The Scold's Bridle (31 page)

Jack coasted to a halt behind the van and left the engine purring while he unbuckled his belt, drawing it from around his waist and wrapping the end about his fist. He took the heavy rubber torch in his other hand, clicked open the door and slipped out on to the tarmac, sucking in great draughts of air to still the thudding of his heart.

In the distance, Hughes turned round, took in the situation at a glance, and started to pound up the beach.

Adrenaline plays tricks. It floods the body to galvanize it into colossal and spontaneous effort, but the mind observes what happens in slow motion. Thus time, that most relative of phenomena, ceases to exist in any meaningful way, and what Jack would forever insist took several minutes, in reality took seconds. He burst the van doors open and brought the torch down on the head of the man nearest him, bellowing like a bull. The startled white face of another youth turned towards him and Jack flicked the belt across it in a vicious backhand swipe, crooking his elbow round the first man's neck as he did so and pulling him backwards on to the tarmac. He released his hold and brought the torch round in a scything arc to smash under the chin of the face he'd whipped, toppling the youth off balance into thin air behind him.

The three men left in the van, two holding the girl down, the other bare-arsed on top of her, were frozen into shocked immobility. The violence of the onslaught was so extreme, the noise of Jack's continuous roaring so disorientating, that he was on top of them before they could register what was happening. He used the hand holding the belt to grip the hair of the bastard raping the girl, wrenched his head up and swung the torch in a mighty forehand smash into the wide-eyed, frightened face. Blood erupted from the broken nose in a stream, and the youth slithered sideways with a whimper of pain.

"GET OUT!" Jack shouted at the girl who was scrambling to her knees in terror. "GET IN THE CAR!" He whipped the belt back and sliced it through the air into the eyes of a boy who was struggling to his feet in the corner. "YOU BLOODY LITTLE SHITS!" he roared. "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU." He brought his boot down on the unprotected groin of the rapist and turned like a madman on the only youth he hadn't touched. With a cry of terror, the boy cowered away, his arms held protectively above his head.

Perhaps, after all, reason hadn't entirely deserted Blakeney. He abandoned the torch and the belt, flung himself precipitately out of the van, bundled into the car after the girl, and roared it into motion, tugging door closed as he did so. He saw Hughes too late to avoid him as he careered across the tarmac, and caught him a glancing blow with the offside wing, bouncing him into the air like a rag-doll. Jack's anger was out of control, a red frenzy that pounded in his head like cannon-fire. Spinning the wheel, he turned the vehicle in a tight circle and headed back towards the crouching figure, switching on the headlights with a lazy flick of his fingers to catch Hughes's terrified face in the glare as he prepared to mow him down.

He had no idea what stopped him doing it. Perhaps it was the girl's screams. Perhaps his anger abated as rapidly as it had surged into life. Perhaps, quite simply, his humanity triumphed. Instead, he slewed the car to a screaming halt, slammed the door into the man's body and leapt out to wind his fist around the long hair and drag Hughes to his feet. "Into the back, sweetheart," he said to the girl, "as fast as you can." She was too terrified not to obey and slid in hysterics between the seats. "Now, you, in," he said, yanking down on the hair and shoving his knee into the small of Hughes's back, "or, so help me, I'll break your filthy neck now."

Hughes believed him. As the lesser of two evils, he allowed himself to be thrust face-down across the seat and sighed as Jack's heavy weight descended across his legs. The car raced into life again, screaming across the tarmac as Jack forced it into gear, the door slamming shut when it impacted against another flying figure. "PUT YOUR SEAT BELT ON!" he yelled at the screaming girl. "IF THIS BASTARD MOVES A MUSCLE I'M GOING TO PILE THE SIDE WHERE HIS HEAD IS INTO THE BIGGEST BRICK WALL I CAN FIND." He changed up, swung out on to the road and set off at a blistering pace through Southbourne with his hand clamped over the horn. If there was any justice in this cess-pit of a world, someone would get the police out before the Ford transit caught up with him.

