Her Last Secret

by P L Kane

  There was also an email dated a couple of days ago, telling them they needed to get a clean-up crew to the site. To get rid of some of the blood that was still there, and bollocking them for leaving it in the first place.

  Some of the blood that was—

  Quickly, Jake checked the outgoing messages and found one with an attachment that would no doubt get sent to all the contacts in this email program’s address book, making things easy. He clicked on the attachment and there it was, the original invitation that he’d received by text – how Alison’s friend with the dodgy software had been able to trace this location. Only now it showed the address of the gathering, the party that was suitable for ‘all tastes’ (and thanks to what he’d found in this room, he knew just what that meant, or some of it).

  The address was a set of numbers, coordinates. The same set of numbers that had been in Jordan’s diary …

  He went back to the folder, examining the pictures now not for clues about his daughter or Bannister, but the location. And, yes, he was damned if he didn’t recognise some of the background details – the walls especially. This had taken place in one of the upstairs rooms of the slaughterhouse he and Sam had visited. No wonder they’d been attacked! They were getting too close to all this, to the people behind it – whoever they were, and there was still nothing here to connect it all to Sellars though some computer whiz might be able to.

  Indeed, there was enough on this computer, probably backed up on some other nebulous system, to bury them all – let alone in here!

  Jake closed everything and sandwiched the laptop together again. Now he had to get out of here and report back … No, first he had to let someone know where he was, and what was here.

  Matt.

  He took out his phone and was about to dial the number when he thought about noise again and opened up a text instead. Fingers working furiously, fumbling over words, Jake told him about the farm, where it was and some of what he’d found. Basically just saying, get someone out here as fast as possible, only people he trusted though … and at this point in time Jake wasn’t entirely sure that included Channing.

  He pressed send. Nothing happened. Then he got an error message saying that it couldn’t be delivered. Panicking, Jake’s eyes scanned the smaller screen in front of him. There was hardly any signal out here, which wasn’t really surprising. This place hadn’t been chosen for its picturesque surroundings. They had Wi-Fi, but mobile signal appeared to be atrocious. For a second he thought about sending an email instead, but that wouldn’t be found until the morning probably – or might be discovered on their system. Plus, he realised he didn’t even have Matt’s email. Hadn’t needed it before.

  Signal … he needed to get a better signal. Maybe outside the door, on the landing? Always worked in his place. So, remembering to switch off the light, he opened the door to the room and quietly stepped out. Tried sending again.

  Then Jake looked up, slowly. Opposite him was a bald man who’d stepped out of the room opposite at the same time as, or a second or two after, he’d done the same. It occurred to Jake that if there had been anyone else watching it might have looked like a scene from that sitcom the others were enjoying downstairs.

  Close to … Inside …

  And time seemed to stand still once more as Jake took the man in. He was wearing a vest, arms out as he stretched, caught mid-yawn. A tiny blue vein was pulsing at his temple. He was fit, well-muscled, might be able to best Jake in a scrap but would definitely be able to with the help of his friends. Which is probably why Jake had compounded the farcical nature of the situation by putting a finger to his lips and trying to shush him.

  The man was just gaping at him, probably wondering if Jake was a figment of his imagination or an after-effect of a dream he’d just had. But time couldn’t stand still forever, and eventually the guy realised what he was looking at was real.

  ‘Oi,’ he said quietly, then more loudly, ‘Oi!!’

  Jake blinked once, twice, and bolted sideways. Bolted left to rush down the stairs, hoping that he might get to the bottom and get out of the house before the man’s cries alerted the others down there.

  Fat chance of that, because already they were in the hallway grumbling and asking what all the racket was about. Jake barrelled into the bearded man, knocking him over, then ran right into the arms of the other one who was stronger than he looked. Grabbing Jake in a bear-hug, and forcing him to drop his phone, they looked like lovers about to become intimate. But the only kiss Jake was interested in was a Glasgow one, pulling his head back as far as he could and butting him hard.

