Nameless Kill (26 page)

Chapter Forty Four

When Brian came around, a sharp pain shot through his wrists and ankles. A draught blew against his bare skin.

Fear knotted inside him.

He knew exactly where he was without even having to re-ground himself.

He opened his eyes. Mrs. Delforth and her son, Luke, were standing at the opposite side of the cellar. The bright spotlights had gone out. In their place, a circle of wax candles spread around the floor. The pair of them stood in the middle of the candles, hand in hand, staring at Brian, serious-faced.

Brian’s wrists stung. They were attached to the barbed wire, which was wrapped around the top of the “x” shaped cross which he was now hanging from. He could feel warm blood trickling down his arms, hear it dripping from his burning ankles and onto the floor.

He knew he was naked, too. His skin grew hot with the realisation that he was all on show. But the Delforths, they didn’t seem to be looking at him sexually. Fuck‌—‌did anybody? He had to hope not, not today.

He opened his mouth and spat away the tang of vomit and stagnant saliva. It landed on the concrete floor in a gozzy bubble. Judging by the stench of cleaning products, still so strong in the cooler air of the cellar, the Delforths would have no problem cleaning it up.

They’d clean it up when they cleaned the rest of Brian up, presumably.

To his left, Brian could hear mumbling and whimpering. The poor blonde girl. He wanted to turn and look at her, but his neck was stiff and the back of his head was tender and aching. Besides, he wanted to keep his eyes on the Delforths. He wanted to keep eye contact with them and pray that somewhere, a glimmer of humanity emerged from inside and changed their minds about whatever it was they were preparing to do.

He didn’t hold out much hope.

“Shouldn’t have tried to run away,” Mrs. Delforth said, looking to her right at the sedative-filled rifle, which now leaned against the grey breeze block wall. “Definitely shouldn’t have gone barging into my poor boy like you did.” She placed a hand on Luke’s bare, black-paint covered back. He flinched a little as she did, before allowing her veiny old hands to stroke him like he was a stray cat being tamed.

“Had…‌had to try something,” Brian said, his throat sore as he struggled to muster the energy and will to put a full sentence together.

Mrs. Delforth smiled and let out a little puff of air from her nostrils. “Right. Probably did really, didn’t you? Just a silly old thing to do, barging into my son like that. Not happy are you, Luke?”

Luke stared intently into Brian’s eyes, his mother’s hand still on his back. He shook his head. He didn’t say a word. With his mother beside him, he looked more restrained than earlier. Like he was the puppet and Mrs. Delforth‌—‌fucking Mrs. Delforth‌—‌was the puppeteer.

“Short-sighted of you,” Mrs. Delforth said, rubbing her hand down her son’s arm now, digging her fingernails into the black paint on his skin. She brought the hand stained with paint to her mouth and nose and breathed it in, deeply, eyes closed. “My beautiful black boy. Never lets his mother down. His daddy would be so proud. Pity old Yemi isn’t here to see what he’s become.” She inhaled a little more, the tip of her tongue sticking out and touching the black paint on her hand. “So proud. So proud.”

So Luke Delforth was Yemi Moya’s son? Yemi and Mrs. Delforth were lovers?

“Pardon my…” Brian started, struggling for breath. “My bluntness. But‌—‌but he doesn’t look much like his daddy.” He was hinting at the patch of white skin that was now on display where Mrs. Delforth had scraped her nails.

Mrs. Delforth lowered her hand and stared at Brian, her face twitching. “There’s more to family than just biology. He‌—‌my Luke, he should’ve been Yemi’s. He should’ve been Yemi’s. No‌—‌my Luke
is
Yemi’s. Not any of the worthless, white trash I fucked. Yemi’s. Mine and Yemi’s boy. Isn’t that right, Luke? Isn’t that right?”

Luke kept his gaze on Brian as Mrs. Delforth planted another hand on her son’s shoulder, making him twitch again. “Yes,” Luke said.

“Yemi, he‌—‌he told me I was special. Told me‌—‌told me I was special and he’d look after my son even though I was just another whore. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t just another whore. I was special because I‌—‌I had the same interests as him.” She allowed herself a little smile at this, her eyes wandering around the room as if she was replaying the past in her mind. “Not just another whore. Our son, mine and Yemi’s. He…‌he didn’t mean it. He didn’t mean to walk away. He was just…‌he was just being careful.”

