Chapter 9

It took a few days for Pembroke to take down notes from Dilan’s story of her childhood until she got to Willowbridge. Copious wine, keeping her awake and much prodding had extracted all the juicy details. The reminisces about her sex life with her mother in the Raqqa brothel had sent blood rushing to his penis but he listened respectfully. Dilan really loved her mother and he realised that in this place, there was no reason for her to feel ashamed. Perhaps she was frightened she would forget and wanted the details written down.

The story was a much more sombre than her time in the UK. Pembroke had not had sex with her in the last 48 hours and had allowed to put on more modest pyjama shorts and t shirt during her narration.

“Well your journey is over for now, Dilan. From what you said, your madam Teta sounded rather like ... me. You don’t sound like you disliked her did you? And she kept you prisoner?”

“No sir, I think we were safe when we were with her but we couldn’t have lived like that forever, we did always want to be free...”

“Did you really? People tell us we have to be free but most of us don’t really want that. They want to be told what to do, they want to feel safe. You are safe with me, and after everything we have done together, there will be no surprises going forwards...”

Inwardly Dilan wondered if she could accept this life. She had gotten over the vomit inducing revulsion she had initially felt towards Pembroke and could now almost bear him physically, and being on her own for 20 hours a day did not feel so bad. She worried about the future however.

Pembroke felt sorry for her mother now, in a way he had not for Kelper or Abdul or even Dilan herself. He felt like was letting the side down after they had trusted the UK so much, that he, a proud Englishman had just gone and kidnapped her daughter.

1^st January

During the last few days, Pembroke had been able to test Dilan for various STDs with DIY tests. The scariest one was the HIV test. A thumb prick and a test result within two minutes, which felt too easy given the life altering possibilities. In the end, Dilan passed all the tests with flying colours. She had begun taking her oral contraceptives now, and so Pembroke began preparing to take her “virginity”. He groomed himself as best he could. He picked out a little red dress and red underwear with little black shoes. They had come from China, and he was a little disappointed with the effect. The dress was not as tight as he hoped and was actually quite long. But otherwise she had done her hair in his presence, with some make up, and they had a “date” of a simple meal of fish and beetroot. Pembroke had chosen the foods for their sexual imagery which he had read somewhere.

Dilan was quiet and respectful as she had been for the last few days. She knew this was coming, and was resigned to it. She did not want to say that Pembroke’s penis didn’t particularly frighten her as it was far from the biggest she had dealt with in her young life. Abdul’s had been over eight inches and had actually hurt much of the time. For Dilan, this was just another notch on her way to an uncertain future. Although she wanted out, part of her wanted to just fast forward her childhood. She still imagined she would spend her childhood here and at eighteen she could come out and live free as an adult.

Pembroke made love as romantically as he thought possible after relieving Dilan of every item of clothing. Cuddling for half an hour eventually made him hard again and this time he felt in a rougher friend of mind as he took her anally from behind. This time Dilan screamed. “Bite the pillow” he ordered, as he spanked her as hard as he could, the animal from within coming out. Looking down at the little perfectly formed package of flesh and bones, he thanked providence for giving him absolute power over this living thing and congratulated himself on getting something all men wanted but none had the balls to go out and get.

January 3^rd. After what seemed an age, it was Pembroke’s first day back at school. The last time had sat in the classroom, his dream of having a teenage prisoner was just that, and his basement had been a fantasy project. Dilan had been underground since then, without any sign of being missed or being search for.

After a few days, it began to be commented on by pupils and other teachers that Dilan had not come back after term. Yet there did not seem to be much concern. She had done this before and it seemed that with the migrant kids they were prepared to tolerate a few weeks off here and there.

Fiona Monaghan had not heard from Dilan for over a week now and was growing worried, but not for Dilan. She had quit fostering but was being interviewed about the kids in her care, and was being asked about Dilan’s whereabouts. Her comments about Dilan having disappeared before to Manchester to see her family seemed to be taken at face value, but if she never resurfaced, it might reflect badly on her.

Abdul missed Dilan, and had been furious with her for tricking him into stealing back her belongings. He had assumed that someone, either that man in the blue raincoat or someone else, had helped her. He had looked official and Abdul was too worried to report it to police. He had committed many illegal things with and without Dilan. He had to assume that Dilan had disappeared because she wanted rid of him and just accepted that.

Dilan had few female friends and a few had grown concerned that she had stopped returning messages. However the news that she had since “robbed” Abdul and left him angry, led people to believe that she was escaping an abusive boyfriend and wanted a fresh start. Few knew her well enough to want to disturb her by tracking her down.

