The Consultants 3.13

Part 3: Chapter 13

Next morning Charles was up early to get ready for work. Even so, looking out of the window as he prepared breakfast he could see that Leslie had beaten him to it and was already down in the mews loading things into the back of her car that had not been out of the garage since the return from the near fatal visit to collect Charles’s things

It had been gone half-past one when he and Amber had finally let her out of the French maid’s costume and allowed her to retrieve the Ben Wa balls. For at least the last hour she had spent much of the time writhing on the floor, screaming into her gag as wave after wave of orgasm hit. When they peeled off her clothes they found out why. In addition to the four balls she had been wearing rubber panties with built-in knobbly clitoral stimulators and a matching long-line rubber grope bra with warty bumps inside the cups. Combined with the stockings, gloves and mask, the effect had been to totally enclose her within a stimulating second skin beneath the maid’s outfit, while the chaining of her hands denied much in the way of relief.

“No wonder she was walking funny,” Amber had observed. Yet there she was, as fresh as a daisy.

“Must tell you something,” mused Charles.

He threw open the window and called down. “Good morning.”

 “Hello, lazy bones,” she shouted back. “Have you been catching upon your beauty sleep? I’m glad you’re up. Can I come up and see you for a minute, Charlotte?”

“Yes, of course,” Charles replied then, to himself, “Now what? Does she still think I can’t do my face properly?”

Leslie arrived a few minutes later at the outside door, not a bit out of breath having climbed the two tall stories of the fire escape at the double.

“My, you’re in better shape than I am,” observed Charles, as he let her in.

“You need to sweat off more of that puppy fat,” he was told, adding, “How about you serving dinner next weekend?”

Leslie found herself a chair.

“Ordinarily I wouldn’t have bothered you about my professional activities,” she told him, “but, well, to say I have a premonition sounds a bit daft, but after the do the other week I just felt I would like someone to know where I am when I’m going to be away overnight.”

“Yes, go on,” Charles encouraged.

“Well, it’s like this, there was a fax waiting for me on the machine asking if I would pay an urgent visit to a very wealthy client who lives out of Town. Please could I go up today with various things, do a session for him and some guests tonight and return tomorrow. I’ve been before. There never has been a problem. It’s, well, just that,” Leslie was as near to a little girl pleading as it was possible for her, “after what happened the other week I’ve lost my nerve driving any distance.”

“There was more to it than someone’s bad driving, wasn’t there?” asked Charles.

“Yes,” said Leslie, staring down at her toes and anxiously nibbling a finger, “I’m pretty sure who it was. It was Fred Cooke, or at least his car. I’ve been getting threats from Sarah Turnbull lately; Fred Cooke is her right hand nasty. They’re basically into rackets, particularly drugs. Amber doesn’t know, so please don’t tell her, but I have found out that it was their lot that, indirectly at least, got her kid sister into trouble. Offering dominatrix services is only a tiny part of their business. However, they resent my success based on an ultra-discrete high class professional quality service because it has removed from their control a number of highly placed individuals who they had essentially been blackmailing to making sure that the gang’s main activities went unchallenged.”

“As I say, I’m sure now it was Cooke and I’m frightened. There’s only me and they have a gang of heavies.” Amazingly for her, Leslie let out a sob. “I’m sorry,” she sniffed, “but I have to confess that was the main reason that I was so keen on having you take over this flat. I know it was sneaky of me and I should have told you. I was just getting frightened to be here on my own at night in a big empty house. If you want to go somewhere else, to be out of it, it will be all right.”

Leslie bit her lip and sniffed back another tear.

“Of course I don’t want to go somewhere else and if you want someone in the house with you that would be a pretty rotten thing to do after all that you have done for me. I’m sure that it is not as bad as you think. If you don’t like driving I could take you, but I really can’t come with you,” said Charles torn between duty to his work and concern for Leslie, “We are struggling with a massive tangle of code at the core of Barry’s systems. I just can’t leave them now.”

“I know you can’t,” said Leslie, stifling another sob, “and I’m not asking you to. Just, here’s my itinerary and please may I ring to let you know where I am?” she held out an envelope. “It’s best if you don’t open it unless you have to and please destroy it when I get back.”

