Suzie and the Monsters (30 page)

‘I’m coming with you,’ Cleo says determinedly, opening her door.

I stop her. ‘It’s not that I’m worried about you,’ I lie. ‘I don’t want them to hold you hostage against me. You’ll protect me far better by staying out here. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ she mutters angrily, and closes the door.

*

So, this girl walks into a bar. ‘A double entendre, please,’ I ask the barman.

He doesn’t give me one. Some people have no sense of humour. He looks fifty-something and is wearing a woollen tartan shirt. ‘This is a private room,’ he tells me eventually. ‘You want, er, that one.’ He points uncertainly to the room visible through the bar area, no doubt thinking, like I do, that I really don’t want to be here at all, and certainly not through there, sipping expensive low-quality beer and waiting my turn. At least, I assume that’s how it works.

I’m definitely the centre of attention, the only woman in sight, quite possibly the only woman ever to have come in here of her own free will. I have also ignored the ‘Private’ sign on the door leading into this side of The Scold’s Bridle. Four men, all in their twenties, sit around one of the tables playing poker, but watching me and sniggering.

‘Where’s Vicki?’ I ask the barman casually.

‘Who’s Vicki?’ he replies.

‘Vauxhall Vicki. Vicki Robins. Former heavyweight boxer and recent convict. That Vicki.’

‘Okay, okay,’ he mutters, then demands, ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘I’m Suzie Kew. Tell Vicki he’s got twenty minutes to get here if he wants to see me.’

‘Or what?’

‘Or I disappear, and Valon will never see a penny of his ill-gotten gains.’

His eyes narrow. ‘You’re the stripper, aren’t you.’

‘Yes I am. Nineteen minutes. Get Vicki.’ I turn and walk over to sit in a wooden chair against the wall with a good view of the room and doors. The carpets and upholstery are worn and threadbare, stained, colours faded. The wooden surfaces are chipped, with crude drawings, insults and names scratched into them. The place stinks of stale beer and smoke, with undercurrents of sweat and vomit and takeaway food. There’s a television at the back of the room, talking quietly to itself, which makes it difficult to hear what the barman says on the phone.

Less than fifteen minutes later, Vicki walks in through the front door with another, older man that I don’t recognise. I have a vague memory of Vicki’s face from the papers when he was younger. He has a hard face and cold, sharp eyes that scan me briefly before he turns to talk to the barman, too quietly for me to hear anything. The older man just watches me coolly. He’s wearing an expensive camel trench coat and is smoking a cigar.

Then Vicki comes over to me, and I stand to meet him. I feel so tiny next to him. The first thing he does, without any greeting, is run his hands down my body checking for weapons or a wire. He finds my phone. ‘Switch it off,’ he orders me, and he watches me carefully as I do so.

‘If I’m not outside in half an hour, alone and unharmed, my friends will be calling the police,’ I tell him.

Vicki just pushes me backwards until I fall onto the chair. ‘Sit,’ he orders calmly, and returns to the bar for another quiet discussion. Camel man doesn’t take his eyes off me for a second. The four men who were playing poker are also watching me now, anticipating some real entertainment.

I ignore them all and stayed focussed on their boss. Vicki must be about forty two now, I think. He was never handsome, unless a muscular physique is what does it for you. He’s dressed today in a formal blue shirt and black trousers, but looks almost as if he will burst out of it at any moment.

Finally he comes back to me, and pulls up a chair so that he can sit facing me. ‘So you’re Suzie Kew,’ he says. ‘Is that your real name?’

‘My parents have a warped sense of humour. I want to meet Valon.’

He laughs mirthlessly. ‘You’ll get your wish, but why? You’ve got his money. You’ve got to know that he doesn’t merely want you dead, he wants to eviscerate you.’

‘That’s an awfully big word.’

‘There’s no other word for it.’

‘And that’s why I want you to arrange a meeting somewhere nice and public. I’m thinking St Pancras, past Border Control. You can choose the time. Maybe Valon and I can come to some arrangement that doesn’t involve him hunting me for the rest of my life. Restitution. There’s another big word.’

‘Why come to me? Why should I help you?’

‘I’m here because this is the only place I know to look for him, and talking to you because this is your place. You should help me because that makes you the person who brought him Suzie Kew. I’m sure he’ll be very grateful.’

‘I’m sure he will. He’ll be even more grateful if I just keep you here until he arrives.’