Her uncle Mohammed had messaged her merry Christmas and had since seen she had read the message but had not responded. He had liked Dilan but knew she did not trust him. He had thought that her mother had finally arrived in the UK, which he believed to be inevitable, and he had expected that she would order Dilan to cut off all contact with him. He had not heard from Yasmin since their angry phone call six months ago.

Pembroke took a maths class that Dilan had previously attended, and went through the motions of calling names in the roll call and got to ‘Dilan Barzini.’ “She ain’t coming back, she’s gone back to manage her uncle’s camels” shouted one boy from the back and there was sniggering. It caused some racial aggravation with a brown skinned boy shouting back. Pembroke calmed them down. It seemed clear no one really cared where she was though he guessed some of the boys must have a crush on her.

Lucy Gibbons was trouble as always. “Sir what did you get up to over Christmas.” Pembroke replied that he had done some maths and watched the great escape. “I always wonder what old men get up to on holidays, gives me the creeps it does...” she said a little more quietly. Another allusion to him being a weird paedophile. “Lucy settle down” he said. He walked over to her. “Perhaps you would care to take you and your tiresome ways out of the class and let everyone else study?” he said menacingly. To his surprise, she shut up.

Pembroke did not get the insult out of his head. That evening, he had Dilan dress up in the school uniform, had her lie down on her back, and after taking all his clothes off squatted down on her face while he ran his hands over the material, and his hands up and down her skirt. He imagined manhandling Lucy Gibbons like this, which was easier as the head of the prone school girl underneath him was obscured by being sat on. Dilan licked at his bumhole while hearing about what Pembroke wanted to do to Lucy Gibbons. Part of Dilan felt terrified that he might bring Lucy down here as her co-prisoner. Pembroke was however content with just imagining Lucy’s tongue being forced into his asshole as he could rough her up humiliatingly. He savoured the experience and kept it in his head when he next had to teach Lucy.

His sexual appetite was well sated by fucking Dilan while wearing her uniform, and he found he was more comfortable around the girls at school knowing that he could have access to a body just as beautiful as they best of them, any time he wanted. His classes grew more respectful, and he even started noticeably losing weight and looking fitter.

Meanwhile, Ronald Kelper had grown used to the ever present stress of waiting for disaster. He had started drinking during the day to blot out the pain. He could not see any way out of this situation, his blackmailer was unknown and could be a gang of 12 people for all he knew. Suicide still seemed a viable option, but a deeper fear was that his family would find out anyway. Even though he did not believe in the afterlife, he hated the thought that his family would never forgive him this sin even in death or even if they did see him again in the next world. He had thought of admitting everything to the police to see what they could do to keep the information out of his family’s knowledge. He actually had not done anything so bad that admitting it would mean a long prison sentence, though the video evidence omitted that he had walked out before anything had gotten serious. He realised they may never believe he had not had full sex with the girl in the video.

He even thought of killing his wife and daughters with him. Darker thoughts sometimes intervened and as they sat at dinner, he also thought he could rape both of his daughters before killing them. He still could not let go of the fact that he had not actually gone through with any of his base desires that were going to get him in the end anyway.

Things were brought into focus in late January. Abdul had started running low on cash. He also suspected that Kelper may have been the man in the blue raincoat, or may have caused Dilan to disappear. Kelper knew who she was, he had known her name and school. While both could have been fake, had he checked them out, he might have found a real Dilan at that school that looked just like her. He also knew the hotel room, and seemed to have had a connection with Dilan.

The more he thought about it and the longer that Dilan stayed away, the more he convinced himself that Kelper was almost certainly the man in the blue raincoat, with a fake moustache, and that unless Dilan had the wherewithal to stay hidden from all her contacts, she must have either been killed or was living with someone.

In any event, he could still blackmail Kelper. He sent him a message. “Have you heard from Dilan you dirty old man? By the way, can I borrow five grand? Thanks.”

Ronald Kelper got the message while drunk in his car parked outside his house. He responded. “We’re even, I am skint.” It was hopeful and it didn’t’ work.

“I am being reasonable. Five grand is half it was last time. Just send it to me and tell me what is up with Dilan, where is she.”

Kelper recovered his composure and texted back “Leave it with me will respond soon.”

He sobered up in his house and went straight to bed. He wished he could sleep and never wake up. His wife questioned his drinking and they had a huge argument the next morning. Kelper left to go to work, and began thinking more clearly. Dilan must have taken his advice and left this thug behind. Maybe it was just the one guy he had spoken to in the hotel? Was he desperate to know where Dilan was?

Kelper realised he had one slim lifeline he had to grab onto. He texted the next day. “I want to meet you in person, and tell you about Dilan. She wants to meet you too. I will bring the cash.”

Excited, Kelper whizzed through work, and could barely eat his dinner while waiting for a response.

“OK, what about your hospital.” Kelper thought hard and replied “OK” and then they arranged some more.

