As Coyle swaggered towards me I tried to rip the duct tape by tensing my feet and wrists against it, to no avail. Blaine ignored my struggle.
‘Just the two?’ Coyle asked.
Blaine kept her gaze on me. ‘Just the two –one for each stolen boy.’ She stepped back. ‘And Finn? You need to watch every moment of this. If I see you as much as blink, I’ll ensure that the whole thing is repeated with the other hand.’
Coyle knelt so he could see my face. ‘Can I just say, Miss Bresson, that this gives me immense fuckin’ pleasure indeed?’ He gripped my right ring finger firmly and snapped it like a damp twig. All the pain that I felt in my body was channelled to my hand, and I screamed despite myself. Just as I was fully registering the agony, Coyle repeated the action on my middle finger and I howled so that my voice cracked. I struggled uselessly against my restraints as if the movement might switch off the sickening, relentless fire in my arm, and I was only dimly aware of the tears flowing down my face. I heard Henry sob somewhere in the distance.
‘Thank you, Mr O’Halloran,’ Blaine said. ‘Ingrid, would you ensure that Lilith’s fingers are bound so that they set straight? And make sure she has any pain relief she requires.’
Doctor Parnell began to nervously scrabble in her bag. ‘Pethedine. That’ll take the worst away.’
I began to shiver as the shock began to hit my battered body. The doctor pushed my sleeve up and slid a hypodermic needle into the vein in the crook of my arm with a trembling hand, and a warm blanket began to enfold me as the pain diminished.
‘So, do I get to finish the job?’ Coyle asked. ‘You said I could, and I owe him one.’
‘If you must,’ Blaine sighed. ‘Just remember to keep away from his face this time. Henry, can you carry Lilith to her room, please? I think we’re done here.’
As a quietly weeping Henry began to cut away the tape at my wrists, Coyle got to play once more. He ripped the tape from Finn’s mouth and squared up to his defenceless opponent. He postured and swaggered like a martial arts expert before kicking Finn square in the chest so that the chair toppled backwards. Once he was on the floor, Coyle began punching and kicking him with an unfettered pleasure that bordered on orgasmic.
As Henry gathered me in his arms and carried me from the kitchen, my pethedine-dulled brain realised Finn had not cried out once.
Finn
When Coyle had finally exhausted himself, he simply walked out of the kitchen with a slurred, ‘I need a fuckin’ drink ,’ and left me crumpled on the floor, still tied to the chair. It was a sign of his incompetence that I was still conscious: at that moment I’d have relished a few minutes’ respite, or even better, permanent brain damage. As I lay there, I urged myself to hurt more so that I could block out the sound of Lilith’s scream as Coyle had broken her.
With the one eye that would still open, I could see Henry’s collection of hand-made Japanese kitchen knives on their magnetic strip next to the stove and I cursed Coyle for not releasing me before he left. I reckoned I had just enough energy remaining to draw one of them down my wrists.
‘Finn?’ The glow of a lamp cast a circle on the floor by the doorway and I recognised Doctor Parnell’s reedy voice. It sounded even more insubstantial than usual; I supposed this scenario was a pretty high price to pay for a few dodgy prescriptions and a couple of bottles of ‘lost’ valium. ‘Lady Albermarle asked that I check you over.’ She began to cut away the duct tape with a pair of surgical scissors and as my hands and feet were released from the chair frame I realised that I wasn’t in a condition to stand unaided, never mind cross the kitchen to grab a knife. With the doctor’s assistance I was just about able to sit upright with my back resting against a cupboard door.
‘This must be hurting you.’ She dabbed cotton wool soaked in antiseptic over the swollen skin around my eye. ‘Lady Albermarle insisted that I shouldn’t give you any pain relief. I’m sorry.’
‘How is she?’ I finally managed to ask.
Parnell looked away, pretending to retrieve something from her bag. ‘I’m not really meant to mention her.’
‘And you’re not really meant to keep Lady Albermarle’s pet whore supplied with a truckload of dodgy temazepam, but I can’t recall that stopping you.’
She winced. ‘She’s not too bad; both fingers have clean breaks. She’s a little groggy from the bump on the head and the pethedine, but that’s probably not a bad thing all things considered, is it?’