said, ‘I thought you were straight. I mean, seeing Maria and all that. And you’re married, for Christ’s sake!’
‘I think I must be what they call pansexual,’ Ed said apologetically. ‘I haven’t found a more descriptive term for it yet.’
‘But you want to be a woman?’ said Keane, stubbornly misunderstanding.
‘No, no. I don’t want to be a woman,’ said Ed. ‘But sometimes I like to think about being one. About having breasts and…and…that kind of thing. Haven’t you ever wondered?’
‘No, I bloody well haven’t,’ said Keane.
‘Don’t listen to him,’ I said, disliking Keane more and more as the conversation progressed. ‘He’s got no imagination. I think your blog was wonderful. I was a big fan.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ed, bringing out the watery smile again. ‘I’ve never met somebody who’s read it before. It’s nice to know I managed to entertain somebody, at least.’
‘All right, enough of the pervy love-in,’ said Keane with disgust. ‘She’s trying to butter you up. She thinks she can get away with this.’ He tapped his cane on my shoulder and I flinched so hard I nearly fell face-forwards.
‘Why did you delete it?’ I asked, wanting to ignore Keane and make him go away so that Ed and I could discuss his fascinating blog at length.
‘My wife found it,’ he said sadly. ‘So it had to go.’
Keane laughed. ‘What did Gill have to say about that?’
‘A lot of things,’ said Ed. ‘Ending with her deciding to move out until I made up my mind whether I was a straight vanilla married man or…what.’
‘You never said,’ said Keane.
‘You never asked,’ said Ed.
The sorrowful silence that followed seemed to indicate that this was the pattern of their entire relationship.
‘So now you know I was telling the truth,’ I said tentatively. ‘I only enlisted Tom to help me find out what happened to Mia Culpa. And it led – like all roads, with Tom – to Mr Judd Keane.’
‘Thanks a million, Haydon,’ said Keane bitterly. He laid the cane lengthwise across the back of my neck, pressing my hair into my skin. It made me shiver. ‘But what are we going to do about it now?’
Ed’s phone shrilled before he could furnish an answer.
‘Ah,’ he said, grimacing at the screen. ‘Speak of the devil.’
‘Crowley?’ asked Keane.
Ed nodded.
‘Don’t answer,’ said Keane.
My breath juddered out of me in spurts. Tom! Tom was on the case. But where was he? Was there any chance he might find us?
‘Is he looking for you, little one?’ asked Keane, his voice low and caressing as he moved the cane from side to side then tapped my shoulders with it. ‘Are you waiting for him to come and save you?’
‘Please let me go,’ I said. ‘I can’t tell you any more. I can only promise I won’t let any of this get out. I won’t tell the police and I won’t tell Tom. I swear. Just let me go.’
‘I don’t think so,’ snarled Keane, and he put a hand under one arm and wrenched me to my feet. ‘Haydon, help me get her over the sofa. You can hold her down while I get to business.’
‘Judd, do you really think…’ said Ed, but Keane’s look must have convinced him, because he stationed himself on the other side of me and helped to drag my constricted self over to a high-armed sofa at the b
ack of the room.
‘You’ve pushed me too far,’ said Keane, once I had been pushed without ceremony over the sofa arm and lay there, unable to move, with Ed holding my shoulders and Keane’s heavy hand on my hip. ‘You tried to honey-trap me. You need to learn a lesson – Judd Keane won’t be treated that way. Judd Keane makes sure his submissives are just that – submissive. Do you understand me?’
‘Please don’t,’ I cried into the upholstery.
‘You will,’ he said.
He was in the act of pulling up my skirt when Ed’s phone rang again.
‘Oh, God, sorry,’ he said, letting go of me to retrieve the instrument.
‘Leave it!’ bellowed Keane.
‘I can’t – could be urgent. Oh. It’s Maria.’
‘Maria?’
‘Yes. What do you think she wants?’
‘To keep last night’s events out of the paper?’ hazarded Keane. ‘Surely she didn’t report them? She can’t have involved the police…’ I could feel his panic in the sudden lightness of his hand, and the clenching and unclenching of my skirt fabric.
