The Tied Man

by McGowan, Tabitha

  As the doctor gratefully collected her bag and scuttled from the room, I pulled myself upright and leaned against the sink for support. ‘Henry, you fucking bastard. What did Blaine offer you, huh? Staff discount?’

  Henry’s eyes were already full of tears. ‘I have never thought of you like that.’

  ‘Yeah, I bet you haven’t.’

  ‘She had Mother on the phone, Finn. She was telling me about the nice young man who was there to take her out for the day, for pity’s sake! He could have killed her there and then!’

  ‘I wish he had, you pathetic little shit. I wish he’d strangled the senile old hag as she stood there and fucked her still-warm, pissing corpse whilst you were still on the line.’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Oh yes I do.’ I took a breath that felt like I was inhaling fire. ‘You could have held out. You could have played stupid and denied it all, left Blaine to ring around and maybe, just maybe, think that it was some fucking huge coincidence that Lilith was in London that night. I know you can’t get away with shit like that forever, but for fuck’s sake we could have got Lilith off the island, instead of letting Coyle...’

  ‘Please don’t say it,’ Henry pleaded.

  Talking hurt far more than I’d expected, but I was hitting my stride now. ‘You know what I think happened, Henry old chap? I reckon she saw you shitting yourself the second she got back to the island and read the whole fucking story on your face before you even had to open your mouth.’

  ‘I thought I could do it, truly I did. You and Lilith have this ability to keep your heads under the most appalling pressure and I hoped some of that courage had rubbed off on me, but Blaine took one look at me and I swear she just knew.’

  ‘So you told her everything.’

  ‘No, not everything. Blaine doesn’t know where Jake is. He’s safe...’

  ‘But you told her what Lilith had done. Let her take all that. Christ!’ I had to stop speaking to cough, and my broken rib made my chest feel like it had been wired to a car battery. I clung on to the edge of the sink and spat red foam onto the white enamel.

  ‘Please try to calm down,’ Henry begged, and placed a hand on my shoulders. ‘This is part of my punishment, you know that, don’t you? You and Lilith mean the world to me – that’s why she ordered me to stay and watch. Knew that seeing the pair of you hurt would be more than I could stand.’

  ‘What, more than being mauled by Coyle O’Halloran, or gettin’ hoofed around the kitchen, or havin’ a couple of fingers snapped for a laugh? More than that, Henry? That what you’re tryin’ to tell me, little man?’

  ‘No!’ Henry wiped his eyes. ‘Oh Finn, look at what they did to you – I’m so, so sorry...’ He pulled out a handkerchief and went to clean my face of blood-stained drool. It was too much.

  I grabbed his wrist before he managed to touch me. ‘What’s this, Henry? Fuckin’ foreplay, huh? This your big chance to make a move? Tell you what, you just wait a few days ‘til Coyle’s had his chance to play with me, because I tell you now, I won’t be in a state to run anywhere. You can do what the hell you like to me, then. But for now, you lay a finger on me and I promise you I’ll do my best to break your treacherous fuckin’ neck.’

  Henry let his hand drop, defeated. ‘I tried to warn you,’ he whispered. ‘All those weeks ago. Told you not to get involved...’

  It wasn’t the most graceful punch I’d ever thrown, but it still broke Henry’s nose. I simply let the momentum carry us both to the floor, where I reckoned I might get to throttle the man before I passed out, especially as Henry didn’t seem particularly keen to fight back. He was just beginning to make some fairly interesting choking noises when Coyle returned from his pick-me-up and kicked me off Henry, managing to break the second rib of the morning.

  ‘Jesus, you don’t learn too quick, do you , faggot?’ He hauled me into a headlock to allow Henry to crawl away. ‘Come on, time to go and see your new cage.’

  *****

  Coyle’s buddies had prepared my room whilst he was dealing with me. My life’s possessions now consisted of the pyjama pants I was wearing, an ancient sweatshirt, a stripped mattress and a thin duvet. Worst of all, no oil lamp. The few things I had foolishly thought of as mine – just books for the most part, and my precious sketch of Bran – were nowhere to be seen. Fuelling a bonfire somewhere, no doubt.