It was now over a month since Dilan’s disappearance. Her absence from school was finally becoming a problem for the school and Fiona Monaghan. One social worker finally took an interest and got herself involved. The entire handling of the migrants in Willowbridge was also under focus. Other migrants were tracked down with some investigation. One fourteen year old was found living with her family in Newcastle having been absent from school for months with no one checking on her. Braving accusations of racism, the local press became more vocal about the hotels and the chaos that been caused since the summer. Some migrants were relocated to bigger cities.

Dilan herself could not be found. Her uncle Mohammed maintained he had not seen her since October and was shocked when he was told that Dilan’s mother had been missing presumed dead for well over six months.

It was 30^th January. Ronald Kelper had come into work as usual but had an afternoon off booked. Abdul walked into the hospital, feeling safe. He knew he had nothing to fear from the authorities and that Kelper could not do anything in his own workplace.

He knocked on Kelper’s office and Kelper opened it for him. They stared icily at each other.

“So, its you...”

“Who did you think it is. I’m not alone you know...”

“Who else is here?”

“We are part of an organisation. Listen we take a bit of the top, so your wife won’t even know its missing, just think of it like missing a pay rise, I know you get paid a lot...”

“I can’t live life this, I didn’t even do anything.”

“Oh yeah? Where is she, she’s vanished off the face of the earth, man.”

“What if I told you I can get her for you if you promise to give me all the copies.”

“Yeah, I can promise you that...”

Kelper paused, and in the silence listened for anyone walking outside the door of the room. Suddenly, he picked up what looked like a phone, and fired a taser directly at Abdul’s chest. Abdul jostled in his chair but could not move. Quickly, Kelper grabbed a hidden needle of profinil and ketamine, and injected it into his neck. Abdul slumped down in the chair, unconscious. He locked the door from the inside and prayed no one had heard anything.

Breathing heavily while trying to compose himself, he brought out a bag, and used zip ties to tie Abdul’s hands and legs together. He then took out his phone and frisked him. He brought out several rolls of masking tape and swathed his body in the same. A gag was placed in his mouth, and he placed him on a small table. On the top of the table was a set of medical equipment. Using a long cloth to cover the whole table, he placed the drugged, trussed up Abdul underneath the table top on the bottom rung of the table. He wheeled the unconscious Abdul out of the room and through a busy corridor full of people. He dreaded listening for a cry from Abdul, or some thrashing, which would give the game away, but nothing came.

He brought Abdul into a part of the hospital which was unoccupied. He had been able to lock it down, and used to carry out an impromptu interrogation of Abdul. Using a further cocktail of drugs, he was able to experiment with things he had only read about. He effectively administered a truth serum into Abdul which coupled with the taser, the propofil and the ketamine made him dangerously close to death.

Kelper, with some patience, gathered that Dilan really had disappeared. That only he and “Jacko” were in on the blackmail, and that the damaging material was only kept by Dilan, Jacko and himself. Kelper thought calmly about a possible solution. He had, for months now, resigned himself to suicide and possible murder of his own family. He had no compunction now about killing Abdul, who had ruined Kelper’s life so that he could get a little money for drugs women and cars. He also really wanted to kill Jacko.

He realised he had very little hope of tracking Dilan down, unless she ever got in touch with him though he thought she wanted no part of it, at least from what he had gathered from Abdul’s drugged state. Though if he to, or even if had the opportunity, he would kill her as well, in fact he would rape her properly this time, he grimly pledged.

He had no way of getting to their devices, he despaired. There was no way he could guarantee that all traces of the video had left this earth. The best he could do would be to eliminate the blackmailers which would at least bring him pre-emptive vengeance. While Abdul was slurring in front of him, he checked the details of “Jacko” aka Mr Jackson Mertle. He worked in IT support and apparently had a girlfriend and two kids.

Kelper resolved to handle Mr Mertle as soon as possible. He now knew that he and Abdul were not close and had not spoken in weeks. After getting all the information he could and checking for discrepancies, he congratulated himself. Even the best torturer could take notes from him. He wished he could write this up as the most effective truth telling agent known to man.

His next steps were particularly evil. He planned a recreational drug overdose for Abdul, who had a fondness for ketamine among other drugs. The room was now littered with empty plastic packages, discarded drip feeds, and fluid. He engineered a drug overdose, which he calculated would not kill him but leave him brain damaged. Thus avoiding “suspicious death” but taking Abdul out of the equation, forever. The still restrained Abdul could barely mutter anything, and only fluttered his eyelids as Kelper care. He carefully injected the last does into his arm. Kelper looked with righteous anger at Abdul as his eyes rose up and then closed. He had no pity for this brute who had done nothing but ruin lives.

