Reginald King ripped up the slip of paper and threw it in the bin. There was no representative of Professionals Against Abortion available to speak at the departmental lecture. They couldn’t exactly be in hot demand, he thought. It’s not as if theirs was a popular ideology. Natasha was expecting a name and details about the lecture. He remembered how blasé he’d been about finding a speaker and cringed. She would sigh, he knew, not voicing her disappointment, letting her face show it instead.
Professor Forge looked up when he entered her office, too busy to even pretend to smile.
‘I’ve been trying to get the name of the speaker from you, Dr King and I haven’t received any information. You’ve had ten days since we last spoke about this. Who have you booked?’
‘I had been trying to contact a very interesting group and I’m afraid they kept me waiting. It’s proving difficult …’ he stuttered.
‘I’m in a dreadful hurry, so can we just run over the details. Who is it?’
‘Professionals Against Abortion,’ he said.
‘What were you thinking?’ She stood up behind her desk. ‘You know the University has a stringent policy about women’s rights and equality. Are you trying to start a riot?’
‘You’re always saying that every side of an argument should be explored. I thought you’d be pleased to step out of the box the department shuts itself in. Other schools test the boundaries. Some of the lectures I’ve attended in the last year have been most eye-opening.’
‘Cancel them,’ Professor Forge said. ‘I’ll pay their wasted costs if necessary. Just make sure I don’t have to listen to them lecturing my students on legislating against women controlling their own bodies.’
‘They can’t make it anyway,’ he said more sharply than he’d intended and the look she gave him was one of disbelief.
‘Then why are we … never mind. Just answer yes or no. Do we have a speaker lined up for this week?’ she asked quietly.
There were so many things he wanted to say to her: that he wasn’t going to be told his options for answering a question. That she’d left a button open on her shirt (he could see a hint of black lace bra beneath and was finding it hard to concentrate). That he was her equal and she shouldn’t speak to him like that. That he could be as cruel and hard as her and, oh, how he wanted to take her to his secret place and introduce her to Elaine and Jayne.
‘No,’ was the only answer that would leave his lips. ‘But I’ll get on it this afternoon. By the time you come back from lunch …’
‘I’ll sort it out myself. Make sure all the applications for next year are properly reviewed and arrange a meeting of the academic staff to go over changes in student supervision policy. I’m late,’ she said, snatching up her handbag and stalking out, leaving King staring at the space she’d left behind her desk.
He engaged the lock on her door as noiselessly as he could manage. She’d never left him alone in her office before. It was an oddly intimate sensation, surrounded by her books, her papers, the few pictures she’d put on the walls, photos of children you’d think were hers if you didn’t know they were nieces and nephews. He walked around her desk, running his fingers over the silken wood, polished to such softness it might have been her hair. Her chair was firm but worn into the shape of her body from hours of reading. King slid to the very back of it, imagining her buttocks pressed into the leather, warming it, slipping across the seat as she shifted and settled herself. He was aroused. It fascinated and shamed him. He never felt like that when he was with Elaine or Jayne. With them it was pure. It was about a meeting of minds, the anticipation of enjoying their intellects. As he tried to quell the pressure in his suit trousers, he wondered why Natasha affected him in such a low, coarse way.
‘It’s her base nature,’ he said to the emptiness of the room. ‘A man cannot help but be attracted. I must rise above it.’ He pushed down on the straining material. The ringing telephone shocked him into movement and he ran for the door, sure she would reappear to answer it. In the corridor he stumbled, picked himself up and dashed to his office. King heard tittering and locked his door, pulling down the blind for privacy. ‘Natasha’s making me feel like this,’ he said. ‘It’s what she wants. I’m better than her. I have women who are better than her too, brighter even. They don’t treat me like a fool.’
He was raising his voice, talking too loudly. With one hand still desperately trying to control the bulge in his trousers, he reached to a shelf above his head and flicked on the radio. A man’s voice with a pronounced accent and over-perfect English flooded the room. At first King couldn’t make out what the man was saying, then he heard her name. He’d avoided the media, knowing it would make him paranoid. Now someone – a Frenchman, he decided, but a policeman in Edinburgh nonetheless – was telling the world that Jayne Magee was still very much alive. They were searching properties in the city, appealing for help. All because no body had been found.