‘Should I answer it?’ asked Ed.
‘Yes, yes. Do it. This bitch’ll wait. She’ll still get hers.’
‘Hello, Maria. What a pleasant surprise. Do you have a free session later…? Oh. Yes, I’m with him. Do you want to speak to him? At his house. Yes, of course…’
He spoke to Keane in a lower tone. ‘She wants to come round and talk to you – says it’s urgent. Is that OK?’
‘Give me the phone.’ Keane let go of me entirely and I tried to wriggle myself into a position from which escape was possible.
‘Maria?’ said Keane. ‘What do you want? I’m very busy. What? Who reported it? Well, can’t you tell your neighbour it was…a play fight? Or something? Why, what’s complicated about it? All right, all right. I’m at home. Yes, see you in ten minutes. Bye.’ He threw the phone down. ‘Shit!’
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Ed.
‘Some curtain-twitcher in her street reported the disturbance to the police. They’ve just been round to see Maria.’
‘Did she tell them what happened?’ asked Ed, aghast.
‘Of course not. Said she must have had her TV on too loud and the neighbours heard it. They couldn’t have seen anything, the way her garden’s laid out behind that wall.’
‘Well…that’s all right, then?’
‘Not necessarily. They saw Crowley leaving and apparently they’ve got photographs. And of Ella here leaving in a taxi. Lucky I left it till morning before I came home. All the same…’
‘So what’s Maria going to do?’
‘That’s what she wants to talk about. She’ll be here in ten minutes. We’ll have to put her ladyship there somewhere out of the way. But first I need to talk to Rob.’
He left the room, and within seconds his voice could be heard speaking into his phone in the hallway.
‘Who’s Rob?’ I asked, able now to lift my face from the cushions.
‘Police inspector,’ said Ed, sitting down beside me.
‘So he’s even got tame cops?’
Ed looked at me as if he’d only just noticed I was there.
‘Oh. Well, I shouldn’t be talking to you about it…’
‘I know a lot about what Keane gets up to. And he told me most of it himself.’
‘Yes, but Ella, you shouldn’t…you really shouldn’t have got involved with him. I shouldn’t have got involved with him. He’ll be the end of my career, one of these days.’
‘It can’t go on forever,’ I said. ‘He thinks he’s untouchable, but he isn’t.’
‘Well, perhaps you’re right,’ said Ed. ‘But there’ll be hell to pay. For an awful lot of us.’
‘Perhaps a bit less hell if it doesn’t come out that you abducted and tortured one of your sub-editors?’ I suggested.
‘Nobody’s tortured you,’ said Ed.
‘Not yet. But the abduction thing. And tying me up. Not recommended, really. You’re a reasonable man. I’ve always thought so. Can’t you uncuff me and just let me quietly go?’
Ed shook his head. ‘If only you weren’t mixed up with Tom Crowley, I’d think about it. But can you seriously see him letting this go?’
‘He’s on to Keane,’ I said urgently. ‘Your house of cards isn’t going to last much longer. Let me go and I won’t tell him about this. At least it won’t implicate you in kidnapping, even if you do end up having to give up the Clarion.’
Ed contemplated this. ‘You know, the sad thing is, I’m just waiting for the Acme anvil to fall on my head now. I know it’s going to happen. It’s a question of when. I’m in terrible debt, my marriage is in ruins…there’s just the Clarion left to go.’
‘I didn’t know you were in debt.’
‘I’ve paid Maria thousands and thousands of pounds. The best doesn’t come cheap.’
‘No. Good old Maria.’
‘Good old Maria,’ he repeated. In the lull that followed, we could hear that Keane’s conversation with his rotten police apple was getting heated.
‘You do look terribly uncomfortable,’ said Ed. ‘Perhaps I could undo your wrists for a moment. Until he comes back in.’
‘That would be so kind of you. And…a glass of water?’
‘I’ll ask Ramani.’
I flexed my wrists and pushed myself up to my feet while Ed nipped to the kitchen. A run for it was still precluded by my cuffed ankles, but at least I might be able to fight Keane off for a few seconds when he came back to claim his revenge. I looked around me for signs of a phone or other communications device I could use to get help, but there was nothing. My best option was still to scream for Ramani’s help, making it clear that nothing that Keane did to me was consensual. But even then she would probably be afraid to confront him. Knowing him, she was probably an illegal immigrant kept as slave labour.
