Predator (17 page)
There was a note stapled to the photograph which read: ‘Roses are red, violets are blue; I cannot tell you just how much I love you.’
Derek stared at the note. Perhaps Chris was actually in love with Grace. He just couldn’t understand it. What had led Chris to get involved in such a gruesome crime despite his feelings for Grace? Derek gulped down a bottle of water and moved out into the porch. His head was spinning.
‘By God! Thank you, guys. Inspector Khan will meet you tomorrow. Go home and sleep, we’re on the job. In case you get wind of Chris, call us!’ said Officer Amar Singh. He and his buddy walked to the parking lot carrying their findings.
Salmonella’s House
Salmonella giggled like a schoolgirl on the phone, as the voice at the other end said the very words she needed to hear after a very long time. She paced the living room of the house, cordless phone in hand. It was the house that she and Grace shared.
The décor had been carefully built by both girls together over the years. Their college pictures smiled down at them in the hallway. The living room had a posh antique touch, and the crystal chandelier cast a luminescent yellow light over the ensemble.
One of the walls was decorated with paintings that Salmonella had bought from a struggling artist. On the adjacent wall, there hung another painting of undulating green mountains, fields, farm animals, a boat on a meandering river, and a little car parked in front of a picturesque house on the water’s edge. Inside the house were two figures that probably represented Salmonella and Grace.
‘Yes, I will come out for dinner with you someday, not right now. Every step of mine is being watched. I’d rather this storm blow over first. Yes, I worry for you always … ’ said Salmonella before hanging up. She moved to the guest bedroom and noticed the door was ajar.
Chris sat on the floor with white powder spread on the dark, oaken teapoy. The powder had been lined up in neat furrows with a surgical blade, and he’d rolled up a paper into a straw with which he was snorting the cocaine.
Salmonella stood at the doorway watching her brother as she’d done many times before. She’d watched Chris turn into a beast. His pupils dilated as he looked up to see his sister watching him.
Chris looked at her strangely as he wiped his runny nose. He suddenly turned extremely euphoric as he felt the intense high rush to his brain. His quick snort ensured that he could always get the highest high in the shortest possible time that lasted for about twenty minutes. When he was high, he was an unstoppable beast. When he was sober, he was very affectionate and almost human.
Salmonella knew it was time to leave him alone as increased levels of restlessness, anxiety and irritability made him extremely violent. She slammed the door shut and leaned on it.
She heard the sound of glass being smashed and a cry of pain from inside the room. Chris had mutated and would be a very different person for the next quarter to half an hour.
She didn’t know how to react – whether to pity the fool or gloat over the fact that he’d soon be dead and gone. His cocaine addiction was increasing. She had half a mind to call Inspector Khan and tell him where Chris was so he could be taken away and put into rehab before he totally lost control.
She hated the fact that he was blowing up a fortune on drugs this way. She wondered if he deserved this self-inflicted curse for the way he had treated her Barbie doll when they were kids. An ugly lump of molten plastic was all she was left with today.
She sighed and involuntarily felt the scar on her cheek as she moved numbly to her room. She stared unseeingly at the monitor of her computer for a few minutes before she started keying in the codes into the system. She had a job to do.
They didn’t call her Salmonella for nothing. Florence had died a long time ago.
Silent Suffering
Grace lay motionless on the cold floor. She had lost count of the hours and the number of times she had been brutally raped. They had been force-feeding her water and soup just to keep her alive. She felt like an abused sex object that was being pumped with sperm and being ripened before the Predator decided to show her mercy and put an end to her suffering.
She wondered if it was day or night. She thought of sunlight and wondered when, if ever, she would see it again. She made herself think of a memory with the sun in it and remembered the times she had sat in the upholstered window seat with Florence and watched the sun go down. The smell of coffee reminded her of her innocent world which was rapidly collapsing into a fading memory.
Her tears were frozen now. All that was left was deep remorse and she wondered which moment she regretted the most. The moment she decided to stray from the straight and narrow for the very first time in her entire life. The moment she had made a huge error in judgement and decided she could blindly trust him. The moment she decided to show her tattoos to a stranger by sending him electronic pictures of them. It had all snowballed into a perverse seduction which, although it had seemed harmless at first, had led to her being violated and used in the worst possible ways.
Why did she accept the Facebook invite from the stranger? Why did she not check his credentials before interacting with him? Why did she give him her own SIM card?
She couldn’t help thinking that although he may have been a stranger to some, to her he was not an unknown entity. How could he have done this to her? She would have given him love and sex anyway, but she never thought in her worst nightmares that this was what he wanted of her. The Demon. The Predator.
What did he want from her? What did they want from her? Why didn’t they get it all over with quickly, and kill her? She would welcome the cold blanket of death to end her suffering – and soon.
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water
,
The Predator is on the lookout; it could be anyone’s daughter
Jack fell down, broke his crown, Jill came tumbling after
,
the Demon needs to be appeased, get ready for the slaughter.
Took white powder from a bag, rolled a piece of paper
,
Used a surgical blade and snorted to shoot up higher
Jack’s changed now, you’re the slave, he’s the master
,
Shudder as he comes closer, your heart beats faster!
