Personal Protection (28 page)

When I recovered, I crawled to where I’d thrown my keys. I dragged the table behind me, and left a trail of blood from the cuffs cutting into my ankles. I got close enough to knock the
keys off the plinth to the floor before the pain got too much.

I’m sure the Swiss Army suppliers who made the penknife on my key ring never intended it to be used to break out of handcuffs. But it worked. A mixture of the saw blades, knife,
screwdriver, toothpick and corkscrew had me free of one binder and working on the other before I heard someone above.

I was still attached by one leg to the table. If Ashley was in on this I couldn’t hope to fend them both off without freedom of movement.

There were footsteps on the stairs. I was out of time.

I switched the attachment to knife blade and dropped it – open – into my jacket pocket. Then I stood as best my hobbled state would allow and began kicking the table leg I was still
attached to. It hurt. It hurt my tethered leg. It hurt my bleeding ankles. It hurt my aching head. It hurt my screaming back. But I couldn’t stop. My only hope was to break the damn thing
off. Dragging around a table leg gave me a fighting chance. Dragging around a table did not.

The sound of splintering wood covered the opening door. I stepped clear of the wrecked furniture, broken table leg dragging beside me, before I confronted my captor.

“You couldn’t wait, could you?”

Mad as a stirred hornets’ nest, Cecily coiled a length of bullwhip over one arm.

“I prefer to play games by my rules. Without a handicap.”

She glanced at the length of wood dangling from the cuff around my ankle. Eloquent reminder that I hadn’t completely succeeded. She looked at my skinned knuckles. The handcuffs still
attached to the table. Back to the abraded flesh. Her expression was wistful. “You always were good with your hands.”

Then she unreeled the bullwhip in a crack that laid open my right leg through the pants. I’m not proud. I howled.

“I don’t suppose they teach you to defend yourself against something like this,” she mused with cold academic curiosity, reeling the whip in, coiling the thing for another
attack. I backed up, dragging the length of table leg.

Her second cut laid open my arm. She’d been aiming for my face. I’d moved just fast enough to cover it. Blood soaked through the slashed shirt, turning the white to crimson, making
the wool mix of the jacket heavy. If I didn’t do something quickly, I’d be in no shape to do anything at all.

How do you fight something as archaic as a bullwhip? My instincts screamed
Run!
But there was no where to run to. Cecily was between me and the door. A whip is a distance weapon. I should
step into her space, so that she couldn’t unleash it. Take it away from her. But the damage I’d sustain in trying…

She caught me a third time while I pondered. It sliced a fresh cut across my uninjured arm. I snarled with pain and snatched at the length coiled round me. By now both whip and hands were so
coated with blood that it slipped through my fingers. She yanked it back for another strike.

Off balance, I lurched into something that chinked, dangling from the ceiling behind me. As she launched a fourth cut of the whip, instinct made me grab whatever it was and leap upward. Her
weapon hissed by beneath me and clipped the swinging length of table leg. Cecily cursed and snatched the coils back.

My saviour had been a length of chain with manacles attached. The outfitters of Cecily’s playroom built to last; it supported my weight without a creak.

That gave me an idea.

While she re-coiled her weapon and aimed higher, I flipped my legs back, hit the wall, pushed off and swung. I aimed right at her, feet out to kick.

I hadn’t calculated for the table leg.

It swung out and caught her a blow that felled her like a slaughtered ox. I landed badly because of that same hunk of wood, but that hardly mattered. When I limped over to kneel beside her,
Swiss Army knife in my hands, she was out for the count.

“I told you she wouldn’t need saving twice.”

Craig.

I looked up to find the three of them clustered at the bottom of the stairs. All were in their party clothes, Dean with a baseball bat, Craig with a candlestick, even Tori, shoulder swathed in a
burn dressing, wielding a can of pepper spray. I’ve never been happier to see anyone.

Tori dropped the pepper spray and flew over. Covering my face with kisses.

“I’ve never seen anything braver. Taking my place. Letting her hurt you so I could be free. Wait till I get you home. I’ll make love to you like you’ve never
known.”

