Ken Follett - the Third Twin (1996)

Before Robinson could turn around again, Dennis had released the rat.

It ran across the room. “There, Robinson, there!” Dennis cried.

Robinson turned around, saw the rat, and paled. “Shit,” he growled, and he drew his nightstick.

The rat ran along the floor molding, looking for somewhere to hide. Robinson went after it, lashing out with his nightstick. He made a series of black marks on the wall but missed the rat.

Jeannie watched Robinson with a warning alarm ringing in her mind. There was something wrong here, something that did not make sense. This was a humorous jape. Dennis was not a practical joker, he was a sexual pervert and a murderer. What he had done was uncharacteristic. Unless, she realized with a tremor of dread, this was a diversion, and Dennis had some other purpose—

She felt something touch her hair. She turned around in her chair, and her heart stopped.

Dennis had moved and was standing up close to her. In front of her face he held what looked like a homemade knife: it was a tin spoon with the bowl flattened and sharpened to a point.

She wanted to scream but she felt strangled. A second ago she had thought herself perfectly safe; now she was being threatened by a murderer with a knife. How could it have happened so quickly? The blood seemed to drain out of her head, and she could hardly think.

Dennis grabbed her hair with his left hand and moved the point of the knife so close to her eye that she could not focus on it. He bent over and spoke in her ear. His breath was warm on her cheek and he smelled sweaty. His voice was so low that she could hardly hear him over the noise Robinson was making. “Do as I say or I’ll slice your eyeballs.”

She melted with terror. “Oh, God, no, don’t make me blind,” she pleaded.

Hearing her own voice speak in such an alien tone of groveling surrender brought her to her senses somewhat. She tried desperately to pull herself together and think. Robinson was still chasing the rat: he had no idea what Dennis was up to. Jeannie could hardly believe this was happening. They were in the heart of a state prison and she had an armed guard, yet she was at Dennis’s mercy. How glibly she had thought, a few short hours ago, that she would give him a hard time if he attacked her! She began to tremble with fear.

Dennis jerked painfully on her hair, pulling up, and she shot to her feet.

“Please!” she said. Even as she spoke, she hated herself for begging in this humiliating way, but she was too terrified to stop. “I’ll do anything!”

She felt his lips on her ear. “Take off your panties,” he murmured.

She froze. She was ready to do whatever he wanted, no matter how shaming, in order to escape; but to take off her panties might be as dangerous as to defy him. She did not know what to do. She tried to see Robinson. He was out of her field of view, behind her, and she did not dare turn her head because of the knife next to her eye. However, she could hear him cursing the rat and swiping at it with his club, and it was evident he still had not seen what Dennis was doing.

“I don’t have much time,” Dennis murmured in a voice like an icy wind. “If I don’t get what I want, you’ll never see the sun shine again.”

She believed him. She had just finished three hours of psychological interviews with him and she knew what he was like. He had no conscience: he was not capable of guilt or remorse. If she frustrated his wishes, he would maim her without hesitation.

But what would he do after she had taken off her panties? she thought desperately. Would he be satisfied and take the blade away from her face? Would he slash her anyway? Or would he want something more?

Why couldn’t Robinson kill the damned rat?

“Quickly!” Dennis hissed.

What could be worse than blindness? “All right,” she groaned.

She bent awkwardly, with Dennis still holding her hair and pointing the knife at her. Fumbling, she pulled up the skirt of her linen dress and pushed down her Kmart white cotton briefs. Dennis grunted, deep in his throat like a bear, as they dropped to her ankles. She felt ashamed, even though reason told her this was not her fault. Hurriedly she worked her dress back down, covering her nakedness. Then she stepped out of her panties and kicked them away across the gray plastic-tiled floor.

She felt dreadfully vulnerable.

Dennis released her, snatched up the panties, and pressed them to his face, breathing in, his eyes closed in ecstasy.

Jeannie stared at him, aghast at this forced intimacy. Even though he was not touching her, she shuddered in disgust.

What would he do next?

Robinson’s nightstick made a revolting, squashing sound. Jeannie turned and saw that at last he had struck the rat. His stick had smashed the rear half of its fat body, and there was a red smear across the gray plastic tiles. It could no longer run, but it was still alive, its eyes open and its body moving as it breathed. Robinson hit it again, smashing its head. It stopped moving and a gray slime seeped out of the crushed skull.

Jeannie looked back at Dennis. To her surprise he was sitting at the table, as he had all afternoon, looking as if he had never moved. He wore an innocent air. The knife and her panties had disappeared.

Was she out of danger? Was it all over?

Robinson was panting with exertion. He directed a suspicious glare at Dennis and said: “You didn’t bring that vermin in here, Pinker, did you?”

“No, sir,” Dennis said glibly.

Jeannie formed in her mind the words “Yes, he did!” But for some reason she did not say them.

Robinson went on: “ ’Cause if I thought you done a thing like that, I would …” The guard shot a sideways look at Jeannie and decided not to say exactly what he would do to Dennis. “I believe you know I’d make you regret it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jeannie realized she was safe. But relief was followed immediately by anger. She stared at Dennis, outraged. Was he going to pretend that nothing had happened?

Robinson said: “Well, you can get a bucket of water and clean this place up, anyway.”

“Right away, sir.”

“That is, if Dr. Ferrami is finished with you.”

Jeannie tried to say, “While you were killing the rat, Dennis stole my panties,” but the words would not come out. They seemed so foolish. And she could imagine the consequences of saying them. She would be stuck here for an hour while the allegation was investigated. Dennis would be searched and her underwear found. It would have to be shown to Warden Temoigne. She imagined him examining the evidence, handling her panties and turning them inside out, with a strange look on his face.…

No. She would say nothing.

She suffered a pang of guilt. She had always scorned women who suffered assault and then kept quiet about it, letting the offender get away with it. Now she was doing the same thing.

She realized that Dennis was counting on that. He had foreseen how she would feel and gambled that he could get away with it. The thought made her so indignant that for a moment she contemplated putting up with the hassle just to thwart him. Then she envisioned Temoigne and Robinson and all the other men in this jail looking at her and thinking, She doesn’t have any panties on, and she realized it would be too humiliating to be borne.

How clever Dennis was: as clever as the man who had set fire to the gymnasium and raped Lisa, as clever as Steve.…

“You seem a little shook,” Robinson said to her. “I guess you don’t like rats any more than I do.”

She pulled herself together. It was over. She had survived with her life and even her eyesight. What happened that was so bad? she asked herself. I might have been mutilated or raped. Instead I just lost my underwear. Be grateful. “I’m fine, thank you,” she said.