Chapter 57

“Daddy, are you sure Darya is OK in there?”

Pembroke was lying in bed in the middle of the basement with Sophie lying on top of him in post-coital bliss. With his hand resting casually behind his head, he revelled in the sensation of Sophie’s warmth against his chest.

His touch danced delicately across her skin, tracing invisible paths along the curves of her body. His fingers caressed the softness of her cheeks, trailing down the graceful arc of her neck, and tangling gently in the cascade of her crimson locks, untouched by scissors for six years.

Then his hands roamed further, over the contours of Sophie’s slender frame, exploring every curve and hollow.

“Don’t worry Sophie, she can breathe. It’s very effective though. It is nice to get peace and quiet, and some alone time with you.” He grinned and nuzzled his nose against hers affectionately and she smiled back warmly, kissing him. She still held some concern for her friend, though.

A few feet away, resembling a black sarcophagus, lay Darya encased in the sleep sack. It hugged her body tightly, cocooning her in darkness and silence. The headphones, securely in place, blocked out any semblance of sound, while the fabric enveloped her, numbing her skin to sensation. Darya existed in a void, her world reduced to the suffocating embrace of the sack.

Pembroke did wonder how easy it would be to simply block her breathing tube. Earlier he had blocked it casually with his finger for thirty seconds. The sack had barely moved. Inside, Darya had gradually found it harder to breathe and began to panic. She tried to make noise or make movements to get help, thinking there had been an accident. Her lungs screamed as she thought how horrible it would be to die like this, by accident, as Sophie and her captor would open the sack up hours later and find her corpse. But then the air returned, and her lungs battled for several minutes to return to normal.

It would be an easy way to kill them both. Zip one up and just block the tube. Leave it for just for a few minutes each. But how to hide it from the next girl? He had thrown away the old sack, and now cursed himself for it.

As his fingers played with Sophie’s hair, he felt bad for the fact it would have to be burned. Such a waste, along with everything else! He put his finger in her mouth, inviting her to suck on it, and she complied, her eyes shining with pleasure. Little did she know he was feeling her teeth, wondering how to break these down. Could they just be burnt? Or would they need to be broken down with acid?

Her body was beautiful, but would soon be inconvenient once the light of her life had left it. He sighed as once again he tried, and failed, to see any way of avoiding having to kill his dear Sophie.

“Sophie, how would you feel about leaving this basement and living on an island off the coast of Scotland with me? Just you and me in a cabin. You wouldn’t be able to swim away, the currents are too strong. You’d always be on the island, but you could roam around, play on the beach, in the grass, in our cabin. We could even start a family.”

“That sounds wonderful!” Sophie exclaimed, her interest genuine. “Yes, daddy, I can’t swim, so you don’t have to worry about me going anywhere. I’d behave just as well as I do here. We could start a new life there, just the two of us! And if you want...” Sophie composed herself but remained sincere, “I could have your baby.”

“That does sound like heaven,” Pembroke chuckled, “except the weather’s terrible up there.”

“What about Darya, though? Could she come?” Sophie looked concerned.

Pembroke gave an exasperated sigh. “There is a crowd, Sophie. I know you like her, but, well I don’t think she would fit in. Don’t you think it might be time to say goodbye to her? I miss the days when it was just you and me down here.”

Sophie’s thoughts gradually became more sombre. He was now talking about murdering her friend. “I do like her, daddy. She means well, she just has a bad streak in her. Maybe on a Scottish island, with a bit of freedom, she might grow to be happier and be more accepting our ... our way of life. Oh! And... “ she clapped her hands together excitedly “she can’t swim, she is terrified of water!”

“Well her sister drowned so I’m not surprised” laughed Pembroke, looking casually at the poster of Leyla.

Sophie was getting more excited about the possibility of life on a Scottish island. Pembroke’s heart broke as he saw how naïve she was, she really believed in this fantasy.

His mind was all over her body, but not purely in a sexual way. As his hand moved between her legs, he imagined sawing through her crotch, into her pussy, and cutting her in half up to her neck. Or should be go sideways?