There was some justice left in the England Rupert Brooke died for. The local police received seventeen 999 calls in three minutes, twelve from elderly widows living alone, four from outraged men, and one from a child. They all reported the same thing. Joy-riders were turning the quiet tree-lined streets of their suburb into a death-trap.

Jack's car and the pursuing white transit were ambushed as they tore on to the main road leading into Bournemouth city centre.

The phone rang in Mill House at eleven-thirty that night. "Sarah?" Jack barked down the wire.

"Hi," she countered with relief. "You're not dead then."

"No. I'm under sodding arrest," he shouted. "This is the one telephone call I'm allowed to make. I need help PDQ."

"I'll come straight away. Where are you?"

"The bastards are going to charge me with joy-riding and rape," he said furiously, as if she hadn't spoken. "They're fucking
cretins
here, won't listen to a word I say. Goddammit, they've banged me up along with Hughes and his animals. The poor kid they were having a go at in the back of the van's completely hysterical and thinks I'm one of them. I keep telling them to contact Cooper but they're such bloody morons they won't listen to me."

"Okay," she said calmly, trying to make what she could of this alarming speech, "I'll get Cooper. Now tell me where you are."

"Some shit-hole in the middle of Bournemouth," he roared. "They're about to take swabs off my fucking penis."

"The address, Jack. I need the address."

"WHERE THE HELL AM I?" he bellowed at someone in the room with him. "Freemont Road Police Station," he told Sarah. "You'll have to bring Ruth, too," he sais with regret. "God knows, I never meant to involve her but she's the only one who knows what happened.
And
get Keith as well. I need a solicitor I can trust. They're all bloody fascists in this place. They're talking about frigging paedophile rings and conspiracies and Christ knows what else."

"Calm down," she said sternly. "Keep your mouth shut till I get there and, for God's sake, Jack, don't lose your temper and hit a policeman."

"I already have, dammit. The bastard called me a pervert."

It was well after two o'clock when Sarah, Cooper and Ruth finally arrived bleary-eyed at Freemont Road. The night Sergeant at Learmouth had been adamant in his refusal either to contact Cooper or to give Sarah his home phone number when she put through an urgent call requesting to speak to him. "DS Cooper is not on duty, madam," was his measured response. "If you have a problem, you deal with me or wait until tomorrow morning when he will be on duty." It was only when he was faced with her angry presence in front of his desk, threatening him with questions in Parliament and court action for negligence, that he was moved to contact the Detective Sergeant. The counter-blast from Cooper's end, not in the best of moods, anyway, after being woken up from a deep sleep, left him shaken. He grumbled away to himself for the rest of his shift. Sod's law said that it didn't matter how considerate a chap tried to be, he was always in the wrong.

Keith, even more irritable than Cooper to be dragged from the arms of Morpheus far away in London, perked up a little to hear that Jack was under arrest for joy-riding and rape. "Good God," he said with cynical amusement, "I had no idea he was so active. I thought he preferred spectator sports."

"It's not funny, Keith," said Sarah curtly. "He needs a solicitor. Can you come down to Bournemouth?"

"When?"

"Now, you oaf. They're taking swabs off him at this very minute."

"Did he do it?"

"What?"

"The rape," said Keith patiently.

"No, of course he didn't," she spluttered angrily. "Jack's not a rapist."

"Then there's nothing to worry about. The swabs will prove he hasn't been in contact with the victim."

"He says they think he's part of a paedophile ring. They may charge him with conspiracy to rape even if they can't charge him with the actual offence." She sighed. "At least I think that's what he said. He's very angry and it was all a bit garbled."

"What on earth's he been up to?"

"I don't know yet," she said through gritted teeth. "Just get your arse down here, will you, and earn some of the fortune we've paid you over the years."

"I'm not much of a criminal lawyer, you know. You might do better to get hold of a specialist from down there. I could give you some names out of the book."

"He asked for you, Keith. He said he wants a solicitor he can trust, so-" her voice rose "-for God's sake will you stop arguing and get in your car. We're wasting time. He's at Freemont Road Police Station in Bournemouth."

"I'll be there as soon as I can," he promised. "In the meantime, tell him to keep quiet and refuse to answer any questions."

