Cucumber Coolie (12 page)

And then he looks back at Subject C.

“You might be tough, princess, but you won’t be. Not when I’m finished with you.”

He steps up. Walks over to the tarp. Lifts it, and pulls out some pliers.

He grabs the camcorder.

And then he unzips his flies and walks back towards Subject C.

Subject C stares ahead, completely responseless as he approaches her.

He lowers his trousers.

Lowers his boxer shorts.

Stands right in front of Subject C, his erect cock bulging in front of her face.

“I’m going to make you cry, honey,” he says.

He presses “record.”

Squeezes his vocal modifier.

“On your best performance. I’m making you a star.”

He pauses.

And then he smacks the metal pliers against her cheekbone.

TWENTY-ONE

Of all the places I expected to end up today, a waxworks definitely wasn’t one of them.

Then again, I was hardly expecting to wake up with a mission to save my kidnapped girlfriend, so it shouldn’t be too surprising.

Martha and I walked in through the squeaky old door of José’s Waxwork Route. My heart beat fast and my mind raced as we entered.

Look around.

The route is nearby.

Use your mind.

All those words, written on Hose’s note.

And then, “Look around & use your mind!” written underneath the entrance banner to this place.

It couldn’t be a coincidence. I couldn’t accept that.

We stepped inside the entrance area. It was gloomy, and the place smelled like burnt toast, which I’d never been fond of. Undertoasted over overcooked any day.

The reception area was empty.

“Who the hell even comes to a place like this, anyway?” I asked.

Martha shrugged. She had her coat draped over her arm now, which I couldn’t understand because it was actually pretty chilly in here. “People who like making wax models? I dunno. Blake, don’t you think we should think about telling Lenny? About Jared’s tape?”

I wandered around the wooden floored entrance area. The tape. Shit. The CCTV tape that we’d found at Jared’s Jewellers. The nervous, twitchy balding guy that walked into Jared’s secret gadget heaven and purchased a shitload of lock picking devices and a vocal modifier. I’d almost forgotten.

“This place, it can’t be a coincidence,” I said, as I got closer to the reception desk, closer to the burning toast smell.

Martha screwed her nose up. “It really could be a coincidence. I mean, a few similar words, hun? Really?”

I stopped at the old, wooden desk. Reached out for the rusty silver bell. “Let’s just see. At least we’re trying.”

I pressed the bell.

“Yes?”

The screeching voice made me jump on the spot.

“Shit,” I said.

An old woman lifted her head up from behind the desk. She was a sight to behold, for sure. Kind of like the main guy off Up, with thick-rimmed glasses and about as much hair as that guy. In fact, the hair on her wrinkly woman-beard was longer, thicker than the silver strands on her head. Took me a moment to work out whether she was real or whether she was a wax model herself.

“Oh, er, hello,” I said. I forced my best smile, still a little taken aback by this woman’s spring out of nowhere. “Blake Dent. I er…” I tried to figure out what to say. Entering significant places without a bloody battle plan was coming something of a forté of mine. “I was wondering if… a friend of mine. He has this friend who… who makes wax models here.”

This ancient woman, in her holey pink cardigan, frowned. So wrinkly I worried her face was gonna implode. “Makes wax models?”

I scratched the back of my neck and looked at Martha for reassurance. She just smiled. “Yeah. Like… like Madame Tussauds stuff. And er, anyway. This friend, I forgot his name. But I really liked his artwork and I… I really wanted to see it again. To take a few pictures of it.”

“You forgot your friend’s name?”

Jesus Christ. This old bird was sharp.

“No, he…” I forced a laugh, even though my cheeks were burning. “Like I say, he’s more a friend of a friend. A mutual acquaintance. But he said I could pop down here any time and… and have a look.”

“A mutual acquaintance told you you could pop down and have a look at his waxwork models even though he isn’t your friend?”

I forced another little laugh, as stiff as my muscles were getting. Holy shit, this woman needed to become a frigging book editor or something. No plot holes were sneaking past her.

“He’s… he’s a bald guy, if that helps.” I tried to think of any other distinguishing features from the man on Jared’s CCTV tape. “Quite… quite a shy guy. But in a polite sort of way. Wears a… a suit?”

The old woman chewed the end of an ancient looking pencil. Frowned even more. “Hmm. Well we do have a membership book. We have little photographs for our members, although I can’t guarantee some of our longer-term members haven’t aged.”

