Chapter 2

It was 3 am in the morning that Friday when I drove out of the parking of the strip club. Pushing the remote the sliding gate closed slowly and as usual, I waited until it was completely closed as lately a wave of break-ins had hit the area where the club was located. A number of my neighbors had been visited by burglars who’d taken cash or valuable items from their shops and if they hadn’t been able to get something of value had created a lot of damage. Despite the numerous cameras, we had installed over the past months, the police didn’t have a clue. There were even suggestions going around to set up a 24/7 guard system, most shop owners were willing to chip in to hire a professional crew. The next day I was very sorry to not have pursued it sooner and more vehemently.

After a reasonable night’s sleep, I drove up again to the club around 9 am the next morning and found the parking half filled with a bunch of police cars with flashing lights. When I wanted to go in I was stopped by a big guy who told me to get out of there. Getting out of the car, I told him I owned the place, and even when I told him my name he still became rather aggressive telling me to keep my hands where he could see them while grabbing his handcuffs. I was ordered to turn around and put my hands behind my back and was immediately handcuffed and marched towards what looked like the command vehicle.

“Chief this guy claims he owns this place, and says his name is George Gentle,” the big guy who had cuffed me said to what looked like the person in command. Before he could reply I asked what was going on, and where my cleaning lady was.

He looked at me and said, “You have a cleaning lady inside?”

“Yes, sir, she comes every morning and cleans the place for me.”

“And what does this cleaning lady look like?”

“She’s around 30, average height, black hair, she’s Polish, has a nice figure, she used to be a bodybuilder.”

“And she comes every day?”

“Not every day, but only when we have been open for business the day before, she’s got a key, she starts at 8, and by this time she’s usually halfway thru and when I arrive she has her break and we have a coffee together.”

“And you do that every time she’s here?”

“Yes and I would like to know what is going on, and what all of you are doing here, and why am I handcuffed, and why can’t I enter my own premises? Has there been a break-in?”

“We will be asking the questions here sir, but if you absolutely want to know why we’re here is because your cleaning lady called us.”

“So there was a break-in then?”

“That we don’t know, what we do know is that there is a corpse in there and it doesn’t look like an accident.”

“A CORPSE?”

“Yes, sir a dead woman.”

“What dead woman, where did she come from, who is she?”

“That is exactly what we’re trying to figure out, where were you last night?”

“I was at home, sleeping.”

‘Mmhhm, can anyone confirm that?”

“No, I live alone.”

“And what time did you get home?”

“I left here as usual around 3 am and I was home about fifteen minutes later, say 3:15 and I went straight to bed.”

“And you slept till now?”

“Not exactly, else I wouldn’t be here now would I?”

“This is no joking matter mister, what time did you get up and what did you do?”

“OK, I got up at 8, showered, had breakfast left home around 8:45, and drove here, where I was handcuffed by one of your officers without giving me a reason or a chance to explain why I was here.”

“You said you own the place?”

“Yes, for the past 15 years, you see it’s called George’s hideout, well George that’s me.”

“I see, and you never had any problems?”

“Not this far, I guess I was the lucky one as a lot of my neighbors had burglars visiting, but none had a dead person awaiting them when they arrived in the morning to open up.”

“Yes we know there’s been a wave of burglaries lately, but this is the first time a dead person was found.”

“Do you think I had anything to do with this dead woman, whomever she may be?”

“We don’t know yet, what you tell me makes sense at first glance but we have to be careful.”

“Is there really a need to handcuff me for that?”

“Maybe not,” looking at the big guy who had brought me to him he ordered him to remove the cuffs.

“Can I go in now, and can I please see Julia, this must be awful for her.”

“Why do you want to see this Julia and who is she?”

I wondered, was he trying to trick me and thinking I will tell a different story?

“As I said before sir, Julia is the Polish cleaning lady who works for me and I’m not only her employer but also a close friend, she must feel overwhelmed by all of this, as I presume she was the one who found the dead body?”

“Yes, and as you sort of claim to care for her and be her only friend, it is odd that she didn’t call you in the first place but us instead.”

“That is not odd at all, after the wave of burglaries started, I told her that whenever she found something strange arriving or entering or she didn’t feel safe she needed to call the police immediately and wait outside for you guys to arrive, which I guess is what she did?”

“Yes, she was outside waiting for us when we arrived, extremely upset. We immediately called for an ambulance to provide medical support.”