“What about Amber, you’ve known her for a lot longer than me, couldn’t you ring her?” said Charles biting his tongue as soon as he had said it, realising that it must sound cruel. Leslie did not seem to notice.

“It’s just that you’re different.” It was then her turn to feel embarrassed by the choice of words. “No, that sounds horrid.” she blurted on, “It’s not because of, you know what. What I mean is that, well, I love Amber a lot, she’s very sweet and very kind and great fun to be with, but she’s a bit inclined to panic and if there were a problem…,” her voice trailed off.

Though he was not sure that it was what he ought to do, Charles put an arm round her to console her.

“Come on, you’ll be all right,” he soothed giving her a reassuring squeeze. “Here, give me the envelope. I’ll look after it for you till tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Charles, sorry, Charlotte,” she gave him a peck on his cheek. “You’re wonderful.”

*****

For the rest of that day Charles was too deeply involved in sorting out Barry’s computer problems to have time to think about what Leslie had told him, let alone that to which she had half hinted, half alluded. Charles and Barry’s own programmers had essentially locked themselves in a room with instructions to the outside world not to disturb them save for regular supplies of coffee and ice packs. The piece of code with which they were struggling lay at the heart of the system and was quite old. It really was a legacy to which the if it’s not broken, don’t fix it!’ principle had been applied over several generations of up-grade.

The code had been written at a time when saving bytes was a sure way to get Brownie points and was horrendously convoluted. Whoever had written that bit must have had an armful of badges. Who the programmer had been, no one now knew, what little documentation there was being anonymous.

“Just as well,” someone observed, “or there would be a lynching,” as they struggled to understand the intricacies of the self-modifying spaghetti code.

The work went on unabated into the late evening. After his office staff went home, Barry had stayed behind to potter with his collection and to offer moral support to the team on the floor above, from time-to-time acting as tea-boy and pizza runner.

At about half-past eleven he was passing through the outer office when the telephone rang.

“Who on earth can that be at this time of night?” he wondered as he walked over to pick up the hand set, fully expecting it to be a wrong number. Before he had time to say anything a panic stricken voice at the other end spoke.

“Thank goodness someone’s there. This is Amber. Is Charlotte Graham there, please? I must speak to him, her she corrected herself, something dreadful has happened, it’s desperately urgent.”

All this came in such a rush that it was some moments before Barry took it all in. Curious as to why a young woman should be so desperately trying to contact Charlotte that late at night he put on his best ‘kindly uncle’ act in an attempt to pacify her and to find out a bit more of what was troubling her.

“Yes, Charlotte is here,” he told the unseen voice, “but she has been very busy since early this morning with an extremely difficult problem and has given strict interactions not to be disturbed by any one.”

“But it’s about Leslie,” wailed the voice, “She’s.... Oh its terrible what’s happened to her, please, fetch Charles, please?”

“Hmm,” he thought, “that confirms what I suspected. Leslie who?” he asked.

“Leslie Weston,” said the voice, almost in hysterics. “Please fetch Charlotte? We haven’t much time!” This was starting to sound serious.

“Okay,” said Barry, “I think that I know Leslie Weston a bit. I’ve bid against her in the sales room. What’s happened to her?”

“I’d rather tell Charlotte,” sobbed the other voice.

Barry fetched Charles.

“What’s the matter, Amber?” he asked.

“Oh. Thank goodness, I’ve found you at last. I tried the flat three or four times and got no reply. I thought that you must be out and I didn’t know what I’d have done then. I’ve only just thought that you might still be at the office.”

“Yes, well, I’m here,” replied Charles, with a sharpness that he would soon regret, his mind still on the programming problem and resenting being disturbed by what he could not help thinking would turn out to be a little girl’s storm-in-a-tea-cup.

“I hope she’s lost the keys to her shoes,” he had murmured to himself as he had come down stairs. His own feet aching through having worn his lock-on 14cm stilettos so far for over eighteen hours that day, unable to take them off having left the keys behind at the flat when, delayed by Leslie, he had rushed off to the office that morning. Sitting at a desk had not been too bad, but coming down each step on the hard concrete back stairs seemed to set his feet on fire. Fortunately Amber did not notice his tone of voice.