He’s a monster, he’s the Beast, he’s the Devil out to hurt her
,
His name is Jack; some also call him ‘Jack the Ripper’
—The Predator
Lab Report & DNA
Inspector Khan hurried to the jeep from the police station. At times like these, he chose to leave gaping holes in his pattern of investigation so no two people could be aware of the way he operated. Experience had taught him not to trust anyone while conducting an investigation based purely on hunches. As he sat in the jeep, mind racing, he barked out orders to the new driver, ‘Take me to my office. I’ll drop you there. I need the jeep to myself.’
The driver knew better than to argue with Inspector Khan and they sped back to headquarters. The driver alighted at the station and saluted the inspector. Ignoring the driver, Inspector Khan slipped behind the wheel and stepped on the gas. He knew he was on to something, but couldn’t quite lay his finger on its specifics until he had forensics corroborate his theories.
Dense cumulus clouds were piling into the night sky. The surroundings were silent except for the rhythmic chirrup of the insects. Inspector Khan’s mind raced on the unveiled tracks of the case. There were several options but he had to choose only one. He had to work his way quickly through this labyrinth of clues to get to Grace and get her out of the trap.
The jeep winged its way through the wilderness stretch, the beam of its headlight slicing through the veil of darkness. It was an empty road. The tall trees were aloof and silently watched the vehicle streak past. He felt uneasy, as though someone was breathing down his neck. He knew only too well that it was the lull before the storm.
The wind had picked up and howled through the trees. Deep in the forest somewhere, thunder rumbled and a flash of lightning struck the ground as if to prepare for the battle between good and evil.
The jeep screeched to a halt in front of a dimly lit, two-storey building. The forensic laboratory looked like a massive white cube standing in the middle of nowhere. There were no windows except for a splattering of small ventilators on the walls. It seemed deserted. Inspector Khan felt like an intruder in an alien land.
A ghostly apparition emerged from the shadows and stood at the entrance. Dressed in an all-white uniform, the nocturnal medic stood waiting patiently for Inspector Khan. He wore blue gloves and black shoes, which seemed quirky, and he had a thick mane of grey hair which the wind lifted.
Doc Pinto flashed his pearly whites and greeted Inspector Khan with an unnerving smile. Having worked together for over twenty-five years across multiple cases, the fifty-something, tall, lean forensic expert had become a trustworthy friend of Inspector Khan.
The thick spectacles made his dark eyes look like black marbles. As a pathologist, he was more comfortable with cadavers than live humans. A man of few friends, he was at his best when he was at work and plastered. He was a detective in his own right as he discovered invaluable clues through post-mortem; it was very hard work and required the utmost dedication and commitment.
The doctor was one of few he could trust implicitly, and Inspector Khan smiled as he alighted from the jeep. Shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries, they briskly headed to the lab. Dr Pinto said in a worried voice, ‘I’m really glad you came alone. I’ve so much to tell you. In fact, I wanted to call you over myself. I swabbed out the clothes.’
‘Really? Make my day. Pardon my ignorance, but what’s a swab, Doctor?’ said Inspector Khan, wishing fervently that Dr Pinto would give him some clue to Grace’s whereabouts.
‘It’s fairly straightforward. I used sterile water and swabbed the dried blood on the clothes with my lab paraphernalia. It’s just like washing; I soaked the two pairs of jeans and soaked up the blood. With that swab, I created half a litre of liquid that contained the DNA,’ said Doc Pinto growing more animated by the minute. ‘Your sleuth had confiscated a hairbrush from Grace’s house, from which I used a strand of her hair for her DNA sample. I crosschecked it with the DNA from the bloodstain.’
‘It’s hers? Are you sure it’s hers?’ asked Inspector Khan.
‘Yes! It’s a 100 per cent match. The bloodstains were three centimetres long in the front of the jackets, spilling over to the pairs of jeans, so I had no problem at all,’ said Doc, wiping his brow with a handkerchief, as the excitement seemed to have raised his blood pressure. It had been a difficult task. But Dr Pinto was a genius.
Inspector Khan beamed from ear to ear and said, ‘Tell me more, Doctor, I know you have more dope for me!’
‘Indeed, I do. I don’t know why they didn’t destroy the clothes. Anyway, I also found semen stains and face-paint marks on the jackets and both pairs of jeans, and it horrified me … ’ he said looking worried, and his voice trailed off. Inspector Khan could sense something wrong. He could see the trepidation in Dr Pinto’s eyes.
‘Tell me, Doctor, tell me it is that bastard – Chris! Tell me we can nail him!’ exclaimed Inspector Khan, shaking Dr Pinto by his shoulders as though trying to wake him from his trance.
Inspector Khan wanted answers, and fast. He was running out of time with every passing minute, and the chances of Grace’s survival were getting slimmer. His priority was to find her alive, therefore it was also vital to arrest at least one suspect who would lead him to Grace and the remaining miscreants. He had all his hopes pinned on Dr Pinto.
It would be ideal if Dr Pinto could somehow link the soiled clothes to the culprits. Otherwise, without a warrant, it would be impossible for him to nab the rich bastards who considered themselves above the law. Grace had to be saved, and Celina, avenged. Dr Pinto was seriously worried about Inspector Khan’s frame of mind, and hoped it wouldn’t impair his judgment.