In that instant, wrists stinging, bare skin getting hotter, Brian started to put a picture together of Yemi Moya and Mrs. Delforth’s history. Mrs. Delforth was a whore of some kind. Yemi Moya’s whore. Except she’d “showed an interest” in his activities, presumably the more criminal ones. She’d had a fling with Yemi. Got pregnant, only to be tossed away with a white son that wasn’t Yemi’s.

Only she hadn’t walked away, like any sane person would. By the looks of things, post-Yemi, the psychopathic old bitch was thriving.

“Why…‌why the black paint?” Brian asked, his voice hoarse, another trickle of blood oozing down his arm.

“To show he’s Yemi’s boy?” Mrs. Delforth said, chuckling. She brought her hand further down her son’s body, down towards his stomach, tickling it with her long nails, Luke just letting this happen. “To show he really is his father’s son. To show he really is Yemi’s boy.”

As Brian got another whiff of Luke Delforth’s paint-uniform, he remembered something Wayne Jenkins had said. Stag’s “new house smell.” Fresh paint. That’s what he’d meant. If only Brian had realised that in the kitchen when he’d first seen the black paint on the side, he might’ve been able to do something about this situation.

If only he’d rang the fucking police.

“Yemi went away, but that didn’t matter. We‌—‌we stayed strong for him, didn’t we?” She squeezed her son’s skin, and he nodded again, eyes still on Brian. “My Luke got his ‘Stag’ alias. Started selling drugs on the streets. Looking for vulnerable ones. Innocent girls‌—‌girls who had a greater purpose in life but threw it away to filthy drugs and selling their holes. Girls who we wanted to offer an opportunity to. An‌—‌an enlightening.” She chuckled again. A joyful tear dripped down her grinning face. “Oh, Yemi would be so proud. He’ll‌—‌he’ll be up in the sky looking down and he’ll be so proud of us.”

“Proud of you killing a few girls?” Brian said, a new emotion coursing through his body and overriding the fear‌—‌anger. “Proud‌—‌proud of you leaving a girl in a stream beside Avenham to rot? Admirable. Fucking admirable.”

Mrs. Delforth smiled. Luke managed to crack a smile this time, too.

“Oh, my love,” she said, shaking her head at Brian. “What happened with the last girl was a mistake. Poor Elise Brayfeather. She never got the opportunity to be enlightened. Someone…‌one of her visitors.” She brought her tongue across her lips. “He must’ve tried to help her. Tried to help her get away. His poor misguided conscience must’ve got the better of him when he was fucking the bloodied-up bitch senseless.”

Wayne Jenkins. Brian’s stomach turned. He said he’d been high and he’d been with the girl‌—‌with Elise Brayfeather. Only he’d been so stoned he didn’t know where he was. Or so he said, anyway. But he’d tried to save Elise. He’d tried to help her get away. That explained the broken ankle ties.

“We were panicked, weren’t we Luke?” Mrs. Delforth said, turning back to her nodding son, who seemed completely mute in his mother’s presence. “Worried about the runaway girl, the things she might spout from her lying little unenlightened whore mouth. Not so worried about the boy. He was stoned on the Devil’s potion. But when the news came that she’d been found dead, well. Malnutrition. Dehydration. Hypothermia. A lot of things can happen to a girl who’s been tied up and been through unimaginable pain for two years. Probably died of shock in the end.”

The information was becoming too much for Brian. The pain in his wrists and ankles grew in intensity. His poor, weak heart patted and patted against his chest, the noise of it filling his head as he heard the girl next to him whimper, cry, struggle some more.

Elise Brayfeather was one of Mrs. Delforth and Luke’s captive girls. She was never meant to be found by Avenham Park. She was meant to be “enlightened”‌—‌which probably meant killed‌—‌eventually, but she’d got away. That explained why the ties were loose around her ankles but not her wrists.

She’d got away because Wayne Jenkins or someone had let her free.

But two years of torture. Two years of pain.

She’d only made it as far as the stream beside Avenham Park before her body decided it had had enough.

“Anyway,” Mrs. Delforth said, holding her son’s hand. “We won’t make the same mistake again, will we my boy? We won’t waste another enlightenment. And lucky for you, Mr. McDone, thanks to your eagerness to get away from here‌—‌to hurt my boy, Yemi’s boy‌—‌you’ll be the first witness to our enlightening.”

Mrs. Delforth smiled at Brian. She held her son’s hand, as he smiled too.

Except Luke’s eyes weren’t on Brian anymore, as they stood at the edge of the circle of candles.

They were on the girl beside Brian.