I nodded and thanked her as she reached for and pulled out a dusty leather black file that was almost as worn out as her. She squinted at it as she opened it up, flipped a few ancient pages, and landed on a section with a load of black and white photos. Wouldn’t surprise me if she was whacking out the old family album to show off.

“A hairless man, you say?”

I leaned forward, tried to get a good look at the folder. “If I can just take a look, it’ll be—”

“Member confidentiality,” the old woman said.

I wanted to tell her I could happily yank the file away from her, but I feared I might just tear her fingers off in the process.

“Yes. Yes, he was a ‘hairless’ man,” Martha cut in.

The old woman looked back down at the page. “Hmm. No hairless men here. All very thick-haired, in fact.”

I bit my lip. Tried my best not to sigh or show my discomfort. “Miss, I think it’d be really helpful if you—”

“Miss?” She spoke with a high pitched squeal. “I beg your pardon, but I am a Mrs. A Mrs with seven husbands, during my long lifetime, I’ll have you know. I was quite a catch back in the day.”

I brought my hand through my hair. Looked up and down at this wrinkly thing that barely even qualified as a person. “I’m sure.”

“Oh yes,” she said, smile cracking on her cheeks. “Used to have men queuing up for a go on these old bazongas.” She grabbed her saggy breasts, pressed them right up against herself. “Used to charge one pound a suck.”

I smiled. Nodded. Did all I could to get the image of this dinosaur’s wrinkly nipples out of my mind. And I leaned in closer towards the black file, to get a look.

“Oh yes,” she carried on. “I’d have a lad on either tit sometimes. Two in one! Say, did you ever have lads on your tits back in the day?” She looked at Martha when she asked this.

Martha blinked. “I… I don’t believe I’m as much a catch as you, darling.”

I wanted to smile. I wanted to grin along with Martha.

But Martha hadn’t seen what I’d seen in the folder.

“Gave ‘em a suck in return sometimes,” the old receptionist went on. “For a price, of course.”

“Of course,” Martha said.

“James Scotts,” I said.

Martha and the old woman froze.

The old woman squinted at me. “You what, love?”

“James Scotts,” I said. My arms tingled. “He… he’s the friend I’m on about. James Scotts.”

I still hadn’t sussed it out myself, but I knew what I’d seen.

“James Scotts? Well… we do have a James Scotts here on the membership list. But he isn’t bald.”

I attempted a smile, my mind racing. “He… Okay. Sure.”

I thought back to James Scotts, hanging from a rope, killing himself after the death of his wife.

Thought back to his panicked, terrified face when he’d approached me.

Thought of the fear in his voice.

“Well Mr. Scotts is one of our biggest visitors,” the old woman said. “Has a studio room all to himself.”

Martha stepped closer to me. Whispered in my ear, “Why would James Scotts have a wax studio?”

I wanted to answer. I wanted to, but I still hadn’t quite figured it out yet.

But I thought I had a pretty good idea.

“I think he… I think this might be it. I think this might be where… where Hose is keeping Danielle. And the others—”

I was interrupted by the chiming of my phone. I almost ignored it until I saw it was Lenny.

Lenny, not ringing with an Unknown Number.

That was serious.

“Lenny, you need to get down to—”

“Woah, woah, woah. I’m the call initiator here. I’m holding the speak-teddy.”

“José’s Waxworks,” I said. “It’s… this has to be it. James Scotts, he—he had a studio here. And Hose—he led us here. He—”

“I like the sound of your little trip to the wax museum. Sounds fun. Tell Martha to get her beard waxed while you’re there. I’ve got something, Blakey. Prints. On the fifties. And you’re not gonna Adam and believe it.”

I stepped away from the reception desk, the old woman peering at me like she’d forgotten who I was all of a sudden. “Prints? Who… what…”

“Does Damon Watts ring a bell?” Lenny asked.

“Should it?”

“No. But to me, it does. He’s only the chief pathologist in the Preston Police Department.”

Suddenly, my mind flicked back to that CCTV tape.

The bald, nervous man entering Jared’s Jewellers, clear plastic glove in hand.

“Damon… Damon doesn’t happen to have a bald head, does he?”

“The baldest in the business. And a twitch like a lab rat on acid.”

