Chapter 10

Grace hunched over on the tiled floor of her glass cell, her body curled in on itself, her forehead on the ground, her ass in the air. Her eyes were shut tight. She didn’t want to see the horrible images that had been flooding into her for hours.

But the screens blazed arounder her, a relentless cacophony of violation, from all four sides. The footage changed, but the nature was always the same. Her mother, naked, masturbating in her own bed. Grace herself, filmed in her school uniform on the way to school, in her bedroom in her underwear, in the shower, on the toilet.

Intimate footage of Grace and her mother was interspersed with hardcore pornography featuring women, no men, in acts so filthy, so degrading, her mind could barely comprehend them.

She’d never seen another woman’s naked body like this, other than shy glances at her schoolmates in the shower, comparing her own body. What was on screen was different; vaginas, breasts, assholes—all on display, oiled, licked, penetrated. Lesbian women kissing lewdly, fingers plunging, tongues flicking at each others’ private parts in ways that made her stomach heave.

Every glance brought another fresh image into her innocent mind that had never been there before. It was disgusting. What freakish torture was this?

She had barely slept in three nights now. Her mind was unraveling, her body shutting down. Slowly, she crumpled sideways into a fetal position, her knees pressed to her chest, her hands still clapped over her eyes, as if she could block out the vulgar, depraved imagery.

She fell asleep, but even there, she found no escape. Vivid dreams turned into horror. She dreamt of her mother, naked, entangled with her, doing the things she had seen on screen. Her mother’s body, naked, above her, leaning down her mouth approaching Grace’s.

“No! Mummy, noooo!” Grace cried, jerking awake, her body drenching in sweat, her heart pounding like a drum.

Her mother wasn’t here. But she was still locked up, surrounded by filth. Tears streamed down her face as she sucked her thumb, rocking back and forth, whispering to herself:

“Please let this end ... Please let someone save me...”

---------- Pembroke enjoyed the warm glow of the pub—laughter, clinking glasses, the easy camaraderie of pensioners swapping stories over pints. He had stayed deliberately late, eager to cement his alibi. No one would guess that on this day he had been involved in the kidnapping of a child a hundred miles away.