Mark Sennen - Touch

From their enquiries they had discovered the couple had no close friends in the area and no immediate family either. Could that explain the need to return to Devon, the county where they were born? Tatershall had brought the cardboard box with all their papers back to the station and he had started to go through the material again. This time he took each piece of paper out, checking between sheets and making sure he wasn’t missing anything. The pile on the desk beside him grew until the entire contents of the box had been removed. He sighed, disappointed he had found nothing new, but satisfied he had done a thorough job. He started to put the pile back in the box when he noticed a piece of paper wedged under one of the flaps at the bottom. He lifted the flap and pulled out the page of an old newspaper, which had been folded several times. As he unfolded the newsprint another piece of paper fell out. It was a birth certificate. Tatershall smoothed the document on the desk in front of him and read the details.

‘They’ve got a son,’ he said to himself.

‘Huh?’ Simbeck had been working at her desk opposite answering emails, but now she looked up.

‘Born in 1971, registered in Totnes.’ Tatershall read the name. ‘Can you do a search on the PNC for me?’

Tatershall spelled out the name and then inspected the page from the newspaper. As he digested the headline and associated story the sympathy he had for the couple began to drain away to be replaced by a wave of emotion comprised of both anger and sadness. He felt sick and all of a sudden wished he was out of the force and just an ordinary bloke who could go home and cuddle his kids without having to think about this stuff.

‘Boss?’

‘Rape and child-abuse. He got fifteen years. And there was me worrying about the cancer. Bastard.’ Tatershall put his head in his hands for a moment and then sighed. ‘Right, Kate. Do you know what I am going to do? I am going to go to the new coffee shop across the road and get a coffee and a cake. Afterwards I am going to come back here and complete the paperwork on this case and be done with the bloody thing.’

He stood up and went to the door.

‘Coming?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I have found the son.’ Simbeck pointed to the screen displaying the results of her search. ‘Matthew Harrison. There was an entry made yesterday. He is wanted for murder.’

*

So cold, I’m so very cold. And I am going to die.

Alice Nash knew that now. For certain. For a while she had clung to the hope she had been kidnapped, that a ransom demand would be issued and some rich benefactor would pay up.

Idiot. There is no kidnapper.

No, the house belonged to Matt Harrison, part-time photographer’s assistant, full-time madman, rapist and killer. The nutter wouldn’t be letting her go, not now, not after what he’d done.

After. At least now was after.

She had run from him and he’d caught her, smashing her down with a horrifying violence. She’d felt him against her, his naked body all over her as she squirmed underneath, and she waited for him to rape her. But he hadn’t. He had been aroused, but for some reason he stopped himself and had simply stroked her head as she had lain on the bare floor and sobbed.

‘There, Emma, sweet Emma. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine. I promise. Just you wait and see.’

Back in the little room she fell asleep and when she woke the hallucinations had started. Daytimes passed by in a whirl of colour and dizzy spells and the nights brought sweat and muscle spasms. She guessed Harrison had drugged her food or drink, but she had no choice but to consume what he provided each morning. Eat and drink or starve and die. Then one day she awoke from a deep sleep and the nightmare seemed to be over. Bright lights and white walls, not the old house she had been imprisoned in. A hospital. She had been rescued! The blurry images snapped into focus.

Flash!

‘Emma! You are back!’ Harrison smiled at her as he put the camera down. He wore casual clothes with a white coat over the top, like a doctor or one of those people who sliced up animals in a laboratory.

She screamed and tried to move, struggling against the ties holding her hands fast and the straps on her legs spreading them…

Oh my God no!

… wide apart.

‘Please no, don’t hurt me!’

Harrison bent over some kind of trolley, gleaming tools of stainless steel clinking together in his shaking hands as he sorted through them.

‘Hurt you?’ He turned round, shocked, mortified. ‘I am not going to hurt you. You are lovely, perfect, look at you.’

He moved his hand over and touched her breasts, cupping each in turn.

‘Yes, yes. Perfect. And clean. I hope!’

His hand began tracing its way down across her stomach and lower and Alice closed her eyes to try and blot out Harrison’s caress.

‘No, not yet my love. Soon, I promise. And the wait will be worth it, I know.’

When she opened her eyes he stood over at the trolley, holding some kind of medical device shaped something like a giant stainless steel dildo.

‘But first a couple of tests, just to check. You see the trouble is dirt gets everywhere these days. Into everything. Nothing stays pure. Nothing stays untouched. You must understand I need to make sure. Yes, yes. Surety and purity. I must not be corrupted by your flesh. Desire must come later, not now. I don’t want to get dirty again.’

He moved between her legs.

‘NO!’

*

Now the cold slipped into her skull, deadening the memory somewhat but freezing the images too, as if to stop her forgetting.

He had examined her for a few minutes, pausing every so often to scribble in a notebook. Then his expression changed, something had annoyed him and, without a word, his coat fell from his shoulders and he tore at his clothes until he had stripped himself naked. He stood between her spread-eagled legs with his hands grasping her waist and raped her. Horrid grunting sounds spluttered from him with each thrust and he came with a gasp and shouted that name again.

‘Emma! Emma! Emma!’

When it was all over he wouldn’t meet her gaze. He took a cloth from the trolley, held the bitter smelling material over her face and she drifted to sleep.

She woke to complete darkness, freezing cold and the knowledge of certain death. But that was OK because she was more scared of living now. She had seen the other instruments on the table and the look of utter depravity in Harrison’s eyes. Death would be a release. Except… except…?

Dad, I love you.

If she died she wouldn’t see him again, would she? The thought of him grieving so soon after her mother’s death, of him never knowing how much she loved him overwhelmed her and she began to sob.

No, I am not going to die!

Calmer now, but still very cold, she reached her hands out to explore the dark space. Tiny, not the room where she had spent the last dozen or so days. She stretched her legs out in front of her, but when she tried to sit up she banged her head. To either side of her she touched some sort of wall.

Like plastic?

When she knocked her fist on the surface she was sure. She was in a kind of large plastic box.

Cold?

Yes, ice cold. A humming noise as well, like an electric motor or something.

She scrabbled around with her hands and feet, trying to find the limits of her confinement. To one side of her she discovered a small grill-like opening in the plastic. She tried to get her fingers through the grill but the openings were way too small. There seemed to be an air flow coming through the slits though, cold air, freezing air… a freezer! She was locked in a freezer!

She put her head in her hands and let all the air flood from her lungs in a long sigh. With the extreme cold there wouldn’t be too many more breaths, and naked there was little she could do to conserve her body heat. She thought she remembered something from childhood swimming lessons where you were supposed to curl yourself in a ball so she tried that, putting her hands behind her head and pushing it down between her knees. That was when she found something.