It was infuriating to be pushed so hard. He wasn’t ready. He’d have to get another vehicle and the weasel at the garage was starting to ask questions even though the extra cash he’d paid was supposed to ensure there would be none. The cars were either stolen or written off, had passed through multiple hands since leaving their owners, chassis numbers removed and old enough not to attract interest. None of them would make it more than a thousand miles before being scrapped but that suited him. One car per woman was what he’d promised himself. Keep it untraceable. Then the car was returned to the weasel and passed on to the next dubious user.
He hadn’t intended to take both Jayne and Elaine, that was the problem. Having used three cars, he needed a fourth. His research wasn’t up to an acceptable standard. He hadn’t settled on a proper substitute for Jayne yet and slipshod planning meant less than flawless results. It couldn’t be helped. The priority was to stop the police in their tracks. If they wanted a body so badly, he’d have to provide one.
King watched the clock until he could leave his office and retreat to the vehicle legally registered as his. From there, he phoned the man he knew only as Louis and arranged a trip to his yard via a cash point. Louis only accepted payment in ten or twenty pound notes, which was irritating but sensible. An hour later, King had organised for a car to be dropped off at a back street in Causewayside within walking distance of his rented garage, so he could leave his own car there and swap vehicles before his trip to Glasgow.
He set off at ten that night, well after dark but before the pubs turned out, so the streets were reasonably quiet. The car was an old pale grey Saab and the fan belt was whining in a way that grated King’s nerves. He was wearing a charity shop raincoat with hardware store overalls underneath. On his head, a cap covered a thinning spot he had a tendency to rub when stressed, a habit that had undoubtedly sped up the hair loss process.
The journey to Glasgow took just under an hour. It was a city of opposites, King thought. The glass and steel structures, the neon-lit bridges and blazing new auditoriums couldn’t hide the poverty, deprivation and low life expectancy that had defined the phrase ‘The Glasgow Effect’. An historic settlement with its turreted university spires, more akin to a children’s novel than a gang violence stronghold, Glasgow was all smoke and mirrors. King knew he would be adding to those grim statistics, even if only by one, but here within the clashing conflict of modernism and second world penury, no one would notice. It would be easy to see the beauty of Glasgow, to visit the tourist sites, to feel only the buzz and hum of it. But it wasn’t real. Glasgow, King thought, was a city thriving on death.
By the time he reached the Govanhill area it was raining and he cursed the water as it obscured his windscreen between wipes. The weather would have the whores running for shelter. The hardiest few could still be seen as he took a preliminary, tentative drive down the business end of Allison Street. Both sides of the road presented a living history museum. Four-storey-high tenements were set above shops with signage in every language, selling food for every culture. It was a truly global street, King thought, enjoying the mockery, wondering how Scotland had been overtaken by languages he would never have the time or the inclination to learn. There were tattoo parlours, so-called designer outlets – King laughed out loud at that – money lenders, hair salons and charity shops, everything and nothing. Too many properties ‘To Let’. Too many buildings propped up by scaffolding. Too much going cheap. That, of course, was exactly what had brought him here.
He tried to assess the ages and heights of the women he passed, who watched with wary interest. Jayne Magee wasn’t tall and these women were perched on high heels, making a comparison almost impossible. Age would have to be the determining factor. He did a second pass, spotting a woman plastered in makeup to fool punters she was in her twenties although her lank grey roots and sagging breasts revealed the truth. He pulled over and put down the passenger side window.
‘Evenin’, lovey, what is it you’re after then?’
‘How much?’ he asked, playing his role.
‘Thirty for hand, forty for mouth, fifty for pussy,’ she said.
‘Hand’ll do,’ King replied, popping the door open. She was close enough to a match for Jayne that he wouldn’t risk driving around any more. She hesitated. ‘Is there a problem?’ he asked.
‘The light’s not working in your car. Why’s that?’ She took a step away from the Saab, more spooked than he’d expected. It was only a precaution but one he’d had to take. He didn’t want onlookers seeing his face and had taken the bulb out before setting off.
‘The bulb’s blown,’ he said, ‘and the rain’s getting in. Would you just hurry up?’
She stared into the darkness of the car as if trying to see him better then slammed the door.
‘I think I’ll take a pass tonight, pal. You’d best go home.’
King thumped the steering wheel. Stupid fucking whore. He didn’t have time to play games. With a deep breath he willed himself calm and called after her.
‘I’ll pay double, all right? Just for a hand job. Sixty quid. Come back!’
‘I don’t think so,’ she shouted over her shoulder, walking away. ‘Something’s not right wi’ you.’
That was when the man walked out of the shadows, pulling her by the arm of her coat, marching her back to King’s car.