“It’s Leslie,” she went on. “She’s in hospital. She’s been smashed up and,” her voice trailed off hardly daring to utter the next words, “and, and they’ve mutilated her.”

Barry who had been discretely listening on an extension took command. Turning to a stunned Charles.

“Go and tell the boys to go home,” he said, “you’ve all done enough for today. Everyone will work much better tomorrow, if they start with clear heads rather than struggling on into the early hours. I’ll take you to the hospital. The Roller is in the basement car-park.” He spoke into the ‘phone.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“I’m at the hospital. I’m waiting for Mr Browne to arrive.”

“Is that Ray Browne, the gynaecologist?”

“Yes,” Amber replied.

“Okay, we’ll be over as soon as we can, which ward do we want?”

“Right, see you in about forty minutes,” and put the handset down.

“Well, what do you make of that?” Barry asked when Charles reappeared with his things. “Come on though, we had better get cracking, you can tell me what you know as we go.”

*****

Barry’s forty minutes was a serious under estimate and it was well over an hour before they got to the hospital, parked the Rolls Royce and found night-staff to escort them to Leslie’s private room where a tearful Amber was waiting. The heavily sedated Leslie was obviously in a pretty bad state. Apart from the usual array of drips, her face was heavily swathed bandage that showed signs of bleeding and one arm was raised in traction. As soon as she saw them Amber leapt up and rushed to Charles and hugged him.

“Oh, thank goodness you’ve managed to get here. I was desperate. I didn’t know what to do. I only got to her just in time. I...,”

“There, there,” it was Barry, the least personally attached of the three, once more taking command and trying to be uncle again. He praised her off Charles and sat her down. “Now tell us all about it?” He turned to Charles.

“Run along, Charlotte and see if you can rustle up tea or something, then we can hear what this young lady, Amber isn’t it my dear?” he said addressing her, “has to tell us.”

When Charles returned with three steaming plastic beakers of what the vending machine, in clear breach of the Sales of Goods Act, Charles concluded having taken a sip, claimed to be tea, Amber seemed a little calmer.

“Well, I can’t tell you very much,” she said when prompted. “I was just outside the News Room having done a last minute touch-up for the presenters when the ‘phone rang.

“Normally it’s not my job to answer it, but the normal production assistant had just popped out for a minute, so I answered it. It was someone from the news desk, saying that they had just received an anonymous telephone tip-off where they could find a well-known high-society prostitute tied to the railings at the side of a burnt-out green XK8 soft-top. And would I warn the news presenters to expect a sensational late item.”

Amber sipped her tea and shuddered as she remembered what happened next. Glancing at the inert figure of Leslie in the bed by her side she went on.

“Somehow, I knew it must be Leslie. There aren’t that many cars like hers and though she’s not a prostitute the other facts were too good a fit if someone was being malicious. I just dropped the handset and ran out of the studio.

“I remember nearly bumping into the production assistant as she came back with her coffee and her shouting, “What the hell,” after me as she picked the ‘phone off the ground. I was sure that as soon as she heard the news, a camera crew would be on its way. I think that I must have broken every traffic law in the book, but I got to the place the tip off had said first. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was horrible.” She paused, gave a shudder, and then steadied herself again with another sip of tea.

“It was Leslie’s car, all right, because I recognised her registration number. It had been dumped on its side and set on fire. Scattered around it were a lot of her things. They must have been taken out of the car before it was set on fire because they were not burnt, then deliberately arranged after.”

“What sort of things?” Barry asked.

“Oh you know, things,” replied Amber evasively.

“You mean the stuff that Leslie had taken for the session with her client,” volunteered Charles.

“Yes, that sort of thing,” Amber agreed. “Anyway, slumped down fastened to the railings at the side of the road was a body. I stopped the car and went to it. I hardly recognised it as Leslie. Her head had been roughly shaved and daubed with red paint that had dribbled all over her and her face was all bruised and bloody. What was worse, there was a pool of blood under her and trickling down her legs.

“I unfastened her from the railings. I think that she must have been unconscious when they did her up because the rope was not very tight. She moaned a lot, as I untied her, I thought that her arm must have been broken, but I couldn’t understand why there was so much blood. I dragged her into my car then went back and picked up as much of her stuff as I could see by the headlights and tossed it in the back of the car.

