by T L Blake
A hand gripped her leg, hard, gouging. Bone-like appendages slid up her thigh, their destination obvious. No, no, no, she wanted to scream but she was held tight unable to utter a word. She couldn’t even look away. Every whimper or move she made only increased Sanger’s pleasure.
Andrew struggled as she sat frozen, praying that she would not feel the disgusting sensation of that slimy thin tongue slithering over her lips again, hoping that the hand slowly climbing her thigh would stop its relentless assault on her skin before it found folds that were too personal, too delicate to be touched.
Andrew was shouting, swearing. His chair banging as he struggled to free himself but still Robyn couldn’t look away.
Sanger’s slick tongue washed over her lips once more, desperately looking for a way to penetrate, and the hand rose up her leg to where she held her thighs tightly clenched.
“Enough.” A voice boomed making Robyn jump.
The commotion ceased, as the slithering tongue disappeared and the hand released its grip.
“Step back, Doctor Sanger.”
Douglas Sanger dropped his shoulders and submitted to the command immediately. Stepping backwards to prop himself at the wall, he moved out of Robyn’s view and revealed Andrew, one arm free, tense in his seat.
Andrew’s back was straight and his head was tilted backwards, exposing his throat. His body was pulsing in the chair, stiff and clearly in agony. Against his neck was a black object, box like and hand held.
Although she’d never seen one before, Robyn knew from Andrew’s reaction what it was.
Stood in front of Andrew, but staring at Sanger, was the portly figure of James Truscott. In his outstretched arm he held a Taser to his grandson’s throat.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Robyn stared at James. He stood in front of the fire, the look on his face all business; no emotion, just calculating authority. Andrew, retied by Jane, sat next to her, their two chairs positioned as if this was a meeting. Two small burn marks, red and angry, showed on his neck. He had innumerable ties, at least double the previous number, strapping his arms down, but despite the overkill on bindings, James was taking no chances and Jane currently stood over Andrew, Taser threatening and ready.
She and Andrew were in a dire situation, Robyn knew that, but it was the lack of sentiment from James towards his grandson that bothered her the most. Andrew could have been anybody.
James walked nonchalantly to the fireplace, reached down his pipe and lit it. Smoke billowed hiding James’s face. Not that there was much to see. Whatever he was thinking or feeling was very carefully hidden by the practiced and perfected persona that he put on, like a mask, every day.
James stepped forwards. “I must apologise for Douglas.” His polite tone only served to deepen Robyn’s fear. “The good Doctor has some, passions, shall we say, that sometimes get the better of him.”
Jane laughed but James shot her a warning glance and she quickly returned her focus to Andrew.
“Now, Robyn, I do apologise for the way that we needed to get you here and for the circumstance in which you now find yourself, but I assure you that it was and is necessary. If you would be so kind as to answer a few of my questions, then we can sort this matter out quickly and be getting along with our day.” James stood casually, puffing on his pipe. He wore his customary casual, light coloured shirt and overstretched jumper, but he was no longer the slightly eccentric lord of the manor. James was the mastermind behind all of this. He held their future in his hands. And his hands were uncaring in the extreme.
Robyn couldn’t allow her body to tremble. She needed to react to James politely and without fear. She swallowed hard, lifted her chin and forced herself to look directly at him before replying. “What would you like to know James? I’m finding it a little difficult to concentrate and I have a thumping headache, but I will try.”
“Ah, yes, sorry about that. Perhaps we should give you more time for the effects to wear off.” He stepped forwards to look closely into her eyes.
The effects? Robyn recalled the white masked person, the sweet, sickly smell that had filled her airways. She exhaled a sigh. “Chloroform.”
“Very astute of you,” the wiry man, Sanger, answered. Lifting his gaze from the floor but swiftly returning it with one sharp look from James.
Chloroform was a banned substance that Robyn knew to be carcinogenic as well as damaging to both the liver and the kidneys. She could have been killed by its use.
It was still used in industry as a precursor to the manufacture of other chemicals, but could not be purchased without special permits. She’d seen a bottle though, old and forgotten, in the back of a fume cupboard during one of her teacher training placements. Not only did she know that you could therefore get hold of it, but she also knew how to make her own and had access to the chemicals to do so.
“That explains why I feel sick anyway.” She stared at Sanger. He knew exactly why she felt sick and it had nothing to do with the drug.
“Do you sweetie,” Jane chimed in, “Do you feel sick?” Her feigned look of concern broadened into a large smile and she all but danced around the room. “Sick, sick, sick, she feels sick.”
Robyn frowned. She wanted to punch the smile right off of Jane’s face.
“You should co-operate, Robyn. It will be so much easier if you do. Because if you won’t talk to me, I’m certain that you will talk to the Doctor.” James nodded towards the wiry man leaning against the wall. “And believe me, he will make you talk.”
Robyn had no doubts that Dr Sanger would make her talk. It was the other things that he would make her do that had the icy tendrils of fear creeping up her spine.
Andrew lunged forwards in his chair, fighting the bonds, “Don’t you dare threaten her,” he shouted before Jane quickly held out the stun gun.
