Evil Games

  Unemployment in the Black Country was the third highest in the country and had never recovered from the decline of the coal and steel industry which had boomed in Victorian times.

  The foundries and steelworks had been demolished to make way for trading estates and flats.

  But today Kim didn’t want to tour the Black Country. She wanted to ride the bike, hard.

  She headed out of Stourbridge towards Stourton and an eighteen-mile stretch of road that wound its way to the picturesque town of Bridgnorth. She had no interest in the riverside shops or cafes. What she wanted was the ride.

  At the black and white sign she accelerated the bike. The anticipated shot of adrenaline ripped through her veins as the engine came to life beneath her. She leaned into the machine, her breasts against the fuel tank.

  Once unleashed, the power of the bike challenged every muscle in her body. She could feel its impatience and agitation in wanting to explode. And at times she was tempted to let it.

  Come on, get me, she thought as her right knee kissed the ground on a sudden, sharp turn. I’m waiting, you bastards, I’m waiting.

  Just now and again she liked to taunt the demons. She liked to goad the fates that had been denied when she hadn’t died beside her brother.

  And one of these days they would get her. It was just a matter of when.

  FOUR

  Doctor Alexandra Thorne circled the consultation room for the third time, as was her custom prior to a meeting with an important client. To Alex’s knowledge, her first patient of the day had achieved nothing remarkable in the twenty-four years of her existence. Ruth Willis had not saved anyone’s life. She had not discovered a miracle drug, or even been a particularly productive member of society. No, the significance of Ruth’s existence was for Alex’s benefit only. A fact of which the subject herself was blissfully unaware.

  Alex continued her inspection with a critical eye and lowered herself into the chair reserved for her patients; and for good reason. It was crafted of brain-tanned Italian leather which gently caressed her back and offered reassuring comfort and warmth.

  The chair was angled away from the distraction of the sash window, instead offering the patient a view of the certificates adorning the wall behind the reproduction Regency writing table.

  On top of the desk sat a photograph turned slightly so the patient could see a handsome, athletic man with two young boys, all smiling for the camera. A reassuring photograph of a beautiful family.

  Most important for this particular session was the eyeline view of the letter opener with its carved wooden handle and thin long blade that graced the front of her desk.

  The sound of the doorbell sent a shiver of anticipation through her body. Perfect, Ruth was right on time.

  Alex paused briefly to check her own appearance from toe to head. Three-inch heels added to her natural height of five foot six. Her long, slim legs were encased in navy, tailored trousers with a wide leather belt. A simple silk shirt enhanced the illusion of understated elegance. Her dark auburn hair curled at the ends in a sleek, tidy bob. She reached for the spectacles in the drawer and fixed them on the bridge of her nose to complete the ensemble. The prop was unnecessary for her vision but imperative for her image.

  ‘Good morning, Ruth,’ Alex said, opening the door.

  Ruth entered, personifying the dreary day outside. Her face was lifeless, shoulders drooped and depressed.

  ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Not too good,’ Ruth answered, taking her seat.

  Alex stood at the coffee maker. ‘Have you seen him again?’

  Ruth shook her head, but Alex could tell she was lying.

  ‘Did you go back?’

  Ruth looked away guiltily, unaware that she’d done exactly what Alex had wanted her to do.

  Ruth had been nineteen and a promising student of Law when she’d been brutally raped, beaten and left for dead two hundred yards from her home.

  The fingerprints from the leather rucksack that had been torn from her back had revealed the rapist to be thirty-eight-year-old Allan Harris, whose details had been in the system for petty theft in his late twenties.

  Ruth had faced an arduous trial that had seen the perpetrator sent to prison for twelve years.

  The girl had done her best to put her life together but the event completely changed her personality. She became withdrawn, left university and lost touch with her friends. The subsequent counselling had been ineffective in returning her to any semblance of a normal life. Her existence consisted of going through the motions. And even that frail façade had been destroyed three months earlier when she’d passed a pub on the Thorns Road and seen her attacker leaving with a dog by his side.

  A couple of phone calls had confirmed that Allan Harris had been released on good behaviour after serving less than half his sentence. This news had driven the girl to a suicide attempt and the resulting court order had brought her to Alex.

  During their last session, Ruth had admitted to spending every night outside the pub, in the shadows, just to see him.

  ‘If you recall, I did advise against going back when we last met.’ This was not a total lie. Alex had advised her not to go back, but not as strongly as she could have done.

  ‘I know, but I had to see.’

  ‘But what, Ruth?’ Alex forced tenderness into her tone. ‘What were you hoping to see?’

  Ruth gripped the arm of the chair. ‘I want to know why he did what he did. I want to see in his face if he’s sorry, if he’s got any guilt for destroying my life. For destroying me.’

  Alex nodded sympathetically but she had to move this along. There was much to achieve in a short time.

  ‘Do you remember what we talked about last session?’

  Ruth’s pinched face became anxious. She nodded.

  ‘I know how hard this will be for you but it is integral to the healing process. Do you trust me?’

  Ruth nodded without hesitation.

  Alex smiled. ‘Good, I’ll be here with you. Take me through it from the beginning. Tell me what happened that night.’

