Part 15

Monday morning Sarah went off to work and I sorted out the cleaning, dusting and a bit of washing before getting a light lunch and making ready for a trip into town.

The teller in the bank called the manager when I went to deposit the cheques and he asked me about them, ‘purely as a matter of prudent banking, in case I started to deposit similar amounts in future’.

I told him that the bulk of my cheque was for the sale of paintings I had done and that I would possibly be depositing similar amounts once I had put on a show in a gallery.

It all was accepted and I walked out with a couple of receipts. I had a wander around the shops, just looking for the moment as I now had some idea of my financial situation so needed to see what I could get within my budget.

As it got near closing time I went up to collect Sarah from her office and take her out for a meal.

We left her building and were walking along and talking about where we should eat when I heard our names being called. When we turned we could see Mrs. Butcher standing by her double-parked car waving to us.

“I’m so glad to have caught you two. My husband has told me that he had found the ideal present for the two of you and that, if I took you home with me, he’ll present them and I could take you to wherever you want to go for your meal.”

Sarah and I got into the car with Mrs. Butcher. I was wondering what sort of gift Mr Butcher thought would be suitable for a pair of first-time presenters. She drove us to her house and, as we got closer, the disc started to vibrate.

I worried about what, or who was near but was not prepared to see the Minister in the lounge in a deep discussion with Mr. Butcher.

I nearly turned around but Mrs. Butcher was behind me having put our coats on a hook and it would have been unladylike to have pushed by her. Sarah was looking at me as if she was picking up on my unease.

Mr. Butcher welcomed us with, “Ah, the stars of the show and very likely the real stars of shows to come. The Minister and I were just finishing our business. I’ll get us all drinks before he leaves. Make yourselves comfortable.”

I was just relieved that the monster was going so I sat next to Sarah on the sofa while Mrs. Butcher went to her easy chair.

Mr. Butcher brought us our drinks, wine for us ladies and a whisky for himself and the Minister. He said some nice things about our performance and raised a toast on our behalf.

The minister then said that he had heard that he was likely to be our next Prime Minister in a couple of months as the incumbent was about to step down. Mr. Butcher raised a toast to the new PM and we all drank.

I thought that Mr. Butcher had either a very bad taste in wine or else was truly stingy. The Minister said cheerio and that he looked forward to meeting us again; all while looking directly at me which sent shivers down my spine.

The two men left the room and the vibration in my cleavage lessened. The three of us sat, seemingly concerned with our own thoughts and then I heard someone snore. I looked over and saw that Mrs. Butcher had fallen asleep; she must have had a busy day.

I put my wine glass on the coffee table and felt like I was moving inside a tub of molasses. I looked at Sarah and she was sagged against the arm of the sofa with her eyes shut.

The disc started vibrating again and Mr. Butcher came back into the room with a big grin on his face and evil in his eyes. Had we suspected the wrong one!

As I was losing my senses he gloated. “I’m sad that I’ve been told to leave you for my friend but at least I’ll get to play with her twin.”

Then my world went black. When I woke up I was sitting on a hard chair with a belt or something holding me upright. My arms were pulled back and I could feel that my wrists were in shackles or, perhaps cuffs, behind the chair.

There was a gag in my mouth and I felt terrible. I was in what appeared to be a large room and it felt as if it was underground.

Mr. Butcher was fussing over something across the room from me and, when he turned around, I saw that he had been finalising his restraints on Sarah, who was now stretched on an iron-framed bed with her wrists and ankles shackled to the four corners. Her head lolled towards me and I saw that she, too, had a gag in her mouth. We were now both prisoners of Mr. Butcher and – his friend!!

He saw that I was awake and came over to me, put his hand under my chin and lifted my face towards his.

He kissed me on the forehead and then said, “Samantha, dear one. It has been a pleasure to watch you as I planned this day. You will not be lighting up your world for very long, maybe a few days longer than your sister. I have to leave you now to see about my good wife, she is always randy after her little snooze but it will make me take longer when I come back for my fun with Sarah.”

“It will be the first time I’ve had a spectator so that may add a little spice. Of course, it will be so much better that you’ll be seeing your own fate when it comes to your turn on the bed. I will see you in an hour or so, don’t you go away.”

He left the room, closing the door with a thud and I also heard the rattle of keys in the lock. There was no way we were going to escape, now. I took my time to look around me, as much as I could with my restricted movement. The room was lit by what appeared to be a night-light in a single hanging lamp.

