After the Fire (42 page)

‘This is nice.’ I was striving to sound calm myself. It would unsettle him, I thought, if I wasn’t scared. ‘Not exactly your style, I’d have thought, but nice.’

‘It suits my purposes.’

‘A farm?’

‘It used to be a farm. There are no animals here any more.’ He shoved me forward, towards the upright chair that stood in the middle of the room. ‘Sit.’

I sat. He busied himself with more cable ties, passing them around my elbows and through the back of the chair so my arms were pulled back. It was agony.

‘Please. I can’t sit like this.’

He ignored me in favour of lighting the fire, fussing around with firelighters and kindling, poking at it as the flames sullenly refused to catch. The wood smoked and I coughed without meaning to, but I saw it irritate him. He gave up after a while, leaving the fire to its own devices, and disappeared into the small kitchen off the living room. He came back with a glass and a bottle of Scotch and sat on the sofa opposite me.

‘No thanks,’ I said.

‘It’s not for you.’ He poured himself a generous measure and knocked it back, hissing as it hit home.

‘Dutch courage?’ It sounded bitchy. Somehow I couldn’t stop myself from mocking him. It would have been so much more sensible to be pleasant.

‘Shut up.’ He poured more whisky into his glass and sat back, eyeing me. ‘What happened to your face?’

‘Don’t you know?’ I shook my head slowly. ‘You must be slipping.’

His mouth was tight with annoyance and he hid it behind the rim of the glass as he took a sip.

‘My turn for a question. What’s the plan?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The plan. You have a plan, I know that. Part one worked very well. You got me. So what’s part two?’

‘You’ll see.’ Another sip.

‘That’s just rude,’ I said. ‘Discourteous. You’re the one in charge, Chris. You’re the one who’s running this show. I just want to know what to expect.’

‘Patience.’ He was smirking now.

‘All right,’ I snapped. ‘Fine. If you don’t want to talk about that, we won’t talk about it. But since we’re here, face to face, after all this time, I would like to know one thing. You owe me that much.’

He laughed. ‘I don’t owe you shit.’

‘I disagree.’ I pulled my shoulders back, trying to get into a more comfortable position. ‘And it’s not a difficult question to answer, I think.’

‘All right. Ask.’

I looked at him levelly. ‘Why me? Setting aside for the moment that you’re insane, what is it about me that made you decide to ruin my life?’

‘Ruin your life?’ he repeated. ‘You’ve done that yourself, Maeve. I can’t say I’m impressed with the choices you’ve been making. I thought you’d try to trade up after the last one, but you just moved on to the nearest available cock, even if it happens to belong to your boss.’

‘Derwent?’ I laughed. ‘Yeah. That’s exactly what happened. But let me tell you, it’s worth it.’

‘I don’t want to hear it.’

‘Oh, you do. You can’t stop yourself.’ I smirked. ‘Do you know what I’ve discovered? It’s kind of a turn-on to think of you wanking yourself raw while we’re fucking.’

‘Stop,’ he said, violently, and I did, for a moment. Then I tried again.

‘Will you tell me why you’re doing this?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Bullshit. That’s not a good enough answer. You don’t go to these lengths and not know why.’

He started to smile. ‘I think you’ve just answered your own question. Look at you. You’re still fighting. You don’t ever give up. You don’t know how.’

It was true, I had to acknowledge. ‘It’s not in my nature.’

‘I like challenges, Maeve. I like to go places I’m not supposed to go. Hacking is the same kind of thrill. Breaking the unbreakable. Getting through whatever defences they think they have. Using their strengths against them. Getting my own way.’ He smiled and I felt a chill. ‘You’re the one thing I couldn’t crack, no matter how I tried. Anyone else would have broken a long time ago.’

‘I don’t know how,’ I said simply. ‘I don’t know what I would have to do to give in.’

‘You’re not scared of anything. I trapped you in the tower block and you got yourself out. The car – you didn’t give a shit about it. I was watching. You just called your boss, as if all you needed was a lift.’

‘It wasn’t my car,’ I said. I didn’t want to think about how scared he had made me. How unsettling it had been. How deeply shaken I had felt. If he thought I wasn’t afraid of him, I was happy to let him keep thinking it. ‘I knew it was your work too. You’re very predictable, Chris.’

