The ‘upstairs’ to which he was referring was a large double bedroom, fitted with a bank of cameras that were motion sensitive and would record the action automatically so the judge would have a permanent record of his activities for future, pleasurable viewing. Robbo would edit them to form a coherent, sexually exciting, whole. The judge liked to dress up. Robbo, like some repellent butler, had already laid out upstairs the costume the judge liked to dress up in. He would be wearing a black, latex mask whose eyeholes were covered in a fine silver mesh, preventing any form of recognition. There was a wide selection of sex toys in the room, mainly relating to pain: whips, handcuffs, nipple clamps, tongue screws, the full range of S amp;M panoply. Conquest liked to call the room the Bridal Suite. It seemed appropriate.
Conquest hoped the judge wouldn’t be too enthusiastic, wouldn’t get too carried away. He didn’t want the boy dead too soon from internal or external injuries. He needed to film him with Robbo and Glasgow Brian for Internet distribution after the judge had finished and before disposing of him. Peter would fetch a very high price. Conquest always needed funds. There was a potentially very large market for what would be Peter’s one and only sex film.
Outside the house, in the field, the pigs had been put on strict rations. Conquest wanted them starving by the time everyone in the house had finished with the boy. Pigs can be very aggressive. He was toying with the idea of putting Peter in with them while still alive and seeing what would happen, how long they would take to finish him off. The pigs had been brought up to eat dead and occasionally dying animals. It would be interesting to see what they would make of the boy. He would get Robbo to film it anyway. He was sure there would be a specialist market out there for that kind of thing. Bingham would know. He missed Bingham and his technical expertise as well as his infallible commercial sense.
Conquest looked at the boy, still wearing his school trousers and shirt. His arm was curled round the dog. He smiled, pleased with his foresight. He had put the dog in with the boy and given him the books because he hadn’t wanted the child to go to pieces. He wanted Peter to look his best for the judge and not be some gaunt, sobbing, hysterical mess. He’d learnt from experience. A previous guest in the cell had committed suicide in a state of despair. It was rare for children to do this — unlike adults they could have no conception of the horrors that awaited them and they were valuable commodities, things in which he’d invested a great deal of time and effort. It paid to look after them. He’d keep the dog once Peter was gone. Conquest quite liked dogs. He looked at his watch; the judge would be here in an hour or so. Then his fun could begin.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Leave him here for now. We’ll move him when Reece arrives.’
Lord Justice Reece relaxed back into the luxuriously soft, leather upholstery of Conquest’s Mercedes as he was driven through the outskirts of East London towards the highway that led to Essex and the island. He was humming an old pop song to himself, he couldn’t remember the name of the artist — ‘Tonight, I celebrate my love, for you’ — when his phone went. He pulled on his reading glasses in irritation and looked at the small screen. It was his office, his secretary.
‘Yes?’ he said angrily. He had left strict instructions not to be disturbed, unless it was absolutely necessary. His secretary was a highly competent woman called Caroline who had been with him for over thirty years now. Reece prized loyalty. Caroline would have crawled across broken glass for the judge if she’d had to, she thought he was wonderful. She said briskly, ‘I know you left orders not to be disturbed, my lord, but the Cabinet Office want to see you tomorrow morning. I told them you were officially on holiday, but they insisted.’ She lowered her voice confidentially. ‘It could be the one. The big one,’ she said. She was far more excited than he was; she felt his talents had been criminally overlooked.
Reece smiled appreciatively. As a Lord Justice he was automatically a KBE, a knight, and could call himself Sir Crispin Reece, but he was not a full lord, entitled to a seat in the Upper House, and he wanted that honour. He had plenty of money now. More money was always nice, but it had ceased to delight him. Power, though, and titles, well, that was beyond mere money. He had campaigned assiduously for elevation to the peerage, flattering the egos of politicians he despised, sitting on committees he had no interest in, so his name would be more noticeable. Lord Reece of…? Well, that was a question to ponder. A very nice question to ponder. A shame his old sadist of a house master wasn’t around to see it; he’d always predicted abject failure for Reece, a view shared by his parents who had taken any side but his. He hummed the first bars of ‘Come Unto Me’, the old school song.
‘What time?’ he said.
‘The Permanent Secretary wants you at 2 p.m.’ she replied.
‘Get back to him. I’ll be there,’ he said curtly and pressed the button to end the call. The present government was sucking up to him now he looked like getting the top job in Brussels. He stretched luxuriously in the back seat of the car. Life could hardly get better.
The boy would have to wait until Thursday night. He couldn’t give the child the time that he felt he deserved. He wasn’t going to be rushed. He could spend the night on Strood Island, travel back up to town in the morning and then back again in the evening, but this, he felt was out of the question. He wanted to give his full and undivided attention to what was going to be the sexual highlight of his life. He ordered the driver to turn round and take him home to Mayfair. He texted Conquest the change of plan.
A pleasure deferred. It was one of the signs of a higher being.
34
Julie stood outside Anderson’s cell. It was Thursday afternoon; she was working the two until ten shift. She had often been responsible for the solitary punishment cells in the past — it was felt that a woman might have a calming effect on the more disturbed inmates — and getting to Anderson was simple. It had been a while since the cells had been used. Solitary confinement was out of fashion at the moment, but not illegal. It was regarded as counterproductive and of questionable human rights ethics, but Fordham’s towering rage had put one of them back into use for Anderson’s benefit.
She had been forced to wait until four o’clock, when she’d visited the guard on duty, started a conversation — not hard, she knew he found her attractive — and volunteered to check on Anderson. He smiled as he gave her permission. Quite a few staff had been along to have a closer look at their new celebrity prisoner. As she turned her back on him she could feel his gaze lingering longingly on her backside.
The walk to the cells was short; the other cells were untenanted. She opened the flap below the eye-level viewing window to speak to Anderson. He was standing up, his back turned to her.
‘What do you want?’ he asked, his voice flat and uninflected. The accent was unassertive London.
‘Hanlon sent me,’ she said. ‘I need an address.’
Now he did turn round. It was the first time she had ever seen him in the flesh. He had shoulder-length rat-tailed hair, a thin, almost malnourished face and very deep-set, intelligent, dark eyes. His shoulders were narrow and his hands, which hung by his side, seemed disproportionately large. Julie felt the presence of an overwhelming malevolence coming from Anderson and a feeling of great strength. The hands, with their bitten-down fingernails and long, strong fingers, looked very powerful. They belonged on an animal; they were the kind of hands capable of tearing someone to shreds.