“The only place Randall’s going is A and E,” Craig told her. After he’d finished skinning back Cecily’s eyes and checking her pulse, he left Dean to cuff her with
some of her own toys while he looked me over, what bits of me he could get to with Tori in the way.

“Those cuts need sewing, your wrist needs strapping, your ankles need bandaging and they may recommend traction for your back.”

“Can’t you..?” Tori began.

Craig shook his head. “Way beyond what I can do. And you should have that burn looked at properly. There may be something they can do to stop scarring. It’s not really my
field.”

“What about her?”

“The hospital for her too,” I said. “The psychiatric wing. This goes way beyond kinky sex. She needs professional help. Either she voluntarily sections herself for psychiatric
evaluation, or the police arrest her for the murder of Lisa Moran. I’m telling them everything in the morning, no matter what she decides. It’s either prison or an institution.”
God, I was tired. And aching. “Tell me you came in the Range Rover?”

“Of course!”

“Then bring her. When she comes to I’ll explain her options. I’m fairly sure I know which one she’ll choose.”

I looked at Tori.

“I know this isn’t the way you imagined this ending.”

She looked at the unconscious Cecily.

“I can live with it. Knowing who did it so that I don’t have to be afraid any more. Seeing you free under your own power, knocking the bitch out, was enough for me. I think
it’s laid a few of your demons, too.”

I couldn’t argue. Dean heaved the unconscious woman over his shoulder and started up the narrow stairs, Craig close on his heels. Tori and I followed more slowly.

“At least I’ll have something positive to tell your parents,” I mused as we trooped out of the house. Craig opened the car rear. Dean dumped Cecily none too gently into the
back. Waiting on the road side for her door to be opened, Tori stood aghast, hands on her hips.

“Randall McGonnigal! Don’t you dare ruin Christmas dinner with this horror story!”

“Joke, Tori. Even I wouldn’t be that crass.”

She broke into one of those smiles that lit up her whole face. I’ll always remember her like that. Then the drunk driver careered round the corner and wiped her away.

It was not the Christmas I’d planned.

I don’t remember screaming as Tori went down. I recall my raw throat as I ebbed and flowed between consciousness and the quiet place the drugs had created where there was no pain.

I don’t remember Dean’s speed-limit-breaking drive to the hospital. I recall him and Craig singing Christmas carols at my bedside while I was in traction.

I don’t remember being admitted to hospital. Yet I recall Tori’s mother holding my hand, tears running down her face as she kept vigil at my bedside.

I missed Tori’s funeral.

I missed New Year’s Eve.

I hated myself for the former. I couldn’t bring myself to care about the latter. All the joy had gone out of my world without Tori. I willed myself to die. Yet I didn’t.

“It wasn’t your fault. You did what you promised. You found the maniac who raped her. You protected Tori from her,” Tori’s mother said to me, in one of my moments of
lucidity.

“Then why does it feel like I failed?”

“You can’t fight fate, Randall,” Craig said, fluffing pillows, straightening sheets on his rounds. “It was her time.”

“Nothing personal, Craig, but fuck off, will you? It was not her time, it was not fate, it was a fucking drunk driver. Go and play nurse to someone who appreciates your
platitudes.”

Ashley came to visit.

“I know I’m probably the last person you wanted to see.”

“You’ve got that right.”

“You have to understand I didn’t know anything about what she was doing.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that, am I?”

“I didn’t think you would; that’s why I’m leaving. I’ve submitted my intention to quit to the executors. I think it will be better for all of us if I move
away.”

An adult thing to do. I wasn’t in the mood for adult. Still, I forced myself to be polite. “Where will you go?”

He looked sheepish. “Cecily’s place. I’m looking after it for her until she gets out.”

“You still think she can be cured?”

His eyes were shadowed. “Yes. I do. At least I hope so. I love her, you see, so I have to believe it. I’m going to work with her therapists, see if there’s anything I can
do…” Then, sensing this was not what I needed to hear, “I’m really sorry things worked out this way. I like you. I liked Tori. But I love Cecily, for all her faults. I have
to try.”

They tried to give me grief counselling. I told them to fuck off, too. It wasn’t grief counselling I needed. It was anger management.

Drugs and pain had seen me through the grief, numbed the edge the way booze had with Gina. Now overpowering rage boiled in me: frustration at my helplessness, my inability to do anything about
what had happened. There was only one thing that would ease that.