He laughed, and there was something jittery about it. He was nervous. ‘You didn’t predict this.’

I shrugged. ‘I knew you’d come for me one day.’

Chris sipped his drink, smiling to himself. ‘I looked up your name, you know. Maeve. She was a great warrior queen of old Ireland. Your parents named you well.’

I snorted. ‘I hate to break it to you but I was named after my granny. She kept chickens and she made bread every day and prayed a decade of the rosary every time she had a spare five minutes and her house always smelled of soup. She was a lovely person but she was no warrior queen, mate.’

He looked discomfited. ‘It’s appropriate. That’s all.’

‘You’re right, though. Names can be revealing,’ I said, relenting. ‘Especially the names we choose for ourselves.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Aktaion.’ I let the word hang in the air for a second and I saw him react, his pupils widening in shock. ‘I’ve been finding out more about you, too. I looked it up – the name you called yourself. It’s from Greek mythology. He was the hunter who saw Artemis bathing, wasn’t he?’

A nod.

‘That’s how you see yourself. A brave hunter. And you like to look, especially if you can get away without being seen. The women you raped didn’t even know you’d done it. You drugged them. They weren’t awake while you used their bodies. They were barely alive.’ I frowned. ‘And I’m sorry if I don’t see the challenge there.’

‘I didn’t want to hurt anyone.’

Didn’t
. Past tense. We’d come a long way from that, I realised.

‘You didn’t want to get caught.’

‘I liked being in control. I liked being able to do what I wanted without asking permission. I liked not having to beg.’ He sneered. ‘You women. You’re all the same. You moan and you complain and you demand. You spend your lives making us crawl to you, as if you’re something special.’

‘I’m sorry. Were you saying something? All I could hear was a high-pitched whine.’

His face darkened. ‘Someone in your position shouldn’t try to make me angry.’

‘I’ve never tried to have any effect on you at all,’ I said quietly.

He sat and sipped his drink, glaring at me.

‘Do you know what I think? I think you did those things because you don’t believe that anyone could ever love you. You don’t believe that anyone would want to be with you because of who you are.’

He snorted. ‘Great. Psychoanalysis.’

‘Far from it. Common sense.’ I smiled. ‘Do you know what people really think of you? They worship you. You’re the high priest of this weird little world of yours. If you want love, you just have to show your face online.’

His jaw clenched. ‘What do you know about my world?’

‘I made it my business to find out about it. About you. About what you set in motion. If you’re staring at me, you have to expect me to look back.’

‘And what did you find out?’

‘It’s shady, isn’t it? The secret side of the internet. Selling drugs and weapons and information. Hacking and hiding in the name of freedom.’ I shook my head. ‘It doesn’t contribute anything useful to society. It allows people to indulge their secret obsessions. Things they’d never admit in the cold light of day. People like you pretend it’s all right to abandon morality, as if you’re flying a flag for something bigger than yourselves. Freedom of speech. Freedom to behave however you like. It’s childish, Chris. It doesn’t impress me. And that’s before you even start thinking about the pornography. I’ve looked at the images. I’ve seen more than my share of kids being hurt. Women being tortured. Animals. It gets more and more extreme, doesn’t it? What was once shocking becomes mundane. You want to see more. You want to be shocked. You want to be thrilled. And it’s all secret. No one will ever find out.’ I stared him down. ‘You’re harming people.
You
. You might not be in the room with them but you are a part of the process that put them there. You’re the one who makes it worthwhile to rape and kill little kids.’

‘On the contrary. My websites provide a safe space. They allow people to explore their darker desires safely. It takes away their need to experiment in real life. The images you’ve seen – most of them were made years ago. The same ones do the rounds over and over again. Those kids are grown up by now, or long gone. It’s over. There’s no one to rescue. There’s no one to blame any more.’

‘Is that how you make peace with yourself?’

‘I don’t have to. I don’t need to argue with you about it.’ He tilted his glass to finish his drink, then set the glass down on the table. ‘I’m glad we had this chat. It’s been very interesting. I wish we could spend longer talking.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ I said drily.

‘You’re going into the other room.’

I felt a chill ghost over me. ‘What’s in the other room?’

Instead of answering me, he smiled, and stood up.

