Dazed from the blow to the head, Adrian tried to get to his feet. It was so dark. There was a man there, but Adrian couldn’t make his face out. As Adrian tried to pull himself up, the man kicked him, hard. He kicked Adrian again. A steel-toed boot crashed into Adrian’s rib and he screamed out in pain.
‘Shut up, pig,’ the man hissed.
This wasn’t random, Adrian realised. He knew Adrian was a police officer. Did Adrian recognise the voice? Had the man seen that little video clip of him rescuing Angela Corrigan online? Is that how he knew he was police?
The man grabbed Adrian by the collar and punched him in the face before spitting at him. Adrian felt warm, wet saliva on his face, mixed with his own blood from where his face had hit the pavement. He was dazed. His nose, taking the brunt of the impact and still sore from earlier where Corrigan had smashed it into the kitchen counter, was starting to swell.
Still holding Adrian’s collar, the man pulled Adrian towards the foot of the concrete stairs that led up to the Exeter St Thomas station platform. Parked next to the bottom of the stairs was a white van with the side door open.
The man heaved Adrian inside before jumping in himself. There was another man in the driver’s seat and small light overhead, which he turned off as he started the engine. The van was dark inside; all Adrian could see were shadows.
‘You’re both making a huge mistake.’
‘I told you to shut up.’ The man hit him again.
‘What is it you want?’ Adrian could taste blood in his mouth.
‘I told you not to fucking speak.’
Adrian felt fabric go into his mouth to shut him up. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it wasn’t clean; it was dusty and tasted of chemicals and grease. Adrian went to pull the fabric from his mouth and the man punched him in the ribs, a sharp pain shooting through him as the bones fractured. Breathing was difficult. His nose had swollen and without his mouth, he had to really concentrate on not panicking and making things worse.
The man reached inside Adrian’s pockets and pulled out the contents – money, phone, keys, ID, everything – making Adrian feel even more vulnerable than before. Was he going to kill him and dump his body somewhere?
The man flipped Adrian over, so his face was pushed into the cold, hard van floor, and his knee pressed into Adrian’s back, making it even harder to get air into his lungs. As they drove past streetlights, the van lit up every couple of seconds. Adrian strained to see who had taken him, but his head was firmly pressed against the cold, dirty floor. Surely if they wanted him dead, they would have done it already.
Adrian’s head was thumping. The man in the back was bigger and stronger than him; Adrian hadn’t even managed to get a punch in at all. He really wished he hadn’t had those last three drinks.
As the road smoothed out, the lights got less frequent. They were heading out of town.
The man took his knee off Adrian’s back. The road beneath them became rougher and so Adrian assumed they had left the city completely. He could tell from the movements in the van that they were on less developed terrain, windier roads, maybe one of the smaller towns outside Exeter.
What did they want from him? The man in front just seemed to be the driver. It was the man in the back with Adrian who was in charge.
Without warning, the man yanked at Adrian’s trousers until they were around his knees and then his ankles. What was going on? The dread deepened as the reality of the situation hit Adrian. Oh God, no.
The man climbed on top of Adrian so that his knees forced Adrian’s legs apart. Adrian’s confusion was beginning to clear. This wasn’t a mugging. Adrian tried to scream, but the rag in his mouth muffled it to the point where it probably couldn’t even be heard inside the van, let alone any further away. Adrian was completely paralysed. He couldn’t even distinguish what he was feeling as fear; it felt so much bigger.
The sound of the engine was loud and Adrian couldn’t hear anything beyond that. The man’s head was directly above his, his hands on the ground either side. Adrian focused on the man’s chunky wrists to commit them to memory – he was white, that’s all Adrian could ascertain at this point. He knew what was coming next.
The crushing weight of the man on top of him did nothing to mask the pain as he forced himself inside. Adrian clutched onto the edge of the van floor near the door; there was a lip leading to a step. He could feel his knuckles going white as he held on. With each thrust he felt his body breaking, the wetness on his legs merely confirming that he could smell blood in the air.
‘What the fuck are you doing back there?’ the man in the driver’s seat shouted.
‘Just keep driving!’ Adrian heard the man shout, his spit landing on Adrian’s face. ‘I need to teach this pig a lesson.’
Sober enough, Adrian lay lifeless as the man continued, thrusting so hard it was pushing Adrian’s head into the back of the van’s front seats. He couldn’t fight back, couldn’t do anything. Even though it hurt a lot, that was nothing compared with the humiliation Adrian was feeling right now. He wished he was dead; Adrian had never wished that before, not really. He could never have imagined feeling that way until this moment. Not existing would be great right about now.