  Ruth took several deep breaths and fixed her eyes above the desk in the corner. Perfect.

  ‘It was Friday the seventeenth of February. I’d been to two lectures and had a mountain of study to get through. A few friends were going for drinks in Stourbridge to celebrate something, as students do.

  ‘We went to a small pub in the town centre. When we left I made my excuses and started home ’cos I didn’t want a hangover.

  ‘I missed my bus by about five minutes. I tried to get a taxi but it was peak clubbing time on a Friday night. It was a twenty-minute wait and I was only going a mile and a half to Lye so I started walking.’

  Ruth paused and took a sip of coffee with a trembling hand. Alex wondered how many times in the years since she wished she’d just waited for the taxi.

  Alex nodded for her to continue.

  ‘I left the taxi rank in the bus station and put my iPod on. It was freezing so I walked quickly and got to Lye High Street in about fifteen minutes. I went into the Spar and grabbed a sandwich because I hadn’t eaten since lunch time.’

  Ruth’s breathing quickened and her gaze was unblinking as she recalled what happened next.

  ‘I kept walking while trying to open the damn plastic container. I never heard a thing, nothing. At first I thought a car had run into the back of me and then I realised that I was being dragged backwards by my backpack. By the time I understood what was going on there was a huge hand covering my mouth. He was behind me so I couldn’t hit him. I kept thrashing but I couldn’t reach him.

  ‘I felt like I’d been dragged miles but it was only about fifty yards into the darkness of the graveyard at the top of the High Street.’

  Alex noted that Ruth’s voice had become distant, clinical, as though reciting an event that had happened to someone else.

  ‘He stuffed a rag into my mouth and threw me to the ground. My head hit the side of a gravestone and
blood ran down my cheek. At the time, he was reaching underneath me to unzip my jeans and all I could think about was the blood. There was so much of it. My jeans had been pulled down to my ankles. He put his foot onto my calf and put his weight on it. I tried to ignore the pain and push myself up. He kicked the right side of my head and then I heard his zip being pulled down and the rustle of his trousers.’

  Ruth took a deep breath. ‘It was only then that I realised he was going to rape me. I tried to scream but the rag in my mouth muffled the sound.

  ‘He ripped off my backpack and then used his knee to spread my legs apart. He lowered himself onto me and thrust himself into my back passage. The pain was so horrendous I couldn’t breathe and the screams couldn’t get past the rag in my mouth. I lost consciousness a couple of times and each time I came back I prayed for death.’

  Tears had started to roll down Ruth’s cheeks.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It seemed to go on for hours and then he was spent. He stood quickly, zipped himself up and bent down. He whispered into my ear, ‘Hope that was good for you, darlin’.’ He kicked me again in the head and was gone. I blacked out and only came to as I was being lifted into the ambulance.’

  Alex reached across and squeezed Ruth’s hand. It was ice cold and trembling. Alex hadn’t been listening too closely. This needed to be moved on.

  ‘How long were you in hospital?’

  ‘Almost two weeks. The head injuries healed first; apparently head wounds bleed a lot. It was the other thing.’

  Ruth was uncomfortable speaking about the other injury, but Alex needed Ruth to feel the pain and humiliation of it all.

  ‘How many stitches again?’

  Ruth winced. ‘Eleven.’

  Alex watched Ruth’s jaw grow firm as she recalled the horror in her own private hell.

  ‘Ruth, I can’t even begin to understand what you’ve been through and I’m sorry for causing you to have to relive it but it’s necessary for your long-term healing.’

  Ruth nodded and fixed her with a look of total trust.

  ‘So, in your own words, what did this monster take from you?’

  Ruth thought for a moment. ‘Light.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Nothing is light anymore. I have this idea that before that night I viewed everything with light. The world was light, even a dull, thundery day was light, but now it seems that my vision has a filter, making everything darker.

  ‘Summer days are not as bright, jokes are not as funny, no motives are without agenda. My view of the world and everyone in it, even people I love, is changed for good.’

  ‘What prompted the suicide attempt?’

  Ruth uncrossed and re-crossed her legs. ‘When I saw him I was in shock, initially. I couldn’t believe that he was out so soon, that justice had failed me so miserably, but it was more than that,’ she said, as though finally realising something she hadn’t explored before. ‘It was the realisation that I will never be free of the rage that’s inside me. Pure hatred runs in my veins – and it’s exhausting. I realised that he would always have that hold over me, and that there’s nothing I can do about it. It will only end when one of us dies.’

  ‘But why should that be you and not him?’

  Ruth pondered. ‘Because there’s only one of those options I can control.’

  Alex stared at her for a few seconds and then closed her notepad and placed it on the table. ‘Maybe not,’ she said thoughtfully, as though an idea had just occurred to her, when really it was what she’d been heading towards for their entire time together. ‘Would you be prepared to indulge me in an experiment?’

  Ruth looked hesitant.

  ‘Do you trust me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’d like to try something that I think might help. I think we can give you some light back.’

  ‘Really?’ Ruth asked, pathetically, hoping for a damn miracle.