  ‘You stupid little shit.’ He threw me to the back wall. ‘Jesus, if you thought you had a crap life before this, you’re going to love your world from now on.’ He crouched at my side. ‘Right, time for the ground-rules. One,’ he began to count off on his fingers, ‘and this’ll come as no surprise, no more swanning around like lord of the fucking manor; you’re either in here or you’re working. Two – you have any ideas about meeting up with our resident artist and I’ll hurt her in whichever way I fancy, and three, I’m in charge of that nasty little habit of yours. You get two visits a day, and I watch you swallow so you can’t stockpile and do anything stupid. If you’re a good boy I might up your dose, but if you kick off, you know I can give you just enough to keep you screaming on the edge of a rattle for days. Are we clear, you shit-stabbin’ piece of filth?’

  ‘Perfectly.’ My mouth now felt as though it had been stoved in with a housebrick.

  ‘Good dog.’ Coyle got to his feet and placed the tip of his boot on my latest broken rib and nudged his foot forwards. I cried out despite myself. ‘Oh, and talkin’ of useless mongrels, there’ll be one less in about, ooh, ten minutes’ time. A bit of target practice, if you get my drift?’ He mimed raising a shotgun and firing at me.

  I got his drift. Bran was already as good as dead, and I’d killed her.

  ‘See you in a few hours for your next fix, faggot,’ Coyle called as he slammed the door. ‘As long as I don’t forget, that is.’

  *****

  I heard the muffled report of a shotgun being fired at close range. A terminal, numbing emptiness filled me as I lay down on the mattress, shut my eyes against the approaching darkness, and began to go quietly mad.

  Lilith

  The first morning after the conflagration was the worst. Sleep hadn’t stopped the hurt: the night was filled with pethedine dreams of Coyle’s hard, jabbing fingers deep inside me, and the sound of my fingers snapping and Coyle’s boot slamming into Finn. I awoke shaking with fear and pain, and knew what I had to do if I had any intention of surviving. Every muscle screamed as I swung my legs over the side of my bed.

  I tentatively placed my unbroken hand between my legs and checked my fingers. The bleeding had stopped and I clung on to this small act of healing as I dragged my trainers from under my bed using my clenched toes.

  It was six thirty in the morning and I was still breathing. I was going for my run.

  *****

  ‘Run’ was a misnomer. A meagre three circuits of the island took me the best part of an hour, but in that time I learned two important things: I was considered sufficiently tamed to be left alone, and I was still capable of putting one foot in front of the other so I could do the only thing in the world that might stop me going crazy with longing for Finn. No matter how difficult I found it, I knew the only way of keeping him safe for now was for Blaine to think I had learned my lesson.

  A soft drizzle cloaked the rocks as I began my final lap. I pushed damp hair from my eyes and touched the stitches in my head; a row of tiny thorns. I cursed Coyle and walked on into the grey dawn.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Finn

  I knew it was Coyle long before he appeared. Even if I hadn’t recognised the sound his customary heavy-footed swagger made on the bare stone, I could have guessed purely on the basis that he was the only soul I’d seen since the beginning of my confinement.

  I wasn’t sure how long it had been; with no clock to keep measure of the time, and enough temazepam in my system to dull my vision to a monochrome blur, it could have been seven days or seventy. Long enough for my fear of the darkness to develop into
a constant, low-level howl, and long enough for the noise of Coyle’s footfall have me slavering like a Pavlovian dog in anticipation of my next fix – that much I knew, at least.

  Now the meagre light from the lamp-lit corridor hurt my eyes as Coyle kicked the door open and strutted in. He held a basin of water, and had a ragged towel, a clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt that looked vaguely familiar draped over his left arm.

  ‘Stand up, fag.’ He was bored, drunk and belligerent. Always a winning combination. He clumsily set the bowl down so that water and suds slopped over the sides, then threw the clothes at me. ‘Get yourself washed, then get those on. You’re back working tonight – couple of fellas come all the way from the U S of A lookin’ for some hot twink action, you lucky, lucky bastard. Can’t have you stinking like the shit you are now, can we?’

  I didn’t move. Initially it was simply because I couldn’t find the energy, but there was also something satisfying about Coyle’s irritation at my disobedience.

  ‘What the fuck you waiting for? Christmas?’

  I decided to stay put.