My heart picked up. Shit. Damon Watts, chief pathologist. No wonder he didn’t want us going near the police.

“But there’s something else. He’s gone.”

My heart sank.

“Gone?”

“Yeah, gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Well if I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t be saying he’s gone now, would I?”

I rubbed my forehead. Tried to understand the barrage of information ploughing into me. “What… how are… are you looking for him?”

“Got a team on the way to his home right now. But there’s, er. There’s something else, Blakey. Something else kooky.”

I struggled to believe that this case could get any weirder. “What?”

“James Scotts, the suicide hubby. Well, his dead body’s gone walkies.”

I looked at the middle of my palms to see if the lines were moving, to see if I was dreaming. “Gone… gone walkies? What do you mean, Lenny?”

“He’s gone, Blake. James Scotts’ dead body is gone.”

TWENTY-TWO

Even though I knew damn well I should stay away from the police, it didn’t stop me speeding over towards chief pathologist Damon Watts’ house.

Or rather, it didn’t stop Martha speeding. I wasn’t much of a driver.

“Does this thing go any faster?” I asked.

“Not legally,” Martha said. She sighed. Pressed her foot down hard on the gas of her Audi TT. She’d bought it with her massive bounty from a recent case to replace her smashed-up Fiat Punto. Insisted she “loved that car to bits.”

Loved it so much she didn’t even wave it goodbye as it was crushed in the scrap heap. Evidently didn’t love it when it was
in
bits.

I looked at my watch. Sweat dripped down my cheeks. Almost 3 o’clock.

Shit. Nearly just eleven hours to go.

But it didn’t matter.

We had Damon Watts. We had the pathologist, whose prints were on the fifties that Dodgy Donny had received, who was on the CCTV tape entering Jared’s Jewellers and buying lock picking devices and a vocal modifier.

We had him.

“Are you sure about this?” Martha asked, as she swerved around a bend and sped down the next road, dancing with the speed limit.

“Sure about what?”

“About… about going to this Damon Watts guy’s house. I mean if the police are there, is that not breaking the rules?”

“You didn’t seem too bothered about breaking the rules a short while ago.”

“Just a straight, non-sarcastic answer, hun.”

“Okay, okay. Yes, of course I’m frigging-well bothered. But I don’t see what else there is to do. And it’s not like we’re going to the police and reporting anything. Right?”

Martha’s expression didn’t change. She just stared on at the road ahead.

“I’ll take that as a ‘right.’”

We took a left onto Abercrombie Avenue. Huge trees lined the pavements, birdshit splattered all over the parked cars, of which there were many.

“Should be down here somewhere,” Martha said.

We squinted for a few moments. Peered at the semi-detached houses, looked for sign of police.

“There,” I said.

Up ahead, there was a large police van. The front door of the house was ajar. I wasn’t sure whether that was a good omen or a bad omen. For the front door to be open, it could mean that Damon Watts had just let them in. Or maybe they’d barged the door in only not to find him.

Or… shit. Maybe he was holding Danielle captive. Pressing that SawDoor against her neck.

Stuffing a hose down her trachea…

“Blake? What are we gonna do here?”

We were outside Damon Watts’ house now. There were no police officers at the van, all of them presumably inside. Damon Watts’ house looked so normal. Hanging baskets either side of the door. A freshly tarmacked drive.

“Hardly looks like the house of a psychopathic killer, does it?” I said.

“Hun, if you were a psychopathic killer, wouldn’t you want to look as normal as possible?”

“Are you saying I don’t look normal?”

“Yes. You’re way too abnormal to be an actual psycho.”

We climbed out of Martha’s car. Approached Damon Watts’ house slowly and quietly. Curtains twitched in neighbours’ houses, nosy buggers curious as to what was going on.

All the time as I walked, I couldn’t get José’s Waxwork Route out of my mind.

James Scotts had a studio there.

Why would Damon Watts use José’s as a clue? And what did that place have to do with anything? With anywhere?

As Martha and I crept inside Damon Watts’ house, I figured we were close to finding out.

Damon Watts’ house smelled musty, like old cat piss. The decor was similarly depressing—blue walls almost as cold as the iced tea I’d had earlier that seemed like forever ago now. In the back room at the end of the bland, lifeless hallway, I could hear voices. Mumbling voices.