Fuck
. I felt the adrenalin begin to hum in my body, uselessly. He took out a box-cutter, a sharp little thing that sliced through the cable ties around my elbows without difficulty. I gasped with relief as the tension across my chest and shoulders eased. He hauled me to my feet, keeping a tight grip on me. I wavered, off balance, weak as a kitten.

‘Walk.’

‘Where? Which way?’ I looked down at him – I couldn’t help that since I was taller than him, but I could have avoided looking haughty about it and I didn’t bother. ‘If you’re going to order me around you could make more of an effort to be clear about what you want.’

He shoved me away from him so I stumbled and almost fell. ‘What I want’ – he pushed me again – ‘is for you to go into that room.’

I went. At least, I limped as far as the doorway. He had put the light on and I saw the set-up straight away: the bed, mainly, and the restraints that hung from the bedposts and the things he was planning to use on me and the cameras to record it all, so he could play it again and again. So he could share what he did across the world and get the praise he craved.

‘You’re going to wish I’d drugged you,’ he said in my ear. His breath tickled my neck. ‘You’re going to beg me to knock you out. Then you’re going to beg me to put you out of your misery. When I kill you you’ll be glad to go.’

‘Chris …’ I felt the panic start to hit me, the almost uncontrollable urge to run. I backed away from the room and collided with Swain. I shrank away, catching my breath, as if I’d touched something white-hot.

‘I don’t know if this can possibly live up to the anticipation,’ Swain hissed, ‘but let me tell you this: even if it’s only half as good as what I’ve imagined, it’ll be worth it. I’ve been watching you for years and I have planned every second of what’s about to happen to you and I am going to take my time.’ He spaced out the last three words.
Take. My. Time
.

I pivoted on the leg I’d pretended to injure and kicked him as hard as I could on the knee. I could have wished for heavy boots for some added heft but he wasn’t a natural fighter and he wasn’t expecting it and I could see it hurt. He fell back, shocked. I didn’t waste any time following up my kick because I would lose a fight, sooner or later, and losing wasn’t an option. I plunged past him into the sitting room, and I didn’t have time to make for the door. He’d recovered too quickly, jumping in front of it, blocking my exit. I backed away, towards the fireplace.

‘No you don’t, you little bitch. You’re not getting out of here. This is the end of the road.’

‘I couldn’t agree more.’ I bent and picked up the poker, weighing it in my hands.
Never cuff anyone in front
. Derwent had been right about that. ‘As if I was just going to run away after all you’ve done to me.’

For the first time I could see doubt in his face.

‘What did you say? “Even if it’s only half as good as what I’ve imagined, it’ll be worth it.”’ I lifted the poker and looked at it, then at him. ‘That’s pretty much how I feel too.’

‘What do you mean?’

I took two steps forward and swung the poker with as much force as I could, hitting him in the left arm. There was a horrible crack as his humerus broke, and he cried out, his eyes wide with pain.

‘When are you going to work it out?’ I smiled at him sweetly. ‘You’re not in charge here. You never have been.’

And the door opened behind him.

‘
WHAT TOOK YOU
so long?’ I demanded.

Derwent was breathing hard, as if he’d had to run, and his shoes were coated in mud. ‘Couldn’t make it up the lane. The car got stuck.’

‘How annoying.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Derwent turned and eyed Chris Swain, who was edging away from him. He was holding his arm, and he was white with pain. ‘Where are you going?’ Derwent asked, interested.

‘Nowhere.’

‘What happened to your arm, fella?’

‘I did it.’ I waved the poker apologetically. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

‘Kerrigan.’ Derwent’s voice was gravelly with amusement. ‘I didn’t know you had it in you.’

‘It’s surprising what you can do when you try.’ I nodded at Swain. ‘He’s got a box-cutter.’

He was trying to get it out of his pocket as I said it, his fingers trembling.

‘I’d better take that,’ Derwent said, and did, easily. He made Swain look small. All of Swain’s toughness had faded away. It had been a pure illusion and I thought the person who had been most taken in by it was Swain himself. ‘We haven’t been introduced, have we? I’m Josh Derwent and you’re a piece of shit.’

‘Look,’ Chris said, passing his tongue over dry lips. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘
Now
you’re sorry. Now that
he
turns up.’ I shook my head. ‘That’s sexist.’