The lawyer had told him he could hold off on the surveyor for a few more weeks. And that for the time being, Angela Candelema and her mother had no right to enter the property, but soon would and were no doubt planning their trip to the UK.

Time was running out for his beautiful young Sophie, and she had no idea. He wanted to make her last week or so as comfortable as possible and he had fed her ice cream and chocolate, made a special effort to make her orgasm as much as possible, and taken as much alone time with her as possible, putting Darya in the sack.

The unfortunate news of the house had condemned Sophie to death but had merely extended Darya’s life by some weeks. He now saw no reason to upset Sophie by killing her friend, until he had to kill them both.

Sophie stirred at his fingers impaling her, and she moved her head down to his cock and began sucking. Her tongue had recently had the stud removed, along with the rest of her sparse piercings. Pembroke wanted to enjoy her as much in her natural state as possible now. Besides, Darya was still full of metal and would remain so until the end.

As he watched her beautiful twenty-year-old body move over him, he thought of the memories, of the kidnap, the first few weeks, and her terrified and angry moods. She did not love him, but the incarceration had successfully dented her mind and she really was his slave now. He made a silent promise that he would not cause her any unnecessary pain now.

He gazed around the basement, with so many pleasant memories. It would all have to go soon. He had been buying random pieces of scrap from various markets and stockpiling them in his garage. Once the girls were gone, the equipment in the basement along with the rubber floor would go, and be disposed of in a dump somewhere far away. In would come the scrap and vintage rubbish he had collected, and his basement would look for all the world like it had been full of random stuff and barely cleaned out in years.

The basement door and cage, the cell, he could disassemble them all. He thought of his attempts to build them, and how he had hoped he would be able to get a human to make it all worthwhile, not really thinking he would succeed. And as he felt Sophie’s finger slip inside his asshole, her tongue lathering over the helmet of his cock, he relished the knowledge that he had succeeded.

In the cramped confines of Eloise Murray’s office, located in a building in East London, Afshan sat across from her, ready to chat. She was not used to the idea of a podcast. Eloise had 25,000 followers on Twitter, not a big name, but hearing that a police officer had been the victim of revenge porn piqued her interest when a friend of a friend told her.

Afshan had spent the last week bearing the brunt of giggles and sneaking glances from her male colleagues. She was furious at the lack of respect from these pigs. Her colleague Gerald Murphy had supported her, but warned her against giving away too much to a journalist about sexist police culture.

But Afshan had no intention of talking much about the pathetic male police officers. Eloise was surprised that she instead kept talking about a missing persons case, about Sophie Yildiz and Darya Talebani, and about some mystery man who had perhaps murdered both of them and blackmailed countless other women, some into having sex with them.

Eloise was grateful, it sounded like a great story, but got the feeling there was not much evidence to back it up. Afshan, on the other hand, knew she was going to get in trouble over this, but she didn’t care. As far as she was concerned, this mystery man was probably afraid the investigation was getting too close and was trying to destroy her reputation as the investigating officer.

Pembroke never heard or thought of Afshan, other than her appearance at his school and Carrie’s subsequent mention of her. He had no idea she was involved in investigating anything and did not hear about her over the next few weeks after he leaked her material. While he had made a point to google his victims, mainly to relive their torment for his sick pleasure, he was growing tired of it. The response to Afshan had been rather muted, and girls seemed to be getting used to revenge porn. It just wasn’t the life ruiner it had been, he thought ruefully.

He was busy planning a double murder, anyway. He had purchased a large freezer and an electric saw. Once the girls were dead, he would freeze the bodies for a day, then saw the frozen carcasses into small manageable pieces, making them easier to dispose of bit by bit, and lessening the bloodiness of it all. He figured he could cook, to a crisp, each part in his oven. From then it would be a straightforward next step to burn them quickly in his fireplace in one evening, and the ashes could be scattered in several different places.

It would undoubtedly be distasteful, but little pieces of meat would not look too human. And it had to be done.

He had settled on poison as the murder weapon and had ordered some oleander plants. Using violence seemed too easy, too messy and he wanted something special that he had not done to the girls before. When he considered poison, it was the thrill of the process that attracted him, it reminded him of the work that had gone into kidnapping the girls in the first place!