Ed returned with the water before I could make further escape plans.
‘So you’ll be OK to hold me down while Keane tortures me, will you?’ I said conversationally, accepting the glass.
‘Ella…’
‘You’ve just said the truth will come out anyway. Are you really happy to see me beaten and abused just so you can hold on to your job a little bit longer?’
‘Of course I’m…’
He broke off as Keane reappeared with a face like thunder.
‘Another nightmare I owe you,’ he growled at me, then he turned to Ed. ‘Did you uncuff her?’
‘She needed water,’ he said. ‘It was only for a minute.’
‘Put the cuffs back on,’ he roared. The echo of it was still ringing around the room when another kind of ringing joined it. The doorbell.
‘That’ll be Maria,’ said Keane, looking around in agitation. ‘Where are we going to put this little bitch?’
He manhandled my newly recuffed body behind the sofa, took off his tie and stuffed it in my mouth.
‘Make one sound and it’ll be the last thing you do,’ he threatened. ‘Ed, we’ll have to keep her out of here. Talk to her in the front room.’ He raised his voice. ‘Ramani! Door!’
But it seemed Ramani had already seen to it, because the next voice I heard was Maria’s.
‘Well, well, Judd. What a tangle we find ourselves in this morning.’
She was in the hallway, mere feet away from me, if I could only try to attract her attention. But the wall stood between us, and the loudest sound I could make with Keane’s tie in my mouth would scarcely travel to the other side of the sofa.
‘Not too bad,’ he countered. ‘I’ve spoken to Rob. He thinks he can get them to drop it.’
‘I still haven’t forgiven you,’ she said icily, ‘for brawling on my lawn.’
‘Come on, it was hardly my fault…if that little bitch hadn’t brought Tom Crowley to the door…Really, it’s me that should be blaming you.’
‘Oh? And how do you work that out?’
‘Your vetting skills have gone down the pan. Inv
iting journalists to your house, for fuck’s sake.’
‘Have my skills failed me?’ asked Maria musingly. ‘Or might I perhaps have known all along?’
‘Might you…what?’ Keane laughed incredulously.
‘I’ve known Crowley was a journalist all along,’ she said breezily. I stiffened all over. What the hell was this about now? ‘I’ve seen his byline in the Clarion. I never forget a pretty face. And I knew what he was looking for. Haydon and I have spoken about it before now, haven’t we, darling?’
Ed cleared his throat, but didn’t reply.
‘Then…why…?’ Keane’s usually deep voice rose to a near-falsetto.
‘Let me be honest, Judd, darling.’ She lowered her tone confidentially. ‘I absolutely detest you. I’ve seen the mess you make of some of the loveliest submissives. I’ve seen you bully and demean them, and then cast them aside. I think you’re the wrong kind of person for our scene, Judd, and I want you out of it.’
If I could have clapped my hands and cheered, I would have done. Go Maria!
‘But…what do you…we’re friends.’
‘Your position on the council was convenient for me,’ said Maria. ‘I know you dealt with it when questions were asked about the licensing arrangements at the Valmont, and I know you’ve called the police off a couple of my clients. You were useful, for a time. But I’ve had a long talk with our friend Mr Crowley, and I’ve come to realise that that time is drawing to an end.’
‘Crowley? You…’
‘Actually, he’s here,’ said Maria. ‘Come on in, Tom. We’re just talking about you.’
A sound like a bull imploding followed, presumably from the direction of Keane.
‘No! Get him out!’ he cried once he was coherent. ‘Get out of my house!’
‘Not without Ella.’ Tom’s voice. A gush of huge love poured from every pore, and I began to kick and try to shout to him, for what good it did me. ‘Where is she? What have you done with her? If you’ve so much as touched her…’
There was another bovine bellow, and the sound of crashing and thumping.
Oh, God, Keane was attacking Tom, I was sure of it. Glass smashed and somebody – a woman – screamed.
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