‘You pay sixty, right? Just fingers and palm, no extras. Money up front.’ He held a hand through King’s window, who fumbled in his wallet while the pimp issued a series of reprimands to the unwilling prostitute.
King passed him the money, keeping his face well back and deepening his voice.
‘Here you go.’ He handed over three twenties. It was proving to be an expensive night. The pimp, who King decided from his accent was Romanian, pushed her into the car.
‘I want you back in half an hour. Stay out of the pubs,’ the pimp told her.
‘Yeah, bollocks to you,’ she whispered under her breath once King had put the car in gear and she was beyond the pimp’s reach. ‘Turn right up there, I know somewhere close by we can stop, assuming you want to do it in your car. It’s a bit cold for outside tonight.’
‘The car will be fine,’ he said, following her directions until they reached a suitable place. He waited until she was busy undoing his zip before reaching into his coat pocket, opening the ziplock plastic bag and taking out a rag.
‘You came properly prepared,’ she joked. ‘Judging by how much work I’ve got to do down here, you won’t be needing your hankie for a while.’
As she cackled at her own hilarity, King slammed the cloth over her mouth and nose, pressing relentlessly backwards into the headrest. In the footwell, her legs did a jig worthy of an Irish dancer as her hands flailed uselessly around, intermittently attempting to pull away the cloth and scratch King’s hands. At the end, she was reduced to a juddering, twitching wreck, slumping slowly downwards in the seat until her chin came to land on her chest.
‘Laugh at that,’ King said, punching the side of her face so hard he heard the vertebrae in her neck protest. She was still very much alive though and in need of more long-term sedation than chloroform could offer. He tied and gagged her, pushed her onto the back seat and covered her with a blanket.
By the time he was hauling her body, shoved into an enormous sack, up the hidden staircase behind the cellar wall, he was tired. Really, deeply tired. His muscles ached, his head was thumping and a knot of pain was rolling over like a spit roast in his stomach. He needed food and sleep.
‘No rest for the wicked,’ he said, as he unlocked the door. ‘Quite literally, you’ll probably think. This wasn’t my doing though. If that policeman hadn’t insisted on hunting Jayne down, the chances are it wouldn’t have been you. You’re too old and heavy to be Jayne. At least I can do something about the fleshy parts. Let’s see what else you have to tell me.’
Elaine and Jayne were exactly as he’d left them. ‘Aren’t you two a sight for sore eyes,’ he said breezily as he dragged the sack into the middle of the room and dumped its contents in a slowly stirring, dazed heap. The women were watching anxiously. He knew what they were thinking. Were they to be replaced? Was this someone new, better than them, making them surplus to his requirements? He was tempted to play it out like that for a while, to see how they would try to impress him and keep their places. Jayne, however, had decided it was time to talk. He braced himself for yet more pleading.
‘Who’s that?’ she asked. She was quiet today, almost at ease. He’d been charting her moods, following the pattern of them. Having passed through fear, disbelief and anger in rapid succession, Jayne was proving much tougher than Elaine.
‘Your body double,’ he said. ‘I’ve brought this woman to save your life.’ He grabbed a handful of hair and pulled the woman’s head back to reveal her face. It wasn’t pretty, not with the bruises, but then it wasn’t pretty before that either. ‘Don’t judge her too harshly,’ he told Jayne. ‘I’m sure there’s some explanation for how she ended up like this. I’m betting she could tell some tales, if only we had the time. But where are my manners? How was your evening?’
Jayne frowned. He didn’t like it when she did that. It reminded him of Natasha.
‘We’ve been chained into these chairs all day, with only one hand free and hospital bottles to pass water. It makes it difficult to have a good day,’ Jayne replied.
‘More freedom in time, when you’ve shown you can be good. Elaine, how are the dentures?’ King clicked a finger in front of Elaine’s face. She opened her mouth immediately and obligingly. ‘A little sore, but that’s to be expected. Medicated mouthwash will help. I hope you two have been keeping yourselves occupied.’ He inspected the chess board between them, placed there to help pass the time and stimulate their minds. It had belonged to his parents, as did practically everything in the house, but this was an object they had loved. He would often come home from school to find either his mother or father playing chess with Eleanor. His sister was being home educated, an easy decision as his father was a science writer and his mother a full-time homemaker. No school was adequately equipped to maximise her potential, that’s what his mother had said. Reginald attended the local school and had missed out on the regular afternoon family chess tournaments. It was only after Eleanor died that his father found the time to teach him how to play. It had taken a while, but he’d become a player of some quality. His father had not been shy in drumming strategy into him. Chess was allowed only in recreation time, after homework and testing. Recreation time had been the part of the day King looked forward to most.
