Running Stupid: (Mystery Series) (9 page)

Mary smiled, and for a moment her eyes locked with Matthew’s. There was something deep inside those hazel orbs that didn’t seem right. Jester shrugged it off and stood, still facing her. “Thank you so much for the food, and the arm thing,” he stopped smiling and stopped speaking. Mary was sitting with her head resting in her hands, and the posture made her look completely innocent. But Matthew saw that she wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze fell over his shoulder, behind him.

He felt a warm breath on his neck. It rushed through the small prickly hairs which all stood on end. Before he could turn around, something hard clipped the back of his head with skilful and deadly precision. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

When he woke, he woke to needles in his brain. Tiny men inside his head were giving him acupuncture. His head throbbed violently, the pain orchestrated from a spot at the back of his skull. He opened his eyes slowly and painfully. Strips of light slid into his vision, burning his pupils and sending searing pain through his brain.

“What the …” he mumbled.

“Good morning!” the voice was bright, alert, and friendly.

Matthew Jester turned to the source of the voice. “James,” he croaked, slumping his head to one side. “What the hell is going–” he paused, studying the appearance of the middle class farmer. “What are you wearing?” Matthew asked cautiously.

James smiled and he walked closer to Matthew. He suddenly felt an urge to move his body, burst into life. He was seated on a simple wooden chair, his hands tied behind his back, and with a rough, sturdy rope tying his ankles together.

“Wiggly wiggly worm,” James said playfully. “If you wiggle too much, the birds will see you.”

Matthew continued to struggle, shifting his hands and feet erratically, trying to break free of his restraints.

“Mary, dear,” James shouted, ignoring Jester’s efforts to break the ropes and free himself from the chair. “Our guest is awake,” he directed his voice away from Matthew, past a flight of stairs and towards an open door at the top.

Matthew could see they were in the basement. He knew that the open door led to the passageway, right next to the kitchen. “What’s going on?” he demanded to know.

James smiled. “We’re just going to play a few games. The sooner you stop wiggling, the sooner we can start.”

Jester threw his body at the ropes again. His wrists and ankles were grazed and bleeding; blood trickled down his wrists and onto his hands, making a line for his middle finger which steadily leaked droplets of blood onto the floor below.

“Please stop,” James said quietly.

Jester sneered at the man and continued to thrash about.

“
Stop
,” James said, his tone sterner.

“Let me fucking go!” Matthew bellowed.

“Can you please–”

“Just let me fucking go!”

“Stop your fucking wiggling!” a hard backhand slapped across Matthew’s face, and his head snapped to one side.

Matthew sneered and spat a glob of blood at the feet of his captor. James smiled back.

Soon, Mary, the ever clean well-presented housewife, descended the stairs to the basement and stood beside her husband. They looked at Matthew through awe-struck eyes.

Matthew Jester stared back. Both of them had changed their clothes. They both wore surgical gloves, masks, and hair nets. Covering James’s body was a pair of well-worn overalls. He’d turned from lumberjack into a painter, but Matthew was confident that the red marks on the overalls were not paint. He quivered at the thought and turned to Mary. She had taken her craziness seriously, because aside from her surgical head and hand gear, she wore a long green surgeon’s robe. It was immaculately clean, and even bore a name tag, with the name Mary Whittall inscribed in bold letters.

“So,” Matthew said tiredly and after much deliberation and silence. “Anyone up for a game of cards?”

***

“Why are you doing this?” Matthew wondered. The couple had been standing in front of him staring for the last five minutes. They spoke only to each other, conferring in whispers that Matthew couldn’t hear.

They remained standing, smiling silently.

“Tell me,” Jester demanded. “What did I do wrong?”

Mary took a step forward. “You were stealing apples, you naughty little boy,” she spoke to him like a headmistress would to a pupil.

“I was lying,” Matthew stressed. “I wasn’t really stealing apples.”

“You lied to me?” Mary questioned, seemingly offended.

“I had to.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Matthew said and kicked at the restraints in anger. “Because…I don’t know,” he conceded.

Mary nodded. “A liar and a thief,” she confirmed.

“What?” Matthew snapped. “How can I be both? Work it out. If I stole apples, I was telling the truth, and if I didn’t then I was lying, but ... I didn’t steal anything so I’m not a thief.” Matthew lolled his head over to the one side. “I think,” he spat, his head throbbing.

“A thief and a liar,” James confirmed.

Matthew slammed his head forward in frustration. “Were you even listening?”

“Honest people with honest lives, honest jobs, and honest families grow them apples,” James explained.

“Bollocks,” Matthew spat. “Some fucker plants the seeds and then nature does the rest.”

“The only thing worse than a dishonest person is a dishonest person who steals from an honest person,” James explained, choosing not to pay heed to Jester’s words.

“What? Fucking hell, you’re giving my bollocks a headache, you are. What has gotten into you?”

“I am a simple farmer.”

“Simple, yeah, that bit I understand.” Jester spat more blood, watching it splatter on the floor. “Let me go,” he said softly.

“You broke the law and you need to be punished.”

“Look,” Jester said tiredly. “If this is about the court case and CNN and all of that shit, then I’m sorry. I didn’t actually say those words. They edited me, cut me, made me out to be the bad guy. I’m not–” he paused when he looked at his two captors: they were completely unresponsive.

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

They shook their heads simultaneously, smiling eerily as they did so.

“Okay,” Matthew said, defeated. “So you’re just … crazy?” he evaluated, nodding to himself. “Well, I’m pretty much fucked, aren’t I?”

He looked at the two smiling faces, not expecting a response of any sort, but to his surprise and worry, they both nodded. Jester thrashed against his restraints. He thrashed until the rope re-sliced his flesh and then began to cut through open wounds. Mary looked at her husband, smiled, and then departed, scurrying up the stairs and into the house as Matthew continued to fight.