The gym. I had to be back on my feet to take advantage of it. Since death didn’t seem interested in me, I decided to live.

Sammi and the girls came by, causing uproar. Dressed in skimpy Miss Santa suits they put on an impromptu show that stopped the ward. But their clowning was cover for something more serious. They
all shed a few tears with me for Tori before they left.

“If you need us, you know where to find us,” Joy told me hopefully.

Liu didn’t say much, but she made it clear she would be happy to step into Tori’s shoes. Flattering, but too soon. I couldn’t consider that part of my life while the aching
void of Tori’s loss ate at me.

“Don’t you think you’ve seen the last of us. You and I still have my little problem to sort out,” Sammi reminded me.

“I hadn’t forgotten. It’s my new year’s resolution.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

Their visit was the real start of my recovery.

They released me on January 3rd.

I got home, thinking I’d find an eviction notice. I found myself owner of the building.

Of course I called Tori’s mum. It took me three tries. Her father wouldn’t speak to me. Though the traffic accident wasn’t my fault he held me responsible. After two hang-ups
and an earful of abuse, I got through to the woman who’d sat by me as if I were her daughter. I hardly knew what to say. She made it easy for me.

“It’s the house, isn’t it? You got the deeds?”

“Yes.”

“I came to deliver them myself. That nice young law student, Ashley? He let me go up and put them through your door. He was just going out as I arrived. He’s moving, he tells
me.”

“Yes.”

“Her insurance paid off the mortgage and paid us back. She wanted you to have it. I’m sure she never imagined it would be this soon. She made a will when she bought it. We
won’t contest.”

“You’d be well within your rights if you did.”

“No. Victoria made it clear you were to be regarded as her next of kin if anything happened. She had documents drawn up in case she had an accident dancing or something.”

I wondered if the ‘or something’ came about before or after her rape.

“It’s going to take Rafe a while to deal with this. Me, too. Would you mind if...”

She was going to ask me not to call or write. The house was my pay-off. I interrupted her. She’d been kind to me. It was the least I could do.

“You have my number. If you need me. And the keys if you want any of Tori’s things.”

“Thank you, but no. I’ll pop them through the letter box when next I’m passing. I know she’d want you to have everything. We have all we need to remind us of her here, in
her old room.” Where she belonged only to them, and was still an innocent child. A person who hadn’t made a choice to have girlfriends instead of boyfriends, dance in what amounted to a
strip club, get raped, or run over, in a world where they couldn’t protect her. I understood.

After that neither of us could think of anything to say. Again she came to the rescue.

“I’m sure you have plenty of things to be doing. I really will phone, if you want me to.”

“The ball’s in your court. I meant what I said. If you need me, I’ll be there.”

“Thank you, love. You don’t know what that means to me. You take care.”

“I will.”

I found myself listening to the dial tone. That summed up my life.

“McGonnigal, you’re up.”

I stepped on to the practice floor, bruised and sweating. None of the usual slurs followed me. Nobody lined up to take me down a peg or three and show me that a woman shouldn’t be doing
this job. For the first time their faces were sober and sympathetic.

Spink was back. It was the big black man who lumbered out to meet me.

“I’m not here to fight you,” he said, before I could open my mouth. “You proved I can’t well enough last time. Just came to say goodbye. I’m quit of the
business. I’ve got a job minding my son-in-law’s market stall on Abingdon Street. Made the wife happy to see me again.”

Some of the men chuckled dryly.

“I just wanted to say sorry on behalf of us all. It doesn’t matter what we think of you professionally or personally. It doesn’t make it any better just to offer condolences.
But we all know what it’s like to lose someone. Most of us knew your girlfriend, because of her job. She was a nice lady. One of the best. Did they catch the bastard that knocked her
down?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then it’s time to get on with your life. You’ll never forget her. It’ll hurt for a long time. This won’t help. Nobody is going to fight you. We can see the
mood you’re in. They don’t want to die. There’s a punch bag over in the corner. Or Eli will happily beat the stuffing out of you a bit longer. You want my advice? Walk away.
Getting back on track doesn’t start here.”