Elaine was in dire need of some recreation now. She spent her whole time with her head bowed, barely communicating. The chess pieces were untouched but the food and drink he’d left had been consumed.
‘And how was your day?’ Jayne asked. That made Elaine look up, open mouthed, comically aghast.
King tried to answer, had to think about it, stuttered and started again.
‘It was difficult, thank you for asking. I’m tired, actually.’
Jayne nodded, an expression that looked oddly like sympathy on her face.
‘Why don’t you go and get some sleep. If you’ll let me up from the chair I can look after the girl. Save you some work.’
For a moment he was tempted. It would be so easy. He wanted his bed desperately. It was the stress of having to deal with the pimp, he thought. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to have happened. Someone had been close to him, had heard his voice. And all for Jayne Magee. It was only right that she did some work to thank him for his efforts. Sadly, it was a trick. All women deceived through softness, sucking you in with sweet lies. She didn’t want to help him at all. And yet he wished, he wished so much that she could be trusted. King hardened his heart and accepted his fate. He could either be teacher or friend, but he couldn’t be both.
‘I’d have appreciated the offer, had it been meant to help me. But it wasn’t, Reverend, and I don’t appreciate a woman of your qualifications and moral substance being duplicitous. Undoubtedly you would like to help this girl but let’s not pretend your offer is to benefit me.’
‘He’s going to kill her,’ Elaine muttered. ‘There’s nothing you can do. Just don’t watch. I can’t watch again.’ She was shaking so hard that the cuffs around her ankles were cutting into her skin. Jayne reached across the table and held Elaine’s hand until the shaking lessened. It was a fascinating lesson in the strengths and frailties of the human mind that the two women had responded to their situation so differently. King considered writing a paper on it. An insider’s view that would, like himself, be entirely unique.
‘Is Elaine right?’ Jayne asked calmly. ‘Were you planning to kill that woman?’
The self-righteous Reverend’s use of the past tense irritated him, as if she was so convinced she’d be able to talk him out of it that she didn’t need to address the situation in the present.
‘She hardly belongs with you and Elaine, does she?’ he snapped. ‘A street whore, staying with a respected lawyer and an eminent theologian. It would be an insult to you both.’
Jayne let go of Elaine’s hand and leaned back in her chair, taking her time. It occurred to King that this was what he’d dreamed of – proper debate, a meeting of minds – but she was altogether too assured in her opinions. She seemed convinced of her own standpoint. Where was her desire to listen to his?
‘We none of us know what any other human being is capable of or what they have to offer. You can’t judge a person by their looks or what they do for a living. Should we not speak to her first, find out more? We might be surprised.’
‘How you live is evidence of who you are. Doesn’t the church teach us that our behaviour is what we’ll be judged by?’ King said.
‘And what of yours?’ Jayne asked, voice no more than a whisper, face revealing only gravity and curiosity. If there had been so much as a hint of insolence about it he’d have enjoyed what he was about to do an awful lot more.
‘I’m not a religious man,’ King said. ‘I’m a believer in science, facts and education. There’s nothing you can say to dissuade me from this course although I appreciate you trying.’
He took an electric razor from the satchel he’d had slung over his back and placed it on the floor next to the woman’s body. She was trying to sit upright, clumsily and unsuccessfully, her feet sliding around on the floor, betrayed by legs that still hadn’t regained muscular control. As he removed her foul clothing, armed with a plastic apron, rubber gloves and a bin bag, Elaine began an irritatingly pitched keening noise like a dog left alone too long.
‘Can we not talk about this?’ Jayne asked.
‘No, we can’t,’ King sniped. ‘I don’t want to talk any more. I have to go to work in the morning and I need some sleep. I suggest you concentrate on shutting her up before I’m forced to do so myself.’ He swung his head in Elaine’s direction, not wanting to look at her, knowing she’d be drooling and rocking again. Jayne’s chair scraped the floor and King knew she was comforting the lost soul beside her. As hideous as Elaine was proving to be, he felt a spike of annoyance at Jayne’s own apparent lack of fear. ‘Well, that won’t last long,’ he said.
‘Sorry? I didn’t catch that,’ Jayne said.
King shoved the last of the woman’s clothes into the bin bag and tossed it towards the door.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t talking to you.’
