Perfect Intentions: Sometimes justice is above the law (12 page)

And this behaviour would serve two purposes: firstly, it put Sarah out of the frame as far as a potential threat to the marriages were concerned. Secondly, it made the husband feel angry with his wife for showing him up, and consequently he would forget that Sarah had been the one who had created the scenario in the first place.

Sarah hauled herself up out of the chair and walked through into her bedroom, holding the ice-lolly between her teeth. She reached up and grabbed the overnight case she kept up there for her weekends away. Throwing it onto her bed, she walked back through to the kitchen. If she didn’t get the ice-lolly tray refilled and back into the freezer soon, there’d be hell to pay when the kids got back. Once again placing the lolly between her teeth, she started running the hot water to wash them up, and as she was doing this her teeth started to slide through the ice. Aware she might drop
it, she quickly dried off her hands and went to catch it before it fell. But no hurry was needed—her teeth had gone through the ice and had found something, something hard but strangely soft, like perished rubber. She spat the remains of the ice-lolly out into the hot water of the sink, and it only took a few seconds in warm water for it to become apparent what she had had in her mouth. As the ice melted, she rubbed at her eyes. For a moment she thought she was hallucinating, a strange hallucination brought on by pregnancy and the alcohol she had consumed earlier. But no matter how hard she rubbed, it was still there. First she thought it was one of those rubber fingers that you can buy from joke shops, and that one of the kids must have done it as a joke. But what she noticed next told her irrefutably that what she was looking at was no child’s prank: at the base of the finger there was a ring, a wedding ring, and she knew who its previous owner had been—Jon.

The scream rang round the large building, and within half an hour the police were there.

Dean had left numerous messages on Clare’s phone since finding out about his paternity, hoping it might prompt her to phone him. Since then, a week had passed, and he had given up trying, and the only call he was anticipating was Mark’s.

They were going to a party tonight. Mark thought they could get rid of the fifty ecstasy tablets Mark had acquired at the weekend. Rustling round in his pockets, Dean found the slip of paper Mark had given him earlier—it was the web address of a new porn site. Apparently Mark knew someone who knew the guy who’d set it up. Turning the computer on, Dean waited for the screen to load and typed in the web address. As the computer located the required site, Dean leaned back in his chair, taking a swig of his lager. The screen took only a few seconds to load, but when he saw what was on the screen, Dean’s heart missed a beat. Nearly choking on his lager, he spat it out, spraying the computer as he did. His eyes were fixed on the screen, which displayed the woman he still loved for the entire world to see. His face hardened. She was taking the piss out of him, her and that prick in the picture with her. They were taking him for a mug. As he watched, a dribble of his beer and spit snaked down the screen and between her breasts. He snapped, sweeping his arm across the computer table and sending the monitor crashing to the ground. Grabbing his jacket, he decided he was going to go and find Mark and find out exactly who the man on the website was.

Grabbing his mobile from his pocket, he found Mark’s number and hit ‘call.’

“Mark? Where are you?”

Mark’s voice was loud on the line.

“I’m just getting in my car on my way to you, why?”

“Meet me down at the Tin Whistle.”

Five minutes later, Mark arrived at the pub. Scanning the room, he saw that Dean sat in the corner, and he seemed on edge. Mark ordered two pints and went over to join him.

“So what’s up, then, mate?”

“Who told you about that website?”

“What website?”

“You know what website.”

“What, the porno one? Yeah, a bloke I met in here told me about it—why?”

“No reason. Is he in tonight?”

Mark looked around the bar once more.

“Nah. Look, are you going to tell me what all this is about?”

“I knew someone on the site.”

“Male or female?”

“Female.” Dean’s voice was low. Mark knew this was his cue to leave the subject, but his natural curiosity couldn’t let the subject drop.

“An ex?”

“Can you just fucking drop it? All you need to know is that I want the name of the guy who runs the site and the guy who’s boning the girl on the home page.”

“Ok, give me a couple of days.”

“Good.”

The conversation fell flat as both men went back to their pints.

Clare sat staring at the papers in front of her. When she had signed up for the psychology course, she hadn’t realised how hard finding the time to study would be. However, if she was honest with herself, it wasn’t the time management that was giving her the most trouble as far as her study was concerned; she found it unbelievably hard to concentrate on anything these days. Ever since she and Hannah had been assaulted, her life had changed beyond all recognition, and she longed for the days when her life had been normal. Normal to her, like most people, meant boring. Not anymore, though
; her mind was continually racing lately and she wished it could just stagnate for a bit. As she got up to make herself another cup of tea, her mobile rang. Checking the number, she saw it was Dean again, and sighing loudly, she answered it.

“What do you want?” Clare’s voice sounded bored and that just served to incense Dean’s anger further.

“Well, I was just wondering what your going rate was?” Clare’s stomach dropped. He must have seen the website.

“I mean
, if I had known I was going out with the local porn star, I’d have gotten my money’s worth.”

Clare hit the ‘end call’ button and threw her phone on the sofa. She went through into the kitchen in shock. If Dean knew, then how many others knew, as well? Ignoring the kettle, she grabbed the bottle of Bacardi she always kept now and poured herself a cupful. Knocking it back, she could hear her phone ringing loudly in the living room, each ring seeming to get louder and more aggressive. Picking up the Bacardi bottle, she went back through to the living room, and grabbing her phone from the sofa, she switched it off.

Dean stood staring at his mobile. The last time he’d tried ringing, it had cut him off. Dialling her number again, he listened to see whether or not it would ring. Clare’s phone rang straight through to her voicemail.

