Ricky Webb slowly opened his eyes. Where the hell was he? He tried to move, and found that he was bound hand and foot, strapped to a chair with thick bands of duct tape.
He looked around – he was in an old shed or barn or some sort. There was straw on the dirty concrete floor and a single bare light bulb hanging overhead casting deep shadows to the far corners of the room.
Ricky turned his head – he could hear some movement behind him.
‘Hey! Anybody there?’
Footsteps approached from behind his back, a shadow passed across and a tall figure stood before him. Ricky looked up. The man was slim, with glasses and dyed jet-black hair, his skin scarily white, as if he were wearing make-up or something. ‘Why the fuck have you got me tied up here?’ Ricky raged. ‘Let me go, arsehole. I’ll fucking get you for this!’
Luke considered him carefully. ‘That’s hardly an incentive to let you go, is it?’
Ricky seemed to think about this for a moment. ‘All right – let me go, and I’ll just walk away, won’t say nothing, won’t tell anyone.’ He looked up, pleading. ‘Deal?’
‘No deal.’ Luke pulled up a chair and sat down facing Ricky. ‘I brought you here for a reason. Can you guess what that might be?’
Ricky shrugged. ‘You fancied me? You could have just asked me for a date.’ He couldn’t keep his cockiness from his voice.
‘You really are a despicable little worm, aren’t you? A pampered posh git trying to sound like a hard man.’
The obvious menace in the cold tones of his voice chilled Ricky. He said nothing, and waited for him to continue.
‘You spent eighteen months inside for raping a teenage girl. You think spending a paltry few months in prison constitutes justice?’
Ricky looked back at him, belligerent. ‘What the hell is this? Do you think you’re some kind of caped vigilante, is that it? Ha, you need to put your underwear on over your tights to do that.’ He laughed nastily. ‘Anyway, what’s it to you if I got my leg over with some tramp?’
Luke’s dark gaze bored into Ricky while he struggled to contain his fury. ‘That ... girl,’ he said, emphasizing the correction, ‘was my sister.’
Ricky couldn’t maintain eye contact as the full impact of his situation suddenly struck him. ‘Look, I’m sorry, right?’ he blustered. ‘I didn’t mean to do anything, you know, we were just messing around and things got a bit out of hand.’
Luke stood up so suddenly that his chair flew across the floor. ‘An accident? An accident?’ He suddenly flicked out an arm, smashed the back of his hand across Ricky’s right cheek. ‘The police said you violated her at least three times!’ His hand slammed against the other side of Ricky’s face. ‘You beat her, left her on the side of the road – and you say that was a fucking accident?’ He smashed his fist into Ricky’s face again and pulled it back – his knuckles were cut and bleeding.
Ricky slumped against the chair and felt around his mouth with his tongue – two teeth were gone. He could feel them rolling round in his cheeks.
‘I didn’t mean to. Like I said, things just got out of hand. She threatened me ... clawed at me I just lost it, man, you know how it is.’
He spat out a gobbet of blood and broken teeth, and looked up at Luke, who stood over him, breathing hard.
‘No I don’t.’ Suddenly Luke turned and marched behind Ricky, out of his sight. Ricky strained at his bindings; desperate to keep an eye on what was going on. Bad as it was getting a beating, at least he could see him.
‘Where are you?’ he pleaded. ‘What are you doing?’
There was no reply.
He squirmed, strained in his chair. ‘We can work something out, right? I said I was sorry, didn’t I?’
He could hear Luke moving around.
‘I’m different now – I’ve been inside, done my time – I’m rehabilitated – that’s what the parole board said.’ He turned his head from side to side, desperate to see what the other man was doing.
‘Rehabilitated? Different?’ Luke’s voice was venomous. ‘You forget that last night I caught you about to commit the same act. You’d been out only a few hours.’
‘What? No way!’ Ricky turned his head as far as it would go and could just see some movement in his peripheral vision. ‘That girl wanted it, was gagging for it!’
‘Liar.’
Something hard caught Ricky across the back of the head and sent him sprawling across the floor, still strapped to the chair. He landed hard, his world spinning. He felt a wave of nausea, closed his eyes, and passed into black.
‘Wake up!’
Ricky spluttered, and blinked. A wave of cold water soaked him. He opened his eyes, to see the weird-looking guy standing over him, a plastic bucket in his hand.
‘This is no time to sleep. You’ve got work to do,’ Luke bent over and, with strong hands, hauled Ricky and the chair back upright.
Ricky shook the water from his eyes, and blinked hard against the glare. There was a spotlight trained on him, a video camera on a tripod set up facing him. He looked up, confused. ‘What’s this?’
Luke wiped his face with a rough cloth. ‘Your last chance.’
‘Chance?’ He grasped at the faint tinge of hope. ‘What do I have to do?’
Luke stepped over to the camera. A small red light blinked as he turned it on. ‘This is your last chance for a confession.’
Ricky could see his face, half hidden in the shadows behind the camera. ‘What ... what am I supposed to say? Just tell me – I’ll do it.’
Luke smiled. ‘Of course you will. You are going to confess to your crimes – all of them.’
Ricky screwed up his eyes against the glare of the light. ‘All of them?’
‘My sister wasn’t the only one, nor the first, was she?’
Ricky’s body shook. He wouldn’t meet Luke’s gaze. ‘I don’t know what—’
‘Be a man and tell the truth for once in your sorry life. Your daddy isn’t here to bail you out now. Tell me about them – all of them.’
Ricky was thinking over his options. ‘And if I do ... if I do exactly what you say ... will you let me go free?’
Luke gazed back at him, his dark eyes unblinking. ‘Maybe ...’