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NEW AUTHORS SHOWCASE

 

30-0407

6M

p2

The Manuel Legacy

by

John Bathgate

Synopsis

 

Prologue

 

It seemed impossible that so many parties, and so much celebration could be organised at such short notice. Less than twenty-four hours after the official announcement of the surrender of Germany to allied troops just before midnight the previous night, the British people were letting their hair down as it had not done in years. After six years of austerity, rations and anxiety about loved ones, fighting in foreign  countries, people seemed to have abandoned all inhibitions. May 8^th was designated VE (Victory in Europe) Day. Coventry was no different from anywhere else in Britain. Its citizens took to the streets as enthusiastically as any other city, possibly even more so, for the memory of the bombings during the early years of the war had left everyone extremely nervous about the possibility of a repetition at any time.

In the Allesley suburb of Coventry that night, at least one person was not joining in the communal party, but was lying in wait for his own cruel entertainment. From the drivers cabin of a van parked about fifty yards from the Catholic church of Saint Anthony’s. a stranger was watching the younger members of Saint Anthony emerging from the church door, and his attention focused on three teenage girls who had come out together.

He watched as two of the girls made their farewells to their friend and then started to walk away. The third, a pretty girl in her sixteenth year, with auburn hair and a trim figure, turned towards where the van was parked, as if confirming that she would be walking along the pavement alongside the van, leading to the houses some two or three hundred yards away.

When he was sure that she was coming his way, the driver pulled a balaclava over his head, dismounted from the cabin and went to the rear of the van where he opened one of the double-leaf doors.

The girl sang as she walked. When he heard her close to the van he dashed out, grabbed her by the arm, pressed the keen edge of a knife against her throat. He propelled her into the back of the van, climbed in after her and closed the door.

 “Any noise from you” he said, “and you will be dead. Just do what you’re told and I won’t hurt you.”

The assailant produced a wide strip of elastoplast and placed it over the girls mouth. He then bound her feet and her hands with some string that he had earlier placed in the van, and told her to lie down on the single mattress he had also been crafty enough to load into the van.

It was evident that a lot of thought had gone into what was happening, but the poor girl could not appreciate this, her mind already wondering about what was going to happen to her. In the moonlight night she had not had the time to have a good look at her captor, but the balaclava filled her with horror. The wide aperture in the fearsome covering only revealed his eyes and the upper part of his nose, which, in the poor light within the van gave her no opportunity to register any of his features.

The dark stranger climbed out of the van, locked the door and then returned to the driver’s cabin. He then drove off. After driving for about twenty minutes towards Coventry city centre, he pulled onto a cleared bomb-site, parking as far from the road as he could. Again, this had been well planned, for he knew that, like many of the cleared bomb-sites, it was frequently used by courting couples who were seeking space for themselves.

Mary, the terrified victim, could hear him opening the back door and then climb into the van again.

“You would be stupid to try anything here” he said, “There’s no one about to hear you. Just keep quiet and you’ll come to no harm.”

She struggled to get up, but the bindings prevented that, and she was pushed onto her back on the mattress so that she was trapped against the side of the van. He said very little more, but started to paw at her. He opened the blouse that she was wearing, pushed up her brassiere and started to fondle her breasts. This seemed to calm him for he continued for several minutes, almost as if he were a considerate lover instead of a sexual maniac, but when he stopped that and pushed her skirt up to feel between her thighs, Mary understood that he was not going to be satisfied merely by stroking her breasts.

The binding around her ankles prevented the now frenzied attacker from pulling her knickers down. Mary thought that he was going to become very angry for he started to mutter to himself. He increased his efforts to part her legs without untying the cord. Suddenly he had a change of mind, for he got to his feet and stripped the elastoplast from her mouth, put his knife to her throat and said, “One word from you and you’ll be dead.” He then undid his belt and let his trousers drop to his feet. He brought Mary to a sitting position so that, despite the weakness of the moons rays that were coming from the front of the van, she could see that he was extremely aroused. He stood so close that his penis was immediately in front of her face, and then he told her to take it in her mouth. Mary was shocked. She tried to draw away but he took her hair in his hand and forced himself towards her. She thrashed about, but in the restricted space, against the wall of the van, she was only succeeding in making a noise and hurting herself.

“I warned you” he said in a tight voice. ”Do what I ask you and you’ll be set free without being harmed, but I don’t mind if I have to hurt you.”

Mary took his penis in her mouth, gagging at the thought of it as much as the act itself, but he seemed to find no pleasure in what was happening, so pushed her on to her back again. After replacing the elastoplast on her mouth he started to untie the cord which was around her ankles, and Mary knew that she was about to be raped. He forced her legs apart, tore off her knickers, then lay down between her legs and entered her. Mary felt that she was being torn apart, and when he started pumping rhythmically over her she tried to close her mind to what was happening, pleading silently to her God to help her through this terrible ordeal.

But no help was forthcoming, and when he had reached a climax, he rolled off her, then just lay alongside her as if they were a married couple sharing a bed. Mary breathed another prayer, this time that she would be spared any further violation, but after a little while she became aware that the fiend was becoming excited again. She cringed when he started to fondle her once more and then nearly passed away when he forced her legs open and mounted her once more. 

This time she really struggled against him, trying to prevent a repetition of what had gone before, but he leaned closer towards her, placed his hands on either side of her head and put his face close to hers. At that moment she heard the noise of another vehicle approaching. At one point the headlights shone briefly into the van. Mary was able to see her attacker clearly for the first time. The balaclava had shifted slightly so that she could see the strong, aquiline shape of his nose, and the terrible intense black eyes of a madman, full of hate. The sight of those features terrified her even more and Mary struggled harder than before trying to free herself from under him, and kicking one foot against the wall of the van.

 Suddenly he erupted, screaming at her to stop the noise, and the struggling, but Mary continued, so he picked up a tyre lever that had been lying on the floor of the van. He dealt her some severe blows to the side of her head, sufficient to leave her semi-conscious on the mattress. Mary was barely conscious as she felt the rapist groping about her body for what seemed an age, and then she thought she had been torn apart when he raped her from the rear. What little consciousness she had deserted her with this latest, vilest humiliation and she passed out completely.

He then pulled on his trousers, went outside to see whether the occupants of the other vehicle had been close enough to have heard the commotion from the van, but finding that there were no other vehicles on the site, climbed back in.

He tied Mary’s ankles together again, talking all the while about how stupid she had been to struggle like that, that he wouldn’t have hurt her if she had done as he had asked, but he would now take her back to where he had picked her up. Mary heard nothing of what he said. She had already been in a state of trauma from the nauseating acts that had been performed on her body before he had become even more violent, and the blows that had rendered her semi-conscious had pushed her beyond the point where anything could be understood.

He was true to his word, driving her to the very spot where he had picked her up, but he roughly pulled her from the back of the van and laid her on the pavement, after assuring himself that there was no one about, with bindings intact on her feet and hands, and elastoplast over her mouth.