Easier said than done, thought Sarah ruefully, as she and Ruth were given chairs to sit on while Cooper was taken into an interview room. When the door opened, they heard Jack in full spate. "
Look
, how many times do you have to be
told
? I was rescuing her from being raped, not bloody raping her myself. Jesus wept!" His fist pounded on the table. "I will not talk to morons. Doesn't anyone in this piss-pot have a measurable IQ?" He gave a whoop of relief. "Hallelujah! Cooper! Where the hell have you been, you bastard?" The door closed again.

Sarah leant her head against the wall with a sigh. "The trouble with Jack," she said to Ruth, "is he never does anything by halves."

"He wouldn't be here at all if it wasn't for me," the girl said wretchedly, washing her hands over and over in her lap. She was so nervous she could barely keep her breathing under control.

Sarah glanced at her. "I think you should be rather proud of yourself. Because of you he obviously stopped someone else getting the treatment you were given. That's good."

"Not if they think Jack was involved."

"Cooper will set them straight."

"Does that mean I won't have to say anything? I don't want to say anything." The words came out in a rush. "I'm so frightened," she said simply, tears welling tragically in the huge dark eyes. "I don't want anyone to know"-her voice shook-"I'm so ashamed."

Sarah, who had had to use a very heavy hand in the shape of emotional blackmail to get her this far, balked at using any more. The girl was in a highly emotional state already, desperately seeking to justify her mother's indifference because then she could justify her own indifference to the growing foetus inside her. But she couldn't justify it, of course, and that made her guilt about wanting an abortion all the stronger. There was no logic to human psychology, thought Sarah sadly. She had said nothing about her visit to Cedar House, merely offered to drive Ruth over to Fontwell. "In fairness," she had said, "all your mother knows is that you've been expelled for going out to meet your boyfriend. I'm sure she'll be sympathetic if you tell her the truth."

Ruth shook her head. "She wouldn't," she whispered, "she'd say I got what I deserved. She used to say it to Granny about her arthritis." Her face had pinched in pain. "I wish Granny hadn't died. I did love her, you know, but she died thinking I didn't." And what could Sarah say to that? She had never come across three people so intent on destroying each other, and themselves.

She put her arm now around the girl's thin shoulders and hugged her tight. "Sergeant Cooper will sort it out," She said firmly, "and he won't force you to say anything you don't want to." She gave her throaty chuckle. "He's far too nice and far too soft which is why he's never made Inspector."

But the law, like the mills of God, grinds slow but exceeding small, and Sarah knew that if any of them emerged unscathed at the end of their brush with it, it would be a miracle.

"You realize, Dr. Blakeney, we could charge you with being an accessory before the fact," said an irate Inspector. "You knew when you helped your husband get hold of Hughes's address that he planned to do something illegal, didn't you?"

"I wouldn't answer that," said Keith.

"No, I did not," said Sarah stoutly. "And what's illegal about preventing a brutal rape? Since when was rescuing somebody a chargeable offence?"

"You're in the wrong ballpark, Doctor. We're talking attempted murder, GBH, abduction, driving without due care and attention, assault on a police officer. You name it, it's down here. Your husband's an extremely dangerous man and you sent him off after Hughes, knowing full well that he was liable to lose control of his temper if confronted. That's a fair summary, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't answer that," said Keith automatically.

"Of course it isn't," she snapped. "
Hughes
is the extremely dangerous man, not Jack. What would you have done if you knew a young girl was about to be brutally attacked by five zombies who are so degenerate and uneducated they'll do anything their sadistic leader tells them to do?" Her eyes flashed. "Don't bother to answer. I know exactly what you'd have done. You'd have crept off with your tail between your legs to the nearest telephone to dial nine-nine-nine, and never mind the damage that was done to the child in the meantime."

"It's an offence to withhold information from the police. Why did you not inform us about Miss Lascelles's rape?"

"I really do advise you not to answer that question," said Keith wearily.

"Because we gave her our word we wouldn't. Why on earth do you think Jack went out tonight if we could have told the police everything?"

Keith held up his hand to forestall the Inspector. "Any objections to switching off the tape while I confer with my client?"