Like Clockwork (33 page)

She saw the four men prowl around the cowering girl like hyenas. The girl lifted her head. Her earrings – delicate crucifixes – flashed in the light. The men conferred briefly, then decided who was going to get the first, the freshest meat. Then the first one fell upon her. The others helped – subduing a leg here, there an arm. That was only necessary at first. It did not take very long for her frail, bloodied body to go limp and then jerk unsatisfyingly. A rag doll broken by the sea of rage that battered her. By now, the men were bored. It was over. They straightened themselves up, wiped themselves clean. One lit a cigarette, flipping the match onto the girl, where it died on her skin. Theresa’s flesh crawled when she saw the man kneel over the girl, unzip his pants, and place
his penis in her unresisting mouth. His movements were rhythmic, swift, and then he stepped back, satisfied. The girl twitched onto her side and did not choke. Then the screen went black. The first part was over.

The tape whirred on, but Theresa could not bear to watch more.

‘You’re a powerful director.’ Her voice clattered into the silence, startling him, breaking the spell. He pressed ‘pause’: her comment had interrupted his mad flow. The image that hung on the screen looked familiar. She saw the time code on his camera flash rhythmically – she had as much time as was left on the tape: ninety minutes. She would not accept, though, that she had as little power as the girl she had just watched being brutalised. Theresa would fight. But her only weapon was to be quicker than the man on the other side of the camera.

‘We could work well together,’ she said. There was no mercy in him, she knew, but perhaps if she was useful she might survive a little longer. She summoned the actress in herself and imagined herself walking on stage, the audience obscured by the lights shining in her eyes. Theresa imagined her mother out there. The thought calmed her. It gave her the strength to improvise.

‘We could try something new.’ She prayed that he wouldn’t hit her again.

‘How old are you?’ the man asked.

‘I’m sixteen.’ replied Theresa Angelo. ‘I’m old enough.’

‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘Perfect. It’s time to get you ready, then.’

‘Do you want to make love to me?’ Theresa asked again, with a forced note of invitation.

‘Oh, I will, my dear. I will. But not in the vulgar way you are offering in order to save your worthless little skin,’ he spat at her. ‘Now let’s get you ready for your final act.’ He
had a hairbrush in his hand. ‘Make yourself look decent,’ he ordered.

Theresa took the brush and pulled it through her hair, trying to avoid the parts that were caked with dried blood. She made herself talk to him. It delayed him, broke into his fantasy. He had to start again after each answer.

‘What kind of directing have you done?’ she asked. ‘Where did you learn?’

‘I did some work for the Isis Club. Adult movies.’ He turned back to the rope he was plaiting and twisting.

‘That market is so saturated, isn’t it?’ said Theresa, chattily. ‘I’ve done voice-overs for a few. Tell me about your market. These films you make here. Do you sell them? On the Internet? Mail order? That first one we saw was a good simulation. That girl was good.’

He looked at her, flustered. ‘That was not a simulation. You’ll see. These are the real thing.’

Theresa kept her attention on him. Hope flared in her again: she heard a sound – a single sound that stood out from the boom of the surf on the walls and the bleak moan of the foghorn at Green Point. She held her breath, but he seemed not to have heard it.

‘Snuff movies?’ Her voice was cheerful. She could have been asking for apple juice.

He laughed. ‘You could call them that, I suppose. You could call them educational films. They teach a lesson.’

‘Alice? Was she filth?’ His hand froze. ‘Your wife? A girlfriend? Your mother?’

‘Why are you so interested in Alice?’ He walked very slowly towards her. He had picked up a whip, was flicking it rhythmically across his left palm.

‘That was the name on the first tape. I imagine they go in order? I thought that if I knew her I could get into character
better.’ The sound again. Closer this time. Louder. ‘Tell me about her, the first one. Was she your mother?’ The whip licked painfully at her ankle. Theresa had touched a raw spot.

‘No, she wasn’t my mother. That bitch died, as she should have, when I was very young.’

‘So, who was she? A girlfriend? Someone who let you down?’ The whip flicked again, ripping through the fabric of Theresa’s blouse, leaving a red welt on her exposed belly.

‘Alice was my big sister. Did she do her duty?’ He pushed his face, purpled with congested blood, into hers. His breath was hot, rank on her face.

‘What did she do to you? It must have been terrible.’ Theresa’s voice was cajoling, enticing.