The bed looked almost antique and I could see that no amount of pulling or heaving would allow someone to break free from the shackles. I was sat against the same wall as the door and it looked as if someone had meant the room to be a wine cellar because there were wine racks along the side wall to my left. There were a couple of hooks with our coats and bags hanging from them. On the side to my right was a table with a number of very worrying implements laid out on it.

The biggest of these were a pair of dressmaker’s shears and the smallest looked like a scalpel. On the floor near my chair were a couple of mops and an old steel bucket with a big bottle of bleach sitting in it.

That done, I thought back to the times when the disc had vibrated. In recent times it had gone crazy when the Minister had been close and then I realised that, from the very first time in Mrs. Butchers’ office, Mr. Butcher had been there as well.

The first time I had met Mr. Butcher was at the presentation night and I hadn’t been wearing the disc because it didn’t fit with the pearls look.

As I sat I saw Sarah come around and start pulling on her restraints. My heart was heavy as there was nothing I could do to calm her and just had to watch until she stopped and sagged flat, no doubt starting to come to accept what the fates had decreed was hers.

I knew she wasn’t a virgin and the thought came to me that I was so it was going to be worse for me. When the disc started vibrating again I knew he was coming back and I was sure that I was about to witness something so horrible it would be a good job they would be finishing me off as well.

I heard the rattle of keys and the door opened. Mr. Butcher came in, wearing a dressing gown. He put the keys in a pocket and then came to me to check that I was still as he had left me.

He couldn’t help himself and he fondled my breasts. The dressing gown gaped open and I could see his cock rampant and still glistening from his wifes’ juices.

He smiled, seeing where my eyes were pointed, “Maybe I can give you something after my friend leaves. The Minister is like all the pollies, likes the spoils but has nothing to do with the clean-up afterwards. Still, it won’t be the first time I’ve savoured his sloppy seconds.”

He turned and went to the bedside to look at Sarah struggling and making muffled sounds through the gag.

“Don’t struggle so much, my pretty one. I am sure that you’ll enjoy what’s to come; if not the first time but maybe when I come back in the morning for the second or third round. It all depends on how good these pills are. My best girl, so far, lasted five times before I put her out of her misery.”

He picked up the dressmakers shears and went to the bed, looking like he was deciding whether to cut her clothes off top to bottom or bottom to top.

All the time the disc was practically making my breasts sway with its vibration and was getting very hot. I was screaming inside, hating what was in store for my angel sister.

My heart was at breaking point and I wished that I was free so that I could save her.

At that moment the cuffs holding my wrists opened up and the belt around my chest went loose. I hoped that my legs worked as I grabbed the handle of the steel bucket and stood up; bringing the bucket up in a roundhouse swing that took no prisoners.

He heard the movement and turned to look at me in the chair as I bore down on him like the avenging angel I now was. The bucket hit him in the side of his head with a resounding clang, the big bottle of bleach inside giving it a lot of impetus.

He spun around and went down in a heap on his front and, as I watched, he shuddered a few times and then went very still and I saw blood seeping out from under his body.

I stood there for a few seconds gasping with the strain and then dropped the bucket and went to his body to feel in his pockets for the keys. I unlocked the shackles that held Sarah to the bed and then took out her gag before taking mine off. She just held me close and we cried for a little while.

When she had calmed down we took our coats and bags off the hooks and left the room. I could see that it was rather a large, but unfinished, basement.

The floors had not even been finished in most of the area. We found the stairs and went up to find ourselves in the kitchen. I got a couple of glasses and filled them from the tap.

We drank thankfully and then I pulled my phone out of my bag and rang Watson, telling him that he needed to come and clear up a bit of mess at the Butcher residence and that the Minister was involved but not here at present. Luckily he was still having a beer with Holmes after a hard day working.

Sarah went off to see how Mrs. Butcher was and came back to tell me that she was flat on her back, her nightie up around her neck and sleeping with a smile on her face and dried semen around her groin.

At least someone was happy with the evening events. We went and sat on the front steps waiting for Watson and, when he arrived, we told him of the general run of events.

When we spoke about the basement he sent Holmes off to have a look. While we were alone I told him that the disc had used up the final wish; freeing me from my restraints because of my anguish for my sister.

He nodded, “The report will show that you managed to slip your hands free, then. Make sure that’s what you put in your statement, the law has no interest in magic.”