‘Then who were you talking to?’ she asked innocently. He’d had enough of being patronised. A degree from Oxford University and praise from the popular press didn’t make her superior. Yet here she was addressing him as if he was an errant member of her congregation.
‘It’s important that you watch,’ King said, straightening out the woman’s body.
He began to shave the hair roughly from the woman’s scalp. That was when she finally snapped back into full consciousness.
Hands tied behind her back and ankles bound together, she began struggling like a giant pink earthworm, thrashing back and forwards, getting nowhere, slipping on the floor. The gag in her mouth made her sound drunk, but she got her meaning across.
‘Aw, fuck-shite. I fuckin’ knew there was somethin’ bad about you. Let me go, you bastard. Let go of my fuckin’ hair.’ She struggled harder. King sat on the floor behind her head, gripping her skull between his knees as he sheared off the remaining strands. Jayne was talking but he couldn’t hear the words. If she wanted his attention, she’d have to break free of that supercilious reserve and scream. Once the scalp was completely hairless he noted with some gratification that Jayne wasn’t looking quite so calm.
‘What’s your name?’ Jayne asked the writhing body on the floor.
‘Grace,’ she said. King began to laugh. It was a mean laugh and he knew it. It sounded the way boys used to laugh at him in the playground. It was hard, mirthless, designed to disorient and humiliate. He laughed harder and harder.
‘Grace?’ he spat through his tears. ‘Grace! Oh the misplaced optimism of your parents. If only they could see you, sucking men’s parts for pennies, disease ridden and stinking.’
‘My parents are dead,’ Grace howled through the gag.
‘Amen to that,’ King said. ‘At least they’ve been spared some humiliation.’
‘Stop it,’ Jayne said. King stopped. ‘You’re being cruel.’
Dr King looked at the monster he’d brought into his house. Jayne Magee was just as bad as Natasha, lording it over him, condescending.
‘You stop me,’ he whispered low into her face. He strode towards a drawer, unlocked it with shaking hands, selected a pair of pliers then turned back to Grace.
‘Open wide,’ he said, retaking his seat at Grace’s head, tugging away the gag and forcing a piece of wood like a miniature plank sideways into her mouth as she screamed. As he closed the pliers on the left central incisor in her lower jaw, he began to sing. ‘Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.’ Grace was gagging, either from the wood in her mouth or from fear and pain, not that the cause really mattered. It was a blessed relief to sing and drown out the noise. He raised his own volume. ‘I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.’
As he paused for breath between verses, Jayne raised her voice enough to be heard above Grace’s animal groans and mewling.
‘What is it you want?’ she shouted. ‘Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it.’ The incisor came out with a soundless spurt of blood, sending Grace’s eyes rolling upwards as she fainted. King dropped the yellowed pellet into a glass, wiped the blood from her lower jaw – it was a messy business unfortunately – and took a grip of the next tooth in line.
‘’Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear …’ On Grace’s name he gave a tremendous wrench with the pliers, bringing her back from painless stupefaction into consciousness once more. ‘And Grace, my fears relieved.’ He pulled again and she thrashed her legs against the floor. Elaine was banging her head against the table in front of her and Jayne was yelling at him as he crooned. They made quite the alternative band, he thought. ‘How precious did that Grace appear, the hour I first believed.’
Another tooth in the glass, blood washing the floor boards, King sensing his own loss of control as he adjusted his position and gripped harder with the pliers to get proper purchase on the tricky lower-left cuspid.
‘Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come.’ He had to twist the pliers this time and the effort was sending his voice off key. He coughed and was about to start the verse again when Jayne screeched at him.
‘Play chess for her. If I win, you leave her alone. If you win, then … you wanted me to learn. I’d love to see how you strategise. I’m sure you can teach me some new moves. Please?’
Dr King continued working the tooth but jiggled it more gently as he considered the challenge. ‘All right,’ he said, setting the pliers down. ‘But I’m tired, mind. I may not be at my best.’ He wiped his hands. It wouldn’t do to get the chess pieces bloody. There were some things in life that one had to respect. Leaving Grace’s hands and feet bound, and stuffing his handkerchief into her mouth for the sake of a quiet atmosphere, he pulled the sack back over her upper body. Distractions were unacceptable whilst playing chess. ‘’Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far,’ he sang as he released Elaine from the chair opposite Jayne’s and carried her to the bed. She rolled face down and lay unmoving. ‘… And Grace will lead me home.’