He cleared everything up and put all the detritus of his horrific experiment on top of the table he wheeled out and along the corridor. The comatose body of Abdul was hidden underneath the cover. He smiled at the nurses - “Just checking the kits” he smirked. What he was doing was irregular, but nobody would question it. He could only hope no one would ever be so diligent as to look for Abdul going into the hospital and then look for him not coming out.

In his office, he put Abdul into a large hold all, and wheeled him out. He had hired a moped and after putting on some leathers on Abdul, he tied his alive but unconscious body around him, and drove off. In the darkness, both in helmets, they looked to all the world like a couple on a motorcycle. In a pre determined spot, outside a small alleyway he stopped, dismounted, took off the jacket and helmet of Abdul, and dragged him next to some bins. He took out some needles and put them in his hand. He slinked away and drove off.

Abdul was found asleep the next day. People stepped over him and ignored him until someone eventually called for an ambulance. He was treated in A and E, and treated as a drug overdose. He was stable but critical and the brain damage worried the doctors into thinking he would never wake up.

Eleven days after Abdul’s overdose, Jackson Mertle was walking his dogs in his morning routine, unaware that he was being watched from a parked car. Ronald Kelper had become akin to an assassin the past few days, a man on a mission. After discovering Mertle’s routine, he had begun watching him every morning before going on his work shift. Today he had taken the morning off. He put on a jogging tracksuit and began a strategically timed run.

The park had no cameras within it, and Mertle’s walk took him over a small bridge over a shallow pond. Kelper had his taser ready, along with a cocktail of drugs. He met Mertle over the bridge, looked ahead, then quickly looked behind. He saw with dismay an elderly woman had just appeared. He cursed, passed Mertle, ran a bit longer, and then waited. The elderly woman was taking ages to get out of the way.

He cursed. He could try another time, though unless he took a another holiday, he would be late for work by a crucial fifteen minutes which was impossible unless Mertle took his walk earlier. The old lady passed by. Kelper, took a long look around, and narrowed his eyes on the figure of Mertle, still walking nonchalantly alongside his dog.

Kelper began running after Mertle, he looked all around again, and still Mertle did not turn around. He pointed the taser directly at his back and fired. Mertle collapsed in a heap. Next, was a true test of Kelper’s determination and adrenalin. He picked up the heavy Mertle, and began to carry him back towards the bridge. He was able to check around, nobody had seen him, and nobody was coming. He fought with all his might but he got him there. His dog barked at him the whole way. Finally at the bridge, he set him down, took his shoe and sock off, and administered a drug under his toenail. His dog kept barking at him. Kelper prayed nobody would come too soon. He put Mertle’s shoe back on and watched him convulse. Then, he heaved him over into the shallow water. Mertle fell in and floated up head first. Kelper looked around. Perfect, but the fucking dog! He decided he would stay, if anyone came, he could claim to have just happened on the scene. He did realise that Mertle had not seen him and if he was rescued he would not be able to identify him other than as a good Samaritan. However he may well recognise him from the video and put two and two together. The drug may induce a heart attack and its effect with the cold water may already have killed him. He agonised listening to the dogs incessant barking. He had completely discounted it and had relied on Mertle’s death being quiet and unseen for the time it would take him to get to his car and drive off.

Eventually he lost his nerve, ran off and got in his car and drove to his workplace. Even on his day off, he still wanted to finish things off, he told colleagues. He was able to take a quick check on Abdul. He was on life support and a decision was going to have to be made soon as to whether to turn off his life support.

Later that evening, he heard a news item about a man in Willowsbridge who had died in an accident in a pond in a park. The next day the news covered the story of Jackson “Jacko” Mertle, a popular young man who had drowned in tragic circumstances. It was believed he had gone in to rescue his dog, and the shock of the cold water, or a slip in the water, had given him a heart attack and drowning had finished him off, according to his twitter. He scoffed at the medical twitterbots, but noted with relish that his tormentors were now gone.

As February grew to a close, Pembroke was settling in nicely into this routine. He woke up every morning at 6am to watch Dilan, he would shower and ready himself and go down and perform exercises. As an example, today, Dilan would be instructed to change into a pair of navy gym pants and sports bra and socks. This matched an outfit Pembroke had seen on instagram which had sent his heart racing.

Dilan was instructed to perform 100 half push-ups, 100 star jumps, 100 squats and 100 crunches. Pembroke stood over her with a pad with button in his hand. On her neck, he placed a shock collar on Dilan. “Now Dilan, this is for your own good. Let’s get through this.” He was generous and allowed her time to recover between bursts of repetitions, but if he spotted slackness he would press it and induce a shout of pain from Dilan. This was followed up by downward dog during which he pawed over her bum as she patiently maintained he position.

“Excellent, now get some water, and let’s do some oral sex training. I want your top off for this one.”