  The thin man let go, sliding down the wall and clutching at his face. Jake looked back over his shoulder, which was definitely a mistake, because he saw the bald man now on the stairs holding a gun.

  Shit! he thought. Not so farcical now, not so funny …

  Close … Inside … Buying the farm …

  ‘Come back here!’ shouted baldy.

  There wasn’t much chance of that, but the distraction did mean Jake missed the thin man grabbing at his leg from his lower position. Jake tripped, went flying, and landed on the hall floor. Winded, he still attempted to get up and get away, but the element of surprise was gone now and the three men – men Bond or one of those other action heroes would have been able to fell single-handed, but Jake was just Jake – were on him seconds later.

  Seconds after that he was hit on the back of the head with something – the butt of the gun? – only it didn’t knock him out. He just felt pain, was aware of his scalp leaking, bleeding. He might even have said ‘Ow!’ but he couldn’t remember. More farce …

  Then it didn’t matter, another blow and it was all over.

  Cue more canned laughter and the credits rolled over the end music of the show.

  Chapter 26

  Even before he woke up, he was aware that his feet were not connecting with the ground.

  He was flying then? An angel ascending … And once more those thoughts about seeing Jordan again wafted through his mind. His war against the demons in the stained-glass window was over; he’d tried, done his best, and this would be his reward.

  But no, he wasn’t flying or ascending, because he wasn’t moving. His arms were up over his head, like the bald man’s almost had been when he was stretching – except Jake’s were held fast. Secured by something … to something.

  And there was pain. Not just from the back of his head where he’d been struck – twice – but also in his shoulders, which were carrying his weight as gravity did its worst.

  Not flying then. Hanging.

  Jake shifted that head, which was a definite mistake – as was moving it from side to side, to see whether he still could. Then he opened his eyes, the shapes in front of him blurred at first, but even when he could see, when he’d focused, they were not that distinct. Dark and fuzzy, but there was a reason: the light in here was minimal, coming from a couple of standing lamps. Lamps the figures were behind so he couldn’t make them out; at least two, he thought. Beardy and the thin man from the farm, or the bald guy with one of them?

  He looked down at that point, expecting to see an abyss below him. Some sort of drop like they also had in those action films when they were interrogating people. But actually his feet were only a few metres off the ground, a floor that he recognised. Quickly Jake looked up and regretted that just as much, but it gave him his answer – the final part of the mystery of where he was.

  His hands were bound with plastic ties around the wrists, but he was actually hanging from one of the chains and hooks they’d seen when they first came to this place a couple of days ago.

  Meat ready for the slaughter.

  Jake wriggled around on the hook, trying to get loose; attempting to haul himself up and hop off it, but he didn’t have the strength in his upper arms (could have used baldy’s help with that). When he let go again, the strain on his shoulders was incredible and he grunted, then let out a cry.

  ‘Fuckers!’ he growl
ed, spittle flying from his lips. ‘Let me go!’ There was no reply, the shadowy figures remained behind the lights. ‘I know what you’ve been doing here, you’re finished!’

  There was a laugh, light and breathy like a little girl’s. Definitely didn’t belong to any of the men he’d run into at the farm.

  ‘Did you hear what I said? I know everything, let me go!’ he barked.

  ‘Oh, I sincerely doubt you know everything,’ said the person who’d laughed. ‘And the fact you know this much is the reason we can’t let you go, Mr Radcliffe.’ He knew the voice, had heard it recently, but more measured. An act, a portrayal of civility. Now it just sounded … evil. There was no other word for it.

  ‘Sellars.’ Jake said the name like it was a curse, and really was it too far from the mark to say that? The woman was a curse on this town, a blight. Responsible for so much misery.

  She moved forward now, still wearing that suit from earlier when he’d arranged to see her. ‘What a thorn in our side you have been recently, Mr Radcliffe. But you’ve had ample opportunity to walk away from this, not least today. I did try to warn you … Not even when you had your little run-in, or should I say run-off, on the road did you back away. Now, sadly, we’re going to have to take certain steps to make sure our secrets remain … secret.’