The sound of shots outside — one, then a second, then three in quick succession — propels me to my feet, and suddenly there are too many guns pointed at me for me to dare anything. I force myself to relax. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s nothing to do with Cleo and Alia. I watch the two men who have rushed to the window, looking for some clue. ‘Fuck!’ they yell in perfect synchrony, and race for the door, and Vicki walks over to see for himself. Whatever he sees isn’t good, for he balls his hands up into fists and looks every inch the heavyweight boxer he used to be.

A minute or so later, Alia stumbles through the door, looking terrified, her hands held up in a sign of surrender. When she catches sight of me, there’s no relief, only anguish. The man pushing her roughly into the room, holding a gun to her back, is an ugly version of David Beckham, looking a little sick and thoroughly pissed off. ‘Better call an ambulance,’ he snarls at Vicki, who ignores him.

Close behind them, the two men who just left return carrying an unconscious man between them. His shirt is soaked in blood, and his throat has been torn open. God, Cleo, I think, what have you done? They lay him on the floor next to the bar, and head straight outside again. There’s still blood pulsing from the ragged wound, but I can tell that Cleo’s bitten deep, catching the artery. It’s too late for an ambulance.

‘What the fuck happened, Tony?’ Vicki growls.

‘It was the girl. She fucking bit him. Went for Charlie like a fucking vampire. The bitch nearly got me as well.’

My heart is pounding. What has he done to her? I look at Alia, but I can’t interpret her anxiety. I can only wait.

Charlie, the man on the floor, breathes his last ragged breath, and becomes still. Vicki scowls. ‘Don’t leave him there. Take him downstairs. And somebody clean up that mess.’ He means the blood pooling beneath Charlie’s neck.

The two men return again, carrying an unconscious Cleo. Her mouth and lower jaw are coated with blood, and the rest of her face and chest is decorated scarlet from arterial spray. I hurl myself towards her, desperate to see how she has been injured, whether — God forbid — she has been shot in the head...

Bright pain as something blunt and heavy connects with the back of my skull, sending me crashing to the floor... my last awareness is Alia’s cry of ‘Suzie!’

*

Tropical sunshine is my kryptonite. My skin burns, the light gives me a severe migraine, and after a while I start feeling sick and weak. It’s very unpleasant. In Columbia I’m very much a night person, venturing out during the day only when absolutely necessary. Even in Britain the summer sun sometimes bothers me, although I can get around comfortably by wearing sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat, and keeping to the shade as much as possible.

Bright lights are also a problem, affecting my eyes almost as badly as sunshine. Quite apart from the splitting head pain, I find it difficult, if not impossible, to hypnotise — it’s hard to dazzle others when I’m being dazzled myself.

Waking to find myself spread-eagled on a cold, hard metallic surface, my wrists and ankles firmly bound by leather restraints, and floodlit from eight different directions, is a nightmare so terrifying it tears a scream of pure panic from me as I fight to escape. This is too close to my ultimate fear, of being imprisoned, studied, experimented on. I’m actually whimpering as I struggle with the cuffs.

‘Suzie!’ Alia’s voice. ‘Suzie!’ again, gradually penetrates the terror, helps me to balance myself in my helplessness.

I take a deep breath, force myself to relax, allow my racing heart to slow to a mere canter. ‘Alia. You’re alive. Where’s Cleo?’

‘She’s here. She’s not moving.’

‘Where was she shot?’

‘Once in the back, three times in the chest, I think.’

‘No shots to the head?’

‘No.’

I sigh with relief. Out of the fire and into the frying pan. ‘How long ago now? Is she tied up at all?’

‘No. Maybe twenty minutes.’ Not long, then.

‘Are we alone? Where the fuck are we? I can’t see anything.’

‘In the cellar. We’re alone, although there’s so many cameras and microphones in here anyone could be watching.’ After a brief hesitation she adds, ‘I’m so sorry, Suzie.’ Her voice is thick with despair. It’s a long time since I heard her so weak.

‘Cameras?’

‘You’re stage centre.’

Ah.

‘Well, let’s hope it’s not going out live. And let’s hope they come down again soon.’

‘Huh?’

‘It’s your only hope of surviving.’

She’s quiet for a few seconds while she follows my logic, the immediate threat to me insignificant compared to Cleo unfettered. Alia laughs, and actually sounds relatively cheerful when she says, ‘I see.’ A minute later she adds, ‘I don’t want to live forever. I don’t have your strength, Suzie.’

‘If you die, you die. Alia...’ My voice catches. ‘I love you Alia. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.’

‘I was a terrible friend. I know how much I hurt you in choosing Violet the killer over Violet the lover.’