  ‘You think ‘cos I’m not allowed to mark you, I can’t hurt you?’ Coyle submerged the towel in the water. ‘Because I’m telling you now, that’s a bloody stupid mistake to make.’ He brought the towel out and wrung it out tightly, sending fat drops of water splattering across the stone flags. ‘Now, get the fuck up.’

  I watched him with detached curiosity, wondering when the talking was going to stop.

  The answer was, pretty much immediately. As I’d hoped, the rolled-up towel smacked into my broken ribs with a force that knocked the breath from me. I welcomed the familiarity and waited for the pain to register.

  ‘Get. The. Fuck. Up.’ Each word on a separate impact. The wet towel was cudgel hard and Coyle was sufficiently skilled to ensure a good beating without leaving so much as a single bruise, but to my dismay I was a dispassionate observer, watching from the far side of the room as someone else got the crap beaten out of him for a change. I had lost the ability to feel.

  My lack of response infuriated Coyle, and he began to break sweat in his attempt to make me cry out. ‘What’s the fuckin’ matter with you? You gone simple after a few days in the dark?’

  I giggled at him; a high, child’s laugh that I didn’t recognise as mine. Once I’d started, I couldn’t stop myself, even as Coyle rained harder and harder blows down on me. ‘You can’t hurt me,’ I gasped, the most hilarious punchline in the world.

  Coyle finally stopped. ‘Is that right? So, shall we have a wee chat about Lilith and see if that’s still the case?’

  The mere mention of her name did what any number of whacks had failed to do. Coyle had just managed to rip my chest open and grab my heart.

  ‘Thought that would get your attention.’

  ‘I swear, if you’ve touched her...’

  ‘You’ll what? Slobber on my feet? Look at the state of you, you pathetic turd. Anyway, it’d be a bit fuckin’ tricky to hurt her now, seein’ as she fucked off back to Spain three days ago.’

  The hand around my heart squeezed tight. ‘No.’

  ‘What? You think she was going to wait around for the gimp who’d got her finger-fucked on the kitchen floor? She finished her pretty picture and ran, first chance she got. Straight into the loving arms of that Gabriel fella, according to The Herald. I’ll bring it down to show you on my next visit – a bit of light reading to while away the hours, eh?’

  With that news, everything ended. Coyle had won. I hurt harder than I’d ever hurt in my life.

  ‘So now will you fuckin’ well stand up?’

  I numbly staggered to my feet, using the rough wall as support as my wasted leg buckled under me. ‘Need to get sorted. Clean. If I’m working...’ The words sounded thick and dead.

  Coyle casually lit a cigarette and offered me one. ‘I don’t think there’s anything left in your arse to wash out, is there? Haven’t seen you eat anything for the past few days.’

  ‘I need...’ I repeated.

  ‘I really don’t give a shite what you need. The nice gentlemen who’ve paid for your services want you as you come, so to speak. Probably want to scrub the shit out of you themselves.’ He shrugged. ‘Or eat it. Whatever it is you dirty bunch of bastards get up to.’ He threw the towel back into the basin. ‘Now, do as you’re told and I’ll even let you have a couple of vallies to take the edge off before your shift starts.’

  *****

  The simple task of walking to the dining room half-killed me, even with Coyle beside me with one hand clamped around my arm. Like I was capable of running anywhere.

  ‘I read their letter,’ my attendant said. ‘Jesus, you’re in for some fun tonight. Almost worth abandoning my principles just to catch a bit of the action.’

  I didn’t respond; I was too busy trying to keep one foot moving in front of the other.

  ‘Ah, here he is now.’ Blaine delivered her customary opening line as the door swung open. She walked over to welcome me and Coyle patted me on the back, before leaving me to get on with my job.

  ‘Darling!’ Blaine greeted me with a gushing warmth that suggested I’d been out for the day, rather than locked in her cellar. ‘Come and meet Chester.’

  The patio doors were flung open onto an ink-black night and the autumn air raised gooseflesh on my bare arms. I aimed for the nearest chair and managed to shamble to it without falling flat on my face, and stood with both hands gripping the back to take a first blurred glance at my client.

