Authors: Michael Wood
The emptiness of the house shocked him. It was absolute. Even when she wasn’t at home, he had always sensed her presence in every room. Now he couldn’t. There was nothing there but space and furniture. Her spirit had left. She wasn’t coming home.
Chapter 36
For the first few seconds, after the door had closed behind her, leaving her standing in the dark, Helen thought it was a joke. The staff at the leisure centre frequently played practical jokes on her and each other. She encouraged it, within reason. It created a happy atmosphere, a good team spirit. They had put this new starter up to it, hadn’t they?
Even when the lights went on, and her eyes adjusted to the brightness, and took in rows of photographs on the walls, she was not perturbed. It was what she expected to see - photographs of his wife and daughter.
It was when she stepped forward to look at them that the shock punched her backwards. Her feet left the ground as her instincts threw her away from the horror. An involuntary gasp left her lips.
Then her breath was held, as she focussed again. Sockets overflowing with dark red blood, gushing all over, into hair, into mouths; ears hanging, torn flesh, gashes, teeth bared in agony, one eye open, bright. They had been alive when the camera clicked.
She turned away, screaming, and saw him sitting, smiling through a window. Instinctively, she launched herself at it, pounding it with her fists. Suddenly, a loud voice: ‘Helen...excuse me, but I have to go to the toilet.’
She clasped her hands to her ears. The voice boomed on. Something about a bucket and a clamp, car keys on the floor, hurt you, love you, food. Then the voice stopped, and she saw him move. She took her hands from her ears. Silence, then deafening music, suddenly. Her heart leaped. Her hands went back to her ears. He was swivelling on a chair. He was gone.
She stepped back from the window. She knew who he was. Ben had been right all along: silly, imaginative Ben. ‘Time you got a proper job,’ she had told him. Where was he? Where was Ben? She needed
his
arms around her...not the cold, tight, tentacles of dread that were beginning to envelop her, squeeze the breath from her.
The fear and noise took over her mind, paralysed her, made her a frightened child again. She backed herself to a wall and wrapped her arms around her trembling body.
Then she saw her reflection in the darkened control room window. Smartly dressed, business like. She wasn’t a child. She was a strong, confident, woman. She’d brought up a family, travelled, climbed mountains, swam rivers, given lectures. She was a Manager. She managed people. She had to manage the fear, get rid of it, think proactively. Otherwise...she was just another lamb to the slaughter.
First things first, small things first, be practical. Shaking hands opened her bulging handbag, her mobile office. No makeup here, but pens, highlighters, paperclips, diary, dictating machine, calculator, credit cards, nail scissors, chocolate, travel wipes, handkerchief, cotton wool. No mobile phone. He must have noticed that she left it in the car; otherwise he would have searched her handbag.
She pulled two pieces of cotton wool, rolled them, and stuffed them into her ears to blunt the noise. Now she could think.
She stood very straight, shoulders back, and pulled deep breaths down into her stomach. She let the air out slowly. Gradually, the fear went with it, and she began to calm.
She looked around the strangely shaped room, trying to avoid the photographs. It was multi-sided, no two walls being parallel. Two opposite corners had been partitioned off, creating two small triangular rooms within the main room, a window looking into each of them. Thick, black, square shaped pieces of rigid foam hung from chains in the ceiling.
Had she been in the music business, she would have known that the room shape was designed to break up sound reflection, recognised the small rooms as accompanying musicians’ isolation booths, and realised that the ceiling pieces were sound deadening baffles.
As it was, the strangeness of the room only served to increase the feeling of disorientation within her.
Now, her eyes settled on a mattress on the floor, a bucket beside it, and a chain suspended from one of the ceiling baffle rings. She guessed their significance. She had heard about the Filipino woman found with a chain attached to her ankle. What she didn’t know was how long he kept his victims prisoner before he disposed of them. She clenched her teeth. How long could she bear this? How long could she stay strong?
She began to think about the instructions he had shouted through the microphone. Though blurred by having her hands over her ears, she had got the gist of them. He wanted her to put her ankle in the clamp attached to the chain, and to leave her car keys on the floor.
Her first instinct was to do exactly as he asked, in case he was volatile and violent when his instructions were ignored. That would buy time; give Ben or the police time to find her. But she didn’t know how much time she had; he might be planning to kill her today, tomorrow. She had to assume the worst. It was no use waiting to be rescued. It was up to her to escape.
She needed to discover the kind of enemy she was dealing with. Clearly, he was insane or on the edge of insanity. But was he aggressive and vicious, or were there moments of sanity when he could be reasoned with, or even influenced?
She decided to take a calculated risk. She would test his reactions by obeying one of his instructions, and disobeying the other. She took her car keys from her handbag and laid them in the middle of the floor, as requested, but she didn’t put her foot in the ankle clamp.
Thirty seconds later, the control room light went on. He was coming back. She moved close to the control room window and faced it, some instinct telling her not to show fear.
Suddenly, he was there, right in front of her, looking into her eyes. Her heart jumped into her throat, but she stood firm and stared back. She didn’t see any obvious animosity in his eyes; if anything, he looked puzzled.
He moved away, pausing to press a switch. The music stopped. Soon the two thick studio doors opened. He came in slowly, warily, as though he was expecting her to make a break for the door. He closed the inner door behind him and locked it.
‘Sit on the mattress please.’