When Holmes came back he was very pale, “Boss, I think we may have caught the person taking the young girls, or rather, the sisters have. He’s dead and it looks like he fell on some shears as Samantha said. The rest of the basement isn’t finished and I think that I could see at least five places where the earth has been disturbed. We need to call Patterson and a SOCO team. We may be here all night.”

Watson ushered us back into the lounge where we sat as things progressed with Sarah clinging to Holmes and not allowing him any time to do his actual work. Watson was good with it, though.

Holmes had rung Patterson who turned up around eight. By that time the paramedics had been and gone, having confirmed that Mr. Butcher was dead and that Mrs. Butcher was in a deep sleep, no doubt assisted by the tablets they had found by her bedside.

They also checked us both over and declared that, except for the bruising on our wrists from the cuffs, we were healthy. Patterson went down to the basement and was joined, some ten minutes later, by a SOCO team in hazmat suiting, who sent Patterson back upstairs while they carried out their preliminary search.

We were no longer needed and Holmes took us home. We were told to stay at home on Tuesday as they would send a car for us in the early afternoon so that we could give our statements.

Patterson said that he wanted to interrogate Mrs. Butcher first when she woke up. As we went towards the front door, a SOCO guy came out from the kitchen and spoke to Patterson, who went a little pale.

“You sure?” he asked. “Seven – maybe more?”

The guy nodded and returned to what I expected to be a very grisly job. I know that I couldn’t do it.

Part 16

On the way home we told Holmes that we had intended to go somewhere for a meal before things had taken a turn for the worse.

He stopped at a pizza place and we waited until they had our order and then took us home, coming up to the flat with us to make sure we got in safely. Also, I suspect, to help us eat the pizzas.

He had a pocket recorder and, as we ate, he gently took us through the events of the evening from the time we had been picked up.

Sarah pointed out that, as none of it seemed arranged, it would have been as if we had left her work and simply vanished. He agreed that it did have a lot of similarities to the other disappearances.

When we got to the point where I killed him Sarah said, “He would have known that the avenging angel was coming for him, your eyes glowed even brighter than they did in the tube train and I knew, at that moment, that I had nothing to fear.”

I said that they would not do that again as I thought that the disc had given up its accumulated power to free me and give me the strength for a few moments.

When we had eaten and put the boxes in the bin, Holmes went to Sarah and told her that if she had been killed he would not have had the strength to carry on. As they kissed I left to go into my room.

What was really odd was that the disc had got warm again. I took out my phone and rang David.

When he answered I said, “I know it’s late, my darling, but can you come over to the tower, please? There are some things that we need to talk about as it may affect our future.”

He sounded worried and I assured him that it was nothing to do with our love but was something I didn’t want to discuss over the phone.

When he arrived Holmes was still in deep discussion with Sarah on the sofa but sat up when I let David in.

He was very upset as we told him about the events of the evening and held me close, “I don’t know what I would do without you in my life; I’m so happy that you got out alive.”

I stressed that a lot of what had been going on had been Butcher and the Minister setting us up to be raped and murdered. It could be that the Minister would have withdrawn his recommendation once we had been disposed of as David would, supposedly, have been none the wiser.

Holmes commented that this was likely and, at last, showed David his warrant card and badge, revealing that the only public relations he was involved with was taking felons off the streets.

It took David a little while to cotton on to the fact that we had all been wearing mics during the dinners and that the Minister had been digging himself a big hole the whole time.

By the time we finished thrashing it out it was after midnight and, by common consent, both guys spent the night with us. Neither of us wanted to be alone that night.

It wasn’t the way I thought that I would lose my virginity but it was a powerful release from the pressures of the experiences I had been through. It was the true joining of David and me, hopefully for life. I know that when I saw Sarah in the morning she looked as satisfied as I felt.

If the twins in the painting weren’t created that night I knew that there would be plenty of chances for them to be conceived later. We were all having breakfast and I could feel the disc getting warmer.

A phone burbled and Holmes went and got his out of his jacket. He listened for a while and his face went pale.

“I’m with them now and David Devine is here as well.”

He listened some more. “I’ve been instructed to take you girls down to the station where my bosses want to talk to you. It does include you as well, David, because there’s a little kink that has crept into the case and your input is also required.”

We all showered and dressed. Holmes told us he had a change of clothes at the station and told David to take me with him and to meet at the station when he had changed.

Holmes and Sarah went off in his car and David and I went to his home in his car.