  ‘Absolutely.’ Alex sat forward, her elbows on her knees. ‘Before we start, I need you to understand that this is a visualisation and symbolic exercise.’

  Ruth nodded.

  ‘Okay then, just stare forward and we’ll take a journey together. Put yourself outside the pub where he drinks, but you’re not a victim. You feel strong, confident, righteous. You are not dreading him leaving the pub, you are anticipating it. You have been waiting for this opportunity. You are not skulking in the shadows and you are not frightened.’

  Ruth’s back straightened and her jaw inched forward slightly.

  ‘He exits the pub and you walk a few metres behind. You are not threatening, you are a lone female behind a grown man and you are not afraid. Your hand is wrapped around a knife in your coat pocket. You are confident and in control.’

  Alex saw Ruth’s eyes drop to the letter opener, where they stayed. Perfect.

  ‘At the end of the road he turns into the alley. You wait for the perfect moment when there is no one else around and you speed up. You get within a couple of feet and you say, ‘Excuse me.’ He turns with a surprised expression and you ask if he has the right time.’

  Ruth’s breathing had quickened at the thought of coming face to face with her attacker, even in the role play, but she swallowed hard and nodded.

  ‘As he lifts his wrist to check his watch you drive the knife into his stomach as hard as you can. Again you feel his flesh against yours but this time it is on your terms. He looks down in shock as you step backwards. He stares into your face and recognition dawns. Finally, he knows who you are. He recalls briefly that night as he falls to the ground. Blood stains his shirt and pools all around him. You step further away and watch the blood leaving his body and as it flows it takes with it any hold he has over you. You watch the blood puddle and you know that his control over you is gone. You reach down and take the knife. You take back your own control, your own destiny, your light.’

  Ruth’s face was slack. Alex was tempted to offer her a cigarette.

  She allowed a couple of minutes to pass before speaking.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Ruth nodded and tore her gaze away from the letter opener.

  ‘Do you feel any better?’

  ‘Surprisingly, yes.’

  ‘It’s a symbolic exercise that gives you a visual representation of taking back control of your own life.’

  ‘It felt good, almost like I feel cleansed,’ Ruth admitted with a wry smile. ‘Thank you.’

  Alex patted Ruth’s hand. ‘I think that’s enough for today. Same time next week?’

  Ruth nodded, thanked her again and left.

  Alex closed the door behind her and laughed out loud.

  FIVE

  Kim strode into the station, her mind whirring from the phone call. There was a suspicion nagging at her stomach but she hoped she was wrong. Surely no one would be that stupid.

  With more than 11,000 employees, West Midlands Police rated as the second largest in the country, second only to the Metropolitan Police in London. The force was responsible for Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton and the Black Country.

  Divided into ten Local Policing Units, Halesowen came under the Dudley LPU and was one of four police stations under the supervision of Chief Superintendent Young.

  Halesowen wasn’t the largest station in the pack but Kim preferred it to any of the others.

  ‘What the hell happened?’ she asked the Custody Sergeant. He coloured instantly.

  ‘It’s Dunn. He’s had a little ummm … accident.’

  Her suspicion had been correct – clearly someone was that stupid.

  ‘How bad an accident?’

  ‘Broken nose.’

  ‘Jesus, Frank, please tell me you’re testing the theory that I can’t take a joke?’

  ‘Certainly not, Marm.’

  She swore under her breath. ‘Who?’

  ‘Two constables. Whiley and Jenks.’

  She knew them both. They lived at opposite ends of the police force age range. Whiley had been a pol
ice officer for thirty-two years and Jenks for just three.

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Locker room, M—’

  ‘Call me Marm once more Frank and I swear …’

  Kim left the words unsaid as she keyed herself into the station and turned left. Two PCSOs walked towards her. On seeing her expression, they parted like the Red Sea to let her through.

  She stormed into the male locker room without knocking and followed the maze-like direction of the cabinets until she found her targets.

  Whiley stood against an open locker, hands in his pockets. Jenks sat on the bench clutching his head.

  ‘What the hell were you two thinking?’ Kim cried.

  Jenks looked up at Whiley before he looked at her. Whiley shrugged and looked away. The kid was on his own.

  ‘I’m sorry … I just couldn’t … I have a daughter … I just …’

  Kim turned her full attention on Jenks. ‘So has half the damn team that worked night and day to catch the bastard.’ She took a step closer and leaned down, bringing her face closer to his. ‘Do you have any clue what you’ve done, what you’ve jeopardized?’ she spat.

  Again he glanced at Whiley, who looked pained but did not meet Jenks’s gaze.

  ‘It happened so quickly. I don’t … oh God …’

  ‘Well, I hope it was bloody well worth it ’cos when his clever barrister gets him off due to police brutality it’s the only punishment he’s ever gonna get.’

  Jenks’s hands cupped a shaking head.

  ‘He just fell …’ Whiley said, without conviction.

  ‘How many times?’

  He closed the locker and looked away.

  A vision of Leonard Dunn came to her. Him waving goodbye with a smile as he walked away from the courtroom. Free to abuse again.

  Kim considered the hours of work her team had sunk into the case. None of them had needed to be told to disregard the rota. Even Dawson had been first to his desk on occasion.