It’s my turn to be silent, remembering the young Alia, fragile and explosive, aching to tear the world apart in retribution. ‘It was nice in a way to have you choosing my victims. To kill for love as well as hate.’

She laughs. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t have you as both, but the closer we grew as lovers the harder it became to send you to kill.’

‘I remember.’

Further conversation is prevented by the sound of the cellar door being unlocked and opened, several pairs of feet descending stone steps into this underworld where the dead wait for disposal and the living wait to join them.

I try not to think about what they plan to do to me. I’m just grateful that they haven’t left us alone down here for longer. I need to keep them here, at any cost, until my Cleo, my beautiful Cleo, rises. ‘How many?’ I ask Alia.

‘Three,’ she replies. There’s a sharp slap and Alia cries out.

The man who emerges from the light to study me is young and handsome, or would be if it weren’t for the sneer of malice and eyes so cold and hard they could chip diamond. His skin is slightly dark, short jet-black hair, his features Mediterranean. He’s wearing a thick red shirt that could be decades old. When he leans over me for a closer look, I smell garlic and cheap tobacco.

‘So, you’re Suzie Kew,’ he says. ‘The stripper.’ Running his fingers across my shirt, teasing my nipples gently, he adds, ‘I have been hoping to get an opportunity to get to know you better.’ His accent is pure London east-end, no trace of Albanian or anything else.

‘Villain, I presume,’ I reply.

‘Valon,’ he corrects with a flicker of irritation. ‘You’ve cost me three good men and a lot of money, Miss Suzie Kew.’

One of the other men hands him a large pair of scissors, saying, ‘We’re ready when you are.’

Valon nods. ‘Go,’ he says to them.

‘You sent John Smith to kill me,’ I tell him. ‘He nearly did, too. And you killed my boss. Let’s call it even.’

He doesn’t even smile. He starts working the scissors up the left leg of my jeans. ‘I’d ask for my money back, but I know you don’t have it, so I’m wondering what on Earth would bring you looking for me.’

‘Alex raped and kidnapped a girl called Jessie. Blonde hair, daisy print dress, butterfly tattoo. What happened to her?’

Valon smiles. It’s chilling. He starts on the right leg. ‘I remember her. On this table, in fact. Pretty girl. We all took turns. She was Alex’s first kill.’ He frowns. ‘His only kill, as it turned out.’

Ah, Jessie. That poor sweet girl. To have been caught in this vile, poisonous web. ‘Where is she buried?’

‘How the fuck should I know? Probably under somebody’s conservatory. Like you will be soon.’ He removes my sliced-up jeans, and laughs. ‘Look boys — no knickers.’ He rips my shirt open to expose my breasts. ‘You really are beautiful. You’re going to make me a fortune.’

‘Wonderful!’ I exclaim. ‘Suzie Kew snuffed in high definition. Can I get a copy to take home?’

He doesn’t think this is funny. He grabs my breasts and digs sharp, broken, dirty fingernails into my nipples, forcing an involuntary gasp from me, until my blood stains them. I blink the tears from my eyes and glare defiantly at him. ‘You must have really hated your mother, you son of a whore.’

‘Keep it up bitch,’ he hisses, and thrusts two fingers deep into my pussy. I cry out at the brutal pain of the invasion, supplemented by the familiar tearing of my hymen. A moment later he’s staring at the blood on his fingers and chuckling. He holds them up — to the camera, I guess. ‘Hey, boys. This stripper’s a virgin!’

I resist the temptation to say more. I don’t want him to gag me and neutralise my most effective weapon. I concentrate instead on relaxing, taking away what he hungers for most: my soul. That he may not have, no matter how he abuses or threatens me, or those I love. I know Alia would never forgive me if I let him use her against me.

He steps away for a minute, hidden by the glare of the lights. The other two guys are arguing over who gets to go second. ‘Shut it,’ Valon orders. ‘This cunt’s all mine.’ He climbs onto the table, between my wide-stretched legs. He’s naked from the waist down, his cock erect and hungry. I’m a little relieved to see it’s nothing special. Perhaps sensing that I’m trying to zone out, he slaps my face hard a few times. My stinging cheeks feel like they’re glowing red.

He thrusts into me, driving deep and fast, and for a while that’s how he tries to hurt me, that and twisting and biting my bloody nipples. I feel like a furnace of fiery hatred, and curse the lights for crippling the power of my eyes. His hands move occasionally to my neck, squeezing gently in promise of the main act.