On the way I was quiet for a while and then said, “David, my darling. I’ve just realised that there’s something I haven’t told you, even in the throes of our passion last night. I love you, truly and completely and want to be in your life, as a wife, lover, and mother to your children.”

He pulled the car over and kissed me for a long time, “Will you marry me, in the White Garden and go away with me in the Rover?”

“Of course I will, my darling, it’s written in our stars to be together.”

When we got to the police station Sarah had already given her statement and Holmes had played the recording he had made last night so my own statement was already being typed.

We were assembled in a large office with Watson, Patterson and a couple of forensic boffins when Patterson gave us the latest news.

He was very serious. “This does not get spoken about outside this room but I’m going to give you the facts as I know it. Mrs. Butcher was interviewed when she came around and has told us that her husband had entertained young ladies who he told her worked for the council. She said that she would fall asleep and wake to find her husband making violent love to her before he gave her another drink which sent her off to sleep again. He would tell her in the morning that the young girls had left before he had come to bed.”

“Down in what she thought of as his wine cellar we found extensive bloodstains in the room you had been held in. Although it had been cleaned with the bleach there are always little bits that get missed. The SOCO guys are still down there looking for bodies but I can tell you that we have brought five out so far and between them we have managed to get three different samples of DNA from semen still in the bodies. One is from Butcher and one, we think, will be from the Minister. The other is from a person who had been charged once with assault in a bar brawl over a woman. He had not been sent to jail but his DNA was kept on file.”

“His name is Roger Maldon, and I think that he’s a relative of yours, David.”

David went pale, “My mother is going to be devastated as he’s a nephew of hers. I know he was the black sheep of the family in his younger days but he’s been a steady worker for me in the company.”

Patterson went on, “We picked him up this morning. Your secretary told us where he would be and the DNA we took then has proved correct with the other sample. We did impound the company van that he usually drives and there are traces of blood and DNA in the back that will probably match some of the other samples from the victims.”

Sarah went white and Holmes had to comfort her, taking her out of the room and getting her some water while she lay on a sofa in the canteen.

“Now,” said Patterson, “We have to connect the Minister to the crimes with an unshakeable link and the only way I can see that happening is if he is captured in the killing room in that cellar. From what you’ve told me, Samantha, he’s expecting to come back there tonight or tomorrow night to have his way with you, am I right?”

I nodded and he went on, “We have him on constant watch now so will know when he’s heading that way. Mrs. Butcher has offered the use of her home in any way we need. She’s mortified at what he husband had been up to and wants to make reparations in any way she can.”

“I suggest that we set up an ambush with you, looking as if you are waiting for him to deal with you. You will need to wear the same clothes you had on last night and, when we know he is heading that way, we will loosely restrain you on the bed so that we may be able to record what he says. There will be a camera in the room so we can act before he goes too far but we do want him to go far enough to hang himself. Will you help?”

I held Davids hand and said that I would do whatever it took to put the monster behind bars so we started to formulate plans. I rang the salon to say I would not be in.

The police had already notified Sarah’s office to let them know that she was helping them with some enquiries but wasn’t implicated in anything. She would be going through a full interrogation from the girls when she did turn up for work next.

Everyone was so certain that it would go without a hitch so I was not unduly worried. David took me home, via a small café so I could get some lunch and I changed into the same outfit from last night, having to pull it out of the wash hamper first. It did pong a bit but that would add to the scene.

Holmes brought Sarah home and told us that she had insisted that she would be nearby tonight. It was arranged that she and David would be allowed to sit in with the police in the control van, parked several streets away next to a park.

When Holmes took me to the Butcher house there was note on the door that read ‘Gone out on Industry business, your gift is waiting’.

The house was quiet and we went down to the cellar so that a police woman could check that I could be restrained quickly when the need arose. She said that I was her responsibility after the arrest as well.

I double checked that the table was set up properly and the bucket was back where it should be; the bent side away from view.

I lay on the bed and she checked the cuffs and then we all went back upstairs into the lounge for comfort to wait for the order to set up. There were a couple of armed police who would be around the corner in the burial part of the cellar. It was thought that the Minister wouldn’t bother looking there with me waiting for him.

It was an agonising couple of hours but we then got the word that he had left his office and was coming our way.

I went back down to the cellar and the police woman restrained me and then said “Sorry about this but it does have to look real” as she gagged me with the one I had worn last night.

She then left the room, pulling the door behind her and I was alone, stretched out on the bed and unable to do anything to save myself.

Marianne Gregory (C) 2022