“I had just finished when the camera crew arrived round the corner. I drove off and they chased after me to try to catch me, but I jumped a couple of sets of lights and somehow managed to throw them off. Leslie was moaning terribly as she was tossed about by my rough driving. I hadn’t had time to do up her seat belt and she couldn’t do it with one arm broken. As soon as I was sure that the crew had given up on the chase I stopped to do her up.

“As I reached over for the belt I touched something wet and sticky, the seat was full of blood. I was frightened that she had some horrible internal injuries like something Gwyneth told us about one of her friends whose horse fell while jumping a fence and rolled on her. She died and I thought maybe I shouldn’t have moved Leslie, but I couldn’t have left her there could I?”

All this time she had been looking down at her beaker, now she looked up at the two men.

“They’re bound to know it was me. All the crews know my car because I’ve been on location with them so many times. Do you think I’ll lose my contract? I don’t know what I’ll do if I do.” She burst into tears.

“It’s a bloody good job you got there when you did,” said Barry. “Don’t you worry about that now,” he soothed “I’m sure I can fix it and if not you can come and work for me. I have people in my office who could do with having you around.” He winked at Charles, who thought that the allusion was not in good taste, given the circumstances. “It’s Ms Weston we have to worry about for the moment. Anyway, go on.”

With an effort Amber composed herself.

“There’s not much more. This was the nearest hospital. I got her here and I knew that she had private medical insurance, so I got a private room. The duty doctor examined her. Her arm’s broken in two places and her face will probably need some cosmetic surgery because of crashing the car, but the worst thing is they’ve..,” her voice trailed off again.

“What?” both men demanded in unison.

“I don’t like to say,” she started to sob again. This time it was Charles’s turn to lay an arm round her to try to comfort her.

“Come on Amber, you can tell me,” he coaxed. Whether his alter ego as Charlotte that helped her confide or just relief at being able to break the tension of the unspeakable, but she at last blurted out.

“They’ve cut off her clittie and labia!”

There was a stunned silence, slaked only by the background hum that pervades all hospitals. The silence was shattered by the arrival of Ray Browne with acolytes in tow. Charles’s image of him was as the abject submissive in the dungeon. Now he was in his own element.

“Good morning everyone, Okay, lay-people out!” he said in a loud voice, full of energy despite the fact that it was now two in the morning. “I have work to do. I’ll see you in the day room in a half an hour to tell you what I am going to do. Go on, shoo. Sister, go and make sure that theatre is ready.”

Amber, Barry and Charles, the latter personally thankful that if Ray Browne had recognised him as Leslie’s ‘French maid’ he had sufficient will power not to bat an eyelid, trooped out of the room to wait. It was obvious that they had been dismissed.

The Ray Browne that came to them half an hour later was much less ebullient. “I have to be blunt,” he said. “Whoever it was has really messed her up. The bastards have used some sort of blunt instrument, maybe a big pocket-knife, to do a crude type II FGM, plus a lot of secondary and tertiary collateral damage. I’m going into theatre now to do what I can by way of emergency patch up. Then we’ll have to see what can be done by way of repairs though I’m not optimistic for anything like a full sensitivity again. Let’s hope to goodness that whatever they used the sods haven’t given her hepatitis or HIV as well.”

*****

Amber and Charles stayed at the hospital all the next day. Barry had excused himself in the early hours, saying that there were things in London that he had to do, but that he would come back as soon as he could.

“Don’t worry about the next millennium,” he had told Charles who protested that he had work to do, “That can wait. Your job is here to find out what’s going on now. We have to get to the bottom of this then do something about it.” They went to the door with him and waved good-bye. Charles turned to Amber.

“We had better let Gwyneth know what has happened.”

“I was dreading doing that,” replied Amber.

“I know,” but she’d want to know straight away and,” Charles added with a worried after thought, “it’s just possible that whoever it is, may be gunning for her too. She needs to be on her guard anyway.”

“Come on let’s find somewhere discrete where we can talk to her.”

“My car’s over there,” Amber pointed into the darkness. “It’s got a ‘phone. She’s going to love us ringing at this hour, but it can’t be helped.”

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19.01.13

story continues in The Consultants 3.14

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