  He was a man in a well-preserved, gym-toned middle age, and a study in understated wealth. Even without Coyle’s tip-off I would have placed him as a Yank, with his sharply creased chinos and his perfect, sculpted hair. He stood at well over six feet, and the width of his shoulders made him appear taller still.

  ‘Well, look at you,’ he said in a voice that was used to filling a room. CEO of something or other, no doubt. His accent belonged to one of those Anglophile northern states; I found myself thinking that Lilith would have known which one, right down to the guy’s zip code and house number, and just the merest thought of her made the pain surge through my narcotic barricade.

  ‘Chester Hemingford. Pleasure to meet you, Finn. Please, call me Chet.’ Good ol’ Chet grinned with his million-dollar teeth and held out a massive paw of a hand. His grip was soft, but the firm pressure from his fingers told me that he was already checking out his purchase.

  ‘Was I right?’ Blaine asked him.

  ‘Oh hell, yeah,’ Chester laughed. ‘Got to admit, I was a little concerned when plans went awry, but yeah, you were one hundred percent correct, Lady Albermarle.’

  ‘Blaine, please.’

  ‘My apologies – Blaine. Time to call the better half indoors, I think. See if the scenery in here impresses him as much as your garden does.’ He strode to the open patio door, leaving a scent of something expensive in his wake. ‘Ellis? You want to come in and meet our boy?’ he called into the gloom.

  ‘Amazing view you have...’ the soft West Coast voice drifted in moments before I saw its owner. Ellis was nearer to both my age and build, slight but muscular in black jeans and shirt, to match his dark, close-cut hair. His American heritage was represented by a silver and turquoise belt buckle highlighting a slim waist, and I had an image of the two men working out side by side in a chrome-plated gym, giving each other big, sweat-soaked grins of encouragement. I was just imagining a two-hundred pound barbell crushing Chester Hemingford’s windpipe when he gave a light cough.

  ‘Ellis Simonette, I’d like you to meet Finn...’ he began, but faltered as he realised Blaine hadn’t supplied him with my surname.

  ‘Strachan,’ I managed to recall.

  ‘Strachan,’ Chester echoed.

  Ellis’ acquisitive eyes glittered as he caught his first sight of me. ‘Oh wow.’ The same response I’d given when I saw Lilith for the first time, but so very different in its meaning.

  ‘Isn’t he just?’ Chester said with pride, as if
he’d just hunted me down and dragged me into the dining room himself. He turned to me. ‘You’ll join us for dinner?’ One of those questions that wasn’t a question.

  ‘Of course he will,’ Blaine replied for me, and placed a steering hand on my shoulder, directing me to a seat. ‘It’ll give you boys some time to get to know each other.’

  *****

  I managed a couple of glasses of wine – something red, I think – that mixed with everything else in my bloodstream to add to the haze, but all my food was returned to the kitchen in the same state it arrived.

  ‘That’s one hell of a diet you have there,’ Chester commented as Henry – with two fading black eyes that made him look even more like a small, nervous owl – cleared away my untouched steak. ‘Suppose that’s what helps keep that figure, huh?’

  ‘Something like.’

  ‘I thought Ellis was strict with all that macrobiotic nonsense, but you seem to be taking it to a whole new level.’ He gestured at his cleared plate with his fork. ‘I don’t know how you can resist this stuff. Some chef you have, Lady... Sorry, Blaine.’

  Ellis patted his flat stomach. ‘That’s LA for you. A fat actor’s an unemployed actor.’

  Their lovers’ banter became a hiss of white noise. As long as I smiled or nodded in the right place every few minutes it satisfied them that I was part of the conversation, and it left me free to contemplate the rest of my life without Lilith.

  Lilith

  I hadn’t realised how much I had missed warmth. My entire body craved it, as though that part of me that was Algerian could only be recharged by the sun. I lay prone, letting my bones and skin absorb the delicious heat, and shut my eyes.

  My eyes snapped open. I couldn’t let myself switch off like this. Not yet. I even slept fully clothed, with a chair pushed against my door and the largest carving knife I could find under my pillow. I clambered awkwardly from the bath, still unable to take any weight on my broken fingers, already starting to shiver as the frigid autumnal air crept under the bathroom door and clung on to me like a wraith. Even if I banked the fire in my bedroom until it roared, the cold had taken up permanent residence at Albermarle Hall.