‘Fine then, don’t talk to me. I’ll just leave a message, and seeing as you won’t listen to this, I’ll have to make sure you get my message another way.’

Dean ended the call and grabbed the spray paint from his bag.

Twenty miles away, in a derelict farmhouse, Jon regained consciousness. Even with the gaping holes in the building, he could smell the stench of charred flesh. He looked down at his left hand and winced. When he’d first realised he was being abducted, he’d thought it had been for money; he had laughingly tried to bribe his abductor with fifty thousand pounds on the journey.

His businesses had been doing great recently. Originally making his money out of the organic industry boom, he had branched out into other areas. A little over a year ago, Jon had decided to take early retirement. Unfortunately the dream of retirement and the reality bore little resemblance when he found himself spending a lot more time with his wife, Joanne. Before the first week of his retirement was up, he’d purchased a new business, but it was a business he knew nothing about. He’d bought a small garage, and it already had a full employee quota complete with manager. Joanne, who knew little of his business dealings, believed he was putting full time hours in once more, whereas in reality he could pop in and out of the garage if and when he chose. Luckily they were all good lads, and had covered for him a few times. It had even meant he could attempt to make amends to his eldest son, the son he’d ran out on nineteen years ago. The garage had a booming business, so all the little extras he liked to spend on his extra-curricular activities didn’t raise too many questions at home. All in all, it was one of the best investments he’d made. It also meant that whatever his abductor demanded of him, he should easily be able to afford it.

When he’d seen where his abductor was taking him, he’d thought it had been for a cooling off period before they decided what amount of money they thought they could get out of him. When his abductor had produced a cigar cutter, he wasn’t sure if he should laugh or cry. He’d seen them used in certain gangster films before to relieve the victims of their digits; he had thought it was a sick, depraved joke. His abductor had taped him to the chair that he was now sitting in, and halfway through the removal of his ring finger, the pain had become too much and he’d passed out. Looking at the bloody, blackened stub he now sported, he could make an educated guess at what had happened afterwards: the abductor had cauterised the wound. And judging by the lack of surgical equipment around, he assumed they had used the cigarette lighter from his car. Oddly enough, that thought calmed him a little; if they’d bothered to stop the bleeding then maybe they didn’t want to kill him after all. Or at least they wanted something more from him; either way it bought him more time.

Staring around the dilapidated room he was sitting in, he noticed something he hadn’t noticed before: on the wall opposite him there hung a clock that certainly hadn’t been there earlier. The abductor must have left it for him. According to the clock, he must have been here for at least five hours. As he sat there waiting, he noticed the first rays of light from the new days sun stretch across the room. Where the hell was his captor, where had they gone, why had they gone? Had they gone to collect the next instrument for this sadistic game?

Jon started to drift in and out of consciousness and dreams started blurring with reality, the most painful of which was where he woke up in the bed at Sarah’s apartment. She’d come in with two cups of tea, two cigarettes, and an ashtray. They would stay in bed most of the morning, debating the merits of various mundane things—in this particular case, tea-cosies—and then Jon would wake once more and find himself still incarcerated.

That part became harder every time.

Fitful sleep and a restless mind ensured Jon was far from being in a sound mental state when the persecutor arrived back at the building a full twenty-four hours later.

The persecutor strode straight up to Jon and ripped off his gag.

“Wake up
. Wake up.
”

Jon’s head slowly rotated up in the direction the command was coming from. He felt dazed, as if someone had been consistently hitting the back of his head with a rubber mallet for the last two hours. He decided to ask once more what they wanted, and looking them directly in the eye and summoning as much strength as he could muster he spoke steadily, in a voice that sounded much stronger than he felt.

“What do you want with me?”

“You’re thinking of leaving your wife, aren’t you?”

No answer. Sighing inwardly, the voice spoke again.

“Jon, as a supposedly intelligent man, I’d have thought you’d have known that if someone asks you a question, it is good manners to answer them.”

As Jon listened to the voice, he noticed it had an almost lyrical quality to it, quite at odds with the voice that had threatened to slit his throat the previous evening.

“No, I’m not
thinking
of leaving my wife; I
am
leaving my wife. Now if you’ve quite finished with the twenty questions, can you just get on with whatever it is you plan to do, because I’m bloody sick of
waiting
!”

“Ah, you’re sick of waiting, are you? I imagine a busy man like
you
hates waiting, people wasting your time—I know I don’t like the idea of five minutes of wasted time, so can you imagine how it’d feel to waste
seventeen years
of your life? Stuck with the same ungrateful bastard every day, all the time knowing he’s off having sordid little affairs with any two-bit scrubber that came along, and then after
seventeen
years
of raising
his
children, keeping
his
house, and forfeiting any life of her own in a bid to keep
him
happy and at home, he suddenly decides to up and leave? Can you imagine how that’d feel, Jon
? Can you?
”   The calm, lyrical voice had disappeared, and in its place was an almost hysterical scream. The last two words practically slapped Jon across the face.

“Well, hopefully you will understand a little more soon, Jon, ‘cause you’ll have plenty of time to think about it.” The soft voice was back once more and the cherubic face stared down at Jon as the gag was refastened.

“I may not be able to give you seventeen years, Jon, but you’ll be amazed how long time can stretch when you’re in desperate need of something, whether it’s love, caring, understanding, or…”

The voice became low and malicious.

“…food and water.”

With that, his persecutor turned and started to head once more toward the exit.

The abductor could hear the muffled protests turning to desperate anguished grunts in the background.

“Bye, Jon.”