The oleander plants he bought looked stunning. He let them flourish in his garden, their beauty belying the deadly potential they harboured.

He decided to take both Darya and Sophie out for one last sunning session. As the gentle breeze rustled the leaves, casting dappled shadows over Darya and Sophie, Pembroke looked contentedly at the scene, finding a twisted sense of appropriateness in the sinister connotations. The oleander plants, with their vibrant blooms in shades of pink, white, and red, swayed gently above the restrained girls’ bodies, their beauty belying their lethal nature.

He allowed Sophie loose movement, with no blindfold, and she was able to marvel at the blue sky, the insects, the birds, and even the sounds of children playing in the distance. Pembroke smiled at her happy excited gaze, turning to look at all the flowers, being especially fascinated by the oleander plants swaying directly above her.

Sophie spoke excitedly that night to Darya about what she had seen. She told Darya again about the possible plan for going to a Scottish island. She was sure there was a chance, though Darya gently dismissed it.

A week passed, and Pembroke had harvested the leaves, dried them, and extracted the poison, he hoped. This reminded him of chemistry, a subject he had loved as a child.

Teresa and Jenny were looking forward to the birth of Jenny’s second child. Soon it would be six years since Sophie had disappeared, and little Sophie, her namesake, now nearly a year old, was crawling along the floor of their flat.

“I find it so hard to call her Sophie sometimes,” Teresa sobbed. Jenny held her close. “I know, Mum, but don’t worry, we won’t ever forget her.”

As they watched the baby explore, the bittersweet memories of their missing Sophie lingered, mingling with the hope and anticipation of the new life soon to join their family.

Yasmin Talebani was confined to a mental institution, her mind unravelling since the horrific moment she had viewed the terrible video. Overwhelmed by the relentless onslaught of memories and guilt, as well as the multiple deaths in her family, Yasmin had succumbed to a severe mental breakdown.

In a desperate attempt to find release from her torment, she had taken a razor to her skin, slashing deep and repeatedly until her room was drenched in her blood.

Now, as she sat in the sterile confines of the institution, Yasmin was a mere shadow of her former self. Her once vibrant eyes were dull and vacant, barely registering the presence of the doctor who was gently probing her with questions. Each inquiry was met with the same vacant stare, her lips moving only to whisper one word over and over, “Darya.”

Afshan Bharwani found herself in a disciplinary meeting with her bosses. She had spoken on a podcast with a journalist, discussing cases and making unsubstantiated claims about ongoing investigations. In her eagerness to engage the public, she had ventured into dangerous territory.

“We can’t have vigilantes hunting down people that look like that sketch, and it looks like a million different people. I mean, I look like that guy!” her inspector reprimanded her.

“Sorry,” Afshan muttered, her remorse evident. “I just thought maybe if there was more public engagement, people might know something.”

“Not like this,” her superior admonished. “We’ve already tried campaigns with missing posters, and we don’t have any firm evidence that this guy is behind anything. It’s embarrassing. It could be anyone, and how accurate can it be when you’re drawing from memory? Half of these cases aren’t even substantiated.”

Afshan remained silent, knowing that in her case, there was no evidence that a crime had been committed. More than a few officers believed that the likes of Afshan and Molly hadn’t been forced into sex with this man at all or even met him. They believed that they had fabricated the stories, perhaps seeking attention. Teresa Yildiz, in particular, had a history of making unfounded claims and prejudicing investigations. The sketch itself was so vague, it was of a heavy-set, balding middle-aged man of whom there were hundreds of thousands.

Afshan grew angry. Maybe the police were going to get rid of her and would use this as an excuse. But it was the naked photos and videos that were behind it, they thought of her as a hysterical, horny girl who wasn’t fit to be a police officer.

Leah O’Reilly scrolled through her phone, chatting casually with her husband, Dave, as their children played on the floor nearby.

“You should give Joe Rogan a listen,” Dave suggested. “That true crime stuff is boring; it’s all made up anyway.”