“Thank God, and how is she now?”

“She’s fine.”

“Can I see her?”

“We would first like for you to accompany us inside and see if you know the dead woman we found.”

“OK.”

“A word of warning, it’s not a beautiful sight, she was violently attacked and her whole body was badly scarred.”

Another car arrived and a young oriental-looking female driver stepped out and joined us. She greeted the chief and he took her immediately aside. They seemed to have a heated discussion. Unfortunately, I couldn’t understand much of what they were saying. Later, much later I was to find out what this was all about. When, after about 10 minutes, they came back to me still discussing, both looking rather angry with the chief almost using hands and feet to make his point, to the young oriental woman, with whom he clearly had an argument and kept repeating they had received a call via 112 (the general emergency number in Europe to call the fire brigade, police and or ambulance similar to 911 in the US) from a woman with a strange accent telling them she had found a dead person in this bar. That they had rushed over and indeed found a dead woman, most probably murdered and half an hour later I had arrived claiming to be the owner of these premises, and we were on the brink of going inside to find out if I happened to know the victim or could shed any light on what had happened.

She looked at me, extended her hand, and said, “I’m Seiko Tashima and I will be the investigating officer for this case, and you are?”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance misses Tashima, I’m George Gentle, owner and operator of this place.”

“Miss Tashima, mister Gentle” she replied, “and do you know the woman who placed the call to the police?”

For the umpteenth time, I had to tell somebody else who Julia was and why she was there, and what my relationship with her was.

“Yes, she’s my Polish cleaning lady, Julia.”

“And have you known her long?”

“Yes, we go back a good number of years, she has cleaned for me for the past 15 years now, almost from the day I opened the club and she’s very dear to me, so I’m rather worried about how she’s feeling after discovering what it is she discovered.”

“Well Mister Gentle, we’ll find out together what she has discovered when she walked in this morning.”

Coming in I immediately saw that what the chief had told me was a serious understatement. A naked female body, covered in blood, was suspended from a beam with four ropes attached to her wrists and ankles, spread-eagled completely. I had a serious problem not heaving.

“Do you know this woman Mister Gentle?” The chief asked after he saw that I looked a little less pale.

Do I know her, God she is my best stripper and pole dancer, when she is performing all the men go crazy, throwing money on the stage to urge her to get completely naked as quickly as possible.

“Yes officer, this is one of the girls performing here, she’s my star attraction, her stage name is Rose, you can see her photos on display in the box at the door.”

“Is that her real name Mister Gentle?”

“No of course not, all the girls that work here do so under a stage name, her real name is Meredith, Meredith Taylor.

I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. Who in his right mind could mangle a woman as beautiful as Meredith in this way, it was pure horror. We were asked to stay at least 5 meters away from the body to avoid any contamination. She had cuts all over her body, with her back almost raw flesh, clearly from a vicious whipping. What looked like a champagne bottle was rammed up her pussy, and with rammed I mean not only the neck of the bottle but the whole bottle, there was barely 2 inches sticking out. Her boobs looked kind of brownish and from the remains of candles that were lying below her, I could only guess how that came about. This must be the doing of a sick mind. I could only hope that she hadn’t suffered too long and had died quickly. A machete had been planted in the middle of her abdomen probably explaining the huge puddle of blood just below her on the floor. Barely visible through all the coagulated blood covering her lower body I could discern the word Dyke, carved in her abdomen. Her forehead had also been adorned with the word whore but burned into it with a soldering iron.

There were a few people completely dressed in white coveralls, taking pictures and collecting evidence, from the body and the surrounding area.

I heard Miss Tashima ask one of these people in white, I guessed the head coroner what the estimated time of death and the possible cause of death might be after their first investigation. The man replied they estimated her death between 4 and 6 this morning and as for the cause of death, the machete was the obvious choice, but it could be that it was inserted post-mortem, but going by the amount of blood on the floor it was unlikely, the autopsy will tell us more he replied. With this information, we could leave. I was glad we could, after what I had just witnessed I desperately needed to get some fresh air and I wanted to see how Julia was doing if I could find her.

I thought the ambulance, which was still there, would be the obvious choice and it was, Julia was sitting in the open back door, covered with one of those gold/silver emergency blankets to keep her warm. She was clearly still in a state of shock shivering, which I could imagine after having seen what I saw inside just a few minutes ago, and I was accompanied by police people while she had been all alone and totally unprepared when she walked in this morning.