Personal Protection (2 page)

We wedged ourselves under the stairs on either side of Dean, peering over his shoulders. I started to reach for the keyboard to stop the problem, but Dean snapped, “I don’t need your
help.”

I backed off. Craig must have seen how much it hurt, because he went into facilitation mode. The great compromiser in action is really something else. It took him seven minutes to get his
partner away from the infernal device and into the kitchen to the cappuccino machine. By that time the screen was an ominous blank. I slid into the seat Dean had vacated and set about rescuing the
disappeared data. I suppose a month isn’t long enough to learn it all. He had backed everything up. Thank God.

When laughing boy came back with his bowl of coffee, the printer was chattering. Dean scanned the print-out.

“Thanks,” he told me grudgingly.

“You’re welcome.”

“Thanks for putting the futon back together, too.”

“’s OK.”

“How did you..?”

I showed him how I’d restored the data. “Nothing is completely lost unless you switch off.”

He muttered something which was probably as close as I was going to get to an apology about the party fiasco.

“Look, I didn’t know Mr Clean Cut Family Man was sneaking off to lap dancing clubs. I didn’t deliberately set out to ruin your soirée.”

“You should have told me what she did.”

“So you could un-invite us, you mean?”

“No, of course not, but we could have said...”

“I’m not going to edit my life for you, Dean.”

“I never asked you to!”

“As near as damn it! You’re my friend and business partner, not my mother!”

We glared at one another.

“You never asked what she did. You were just happy I was shagging somebody instead of moping around. And you didn’t have to toss my leavings out of my flat any more.”

He had no answer to that. He retreated behind the bulwark of his delicate sensibilities. “I don’t know how you can live with her taking off her clothes in front of other
people.”

“Drop it, Dean,” I advised.

Craig intervened. “Randall’s a big girl, Dean. If she can live with her girlfriend jiggling her bits in naff blokes’ faces, that’s all that matters. Just be happy
she’s found someone she likes who likes her too.”

A backhanded compliment if ever I heard one. Since Craig had come down on my side I’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s comments like that which tell me he’s being
genuine in his support. He still doesn’t like me much, but since I went out on a limb to keep his partner out of the firing line last summer he’s warmed to me.

It was his idea for me to come round and fix the sofa. Mend a few fences. I wouldn’t have put it past him to have unscrewed the bolts himself. He’s a sneaky bastard is Craig.

“I suppose it isn’t any of my business,” Dean muttered.

“You’re right, it isn’t!”

The camaraderie was starting to cool between us, as our ‘discussion’ escalated towards ‘argument’. We were literally saved by the bell. My pager went off just as their
mobile rang. Craig answered the mobile and handed me the house phone before acknowledging the call and handing the mobile on to Dean.

“For you,” he told him unnecessarily. Dean’s mouth thinned into a tight line of annoyance. He snatched up the phone and stomped off into the kitchen talking as he walked.

“You’re not helping,” Craig pointed out as I dialled.

“Neither is he. I have nothing to apologise for.”

The phone rang twice before a distraught, unfamiliar, female voice answered.

“Randall McGonnigal. You paged me?”

“Thank God! It’s Tori’s mum. You’ve got to come! She’s been raped!”

I have only ever driven that fast four times in my life. Twice on an Aggressive And Evasive Driving Course (once to rehearse, once to pass), once with a client doing it for
real, and that nightmare journey to Tori’s mother’s house. A journey that should have taken three-quarters of an hour took thirteen minutes. I know; I was counting. And it still seemed
too damn long.

As I drove I tried to remember all the things I’d learned about the crime of rape. There are four main motivations. Misogyny, revenge, mental aberration and opportunity. Misogyny, revenge
and crimes of opportunity are all about power. Men who hate or fear women. Those who want to dominate or punish a specific victim or a victim by proxy, who reminds them of a hated figure who they
cannot attack. Those who are inadequate in their own sex life, as a way of working out their anger at their impotence or premature ejaculation. Whatever the reason, it’s a fact that about
eighty percent of rapes are perpetrated by abusers known to the victim. Almost sixty percent never get reported, because of that. Rack my brains as I might, I couldn’t think of anyone
who’d fit the bill as Tori’s attacker.

