couldn't help it, shielding my eyes with my hand.
The voice spoke from the other side of the lights, mocking. “Ah, Charlie! Just in time. I do
The voice was undisguised and in a moment the tumblers of my mind turned, the lock shifted into perfect alignment, and the door swung open to reveal all the dark secrets that slithered inside.
“Hi Dave,” I said, admirably calm, coming further forwards. “What have you done with Clare?”
“Oh she's here,” he said, disembodied in the shadows. “I'm sure she'll be very relieved that you've come to give yourself up for her sake. Greater love hath no man – or no woman, in this case – than he will lay down his life for his friend. Isn't that the saying? Mind you, I thought there was something going on between you two the first time I saw you. I thought if I got lucky you might invite me to join in.”
I ignored the shudder of revulsion that twitched my shoulder blades. “Dream on, Dave,” I said, my voice thick with contempt. “That sort of thing only happens in the sick videos you used to hire out from Terry. Oh, I missed it at first. I was looking for DC, but he used to identify you by your job, not your initials, didn't he? Terry's client book was filled with references to DJ and I didn't spot it. I doubt the police will be so slow.”
He advanced then, jumped down off the stage with a supple agility that made the hairs rise on my arms. He had forsaken his polo-necked jumper in favour of a T-shirt. Where I expected to find the bruises round his neck from Marc's punishing grip, instead I saw two deep scratch marks, scabbing over. Oh Christ, Joy . . .
I'd missed that one, too.
He came towards me, menacing. I forced myself not to take a stance. I couldn't afford to provoke him without knowing where Clare was. What he'd done with her. To her.
Besides, gripped in his fist – his left fist, of course – was a survival knife with a metal-topped rubber handle, and a wicked eight-inch blade. I tried to avoid staring at it, but it pulled my gaze like a magnet.
“What's the fascination with me, Dave?”
“We're alike, you and me. Soul mates.” He circled me. “I saw the way you dealt with Susie – so casual, so easy. And when I saw you fight those two lads that night in the club I knew, then,” he purred. “I knew that you were just the same as me, Charlie. You had the power over them, and you revelled in it.”
I shook my head. “I did what was necessary, Dave, and I didn't enjoy it,” I stated calmly. I turned to glance at him. At him, not the knife. “You're forgetting a major difference between us. I didn't kill them. And I didn't rape them first.”
“You're a woman. Women are weak, stupid, vain,” he threw back at me. He paced then. Quick, short strides, agitated, speaking almost to himself. “They promise everything with their come-to-bed eyes and their come-on bodies. Dressed up like whores, most of them. I see them!”
He spun back to me, his eyes fired. “Every night, they come in here, flaunting themselves in front of me. Teasing. Look don't touch. They pretend they're going to come across, then they dance back out of reach. Make you beg for a touch, a taste. Well I wasn't going to let those little bitches taunt me any longer! I showed them who was in control!”
“So first you raped that young girl,” I said. “Then you decided she didn't light your fire, so you raped and killed Susie. What made you pick her out, hmm?”
He flushed, his cheekbones turning a dull red. “She led me on, let me down, and then told that bastard boyfriend of hers all about it,” he complained. “They were laughing at me!”
I remembered the insult Tony had thrown at Dave as Susie was dragged away.
“What's the matter, Dave, wasn't she very sympathetic when you couldn't get it up? Oh she probably promised you a quick one if you'd keep her winning the karaoke, but you couldn't do it without a fight, could you? So you waited until she'd been thrown out of the club and then you raped her instead. Nobody noticed you disappearing on your break, and you always changed clothes between sets anyway. It was the perfect opportunity. That was much more like it, wasn't it Dave?” I allowed a sneer to creep in. “Bit more of a thrill? Made you feel more of a man, did it?”
I saw his hand clench convulsively round the handle of the knife. Dare I push him any further? Oh, I dared!
“Joy put up more of a fight, didn't she, Dave? Caught you unawares, marked you, but even that wasn't enough was it? So then you came looking for me. Taking my voice changer threw me,” I admitted. “I thought the thugs had lifted it, that it could only be Angelo threatening me. I didn't realise it was a little runt like you.”
Stupidly, I'd missed the fact that Dave had been inside the flat the morning after Marc's boys had turned it over. I remembered his exaggerated surprise at the damage. He was over-reacting because he'd already seen it . . .
“You think it can't happen to you? Your over-confidence is your weakness,” he hissed. “I've watched you for a while, Charlie. You think you're equal to a man, but you never will be. Don't forget, I've had a private lesson. I know all about your feeble abilities. You're just like those other bitches, and you'll scream like them when I'm fucking you. You'll scream and you'll beg me to stop, just like the rest.”
“I wouldn't bet on it,” I said tautly.
“No? How about I just let you watch while I do your friend? She's a looker, all right. I bet she'll scream.”
I smothered my rising panic and shoved it viciously back down into the depths of my psyche. “That's always the way with you, isn't it, Dave? Taking the easy way out,” I taunted. “What challenge is Clare to you? She can't fight. There's nothing to stop you raping her, but I'm what you've really been after. Why waste time?”
“This – is – my – game!” Dave spelt out, face white with sudden fury. “We play it
I knew I'd gone too far. I backed down. “OK, Dave, whatever you say,” I murmured, holding my hands out, palms upwards, supplicant.
I didn't move while he stepped smoothly back into the shadows. He'd dropped all pretence now, and was moving like a pro, sure and economical. How could I have missed it before? I hadn't bothered to look beneath the surface veneer, to see past the mirage he'd created and I was kicking myself for it. How many times had people made that very same mistake with me? So often I'd almost come to rely on it as part of my camouflage.
When Dave reappeared, only moments later, it seemed, he was dragging Clare's weeping figure after him. I was horrified to see he'd bound her slim wrists together with one of the heavy duty plastic zip-ties he used to fasten his disco gear down. I knew that some police forces used them because the breaking point was phenomenal. It offered minimal chance of Clare being strong enough to force her way free.
When he reached the middle of the dance floor, Dave stopped and let Clare go. Without the support she collapsed, whimpering, cradling her wrists to her chest. The plastic had been snatched tight enough to dig cruelly through the skin. Now they left smears of blood on the front of her pale cream jumper.
Instinctively, my legs took me forwards. Dave stepped fluidly to the side, grabbed a handful of Clare's hair to yank her head up, and slid the blade of the knife under her delicate jaw. She went rigid, eyes wide with terror.
I froze, unable to take my eyes off the knife. Unable to move as Dave increased the pressure a fraction, so the razor-sharp edge just bit through the top layer of her skin and her blood began to weep down over the polished steel. I swallowed, my mouth abruptly arid, tongue swollen like a man too long in the desert.
Dave tutted, grinning. “Oh no, Charlie, not so fast,” he warned. “Your reflexes might be passable, but even you couldn't get over here before I'd given your friend a second mouth to feed. And you won't be able to save her afterwards, will you? Remember Joy?”
“So what happens now?” I asked, my voice a whisper.
“You strip,” Dave said. “Get rid of that leather jacket, for a start.”
I did as I was told without protest, dropping the offending piece of clothing onto the floor next to me. Stared at him. Tried not to concentrate on Clare's shock-glazed face.
“And the boots. Take them off.”
I bent to unfasten them, but as I did so I had a chance sighting of Dave easing the knife slightly away from Clare's throat, changing his grip.
It was a chance, a slim hope, but it was there. There was nothing else I could do but grab it with both hands
