The Darkness of Bones (16 page)

“
I
NEVER KNEW
my parents, having spent most of my life in an
orphanage
. Orphanage? Another euphemism. Prison, a more truthful word,” said Judith, so softly that Jack could barely make out the words. “The man in charge of that particular hellhole was called Albert Miles. Or, as the children in his custody called him, Mister Spittle.” Judith’s lip curled slightly, as if she were smelling sour milk. “Not a day passed that we didn’t endure some sort of abuse—mainly sexual, from the
respected
Mister Spittle.” She reached her hand into the cage and, like a magician, produced another rabbit. “Mister Spittle was just beautifully handsome in an almost delicate way, the kind of man you could almost call pretty, a gentleman to his friends and loving family. Oh, how he loved that family.” A muscle in her pale face flitted for a moment. Her eyelids drooped half shut while her eyes went flat. She gripped the rabbit, tighter. “I can still see him, every night, undoing his belt buckle, allowing his greasy trousers to slide down his bony legs.” The rabbit dangled, twitching violently on invisible strings. She opened its stomach, making
it suffer horribly while it squirmed in her hand. It stopped once she slit its throat.

Judith stared at Jack, challengingly, almost daring him to say a word. Something was happening to her eyes. They were becoming clearer, as if a curtain had been removed. They were morphing into someone else’s.

The eyes. Where have I seen them? In the wedding photos in Harris’s cottage, yes; but some place else. Think …

“Do you know why we called him Mister Spittle? He had to spit on his hand to smooth his entry into our arses, did Mister Spittle. Sometimes, when he was drunk, he didn’t even bother to try and wet our arses, always taking us from behind, like a purse-snatcher.”

The eyes. Think, you stupid bastard. Think …

“Mister Spittle bred rabbits as a hobby, donating them to the ‘Save the Orphans Organisation’.” An eerie-sounding laugh jumped from Judith’s throat. “Every Saturday night, he put on a show for some of the
selected
children in the orphanage, forcing them to watch rabbits fuck one another. He called me his little rabbit, did Mister Spittle—his sweet little rabbit whose sweating skin resembled stardust. Said he would teach me how to fuck like one.” Dropping the dead rabbit at her feet, Judith reached for another. “‘There is nothing so sweet as a child of pliant age,’ he would whisper into my ear, as he forced his cock into me, from behind, pulling on my ears like a bunny rabbit.”

The eyes. Oh, dear lord …

Now he remembered. Jack tried desperately to stop the blood rising in his head. It was throbbing, uncontrollably, like the warning of a volcano about to erupt. “You … you’re the little boy, in the photographs … the little boy with the tortured eyes.”

J
OHNSON HOVERED THE
chopper near the edge of the Graziers’ land, instructed by Benson to do so.

“Little point in reducing the element of surprise, Johnson. I’m sure the Graziers have heard us, anyway,” said Benson, scanning the vastness of the land with his binoculars.
But what if there is no surprise? What if I’m wrong? What if Jack isn’t here—never was?

The chopper slumped suddenly like a slate falling from a roof.

“Easy, lad,” growled Benson, grabbing the passenger seat tightly while his stomach parked somewhere in his throat. “This isn’t a bloody video game.”

“Sorry, sir. I was only trying to get the chopper to—”

“There!” yelled Benson, relief pouring through. “Down there, to the left. That’s Jack’s car. I’d know that piece of junk anywhere. Even from up here, it’s a bloody eyesore.”

The car had been left stranded, beside a hill, hiding itself close to the battered pathway leading directly on to the Graziers’ land.

“Oh yes.” Benson smiled, picturing Jack, binoculars in hand, taking the advantage afforded him by the hill’s height. “You sneaky old bastard, Jack.”

“Should I go in first, sir, once we land? I topped the performance league at the Academy’s shooting competition.”

“Did you indeed? Well, these aren’t cardboard cut-outs that we’re after, lad. These bastards can shoot back. No, you just follow my instructions. No heroics. Play this right, and we’ll both be tucked in our beds, tonight, safe and sound. Everything by the book. Understand?”

“Anything you say, sir,” said Johnson.

“By the bloody book,” reiterated Benson.

J
UDITH DID NOT
acknowledge Jack’s statement about the photos, simply continued talking. “Night after night, Mister Spittle would force himself on the little rabbit. The little rabbit couldn’t breathe. Would no one help? Do they hate the little rabbit that much? Please. Someone, somewhere, help. But no one ever listened—especially Mister Spittle’s loving wife and children. Even God shut his eyes when it suited. Oh, the little rabbit learned a lot in that fucking hellhole.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine the horror of what you and the rest of the children must have gone—”

“Talking. Talking fucking talking! You
are
correct: you could
never
imagine the horror, Mister Talking Policeman. How can you imagine having your cock and balls pulled so hard, that they are damaged beyond repair, useless, like a eunuch’s and that only a sex change can save you? Perhaps if I cut off
your
cock and balls, then you could begin to
imagine?
”

Jack grimaced.