The good fairy must have been looking out for me, because I made it to her parents’ Cleveleys bungalow without police interference. But getting through the door was another matter. Her
grey-haired, septuagenarian, West Indian father with a belly like Buddha brought to mind Xeno’s paradox; I was determined to get in, he was determined to keep me out.

“Get out of here, go on! Haven’t you people have done enough to my Vicki?”

You’d think I’d be used to homophobia by now, but it never gets any easier.

“That’s enough, Rafe, come away now, come inside.”

The woman who coaxed the shuffling man inside and plucked me off the doorstep was white but not much slimmer. She fastened the door behind us, pushed her still muttering husband into the living
room and closed the door on him, before she turned back to me. She took a step away and looked me up and down.

“This is not the way I’d hoped to be introduced,” she admitted, sticking out a hand. The voice from the telephone. “I’m Tori’s mum.”

I accepted her hand and shook it firmly.

“You must have flown to get here.”

“I came as quickly as I could. Please, where is she? Can I see her?”

She nodded and beckoned me to follow. The house was long and low, big for all that. The corridor she led me through doubled back on itself like the letter J before terminating in a set of loft
ladders leading to a conversion, an addition to the building.

“We had it done when Victoria came along. She was a late child, not expected, loved all the more for that.” It was as if she read my mind. Or perhaps she just needed to talk.

“She hasn’t told us much. She won’t let us call the police. She says she can’t bear to go through all that being poked and probed, doesn’t want to be humiliated any
more.” She bit back a sniffle.

“I’ll speak to her about it,” I promised.

“She doesn’t know I called you. But I couldn’t think of anyone else.”

“Thank you for trusting me.”

“Now that I’ve seen you I think I did the right thing.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“That bolt might be on. But it’s loose. I dare say a good push might do the trick…

I squeezed her hand and climbed the ladder, leaving her at the bottom watching me hopefully. I knocked gently on the trap door. There was no reply to my first overture. I knocked again more
loudly. A muffled sob and an equally muffled “Go away” were my reward.

I tried the door and found it bolted as her mother had suggested. Hoping that she hadn’t decided to haul a piece of furniture over it to ensure her privacy, I turned my head, retreated a
step then applied my shoulder to it. The door smacked back satisfyingly.

Tori gave a shriek of fear.

This was not the best way to make an entrance after what had just happened to her. I ducked the candlestick she threw only just in time. When nothing else followed, I climbed up the rest of the
ladder into the tiny bedroom.

I could see why she had retreated to this place: perfect for a child, low-roofed, cosy. Memories of its security must have been very strong. She was curled up on the rumpled single bed,
surrounded by bedraggled stuffed toys, illuminated by a single anglepoise lamp on a child-sized formica desk. Her auburn hair lay in a tangled snarl across a lace trimmed pillow. She’d made a
vain attempt to peacock-tail it, as she must have done when she was a child. A sparsely bristled hairbrush on the rug covered wooden floor testified to her attempts to turn back time. To when
things were innocent and safe. And here I was recalling her to the present. I wanted to go to her and hold her, but I had no idea how welcome I’d be.

“Tori, it’s me.”

I ducked the low beams and walked slowly across the floor toward the bed, showing my open hands, the same way I would a sniper in a hostage situation. And was this really any different? Tori
might be the victim, but she was every bit as volatile.

I knelt down in front of the bed, picked up the hairbrush and set it aside. I offered her my hand. Tentatively her fingers crept across the coverlet towards the warmth of mine.

Sensibly, I didn’t move. Like any frightened animal, I let her make the choices, let her come to me. I was careful to have nothing on my face, in my eyes, but how much I loved her.
Whatever had happened, that wouldn’t change. She was no different in my eyes unless she chose to be. I didn’t want her to think of herself as soiled, or responsible for what had
happened. I needed her to know she was not to blame.

“Tori?” I whispered, putting all of that into my voice as best I knew how. With a sob she fell into my arms.