Sanger had taken two footsteps forwards, eager to be given his opportunity to use his particular kind of persuasion to make Robyn talk. His eyes held a poisonous joy, but one look from James stopped him in his tracks.
Andrew sat back, unwilling to once again feel the pain of a high voltage shock. He looked to Robyn in anguish.
Guilt left a hard lump to swallow. Robyn knew it was her fault Andrew was there. The situation was her doing and it was up to her to put it right.
“Andrew has nothing to do with this. It was all me. Let him go.”
“No,” Andrew grunted as he tried the bonds again.
James stepped between them. “It’s a little late for that don’t you think? Besides, I have a feeling that you will me more willing to cooperate with him here.” He nodded at Jane and she pressed the button.
Two metal prongs touched Andrew’s chest and his body reared up in the chair. His back arched and his head bent backwards over the back of the frame. Andrew’s body straightened rigid within the confines of his bonds.
“No,” Robyn screamed as she watched the electricity tense Andrew’s every muscle to breaking point. “No. Stop. Stop. STOP.” She struggled in her chair, trying to reach out, trying to stop Jane, but it was no use. She watched helplessly as Andrew’s body pulsed with wave after wave of current and Jane stood over him laughing and basking in his pain.
James gave a nod to Jane and she pulled the wicked machine from Andrew’s skin. He dropped into his seat as his muscles loosened and his head slumped to one side. Robyn stared at him, desperate for signs of life, tears flowing freely down her cheek, until he took two long, deep, breaths and lifted his head defiantly.
Jane reached forwards with the stun gun again.
There were already two angry welts on Andrew’s left pectoral muscle and minute beads of sweat across his skin. Robyn would do anything to stop him having to go through that pain again. Andrew may be acting like he could take it, but his body was stating otherwise.
“No, don’t. I’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything I know. Please don’t. Please don’t hurt him again.” She sobbed.
Jane had her arm stretched toward Andrew, bu
t her eyes were now focused on James.
James took a moment, his expression remaining nonchalant and then he commanded Jane back. Jane’s hand dropped reluctantly.
Robyn sat trembling with fear. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to Andrew, emotion stifling the tone of her voice, “I never should have gotten you involved. I should have listened.”
“I was involved the first moment I saw you, Robyn. But I should have done something about this a long time ago.” His crooked smile, forced and meant to reassure her, nearly broke her.
“Touching,” James laughed and stepped forwards, taking Robyn’s attention from Andrew. “I’ll deal with you later,” he spat at his grandson.
Andrew returned James’s stare with piercing hatred.
James chose to ignore Andrew’s clear rage and continued to puff on his pipe. The noxious smoke irritated Robyn’s nose and brought her nausea back. She recoiled instinctively, pulling her head back but James bent forwards and purposefully blew the smoke into her face. His smug, half smile belied the pleasure he was taking in her unease and finally Robyn glimpsed the real man inside the carefully crafted illusion. James had a calmness and authority in all circumstances that made him a good leader, but he overly enjoyed the power that he held and he would do anything to get what he wanted. A shiver rushed up Robyn’s spine.
“Now Robyn, you will tell me why you were snooping around the abattoir last night and you will tell me what you discovered.” James blew another cloud of smoke into her face, this time he timed it perfectly with her intake of breath and the acrid gas quickly made its way into her lungs. Robyn choked out the hateful vapour.
“How?” Was all she managed between splutters, but James caught her meaning.
“CCTV. We are not as backwards thinking as you seem to think we are. The abattoir is covered by CCTV and we have some very interesting footage of the two of you searching around inside.” He leaned towards her so that his breath was upon her face. “You have got yourself into a pickle haven’t you?”
“Leave. Her. Alone.” Andrew’s low, calculated voice was strained through clenched teeth and his face was full of fury. James looked at him and Robyn was sure that she even saw a flash of fear on James’s face as he sidestepped to confront Andrew. Jane quickly stepped forwards threateningly with the stun gun and Andrew backed down.
“What do you think you’re going to do about it?” James said sarcastically. “You had your opportunity. I gave you your chance. But you couldn’t stop her looking, could you. You couldn’t stop her meddling.” His words were callous. He delivered them in a flat monotone, matter of fact. “I gave you your chance and you blew it. Now I have to deal with her.”
James stood inches from Andrew, leaning over him. He showed no emotion. Dr Sanger scared her, chilled her to the bone because she knew, without a doubt, that he had no boundaries, not when it came to women. But James, his manner with Andrew, his calm persona hiding an evil core, he worried her more. The Doctor was almost predictable in his sickness. James, on the other hand, would do anything and everything to reach his goal, and he was clever.
James turned back to Robyn. “Why were you at the abattoir?” He expected an immediate answer.
“It was my last lead,” she said honestly, “Kat mentioned it just before she left.”
Suddenly James’s eyes lit up and his stare intensified. “Katherine Harris mentioned the abattoir to you?”
“Yes.” Her heart pounded. His sudden interest in Kat confirmed that these people were responsible for her disappearance.
“Exactly what did she say?” His stare was intense and his words delivered quickly, giving away his sudden interest.
“She saw a lot of people queuing up to get in, while on one of her runs. She joked that it might be a rave.”