‘She was a slut, like you. Like all of you. Liked to know, liked to watch. Pretending to be so innocent, so “I couldn’t help it” – when you know very well it’s you yourself who is the cause.’ He twisted her nipple viciously, pinching it, savouring the pain he saw in her eyes. Her fresh flow of involuntary tears seemed to calm him again, and he recovered himself. He turned and switched on the camera. Theresa hoped fervently that she had not been imagining the sounds beyond the room, beyond its darkness.

‘Tell me about the others. What did they do for you?’ The questions were a mistake. She would have given anything to snatch her words back: she had reminded the man of his purpose.

‘They were a lot more docile than you. Better behaved. Just did what they were told, stupid little bitches. They thought, I suppose, that if they made me happy it would be easier for them. Like you think that if you distract me it will be easier for you.’ He came towards her with the rope. ‘It won’t. You are going to watch them all now. You’ll see what happened to them. Before and after. So you turn that slutty
little mind of yours to your performance. Give me your hand,’ he ordered.

He made two swift, deep cuts on the palm – across the lifeline, through the heartline. He picked up the key and folded her bleeding hand around it. Then he began to intricately bind her hand. She watched in fascinated horror as her hand – so familiar, the nails bitten down slightly – was transformed into a bound obscenity.

He knelt in front of her and smiled. ‘What lovely eyes, my lamb. I’m afraid they will be next. As soon as I’ve fixed your feet.’

It had been a while since she’d heard the sounds that had sustained her. She felt the fierce resilience of her body – blindly wanting to keep itself alive – ebb away. The fog of terror almost overwhelmed her. She put her free hand down to steady herself, unexpectedly feeling the smooth touch of the stone she’d tripped over earlier. There the sound was again. This time, though, he heard it too. He looked up, alert, listening. But he returned to his task: as soon as he’d bound her feet, it would be over.

Theresa lifted the stone as high as she could and smashed it down on his skull. He pitched forward with a moan of rage. She hit him again, marvelling at the smoothness of the object in her hands. He lay still at her feet, blood oozing from the back of his head. And once again, Theresa lifted the stone high, at the ready, but this time she did not hit him.

A bunch of keys lay on the table. She fumbled for a moment and fitted a large one snugly in the lock, barely aware of the rust inside the mechanism as she turned it. Then she pulled the door open and hurtled through, slamming it behind her. She stood still in the dank tunnel, trying to orientate herself in the dim light filtering from the stone chamber behind her. From her left, she could hear someone calling. She turned
towards the voice and made her way as fast as she could, feeling her way down the dark tunnel. The voice was getting louder. Theresa paused to listen. It was a woman, calling her name.

‘I’m here,’ she meant to shout, but her voice was just above a whisper. She felt her way along the tunnel. The walls were rough and covered with slime. In places, the stone gave way and Theresa could feel a cold rush of air that seemed to indicate a smaller, subsidiary passageway. She kept her mind on the voice calling from up ahead, and felt rather than saw the bend in the tunnel wall. But as she rounded it, her heart leapt.

A woman holding a torch was running towards her. Theresa collapsed into Clare Hart’s arms.

‘Please, please take these off.’ She was scrabbling pointlessly at the tight boots. Clare had a knife in her other hand.

‘Hold still,’ she said, inserting it into the top of one boot, and then the other. She made deft incisions, slicing through the suede, nicking Theresa only once. ‘Where is he?’

Theresa pointed to the door. ‘In there. I hit him.’ Her voice was very faint. The adrenaline that had kept her going had ebbed away. She was on the verge of collapse. Clare called Riedwaan.

‘Where the fuck are you?’ he shouted into the phone.

‘I’ve got her, Riedwaan, Theresa Angelo. She’s safe. We need an ambulance.’ Her words came out in a rush.

‘Where are you, Clare? How can I send anything if I don’t know where you are?’

‘I’m in the storm-water drains. There’s a tunnel behind the boathouse at Three Anchor Bay – the one on the far side of the slipway, where the elephant seal is. We need an ambulance for this girl. And I think one for Tohar. She’s wounded him.’

‘I’m at your flat. I’ll be with you in a minute. Just get out of there. Get yourselves above ground.’ Panic pulsed through Riedwaan’s voice, galvanising Clare.

