‘ It’s okay.’
‘ What did Jack say last night, after I’d gone?’
‘ Nothing, other than to abuse me.’ Henry leaned forwards, elbows on knees. ‘What do you want to do, Danny? What’s the best thing that can happen now?’
She considered the questions a moment. ‘For him to accept it’s over, leave me alone, and let us both get on with our lives.’
At eleven-thirty that morning, Trent swigged down the last dregs of his morning brew. He was alone in his cell, sitting on the edge of his bunk, leafing idly through one of his teen-girl magazines. He closed it, slid it onto the pile underneath his bunk and got to his feet. He walked over to the steel toilet in the corner of the cell and urinated, his back to the door.
As he finished he heard a movement behind. He zipped up and turned.
Blake leaned nonchalantly against the door. In his grimy nicotine-stained fingers he held a self-rolled cigarette from which a single whisper of smoke rose.
‘ Okay, nonce?’ he sneered. He slurped his tongue around the inside of his mouth, then spat on the cell floor.
Cold icicles of fear spread rapidly through Trent’s veins. Literally, his blood ran cold.
‘ What do you want?’
There was a strange, deadly look in Blake’s eyes which Trent immediately interpreted. When the answer spilled out of the villain’s mouth, Trent was not surprised.
‘ You… I want you — but you’ve always known that, haven’t you?’
Trent nodded. He could scarcely breathe.
Yes, he had known that one day Blake would want to have him too. But it would not be from a loving desire, it would be from hatred.
‘ I want to give it to you, Trent,’ Blake said. ‘Everything I’ve got — and I want to make you suffer just as much as you made them little girls suffer… and after that I’m gonna make you suffer ten times more so they’ll never ever properly repair you.’
‘ You’ve already done that.’ It was a hoarse, strained whisper that grated out from Trent’s dry throat.
‘ I haven’t even started.’ Blake pushed himself upright and took a menacing stride into the cell. Trent almost screamed, though it was more of a whimper. He recoiled, stepped backwards, caught the back of his knee on the toilet, causing the joint to fold. He grabbed thin air in an attempt to prevent himself from falling backwards, failed, and next thing he knew he was sitting on the lavatory, looking meekly upwards at the towering menace of Blake.
The big man burst into laughter.
‘ You pathetic twat.’ He reached for Trent’s throat with his right hand. The fingers curled around his windpipe, digging in, hoisting him to his feet. Blake pivoted and slammed Trent against the cell wall. ‘You haven’t got an ounce of fight in you, have you? I’m going to really enjoy raping you, so you’d better prepare yourself, ‘cos I won’t be long. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, you little piece of shite.’ His face was only inches away from Trent’s. He reeked of smoke and body odour. His breath made Trent gag. ‘Who knows?’ he snarled. ‘But it’ll be soon and you won’t know what’s hit you — because I intend inserting more than just myself up your backside. So let yer imagination run riot.’
He opened his fingers, releasing Trent, who, choking, slithered down the wall, tears streaming out of his eyes. ‘See ya.’ Blake gave a friendly wave and spun out of the cell. Trent could hear him laughing all the way down the walkway.
Trent quickly removed his trousers and underpants and dashed to the toilet, plonking himself down only just in time. The terrifying encounter had taken its toll on his bowels. They opened up immediately.
With his head in his hands, he realised he would probably have to act sooner than later.
Talking to Henry had proved to be a nice release for Danny. She left his office feeling better having dumped such a heavy burden from her shoulders. It helped her greatly with the mental side — a trouble shared, and all that — but the physical side was another matter altogether.
Danny would be the first to admit she had allowed her fitness to deteriorate over the last ten years, but it had happened in such slow stages that she had been unaware of just how unfit she had become because it had been masked by her sedentary lifestyle.
It had taken the exertions and batterings of the last forty-eight hours to demonstrate what a blob she had become.
Firstly, chasing Claire Lilton and rescuing her; then being assaulted by Jack, coupled with the early-morning incidents at her house. Everything had accumulated in such a short space of time so that when she sat down at her desk she felt so creaky she should have had her pension book in her bag.
Yet she knew that if she had been only slightly fitter, she would not have felt half as bad.
She leaned back in her chair and took a quick evaluation of her body, from feet upwards.
Actually her toes did not feel too bad.
Everything else above and beyond was in pretty poor condition though.
The ankle she’d twisted throbbed meanly away underneath the tubi-grip bandage and was swollen like a football. She rotated her foot carefully and winced.
Her long legs were stiffening up. Running after Claire — all of what, 200 metres? — had made her use muscles which had lain dormant for ten years, despite the most robust lovemaking, and there had been plenty of that. They ached all the way up to the cheeks of her bum.
During the buffeting on the sea-front, she only now discovered she must have taken a few knocks which went unheeded at the time, probably due to adrenaline. Her chest was painful around the ribs, and the outer point of her right elbow felt like it might have been, smashed against the ground.
The base of her spine was still damned sore, making every other movement of her body a chore. The back of her head was agonisingly tender and her face smarted from the blow Jack had delivered to her. And, of course, there was the cut on her left cheek, stitched with such precision by the same drop-dead gorgeous doctor who’d tubi-gripped her.
Sod Jack, the bastard, she thought bitterly. She wondered whether or not to make an official complaint of assault, as suggested by Henry, who had voiced the opinion that if Jack had the capacity to do that to someone he allegedly loved, he deserved to face the consequences. Danny shook her head. No.
That was the last thing she wanted. Muck-raking, grievances, courts, ruining reputations, marriages, professional relationships. She simply wanted it all sorted out as amicably as possible.
Danny’s fingertips touched her cheek, gently moving across the two stitches inserted at Casualty earlier that morning.
Two stitches. A serious assault by any standards.
And yet she did not want Jack to get away without facing any consequences — especially if he had smashed her window and damaged her car in a fit of pique. He should be forced to admit it, pay restitution — then get out of her life.
She moved in the chair to ease the pain in her back.
She knew she could at least make one decision about her life there and then. That would be to drag herself, unwillingly, to fitness classes a couple of times a week. Then, she reasoned, if she was feeling physically better it would make it easier to get to grips with other more nebulous aspects of her life.
Such as cutting out smoking — although as she thought about that one, a deep longing for a cigarette pervaded her body like an insistent spirit. Maybe that would have to wait.
The phone on her desk rang. It was the public enquiry assistant (PEA), down at the front desk.