“Joked?” His eyes narrowed.
“Yes. She saw the Head Teacher and other older people, so she joked about a rave. She didn’t mean it, it was just a joke. Neither of us could think of a sensible reason why so many people would be at the abattoir at night.”
“Did she tell anyone else about this?” James’s stare was unwaveringly intense and as he stepped towards her, Robyn slunk back in her chair.
“No. Who was she going to tell? She left the next day.” The words rushed out and Robyn’s voice began to betray her fear.
A small smile spread across James’s lips. “And what did you find in the abattoir?”
“Dead things,” she answered flippantly. Too flippantly. A sudden pain flashed across Robyn’s face as James slapped her across the left cheek. Her head was knocked to the side and the pain burned. Her anger however, would not allow him satisfaction of seeing her cry and she raised her head to stare back at him in defiance.
“You bastard!” Andrew struggled in his chair. “You fucking bastard!”
Jane hit him with the Taser again and his body strained, muscles taut, pulsating in agony. When the voltage was removed he dropped back into his seat, his breathing ragged but he did not slump into recovery as before, he looked straight at Jane.
“What did you see at the abattoir?” James repeated the question.
“Blood.”
“Don’t play me, Robyn. If you want any hope of getting out of here, don’t play me.”
She didn’t think there was any hope. After drugging, kidnapping and torturing, Robyn couldn’t believe that James had any intention of letting either of them go. But knowledge was power, her power and it was all she had left to use.
“I know the people are sick, James. I know that they drink blood to survive and I know that this town once believed that they were plagued by demonic blood suckers.”
Andrew turned, startled.
“We thought you were Satanists, but you’re not are you?”
“Well, well, well, you have been busy haven’t you?” James narrowed his eyes.
“More than you could possibly know.” She twisted in her chair in order to sit tall. “The children get sick. I’ve seen it myself; the lethargy and exhaustion. That’s the start isn’t it. They grow pale and gaunt and years ago they probably died. Somehow, nearly two hundred years ago, someone discovered that drinking blood or something similar helped them. I think the people of this town drink what was in those bottles to survive.”
It was Andrew that spoke. “Two hundred years ago?”
“The symbol on the graves: the Triskele. It’s on every one of those graves I told you about. The first time it shows up is in 1840. Remember what you told me it meant?”
“The cycle of life.”
“Yes. I think that the people of Porthmollek believed that those people would rise from their graves. They believed it because they knew what killed them, or should I say who killed them.” Robyn looked around the room. Only Andrew looked as if this was new to him, the others all understood her immediately. “They put that symbol on their headstones because they thought that they were cursed, afflicted with a demon that made them drink the blood of their kin. The Triskele was their way of stopping that curse from spreading. They wanted the spirits of the deceased to move on.”
Andrew said nothing. The room had fallen into complete silence. She only hoped that what she had to say next would grant them their freedom.
“You think that you are evil, cursed, but you’re wrong. There is nothing demonic or fantastical about what is happening here.”
“Shit,” Sanger swore from across the room.
She ignored Sanger’s outburst and continued. “You’ve got a form of sideroblastic anaemia. It might not be curable but it is treatable.”
Only the crackle of the fire in the hearth and the ticking of the carriage clock on the mantel indicated that time was passing as Robyn looked from one face to the other. Her stomach sank. Only one person in that room was shocked, Andrew.
“You already know.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Robyn had been researching sideroblastic anaemia on the internet when they were taken. From what she had seen, some of the people in t
he town had all of the symptoms, especially Stuart Yelland. It all then made a sick sort of sense.
The genetic illness was unlike other forms of anaemia. The illness didn’t occur due to lack of iron, but rather an inability to absorb it. Onset was at puberty and the patient would be lethargic, pale and gaunt, just as Stuart Yelland had looked when he had collapsed onto her laboratory floor. The usual treatment was a bone marrow transplant, but that didn’t stop the build-up of toxic iron in the blood. Patients usually succumbed to liver, kidney or heart damage, leading to early death, normally before sixty. Robyn had seen some of the members of staff at school popping pills during break time and the medication fit her theory.
In this insular little town, the disease had been thriving as local married local in a tight gene pool. A large proportion of the town’s people were affected, especially judging by the numbers they had seen at the abattoir and they were treating themselves.
What she and Andrew had seen in those bottles was probably pig blood and bone marrow, extracted from the herds that surrounded Porthmollek. Robyn knew that pigs were a close genetic match to humans. Pig products had been used medicinally for years. Insulin, heparin and thyroxine were but a few of the hormonal replacements that had been produced.
Robyn couldn’t say why the people of this community could ingest their treatment, why the elixir seemed to either bolster or fully replace their own damaged bone marrow, but it was working. The people here were living quality lives of a similar length to those undergoing more conventional treatments. If it hadn’t been for their determination to keep hidden, the people of Porthmollek would have made an interesting study.
It was the Triskeles together with the blood in the bottles that had plagued her. Her subconscious had known that the symbol showed that this had been going on for many years and had historically been a lot more macabre than it was now. The people of Porthmollek now treated themselves with extract from pigs, but in their past they had killed for their medication.