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She noticed the expression in his eyes, realizing his mood was changing. “Well, what was it like?” She glared at him. “In fact, don’t bother explaining. I’ve heard enough of your lies to last me a lifetime.”
Her father’s wrath was escalating, despite his silence. He w
as beginning to lose control. His mouth was a grimace, his fingers clenching and unclenching. His eyes were impenetrable.
She didn’t care. There was nothing more he could do to harm her, and it only served to make her task easier.
Jacqueline’s voice lowered to a whisper. “You’ve no idea how frightened I was the night you really decided to take control. You’d all been drinking to celebrate your takeover of the newspaper. God knows what little stunt you’d pulled to manage that one. My bedroom door shot open. I remember the light flooding in, and your slobbering, drunken silhouette filling the gap.”
Jacqueline glanced upwards. She wanted to kill him now, but realized how much better it would make her feel if she could possibly instil even a portion of the fear into him that she herself had felt thirty years previous.
“You dragged me from my bed. Down the stairs. The four perverts you called your friends were all waiting for me. For their prize. I have no idea what you’d said to them, but the look on their faces told me all I needed to know. They were all dressed in Santa suits. I realized what my present was going to be. Have you any idea what I was thinking? Four men, all standing there, knowing there was nothing I could do. Nowhere to run. Did you even care?”
Her father’s fists balled, ready for attack. He was no match for Jacqueline.
“I tried to run. I thought, at least if I made the effort, you might spare me.” Jacqueline forced a restricted chuckle. “God, how wrong I was! All I received for my effort was a punch in the face. I remember hitting the cupboard, chipping my tooth. A constant reminder to me of that night. As if I needed one.” She fought hard to restrain her tears.
“Venin,” spat Anei.
“Jacqueline!” The depth of his voice carried a warning, as though, somehow, he could still control his little girl.
“Don’t! Don’t try to stop me!” She paused, long enough to regain her composure. Why she was explaining to him, she didn’t know. Perhaps he should be made aware of her feelings, past and present. Maybe she wanted to shame him. One thing she knew for certain, she somehow had to release her own pent-up emotions.
“I was dragged kicking and screaming, onto a kitchen table. I had one of your dirty, disgusting friends down my throat... another holding my head... another sodomising me. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I realized you... you... weren’t drunk at all. Because you were hovering in the background. Filming everything.
“Two hours of absolute torture. I thought I was going to die. I wanted to die. My life had ended. You stripped me of anything and everything I had. And then you dragged me onto my back. You broke my finger.” She held it aloft. “Then you, my very own father, raped me!”
Anei said something but the minister didn’t catch it: she wasn’t even sure it was a word.
Jacqueline desperately tried to hold it together. She was shaking with fear even now. Her eyes were red, swollen from the tears she could not contain. She ran her hands through her hair, wanting to leave, but knowing she couldn’t. She had to see it through.
“My own father! How could you?” she shouted, spittle flying from her mouth. “You really have no idea how much I hate you, have you?”
Chapter Eighty-one
“What kind of a monster are you? Two teenage girls? David Vickers? Why do you do it?”
Out of the corner of her eye Jacqueline noticed two pairs of feet had appeared at the top of the stairs leading into the film studio. One pair of legs had casual black shoes and grey trousers: the other, jeans and brogues. One had to be Gardener. Very slowly and very carefully they descended, one step at a time, until their heads almost came into view.
“I don’t have to answer to you,” said Summers.
Jacqueline knew her father’s anger had almost reached the point where he was likely to attack her. Luckily, she now had back-up, not that she felt she had ever needed it. She closed one hand around the syringe.
Tears welled in her eyes as she thought about Lesley Vickers peering into her son’s grave, what she must have gone through. To think that the monster responsible for all that heartache was her own pompous, self-centred father.
“No, maybe not, but you will have to answer for your actions to someone. I had to bury David Vickers. Do you know how that made me feel? I wondered whether or not you were still up to your sordid little games, even after all these years. So, I investigated. I checked you out, you and your friends. Imagine my horror when I found out you were all still molesting innocent children. And you had the perfect cover. All department store Santas. You, filthy pervert!”
“So, what are you going to do about it, Jacqueline?” Summers turned and glanced at Anei. “She’s hardly going to be much help to you.” He turned back to face Jacqueline. “I know why you’re here. You killed the others. Now you want me. But I’m neither old, fat, nor decrepit, like the others you’ve already taken. You’re no match for me, girl.”
She stared deep into her father’s evil eyes. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m not the little girl you defiled all those years ago. When you raped me, you almost ended my life. You robbed me of my dignity, my self-respect, and my self-importance.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” shouted Anei. Jacqueline could see the hatred in her eyes. “You will go to hell for what you’ve done.”
“Shut up, old woman,” shouted Summers, without so much as a glance at her.
Gardener and Reilly had descended two more steps. Jacqueline noticed Gardener hugging his ribs. The pair whispered something to each other, but she couldn’t hear the exchange.
“Between God and my aunt, I managed to restore my dignity and build a new life for myself.”