The man climbed off and lit a cigarette when he was done. Adrian was frozen still. He was cold and he could feel liquid on his skin at the top of his thighs; he didn’t know if it was blood or semen. For now, he had to concentrate on breathing. He pushed his tongue against the dry rag in his mouth until it was out. It was still dark and as long as Adrian didn’t make a sound, the man wouldn’t know the rag was gone.
Adrian sucked in the foul air as quietly as he could, still motionless and face down on the floor of the van. He heard a can open and the sound of the man drinking, the faintest smell of strong, cheap beer in the air. He wanted to leave, to get out and run, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything; he was completely immobile. Out of all his police training, nothing could have prepared him for this.
After what felt like an eternity, the man pulled Adrian by his ankles backwards, so his head wasn’t mashed into the front seats anymore.
‘Ready to go again?’
‘Please, don’t.’
Adrian choked on the words. The man probably didn’t hear him, not that it would have made a difference.
The man moved Adrian onto his side and reached between his legs. Adrian’s throat was sore. He hadn’t realised he was crying and trying to hold it back. He knew this wasn’t his fault, he knew it. He had said the same things a million times to victims who had recounted their attacks to him. He had been sympathetic and understanding. He thought he did understand. But right now, in this moment, he knew he didn’t have a clue.
He should fight back. He shouldn’t be aroused physically and even though he knew it was a physiological response, he was still disgusted with himself because he was hard. He tried to think about anything that would stop him from climaxing, but he couldn’t. He let out a cry as he finished.
‘You think you’re above it all, don’t you? Well, you’re not so clever now, are you?’ the man said right into his ear.
Adrian didn’t recognise his voice. How could Adrian have driven someone to this and have no idea who it was?
Adrian sobbed into floor of the van, the weight of the man on top of him restricting the amount of air he could take in. The man kept talking, but Adrian couldn’t hear him anymore. He just focused on not being here. Whatever was happening inside this van, it wasn’t happening to him. He lost all sense of time. He couldn’t tell if he had lost consciousness or not, but time seemed to be jumping forwards, as though he were blacking out in between.
The van kept moving and the man only seemed to stop to smoke. They drove through a few small towns; Adrian could tell by the way the van slowed sometimes and the streetlights were different. They paused at traffic lights and he wanted to make a move, do anything.
Paralysed with pain and fear, he just lay there. He hated himself for not moving. It was a small consolation knowing that the man clearly had no plans to kill him; though he wasn’t sure he wanted to live through this. Adrian knew from his years of experience working on the force that this was a life changer; there was no amount of counselling, no amount of therapy that would ever make him OK again. He would never be that same person he was a few hours ago – that Adrian was gone.
‘Where are you taking me?’ Adrian called, wondering what could possibly be next.
The man flipped him over. Adrian still couldn’t see his face. Nothing about him was familiar and it should have been – this was obviously personal.
The man put his dirty fingers in Adrian’s mouth as far as he could. Adrian gagged and threw up, his vomit spilling out from the sides of his mouth and down his cheeks onto the floor beneath him. He drew his knees up to try to shield himself as the occasional streetlight illuminated the inside of the van and he felt even more vulnerable than before.
The taste of vomit was sour and unpleasant. Adrian pushed as much from his mouth as he could, aware of the hand pushing on his neck. The regurgitated whisky and syrupy Coke had pooled under his head. He tried not to think about was happening inside the van. The man let go of Adrian’s throat and sat back, allowing Adrian to curl into a ball.
The man then left Adrian alone and after a few minutes, the van stopped. The door opened and the man jumped out before pulling Adrian out until his half-naked body smacked against the cold, hard concrete. He lay there for a moment, wondering what was next. The engine started and the van door slid shut before they pulled away. Adrian was alone again.
Silence descended. Adrian pulled on his trousers and looked around; it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the light. He looked up and saw the familiar sight of his front door. The man had dropped him to his house. They knew where he lived. Just like they had known where to grab him from and how they had known he was a police officer.
Bumping into them hadn’t been an accident. There was no way this was a random attack. His phone, keys and wallet were on the ground next to him. He grabbed them and got onto all fours before standing. He looked at the time on his phone: half past five in the morning. Stumbling over to the side of the road, he threw up into the drain before staggering towards the house. He negotiated the lock as quickly as his trembling hands would allow and almost fell inside, slamming the door behind him and curling into a ball again.