through every painful swipe
and had experienced the deep stretching and tearing of her insides
afresh, as memories of her own capture had revisited her while
she’d listened to it happening to this girl.
But she questioned why this girl hadn’t had
the usual initiation? The one, she and all of the other girls had
suffered. Was she someone special?
Usually, after the Unicorn was done, ten or
more would take their perverted pleasure before the girl would be
taken to one of the houses to recover. But then, most of the girls
didn’t get the so called "privilege" of being fucked by the
Unicorn. Did he intend to keep this one for himself, as she herself
was kept?
Recovery meant a steady stream of drugs
starting with cannabis and working up to heroin. Beatings around
the body area ensured submission, until hooked on the substances,
the girls resisted no more and worked hard to earn their fix.
Escape was impossible. Death was the only
release from the grip of the Unicorn.
Sasha’s survival instinct had her hoping the
Unicorn did intend to have the girl take her place. Keeping the man
satisfied took all her time. Time, even knowing the risks, she
could spend planning her escape.
A choking sound pulled her back from her
thoughts. She peeped out. The girl had come round and had vomited.
One of the thugs kicked her in the stomach. Her pitiful cry no
louder than that of a baby, ripped through Sasha’s heart, the poor
girl did not know what real suffering was. Not yet, but she
would…
Chapter Sixteen.
‘ Lorne, it’s Tony Warner,
how are things going your end?’
‘ Not good. I’m not in charge
of the case anymore, I…’
‘ How come? Has something
happened that I should be aware of?’
‘ I thought the Chief would
have rung you. It’s my daughter…’
She started to tell him what had happened,
but didn’t get past saying the Unicorn had Charlie…
‘ WHAT? When? How? Do you
know where he’s holding her? Why in God’s name didn’t you ring me
straight away?’
‘ Whoa, hang on a minute.
Tell me, did you learn your interrogation technique from the
Gestapo?’
‘ Sorry, Lorne, I seem to be
saying that a lot to you today, don’t I?’
‘ Right, let’s go through the
answers one by one, shall we?’ She ran through the incidents as
they had happened, finishing by telling him about the arrest of
Crane and that the DCI had taken over the case…
‘ This DCI, he’s all right,
is he?’
‘ Cards on the table, I’m not
going to lie to you, we’ve had our ups and downs in the past,’ she
allowed herself a wry smile at this pun, but wasn’t about to share
with him any historical details of her relationship with the DCI.
‘However, all has been well lately. Yeah, he’s a good man, Tony,
but before you rush off to phone him, what did you ring about? I’m
still keeping a finger in the pie as you can imagine.’
‘ Yes, well, look, I didn’t
say, but I’m sorry about what is going on. Try not to worry, we’ll
get the bastard…Look, a mate of mine in MI5 sent me what they have
on this Abromovski. He’s been a very naughty boy in the last few
months. I told you before, how he kept meeting up with this guy we
presume to be The Unicorn? Well, that’s not all they know about
him. It looks like he’s been supplying terrorists based in this
country with explosives and arms!’
‘ That ties in with our
Unicorn theory then, and gives us a reason for the link between the
two.’
‘ Yes, the information is
these are British born Muslims intent on tearing this country
apart. We believe them to be responsible for the riots in Bradford
a couple of years ago. And the general suspicion is that Abromovski
supplied the explosives used by the terrorists in the 7/7 bombings.
There’s no hard factual evidence, but you were right to suspect the
terrorist link.’
‘ But, it still begs the
question, what the hell is a Russian hoping to achieve by supplying
Islamic extremists with ammunition?’
The
Elizabeth Lister
Regina Jeffers
Andrew Towning
Jo Whittemore
Scott La Counte
Leighann Dobbs
Krista Lakes
Denzil Meyrick
Ashley Johnson
John Birmingham