“I’ve asked you more than once to stop wiggling,” James Whittall said calmly.

“I’ve asked you more than once to let me go,” Jester spat.

“Please stop,” James said calmly.

“No!” Jester bellowed.

“What do you expect to happen?” James quizzed. “If you break free right now, what do you think will happen?” He looked at Jester, who had stopped moving. From inside a kangaroo pouch on his overalls, James produced a large machete. “Do you think you could just run past me?” he asked.

Matthew looked at the knife. “Em...” he mumbled unsurely.

“That’s better,” James declared with a smile on his face. He turned to see his wife walk back into the basement, her steps slow and purposeful. She was holding something in her hand with great care.

When she descended the stairs, Matthew practically choked on his own saliva when he realised that the object she held was a large syringe. She smiled a merry, psychotic grin at Matthew.

“This is just to relax you down a bit,” she informed him.

Matthew squirmed as she grew near. “Get that fucking thing away from me!”

“Now, now,” James said from his wife’s side. “My wife knows what she is doing. Please let her do her job.”

“What! You’re fucking crazy!” Jester shouted.

“This will help with your anger, as well,” Mary said, smiling. She inched closer to Matthew, waiting for her husband to join her by her side.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Matthew begged as James wrapped his arms tightly around him, pinning him to the chair.

“This is for your own good.”

Mary plunged the needle into his arm, pushing the clear fluid into his veins. When she finished, she smiled at him, removed the needle, and took a step back.

“What did you give me?” Matthew asked, turning to James Whittall.

“A small sedative,” James said blankly. “It will stop you squirming and make our job a lot easier.”

“What do you mean,
your job
?” Jester said, looking worried. “What exactly is
your job
?”

James smiled. “Well ... it’s more of a hobby, really.”

Matthew studied the strong features of the man in front of him as the sedative began to take effect, caressing its way through his body. James Whittall stood tall and proud with a broad smile on his face, a smile that suggested happiness, contentment, growing excitement, and pure idiocy, but Matthew knew the man wasn’t an idiot: he’d spoken to him. He was clean, well-spoken, and rational.

The full effects of the sedative floated through Jester’s mind. His head began to feel heavy, his limbs relaxed to a comatose state, and his eyes struggled to remain open.

“That was quick,” Matthew heard James Whittall say, his voice distant but clear.

“I gave him a strong dose,” Mary Whittall said, entering the room again.

“How strong?” James queried.

“Thirty,” Mary explained.

Jester poked around in the silence of his mind. The next thing he heard was James’s voice. “Free him,” he said sternly. “He’s out like a light. He won’t be waking up for some time.” Matthew noticed a change in his tone, his excitement growing. “Free him and we can enjoy the games all the more.”

Moments later, Matthew felt hands on his arm. Fingers traced across his skin, drawing an invisible line along his forearm and down his wrist before stroking the wounds caused by the rope. When the fingers finished playing in the blood, they were removed. He heard a sucking sound as Mary licked the blood from her fingers.

Despite the pain in his wrists – made worse by the probing finger – Jester didn’t squirm. He didn’t move at all, keeping his eyes firmly closed and his breath slow and steady.

Soon the same hand that had enjoyed his wounds freed him from his restraints. The rope was cut by the large machete brandished earlier, and the frayed rope fell to the floor. Jester allowed his arms to dangle, hinting that he had no control over his limbs. The large knife then sliced through the rope around his ankles, the sharp blade nicking Matthew’s soft flesh. He jerked instinctively, murmured something incoherent, realised his mistake, and then returned to his comatose state.

“You nearly woke him,” Jester heard James complain.

“He’s drugged,” Mary said in her ever-pleasant voice. “Nothing can wake him.” He heard her groan as she stood – taking the rope away from Matthew’s ankles and tossing it to one side – and then pass the knife to her husband.

“Did you bring the equipment?” Matthew felt his heart skip a beat as he heard James’s words.

“I’ll go get them now,” Mary said.

Matthew listened as Mary ascended the stairs and left the basement. When he was sure she was out of the room, he opened his eyes a squint, just enough to allow for a sheet of light to enter. James stood directly in front of him. He opened his eyes further and was relieved and somewhat surprised to see that James stood with his attention aimed away from him, his muscular, broad back exposed.

Jester immediately snapped his eyes fully open. Now he had the advantage. Luckily for him, the drug they had pumped into his arm was the same one that he had been taking for the last year. Thirty milligrams of diazepam intravenously would normally induce sleep and deep sedation very quickly, but Matthew’s tolerance refused to accept sleep. He didn’t need a survival instinct; luck was on his side again. If it had been anything else, he would have been out cold. That, along with the valium already ingested and the long, stressful, and painful day, would have been too much for him to handle.

Matthew looked at the broad back of his captor. He was cleaning the top of a table on wheels, the sort you’d expect to see an air stewardess pushing, only this one wasn’t used for catering. Draped over the table was a large blue vinyl sheet. On its surface sat a surgical steel dish.

Jester quickly shot a glance towards the door. It was open, but Mary was nowhere to be seen.

There were a few feet between Matthew and his psychotic captor. He scanned the distance, closed his eyes, wished himself good luck, and then acted as quickly as he could. He sprang from his seat, instantly feeling his limbs ache, screaming at him to sit back down. He stepped forward, straight to the side of the chair, and picked it up, grasping it firmly in his hands.

James turned to see the commotion just as Matthew Jester found his aim. He swung the chair with all his might, throwing his entire body into the action. The hard wood crashed into James’s torso but didn’t break.