Death is a Service Rendered

"So why were you altering it."

"I knew what I was doing Piers. In my hands, it would have been exquisite torture, in theirs; it would simply have been gross."

Piers shivered. He just realised that Quinn's first probable victim would have been Cally!

"So you made a visit to Alice."

"Gregor came to the warehouse where I was working and I confronted him with the facts. I had found his wallet that he was careless enough to leave behind and found notes inside. Oh, he denied he had another partner, but eventually he admitted it and said that they too were having a falling out. He was a weak man. So it was easy enough to persuade him to take me with him to the hotel they had arranged to meet at and then floor him."

Piers decided he could afford to stand up, slowly and speaking anything to distract Quinn from his shotgun.

"Why would you care, you had everything you needed anyway?"

Quinn snorted.

"Oh, I intended to show Gregor and his poor Alice what could REALLY happen to someone who didn't know what they were doing with the equipment. Then she went and died on me. Stupid bitch just died of fright!"

"So you cleared the room. Where did the clothes come from? What was the recording streamed to the websites for?"

Quinn laughed. "Oh that, well, we just happened to be using Gregor's car and it had his toy-box with him, just random stuff he had put together for the dungeon as decoration. Gregor and Alice thought I just wanted a demonstration of what business they intended to get into. Maybe they could record a sample for me to see if I wanted to join them. They were ever so grateful that I was not angry that they were about to screw me. Probably thought I was the naïve one."

"And you liked the result so much, you put it on a snuff website. What does that tell us, Quinn?"

"That I have a sense of humour do you think?"

Piers dropped his head. If he had been honest with himself, he should have asked Quinn to leave after that first session with him. He knew he was damaged. So had it been pride in his own abilities that made him think he could take a proto-monster and heal it?"

"So that was that. You did it for no reason at all, other than vanity. Well Quinn, that sets us back quite a few sessions I think. Shall we make another appointment?"

"Fuck you Piers, let's go and see Catherine. Let me teach you a lesson Mr Fellowes, eh?"

"I'm right here Boy."

That voice, both men knew that voice and for a moment, what Piers saw in the doorway was a tall middle aged woman with auburn hair and a disdainful smile. What Quinn saw, Piers couldn't guess, but whatever it was, it caused him to turn so quickly that he stumbled a little. He swung the shotgun towards Piers.

Piers pushed off his soles and made to grab the gun, but before he could reach it, a gunshot rang out. Piers fell to his knees and over onto his face.

After a few seconds that felt like hours he raised his face up to see Quinn lying still in front of him, moaning. He rose further to see Catherine, standing there with her own shotgun. She looked old and shrunken again.

"Simon?" she said, expressing every syllable with the wavering of diminishing hope.

Chapter 17

DS Grave stood in the frost covered front lawn of the house in the woodland and stamped his feet. The morning mist was beginning to lift to reveal several police cars and ambulances, the latter getting ready to leave. He turned to Piers.

"DS Morris has gone with the old lady in the ambulance. It might be shock, but she seems to have taken her actions in her stride. A very feisty lady."

"You don't know the half of it Ross. However, she is not as strong as you think she looks."

Ross nodded and looked searchingly into Piers' face.

"You don't look so hot yourself. I mean, dammit Piers, why go on your own on this one? What a stupid thing to do."

"And if you had caught me first, would you have believed me?"

"We would do as we do; we would have made enquiries, brought Quinn in for questioning."

"And it would have failed. There was nothing to link him to the murders. You do realise why he came here?"

"Why?"

"He came here to kill Catherine. He knew that I had spoken to her before about the case. She would have put two and two together eventually, just as I had. He needed me in prison and her dead. Probably by her weird lover, Simon I should think. That was his plan. But when Brian called him, he had to change his plans."

"So what now?"

"Well my friend, remember what I said about the duty of the dominant to the submissive?"

"Not really."

Piers smiled and turned towards the cars. Please take me home Ross, I have some things to pack, and I have a hospital to visit.

*

As Piers sat by the bed of an old woman he once loved more than anyone before or since, he took her hand. Her eyes didn't stir, but the small hand gripped his and she smiled.

"There you are Boy, saved you from yourself again I see."

"Yes Mistress."

END

Next Piers Fellowes Crime Story coming soon: Man in a Box