  ‘Fuckers!’ he snarled again.

  ‘Language, Mr Radcliffe. Such language.’ Sellars tutted.

  ‘That’s what you do, isn’t it? To people who get too close to the truth, too close to all this? You get rid of them?’

  ‘Actually, we find blackmail usually works. You’ve seen the pictures, I assume, the footage. Who’d want all that lot exposing? We certainly wouldn’t. It’s never really an issue, trust me.’

  ‘So, what, you’ve been doing this shit all these years … Why?’

  ‘Why else, Mr Radcliffe. Power!’ Sellars clapped her hands together as he’d seen her do before, but then rubbed them. ‘I don’t expect a man like you to understand, but this is bigger than me. Much bigger than one person.’

  ‘But you’re … Those people, you’re killing kids!’

  She frowned then, behind those massive glasses. ‘I thought you said you knew everything, that you understood?’

  Jake gazed at her, open-mouthed.

  ‘You really don’t understand a thing, do you? We don’t kill anyone. Not if we can help it.’

  ‘What? What the fuck are you talking about? Those girls and boys, they—’

  ‘They’re paid for services rendered, Mr Radcliffe. And paid well, I might add. Much better than working in a supermarket or burger shop … In exchange for partaking in, ah, certain activities.’

  So payment was involved, he’d just got that bit wrong. It was the kids taking part who were paid? No, he didn’t believe that …

  ‘We have physicians on hand, but there are accidents, I grant you. Sometimes one of our members gets a little carried away, but—’

  ‘I saw a boy get his fucking arm chopped off!’ argued Jake. ‘You call that carried away?’

  ‘This would have been one of the older photographs, yes?’ Sellars folded her arms, stepped a little closer. ‘Back then things were a little more … fast and loose. There weren’t as many public records kept, that sort of thing. Sometimes children … young people … went missing without a trace.’ She shrugged. ‘What’re you going to do?’

  ‘Children still go missing,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Occasionally we draw on the pool of homeless, youngsters who have run away from home. But even then we pay them, unless they get … difficult. We prefer to think of it as a business transaction these days.’ Sellars stopped, smiled that chilling smile of hers. ‘Oh, wait, is this the bit where I explain my wicked schemes? I expect you think all this is a bit melodramatic, like something from a film or TV show? I’d have thought you’d approve of that, Mr Radcliffe, given your background.’

  ‘I don’t approve of any of this crap. You’re warped in the head, all of you!’

  ‘If we are, then we’re not alone I assure you. There are so many of us, and this has been going on so long that—’

  ‘Back to the 1920s, I know,’ he butted in.

  She released one of her hands to jab a finger at him. ‘But you see, there you are again. You really don’t. The things you’ve seen, they don’t go back to the beginning of all this. We keep the really early photographic records in the vault, that goes back to when photographs were first being used – and then before that paintings, sketches. But not even those go back to the start of all this; far from it. Just be thankful we don’t do what they did back then to appease them. There’s no cannibalism these days, not on my watch. Well, not much anyway.’

  Jake thought he really was going to throw up. Then he thought about those carvings, what those men were doing to that girl with the pigtails. ‘Appease them, you said. Rituals,’ he blurted out. ‘This is all occult stuff, isn’t it?’

  Sellars cocked her head. ‘Well … yes and no. Personally I don’t really believe in all that nonsense, but some of the members do like to keep with certain traditions dating back to when Redmarket was founded. Back then, of course, it was commonplace. Went hand-in-hand with the town’s trade at the time. Our church, for example, that started out as a site of pagan worship. But it was the Vikings who really kicked things off, I can tell you!’

  ‘Mad … This is all fucking crazy,’ stated Jake.