Shaking her head, Judith continued. “How can you begin to
imagine
what it’s like to be raped at will by an upstanding
and respected member of the community, day in and day out, thinking it’s all your fault, that you must have done some terrible thing in the life before and that this is God’s punishment for it? No, you can
never
imagine.”

A couple of rabbits whispered in the darkness. The old freezer hummed. It sounded like it was ready to give up the ghost. It sounded like it was whispering, also.

“You are right. One hundred per cent,” said Jack. “I only hope that the perpetrator was arrested, and finally brought to justice. I believe people like that need to be put away for a very long time, never to be allowed to commit their evil acts again. I truly do.”

Judith looked beyond Jack when she spoke, her eyes glazed, as if looking at a film being shown on the opposite wall.

“Justice? There is no such animal, Mister Truly Do.”

“There are other conduits, Judith. The proper authorities—”

“So, it’s Judith, now, Mister Calvert?” Judith smirked. “Trying the Stockholm syndrome? Don’t waste your time. Are you familiar with the work of Artemisia Gentileschi, her rape?”

Jack nodded, slightly. “Yes.”

“Then you know what happened to Artemisia when she brought the charge to the
proper authorities?
” hissed Judith, disdainfully. “The so-called trial was a painful public humiliation for Artemisia. During the proceedings, she underwent vaginal examination and torture with thumbscrews, to establish the veracity of her evidence. She was accused of being unchaste when she met Tassi, and also of promiscuity. But even the male-dominated court had no other choice once the mountain of evidence was produced and came tumbling down on top of them. Tassi was found guilty. He was given the choice of five
years’ hard labour or exile from Rome. He opted for the latter, but was back in Rome within four months. Was that
justice?
”

“No, of course not.”

“The heroines of Artemisia’s art are powerful women exacting revenge on male evildoers. Do you recall what Judith did to the Assyrians’ military general, Holofernes, once she had seduced him in the tent?”

A stone of fear moved in Jack’s stomach, sliding downwards like acid. He could feel hot blotches blooming on his neck. He wanted badly to scratch the blotches, dig his nails deep into them.

“Yes, I know the story.”

“When I met Mister Spittle,
deliberately
, years later, in a downtown bar, he didn’t recognise me in my new body, even though he more than anyone had contributed to my sex change.” Judith smiled bitterly. “His wife had left him—
belatedly
—and he was nothing more than a lonely old perv. Do you know, he still kept all the photos of me and the other unfortunates, wrapped in tiny shoe boxes, just like the prisoners we were, all those years ago?” Sweat and snot pooled over Judith’s upper lip. She did not attempt to wipe it.

The noise in the shed, for Jack, was suddenly becoming unbearable. The rabbits were screaming louder, smelling the blood of their butchered comrades. They sounded like a million children in orphanages, screaming for help. Help that would never come. The freezer, seemingly not to be outdone, hummed even louder, like a dentist’s drill in Jack’s teeth.

“I took Mister Spittle back here, to my house, and made him strip, filling his head with all manner of sexual perversion. He confided in me that he couldn’t have normal sex, but I reassured him that after that night, he would never have to
worry about that again.” Judith was breathing heavily, as if performing a seance, or a bizarre exorcism. “I bent him over the bed, fondling his cock, getting him as hard as the steel rod in my other hand. His arse resisted for a while and I had to use my finger, initially, just to start the wonderful journey. That did the trick. He loved that little part, I think, just between you and me, but little did he know that soon he would have more than a little finger poking in there. I was even generous in my use of spittle before I rammed the steel rod home, watching his spine straighten with the pain.” She was breathing heavier now, her bare breasts swelling abnormally. “I should have had a camera, just for old times’ sake, for posterity, when the coldness of the cut-throat touched his hot sac, startling him even further. Then I whispered in his ear how his skin glistened like stardust—I will never forget the look on his face at those words, or the sound he made staring at his balls on the floor, as he grasped, too late, that the coincidence of our meeting was not chance, but an inevitable consequence of a desire for revenge.”

Jack’s gun rested two feet away, almost invisible between the rabbits’ bloody carcasses. Controlling his breathing, he now felt a calmness slowly oozing through his body.

Keep staring at her, but picture your gun; keep it firmly in your head. Shoot Jeremiah first—wound if possible. Take the chance with the razor, not the shotgun.

Judith rose, and then stretched leisurely, like a drugged cat. Weirdly, her naked body—now moist with blood—shimmered with the gentle texture of a soft, carved pebble.

Walking towards the humming freezer, she opened its lid, its pale, jaundiced light blinding her momentarily like a vampire at sunrise.

“I was surprised at how easily his cock and balls gave way to
the blade—a bit disappointed, actually. I thought there would have been more resistance, even though the shop assistant had informed me that the razor had a near-surgical cutting blade.” She shrugged her shoulders before dipping into the freezer, the tiny stepping-stones of her spine arching a perfect “c”. “Thankfully, this was more challenging …”

Jack was winded as it hit him smack up the balls. Only pride prevented him from buckling in pain.

Mister Spittle’s head rested contently between Jack’s legs, like an egg in a nest. Belatedly, Jack’s body responded before his mind registered, shoving the ghastly item away, kicking at it, wildly.