Helen just managed to hear him. She took out one of the cotton wool earplugs. The ‘please’ surprised her. She did as she was told; the mattress stank.
He moved towards her, slowly, carrying a plastic bag and a steel wrench. He put the plastic bag down beside her, and stood over her, wrench in his right clenched fist. Helen tensed, ready to dodge the blow.
‘You didn’t put the ankle clamp on?’ he said, simply.
‘Did you ask me to?’
‘Yes’
‘I didn’t hear. Your voice was too loud. I had my hands over my ears. All I heard was: ‘Put the car keys on the floor. I’ve done that.’ She pointed to them. He moved across and picked them up.
‘I have to go now...get rid of your car. There’s some food in the bag. It’s not much...I’ll try to do better tomorrow. Don’t be frightened, I don’t want to hurt you.’ He lifted the wrench. ‘This was to tighten your clamp. When I get back, could you have the clamp on please? I’d like to trust you...leave you free...but I trusted Vilma...she kept trying to escape. You would as well...wouldn’t you?’
He turned and left the room, not waiting for a reply.
Helen let out a trembling sigh, and felt something moving in her lap. She looked down. Her hands were shaking, violently. They didn’t seem to belong to her.
Madame Butterfly started up again. The Control Room light went out. Helen put her earplug back in and flopped back on the mattress, exhausted. She closed her eyes. She wanted to fall asleep, let it all fade away, let her dreams take over. Maybe it
was
just a bad dream? She opened her eyes. The black baffles on the ceiling told her it wasn’t.
She forced herself to sit up, registered the mattress smell again, and stood up, hastily, brushing down her blouse and skirt with her hands. Gingerly, she looked inside the plastic bag. It contained a ham sandwich, two bananas and a plastic bottle of orange juice.
Her normal appetite was missing, no doubt ousted by the tension. But she knew that she had to keep up her strength. The ham sandwich was out of the question - he had handled it. She took a drink of juice, first wiping the top of the bottle with one of her travel wipes. Then she peeled a banana and started to eat.
As she chewed, she tried to re-assess her situation. It didn’t look as though he intended to kill her, at least - not immediately. But it would be dangerous to assume so. She didn’t know what went on in his mind. It might be exactly what he wanted her to think. Put her off her guard to make the killing easier.
If, as he said, he didn’t want to hurt her, but intended to keep her in chains...like a dog, like a plaything...then the thought of what that meant made death seem almost preferable. While it gave time for Ben and the police to find her, and she was confident they would, eventually, she dreaded to think of the state she would be in, mentally and physically, by the time they found her. She wouldn’t want Ben to be lumbered with a broken, soiled woman to look after. She loved him too much for that.
Either way, it came down to the same thing. She had to make every effort to escape immediately.
Another glance around the room confirmed that the only way out was through the double doors. She had noticed that when he went out, he didn’t bother to lock the door that opened inwards, into the studio. He only locked the outer door that opened outwards, into the control room.
She walked over and tried the inner door handle. The thick door opened, and she swung it back until it met the wall. While there, she tried the outer door, just in case. It was secure.
Maybe she could surprise him when he came back. He would probably look through the control room window first, to check on her position. If he saw her sitting on the mattress with the clamp apparently around her ankle, it would put him in a relaxed state of mind. While he moved from the window to open the outer door, she could jump up from the mattress, and be in the doorway, ready to attack him as soon as he opened the outer door.
He wasn’t very big, and he wouldn’t be expecting it. If she timed it right, and charged the door just as he opened it, she could knock him aside and run past him.
On the other hand, he would be carrying that steel wrench to tighten the clamp. If she didn’t manage to knock him off balance, and he started to use that on her, then she had little defence; it would soon be over.
She looked around for something to defend herself with. There was nothing but the plastic bucket, the plastic bottle, and her handbag. The two brittle plastics would soon disintegrate when struck by metal, and the handbag was too soft to cushion a sustained attack.
Another look around and this time the photographs caught her eye. They were quite large, about two-feet square, and had solid looking wooden frames. If she held one up in front of her, it might prove strong enough to ward off a few blows. Alternatively, she could use it as a weapon to smash over his head if the opportunity arose.
She walked across and lifted one of the photographs off its wall hook. She couldn’t help glancing at its hideous content again, as she balanced it in her hands to feel the weight. Behind the terribly damaged face, there was something familiar about that long, tangled, hair. It was someone she knew...it was Tessa Coleman.
She stifled her scream, but her hands shook so much she almost dropped the photograph. She was holding Ben’s friend in her hands. She had met her once or twice at art exhibitions. Now, here she was, hanging as an exhibition in a madman’s gallery, her familiarity adding to the terror. How long would it be before she joined Tessa on the wall?
She couldn’t afford such negative thoughts, and fought them off with accompanying deep breathing. The photograph did feel heavy and substantial. She held it up like a shield in front of her face. She practiced using it as a weapon, bringing it down from over her head, thrusting it forwards, edge first.
As she manoeuvred it through different positions, she noticed a label stuck on the back. It read:
No. 8
T. Coleman
Dale Head
He was obviously keeping records. She remembered Ben’s theory that the victims were random, unknown to him. He must, therefore, have added Tessa’s name after getting it via the media. She couldn’t read any significance into that, but soon she was asking herself why he had bothered to allocate numbers. She looked again along the two rows of photographs, and counted them. There were ten along the top row, all of the same disfigured, exotic, woman. She turned one round and read a single word on the label: