Chapter 6: Chapter 6

“Where to?” asks the uniform driving us back to the City.

“My offices, thank you.”

“The offices?” murmurs Elizabeth from her place in my embrace.

“We’ll stay in one of the guest apartments. I’ll feel better knowing I have you close at hand, and it means we have James and Michael close by too.”

All the drive back, I cradle her in my arms. She doesn’t speak, simply resting her face against my chest. And desperate though I was to have my Elizabeth returned to me, I can’t forget that I have left behind James and Michael, their Charlotte still lost.

I’m uneasy.

Will they think I’ve abandoned them?

Surely not… Not under these conditions…

Elizabeth…

Back in the apartment, at last with privacy to speak properly, I almost crush her as I hold her to me.

She bursts into tears again, her shoulders shaking as I rock her. “Oh, Master. I thought I was never going to see you again.”

“We didn’t know how to find you. I was ready to tear the world apart, but it was Charlotte who did it.”

Her face is splotchy with tears. “I know. She saved me. She saved us both. But they haven’t found her yet, have they?” Her voice is rising, self-recrimination in every note, echoing the stress that jangles in me.

James and Michael would be bound to call.

What if she was captured again?

Fighting through my tangled emotions, “The best thing you can do to help Charlotte right now, is to tell me what happened, in as much detail as you can remember. I’ll go order some food and you get out of those dirty things. We’ll share a bath and you can tell me everything.”

I set the jacuzzi running.

If she has a good warm soak she’ll feel better….

I keep my mobile close to hand, in case James or Michael tries to call, or for that matter, Will Stanton.

In the bath, up to our necks in warm bubbles, I bathe her, watching water and foam sleek down her skin as I draw a sponge across her shoulders and her beautiful swan neck. Keeping my touch sensual, but non-sexual, I comb the knots from her hair, so that once more it drapes in long red falls to her waist.

Then I massage in shampoo, rinsing it through from a jug of water. All the while, she sits, passively, letting me care for her.

“Do you feel able to talk?” I ask. “To tell me what happened?”

She leans into my touch, sighing. “I’d been on the shopping trip with Charlotte and the other girls. The others left, but Charlotte stayed a while longer, and we shared a bottle of wine while we chatted. Then, Ross called to pick me up. I went to the parking lot under the store to meet him as we'd arranged. It was where I usually went for him to collect me….”

Habits….

When this is over, we need to randomise her movements….

“…. I was a few minutes early….”

Her breathing grows irregular and her words hang. “Shhh….” I stroke her hair and kiss her cheek.

“You’re safe now.”

She nods, then speaks again, haltingly. “I’m sorry. It’s just remembering it. It was so awful.”

I wait, letting her gather herself together again, then she continues. “There weren't many cars down there, so I suppose I was quite visible to anyone looking. Anyway, two cars came in and stopped, one to each side of me. I didn't take much notice at first because I was standing near the elevator doors, so you would expect people to park there….”

She gulps again, her distress visible. “…. Then men got out, four or five of them, and two came towards me. The others stood by the elevator doors and blocked them off from anyone wanting to come through.

“The two grabbed me. I tried to scream, but one clapped his hand over my mouth. Then, they gagged me with tape. I was trying to struggle, but there were too many. They lifted me and bundled me into the back of one of the cars. Something was pulled over my head, so I couldn't see, a hood or a bag of some kind, and my hearing was muffled too. And then they taped my wrists and ankles too.

“I could feel the car moving, but I don’t think they were speeding or anything. It didn't feel like it anyway.

We were outdoors somewhere. I couldn’t see, but the light was filtering through the hood. I'm not sure how long it was, but not long I think, when it went dark and it felt as though we were dropping. After a couple more minutes, the car pulled up and they lifted me out. I think we were in a basement or underground car park. Something like that. The sound echoed, and there was that kind of cellar smell…

“They carried me for quite a while. I think down steps in some places. It jolted as they moved. When they finally took the hood off and let me see again, I was in what looked like one of the old-fashioned waiting rooms on the subways….”

Looks like we had the right of it….

They had her underground….

Elizabeth continues. “None of them spoke to me. That was intimidating in itself. I asked them who they were, why they had taken me, but one just pointed at a WC sign and then at some food and cans of drinks on the side. Then they left, and locked the door behind them.”

“So, they didn’t threaten you? Hurt you?”

“No, they just left me there. I’ve no real idea how long for. Days I think, but it was hard to tell. There were no windows, and I had no way of telling how much time passed except that I needed to eat and sleep. Every so often, one of them would come and bring more food, but no-one ever spoke to me.”