“Filthy bastard!” he shouted, hating himself for allowing her to shock him. Rage was simmering under his powerlessness.

“Filthy bastard, indeed,” Judith grinned. “See how old Spittle went for your cock, after all these years in the freezer? Told you he was a perv, didn’t I?”

Jack was tiring, mentally and physically, draining of all emotion. Had he detected a softening in Judith’s voice, an understanding that he had full sympathy with her, that all he wanted to know was that his son was safe and well? But the ugly, honest, rational part of his brain, the part that gives open appraisals and realistic predictions, the part that no one likes to acknowledge—that little voice was now laughing at him, telling him that he would have to make his move soon if he wanted to live. Better to die trying than to be slaughtered like one of the hapless rabbits. He hadn’t come this far simply to have his head removed, to see the inside of a freezer.

“Albert Miles may have deserved his fate, but the little McTier girl, Nancy—what harm had she done? Why was she killed?” asked Jack, control slowly coming to his voice.

“Nancy was a beautiful, pigeon-plump, utterly delicious little lady, but bloodthirsty in the way that all little girls are. She loved to watch as I cut the rabbits,” said Judith. “To my surprise, I did have feelings for her but I had to remain focused, knowing that the sins will be visited upon the sons and daughters.”

“But … why? What did she do to deserve such a terrible death?”

“She did nothing. It was her grandfather, the
good
Doctor John McTier. But he wouldn’t have cared less about me killing him. I needed to hurt him in a very bad way.” Judith seemed in a trance before she spoke, again. “McTier was the doctor at the orphanage. He saw what went on, all the rapes and beatings, but did nothing. He also enjoyed his private viewing every Saturday night at the orphanage, along with the other good citizens of the town.”

“Viewing?” asked Jack, the question long ago answered by his own speculation.

Judith smirked. “I have a sneaking suspicion you already know, Mister Calvert, but I’ll humour you, anyway. Spittle made a small fortune with his nightly showings of children being raped. They were all there, the pillars of the community, the ghouls, the bad, and the ugly: Dickey Toner, John McTier, and quite a few others. There was a cop, also—though he may not have participated, as such. He had more interest in backhanders.”

“A cop?” Jack’s adrenalin flowed a notch quicker. “Who … what was the cop’s name?”

Judith shrugged. “He remained faceless, collecting his payments away from prying eyes, only the stench of his cigars leaving fingerprints floating in the air.”

“Are you sure he was a cop? Did you hear his voice, anything
to recognise him by?”

“Just his stench and fat silhouette, but I have a feeling in my bones that I will meet him one day, soon. He was shrewd enough, doing most of his dealings with the owner of the Graham building, Peter Bryant.”

“Bryant …?”

“I thought that would get your attention.” Judith smiled. “Your whore friend’s father owned the Graham building and surrounding area. The bastard died of cancer, a few years ago, making it impossible for me to have my pound of flesh, or to extract any relevant information about his cop friend. Fortunately, his daughter was able to pay.”

“It was you on the phone, wasn’t it?”

Judith ignored his question.

Jack licked his dry lips. “All … all I ask, Judith, is that you tell me what happened to my son. You of all people should have an understanding of what I’m going through. I’m a proud man, but I’m begging you, tell me something, anything. Please. I can help you.”

“Help
me?
Where was all the help when I—
we
—needed it? The only one who ever tried to help me was a boy called Michael Wainwright, imprisoned in the same hellhole as me. Michael vowed always to protect me, no matter what. He attacked Mister Spittle, one night, after I had been raped …” Judith’s voice trailed. “Spittle murdered him, buried him in the grounds of the orphanage. Spittle wasted no time informing me that I would join Michael in that cold hole in the ground if I resisted any further.”

Jack’s heart gave a little lurch. He wondered if Judith had heard the sound. There was little doubt in his head that it was a chopper, coming in to land.

“But Spittle was wrong,” continued Judith. “He hadn’t killed Michael. Michael was too strong for him, and escaped after feigning his death. I knew that in my heart, and knew that one day he would come back to me, love me forever, protect me always.”

The light was closing in behind Judith, and her shadow fell on Jack, but even in the dullness, he could see that she was considering him, washing her ink-blue eyes across his face. Deciding.

No longer hearing the chopper’s sound, Jack wondered if he had imagined it; if it had ever really been there.

Standing slowly, Judith secured Jack’s gun as she did so. “Personally, I have nothing against you … Jack. But you must understand that I cannot allow you to interfere with justice. I can’t allow you to harm those whom I love. Please allow me to introduce you to Michael, my hero …”

Jack craned his head slowly, as directed, and tried to speak. No words came.

Adrian’s eyes were huge in the frame of his sunken face, wide and vacant, like a window forced open. He was barely recognisable as the young boy who had fled into the storm. He held the shotgun inches from Jack’s face.

It shocked Jack, Adrian’s state, and he gasped inwardly as he felt the muzzle of his own gun being placed against the back of his head, the heaviness of the trigger hitting home as Judith pulled the trigger.

At that exact moment, everything around him seemed removed, hardly real. There were words in his head. There was a gap, a delay between the moment he heard the words and when he finally understood them.

Then the explosion came.