‘Up you get, Theresa.’ She gripped her arm firmly and pulled her up. The girl winced as Clare’s fingers dug into the bruises on her arms. But she managed to get to her feet, leaning heavily on Clare’s shoulder.

‘We must lock him in. He won’t let me go if he comes after us,’ Theresa pleaded. Clare hesitated, the urgency of getting Theresa out and onto the promenade impelling her forward. ‘Please,’ said Theresa. ‘We must.’

‘Okay.’ Clare capitulated. She turned back into the darkness, holding Theresa’s hand to steady her. The door that Theresa had appeared from was slightly ajar. Clare pushed it open and looked inside. She took in the coil of rope, the table, the television, the camera. There was an overturned chair and a blood smear. But he was gone. Tohar was nowhere to be seen in the claustrophobic space. Her stomach lurched in horror. She turned towards Theresa, who was leaning against the tunnel wall where Clare had left her.

‘Come, Theresa.’ She grabbed hold of her hand, panic clutching at her throat as she pulled her in the direction of the boathouse. ‘Come now.’

Theresa did not need to ask why. Fury welled up in her throat. Fury at herself for not striking that final blow. She should have known: third time lucky. She followed Clare. Her ears strained for sounds beyond the clatter of their feet – but she could make nothing out. She imagined the holes in the wall, the dark places where he might be hiding, waiting for her.

Clare had come in from the storm-water drain on the other side of the lighthouse, making her way through the subterranean passages. Clare gripped Theresa’s hand painfully tight – as much to keep herself together as to keep Theresa with her. Her foot caught painfully on a rock and Clare dropped her torch, the sharp crack instantly snuffing its
comforting light. Theresa’s heart felt as if it would burst as the darkness enveloped her, sharpening her terrible sense that they were not alone in those tunnels.

Clare pushed herself back onto her feet and pulled Theresa up with her. She waited a moment for her eyes to adjust, and then headed towards the gleam of light coming from where she hoped the boathouses were. Twenty paces brought them up against a heavy door. Clare pushed hard, and it swung reluctantly inwards, every joint and bolt groaning. She stumbled through, with Theresa right behind her. Tohar’s car gleamed in the faint light.

‘There’s the exit,’ said Theresa, her whisper ghostly in the dark. They made their way around the car.

‘Ssh,’ whispered Clare, her hand stopping Theresa. It came again from the passage. A sibilant noise, as if something heavy was being dragged. Clare pushed the door closed and moved a heavy coil of rope in front of it. Fear squeezed at her throat, making it difficult to breathe. Theresa Angelo had no colour left in her face. She shook convulsively. But her voice was calm when she spoke. Clare was beginning to understand how she had managed to survive that far.

‘The door’s over there,’ Theresa pointed. ‘But there are two padlocks.’ They heard the dragging sound again, closer this time, right near the door. And they heard a curse – though the voice had been rendered unrecognisable by pain and rage.

Once again, Clare took Theresa’s hand. Her eyes had accustomed themselves to the dimness. Light filtered through chinks in the double door. She could make out bolts held in place with the huge padlocks. ‘Hide behind the car. Keep behind me.’ Theresa crumpled next to the rear wheel of the Jaguar. Clare had drawn her gun from its hiding place. There was a thud on the inner door. It shifted slightly. She aimed at the bottom lock of the boathouse door. The sound of the
shot deafened her, but she steadied her hands and again took aim. The second lock exploded off the padlock just as the inner door burst open. Theresa screamed, scrambling to her feet. She pulled Clare after her, shoving the door open. The cool air welcomed them as they stumbled onto the filthy slipway.

‘Clare,’ said Riedwaan. Then he caught Theresa and held her against his chest. ‘Theresa?’ he asked. She nodded, beyond speech.

‘Riedwaan,’ Clare was hoarse. ‘He’s in there. He followed us.’

‘Here’s our back-up.’ Clare looked up to see Rita Mkhize and three uniformed men from the hostage unit. ‘You go up, Clare. The ambulance is on its way.’ Riedwaan stepped back from her, holding back tears of relief at seeing her safe. From inside the boathouse there was the sound of a door closing. ‘Let’s get him.’ The men followed him as he pushed the boathouse door open.

Clare led Theresa Angelo back to street level. ‘Can I call my mom?’ Clare handed over her cellphone. ‘You dial, please.’ Clare keyed in the number and waited for it to ring. A woman’s frantic voice answered immediately. Clare handed the phone to Theresa.