I held her uncomfortably like this, without complaint, until the first storm of weeping had passed. Then I climbed over her on to the bed, wedged myself beneath the eaves so that she
wouldn’t feel trapped, so she could go at any time, and lightly put my arms around her waist, letting her decide how tightly she wanted to be held.

She snuggled into me, her head under my chin, her arms around my neck, even though her body was stiff against me and only just touching mine. I didn’t know whether that was usual or not. I
had never personally dealt with a rape victim before.

I could smell something earthy in her hair, a tantalisingly unpleasant but familiar cologne – not hers – along with the sharp scent of blood. She hadn’t washed, just fled
straight here after her ordeal. Though I was desperate to know what had happened, to find someone to blame and hurt for this, I steeled my anger with patience. I waited. She would tell me when she
was ready.

Afternoon turned to evening through the skylight. She drew strength and courage from my undemanding comfort. Then, between one moment and the next, from silence came a torrent. The words rushed
out of her without pause for breath or punctuation. Sorting out the tangle of the tale took all my skill.

“Walking and walking and walking… Singing and walking. ‘Hello Mr Postman, nice to see you! I didn’t think you still did this round…’ So very old, see how
grey his hair is now! Old and grey. Like a merry Santa… Bungalows… low, flat and… No! Don’t want to! Don’t want to see! NO! Hurts! Worse than a migraine, worse than
concussion, worse than… DON’T! PLEASE!”

I was deafened by a blood-curdling scream. God knows what her parents and the neighbours must have thought. I stroked her filthy hair and crooned nonsense words to her until she stopped
whimpering and the monologue cut in again with frightening clarity.

“If you like pricks so much, then have some!”

The words of her rapist. I shivered. Had one of the clients at the dance club followed her? That’s what Dean had suggested, and he would be unbearable if he was proved right. I cursed
myself for thinking about that at a time like this. But how do you stop? Even when somebody else’s life hangs in the balance, you can’t help thinking about how that death will impact
upon your own life. Rape was no different.

“Rubber and wood, metal and vegetables...”

At first I didn’t understand what she was saying, then the chilling realisation hit me. She’d been raped, but not in the conventional fashion and not with anything DNA typing would
be able to convict the perpetrator with. Pseudo penis? Dildo? Phallic objects, sharp and blunt. My mind shrank from enumerating the possibilities.

“Tori?”

“Fucked and fucked and fucked…

“Tori, who did this to you?”

“Fucked and fucked and…

“Tori?”

Her voice degenerated into sobs.

This time I did hold her tight. And told her over and over that I loved her and that I’d get the bastard who did this and make them pay.

Somewhere amid this litany I started to cry. A mixture of anger and frustration, pain and horror, pushed me over the line from big bad bodyguard to as much a victim of this crime as she. All of
us would have to live with this; in the aftermath we all became victims.

Then I found myself comforted; she was kissing my tears away and stroking my face. Sanity had come back into her eyes.

“You won’t make me go to the police?” she whispered in a small voice.

“I’ll never
make
you do anything, Tori. I promise you that.”

“But you think I should go.”

“I won’t push you to tell me, but without knowing more about what happened I don’t know if that would do any good.”

She looked away.

“Let me help you. You know I’d do anything for you! If you don’t want the police involved, fine, we won’t involve them. Tell me what you know. I’ll deal with it for
you.”

She reached down. Drew the gun from my waist holster, synched behind my back for driving. No, I’m not getting paranoid. I’d been expecting to hear from a client while I worked at D
& C’s. That’s why I was wearing the pager. That’s why I was carrying the gun. Thanks to my original sponsor’s clout, I can legally carry a concealed weapon. (Don’t
ask; it’s complicated.) I have a Glock 26, subcompact. With the full magazine of fifteen 9-millimetre parabellum rounds it’s no lightweight.

She held it between us, pointed towards the roof. The unaccustomed weight of it made her small wrist tremble.

“Would you shoot them for me?” she whispered.

I went cold inside. Would I? Could I? The Glock was distinctive. I couldn’t get away with it. She probably knew that too. She wasn’t really thinking straight. Hell, I can’t say
I was.