“You don’t have to be a‌—‌be a part of this, Luke,” Brian said, trying‌—‌appealing‌—‌for some sort of common ground with Mrs. Delforth’s son. Because really, he was just an unfortunate victim of his evil mother’s brainwashing ways.

Mrs. Delforth and Luke stepped out of the candles and walked towards the girl beside Brian. Both of them focused on her, as she screamed beneath her gag, struggled against the rattling barbed metal around her arms and around her legs.

“Don’t worry, my angel,” Mrs. Delforth said, bringing her finger to the edge of the pale girl’s goose-pimpled legs. Brian, who’d managed to turn his stiff neck, could see orange urine dribbling down her leg, and he could smell it, too. Smell it, as well as the disinfectant, the paint, and the weird burning.

Mrs. Delforth pulled her hand away. She walked over to the oven-like contraption beside the girl, and opened the glass door.

She pulled out a long, black iron rod that was shaped like the paddle of a boat at the top.

The top bit was glowing orange.

Glowing orange and steaming.

Mrs. Delforth stepped over to her son and placed the iron rod in his hands. Her son stared at the shaking, screaming girl, as tears ran down her face, blood spilling out of her ankles as she tugged and tugged against the barbed wire.

“Your skin will be beautiful and black soon,” Mrs. Delforth said, smiling at the girl.

She looked at her son. Nodded.

Then, Luke Delforth brought the glowing orange top of the iron rod towards the girl’s right thigh and pressed it hard against her skin.

Chapter Forty Five

As Brian held his eyes shut, his heart racing, his mind unable to process what was happening to the poor girl beside him, the smell hit his nostrils.

It was the smell of meat that had been left on the barbecue for too long. It was smellier than anything else in the Delforth’s cellar, and once he inhaled it, he wanted to puke. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to eat barbecued meat again.

But the sounds were just as bad. The sounds of dampened screams from underneath the girl’s gag. The sound of pure agony, like a pig squealing in an abattoir, the girl rattling at the barbed wire, calling for help, any kind of help.

Brian could hear her skin sizzling and crackling like chicken in a frying pan. Except just knowing what it actually was made it all the worse. The smell of burnt meat, the taste of burnt meat, the sound of burnt meat.

All these things coming from a poor, live girl.

Brian just about managed to force himself to open his eyes and peek when the girl stopped screaming. He saw the iron rod had been taken away from the girl’s skin by Luke Delforth. The end of the rod still glowed orange, covered with small specks of meat. Brian tried as well as he could not to look at the girl, but he couldn’t help it. The steaming, blackening mark on her outer thigh. Her head was tilting to the side now, her eyes closed, unconscious. Poor, poor girl. Better off unconscious. Anything was better than what she was going through, blood dripping down her arms as the barbed wire sunk deeper into her flesh.

“Good,” Mrs. Delforth said, nodding at her son. “Good. Now wake her up and move on to the next leg.”

“No!” Brian spat. He couldn’t help himself. His wrists were killing as he hung from the barbed wire, and his neck and back and everywhere was going through so much pain, but nothing near this girl. He couldn’t watch this happen. He just couldn’t.

Mrs. Delforth started to smile. “I’m sorry?” she said. “Did you say something, Mr. McDone?”

“You…‌the girl,” Brian said, again unsure of what to say. How the bloody hell did he gamble with a pair of psychopaths? “Luke, listen to me. You don’t want this for yourself. Your…‌Yemi. You don’t have to be like‌—‌”

“Don’t tell me what I have to be like!” Luke barked. He snarled at Brian, staring him straight in the eyes. Some of the paint dripped down his face, like a jet black ice cream melting down the side of a cone.

Brian felt himself start to cry. Felt water building up in his eyes. Poor girl. He couldn’t watch this happen. He couldn’t allow this to happen to her, and then to himself. “Please, will you‌—‌”

That’s when Luke swung the iron rod in Brian’s direction.

Brian felt himself back into the wooden “x” that he was attached to. He stared at the hot, bloody end of the rod, as it dangled just before his bare chest. He could feel the heat coming off it. It was scorching. So hot already, and it wasn’t even touching him.

Not yet.

Poor girl.

“Luke!” Mrs. Delforth said, disappointment in her voice. She placed her hands to her sides. “What have I told you about waving that thing around? It’s bad manners. Bad manners, plain and simple.”

Luke stared at Brian. The heat from the rod got hotter and hotter on Brian’s chest. He swore he could hear his skin starting to crackle. But he also swore he’d recognise the pain if it did press against him.