She swallows. “That was the hardest part, that they wouldn’t speak. I found I was talking to myself, or singing, or reciting poems and nursery rhymes just to hear a voice. The only other noise was the sound of trains rumbling around me…

“And then, I’m not sure when it was….” She hesitates…. “Was it earlier today? I’m so confused about time…. But anyway, two of them came in, and this time they gagged me again with the tape and put the hood over my face. And they taped my wrists and ankles and carried me. It took a while, but eventually they put me, I think, in the back of a car and drove for a while. When the car stopped, they carried me out again and when they took the hood and tape off, I was in a sort of cell. There were bars on the windows and only some horrible blankets on the floor to sit on. Things kept biting me and getting in my hair, but there was nowhere else to sit, and just a bucket in the corner.

“I’d not been there long when the door swung open and a man came in. He seemed to be in charge and told one of the others to give me something to eat….” Her words stumble. “…. But the way he looked at me….”

“What about the way he looked at you? Lewdly, you mean?”

Her breathing rate is increasing again and there’s a chill sheen on her face. “Not exactly, no. It was….

so cold. He looked at me as though I was just something to be measured or …. evaluated. It’s hard to describe. And when he spoke to me, his voice was…. was….”

“Threatening?”

“No, it was just so distant, sort of remote, as though he was completely disconnected from me. He was terrifying. He sort-of smiled, but it was the kind of smile that only moves your mouth. Then he just said that I’d clean up well and he’d look forward to seeing me properly presented…. Master, could I have a glass of wine, please.”

“Of course you can. You stay there. I’ll just be a minute.”

I pour her a glass of whatever’s in the fridge, something white and sparkling, then after a moment’s thought, pour myself one too.

It will relax her more if we drink together….

…. and I could use one as well….

I take two glasses, dripping with dew, back to the bathroom, then lower myself in again, once more encircling her with my body. As I slip into place, her spine eases against my chest, her face resting back against my own.

“Go on,” I murmur. “Tell me the rest.”

She sips at the wine, then, “I’d not been there long when the door opened again, and this time it was Charlotte.” She twists around to look me in the face. “Master, I just wanted to cry when I saw who it was. They shoved her inside and locked the door behind her.” Another sip of wine. “She didn’t seem a bit surprised to see me….”

“No, she wouldn’t. Her entire aim was to get to you. To get them to take her to you.”

She ducks her head, shrinking in on herself. “She really set herself up to save me?”

“Yes, she did. Against everything that anyone could do to stop her. Will Stanton suggested the idea, but Michael and James wouldn’t hear of it. They said it was far too dangerous….”

Do I tell her that I tried to stop Charlotte too?

Later perhaps, when she’s recovered….

She digests this. “And those combs she gave me…. It was just an excuse to plant a tracker on me? So you could find me?”

“It seems so. You can ask her yourself when we get her back.”

She swallows hard, pressing against me. “But we’ve lost her again….”

Don’t answer that….

“Carry on with your story. What happened next?”

“After a while, they took us both to a larger room. That man was there again with the others. He knew Charlotte, but he called her Jennifer, and she knew him…. She knew his name….”

“Which was?”

“Lawrence Klempner.”

“My Love, I’m going to interrupt for a moment. Later, Will Stanton is going to want to talk with you, but right now, I’ll get this name to him.”

She nods, but, “You won’t go far, will you?”

“I’m not going anywhere. My phone’s here.”

In fact, I don’t even call Will, simply tapping a message across to him….

got Lzbeth here. man in charge of abductors name of Lawrence Klempner thnx beth gd to talk?

give me couple hours to calm her ok stay in touch will do I drop back under the warm water, my arms once more around my wife. She becomes more animated.

“Charlotte was incredible. She wasn’t afraid of him, not even when he told her he knew her mother….”

What…???

She twists right around, kneeling in the water to face me. “Master, he hates her for some reason. You could see it in his eyes. He said he wanted payback for Charlie Jenkins.”

Jenkins?

Jenkins?

…. Fuck! Charles Jenkins….

The supervisor at Blessingmoors….

“The man who was killed while he tried to recapture Charlotte? Jennifer as she was then?”

“Yes, and…. He knew her mother…. He said….” Elizabeth dries up. She gulps at her wine.

“He said what?”

“Master, Klempner said…. He said that Charlotte’s mother was a prostitute, and that he had ‘run her’

along with others….”

Oh, sweet Jesus….