  ‘Depends how you look at it. There was a period not so long ago when all of this died down, one of the previous mayors didn’t really have the stomach for it. And look what happened? Our town nearly died, our industry certainly did. Then, when we started again, when we found this place … Oh, we haven’t always held our gatherings here – they’ve been in old warehouses, packing plants, the farm you were nosing around, even in people’s homes sometimes. But, well, this seemed quite appropriate don’t you think? Easy enough to conceal all those hidden cameras … Et voilà, suddenly the town comes back to life. Not our particular industry, I’ll grant you – that suffered from the general global economic downturn – but we bucked the trend and survived. No, not just survived: we thrived! Became the place to come for the nightlife. For business opportunities, investments … Of course, some of our clients needed a little persuasion, but they saw sense in the end. When I said I felt sure they would have donated to that charity you were talking about, I meant it. They would have had no other choice.’

  ‘You would have blackmailed them,’ said Jake.

  Sellars grinned. ‘Of course! That’s how all this works, Mr Radcliffe, don’t you see? Everyone has their weak spots.’

  ‘So someone, somewhere, has got dirt on you too,’ he surmised.

  She didn’t answer that, but there was another twitch of the mouth, the same as there had been in her office, and she got back to her original tack: ‘I suppose it’s up to you whether you believe the “sacrifices” worked, the spilled blood. Or whether it was just good business sense on our part, moving those pieces around the chess board so to speak.’

  Jake grimaced. ‘And that’s it, just a little spilled blood, eh? “All tastes” it said on that invitation, what the fuck do you mean by that?’

  Sellars sighed. ‘Occasionally there’s a sexual element involved, I’ll give you that. Wouldn’t be my first choice, but … It’s totally consensual, however. None of the recipients are forced into anything.’

  ‘No, they’re bribed … or blackmailed again. You said yourself that was how it worked,’ snapped Jake, throwing her words back at her.

  ‘No, no … Not the same thing at all. It …’ Sellars let out another weary breath. ‘You don’t understand anything about this, do you? Not really.’

  ‘What’s to understand? A bunch of sicko perverts are carving up kids … or young people as you call them, and having sex with them. It’s been going on for as long as anyone can remember, and apparently the infrastructure of Redmarket is inherently corrupt. Did I miss anything out?’

 
The mayor stared at him through her thick glasses. ‘This is pointless. I’m trying to explain things to someone who will never understand them, and who is also a dead man.’

  ‘Dead … Like my daughter, you mean? How involved in all this was she? How involved was Bannister?’

  ‘Again, you know nothing.’

  ‘I saw her!’ he screamed. ‘I saw the pictures from here! I-I saw the scars on her arms when …’ He stopped, tears threatening. ‘How the fuck did she get wrapped up in all this, why would she—’

  ‘Money!’ Sellars shouted back. ‘She was paid, Mr Radcliffe. I keep trying to explain that to you. It. Was. A. Job!’

  He thought about Jordan’s wardrobe, the jewellery and make-up he couldn’t fathom how she afforded. This was how, sadly. This explained everything. But Christ, if she’d needed money, why hadn’t she gone to her mum? To him. But then he knew the reason why she hadn’t come to him, didn’t he – they were barely speaking. It had forced her to turn to these people, these lunatics …

  ‘But I will tell you this before you die, she got cold feet about it all. Wasn’t a particularly willing participant to begin with and in fact refused to attend after her first time.’

  Jake took in the words, what that meant. She’d got mixed up in something she didn’t really understand, and how could she – how could anyone understand this insanity? But hadn’t gone too far with it, wanted out, and that had got her killed. They’d orchestrated it all, and the police …

  ‘So, I’m guessing Channing’s involved in this up to his neck. He’s the one who kept telling me to back off at every turn. What, is he back there behind the lights with you?’

  Sellars shook her head, beckoning the man back there to move forward. And even now Jake could see the size of that figure wasn’t right for Channing. Too big. Definitely none of the guys from the farm, more like …