Edward and Edwina Pembroke are a sick and twisted couple who target young girls to satisfy their depraved appetites.
Chapter 4
Becky Parker hated having her period. She had a huge argument with her mother about the laundry and found it hard to deal with her growing sexuality. She stared at herself in the mirror, her breasts perking up with each month and the thatch between her legs growing in density. She shaved her mons in the shower, still preferring the little girl look.
She loved the forum, and chatting with BellJarMuse aka Edwina.
BellJarMuse proposed her a solution to her ennui. Wipe her computer, throw away her phone, write out suicide letters, leave them in her bedroom. Then find a beautiful place and go there and decide whether to kill herself.
If she killed herself, there would be no clue where she had gone or how she had died. If she decided against it, she would be able to start life anew and perhaps never chat with BellJarMuse again.
This strongly appealed to Becky’s romantic nature. She thought of Virginia Woolf, and her death.
BellJarMuse even suggested a date – 29th September, St Candace’s day, for women poets, but Becky was impatient.
“I’m gonna do it tomorrow” she typed.
“Where?”
“A beautiful place near by, its a river, it leads to the sea. If I drown, I will get pulled out to sea and never found.”
Clever fucking girl, thought Edwina.
It was 1am, she woke up Edward.
“Ed! Ed! It’s Becky, she’s gonna do it tomorrow!”
“Do what?”
“Kill herself.”
“What, wait, she told you. What do we do?”
“Hang on..”
But Edwina could not get more information out of the girl. Becky just reiterated she was so happy she could talk with her, but she needed to end things one way or another. She said she was writing her suicide letters now, and would make another decision tomorrow morning, then her final decision at the spot after that.
“Can you tell me the hour, so I can say a prayer, not to God, but to my own spirit?”
It was naff, but Becky bought it. “I will message you tomorrow morning, when I get up, OK?”
Edwina could hardly sleep after that. “God Ed, this could be our chance!” She checked her air tag. She was in her house, an hour’s drive away.
“We should get ready now. Is the basement ready?” she looked at Edward with a fanatical expression.
“Well, as ready as it will ever be…”
“Good. It’s Sunday so at least we don’t need to worry about work, thank God. Even so. We need to be ready Ed, we need to be close by to follow her!”
“Should I set the alarm?”
“No alarm!” Edwina snapped, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. “Sleep? I couldn’t even if I tried, not with this hanging over our heads. I think we should get our things ready now. Now! We’ll drive to her house and wait. We have to be close.”
She was a wild prophetess, her eyes blazing with a purpose that both terrified and strangely excited Edward.
“Right, OK, we will do that. Let’s have a think first, we will need the supplies, the cattle prod and clothes…
“Yes” intoned Edwina solemnly “we will need everything. Even my phone, to trace her air tag. Sorry Ed, we need to take that risk.”
Edward nodded grimly. There would never be a zero risk opportunity.
Meanwhile, Becky slept soundly. She suddenly felt at peace with herself. She awoke the next morning, feeling great, and kissed her mother and sister. But she still had the letters.
Her hormones coursed through her. Yes, she thought, she was still going to do it…
Becky left the house carrying her laptop, phone and diary. A short distance away, she dumped everything in a bin after shutting it all down.
She then took taxi, paid for with cash from a taxi office into town, stopping off at a park entrance. She wandered in and walked all over, breathing in the autumn air. She looked at families with their children and started to feel guilty about her own.
She came to the place. The river gushed along, over a small bridge. She was wearing a baseball cap, hoping that no one would recognise her later should she kill herself. She imagined her body, washed up hundreds of miles out to sea, in Denmark, or Scotland.
The air grew quiet. There was no one around. Becky got up on the edge of the bridge and looked down. The water was fast running and cold. Could she do this?
If she didn’t, she would go home and tell her parents she had lost her phone and laptop, she could start anew. And she knew they would forgive her. She could destroy all the suicide letters.
She felt for the stones in her pocket, to weigh her down like Virginia Woolfe. But she wasn’t Virginia Woolfe, she had achieved nothing. She was fourteen. And her family still loved her.
One by one, she took each stone out of her pockets and threw them into the river. With each stone gone, she grew more and more resolute. She was not going to kill herself. She would go home, and start anew. No more suicide forums, no more late-night chats with weird Sylvia Plath fans. Time to grow up, she thought.
She turned to walk away, back to town, back on the buses to her house. She smiled quietly to herself, how stupid she had been, how close to madness! But now it was gone.
Suddenly, she heard a rustle. A breathless middle-aged woman appeared in view. Becky thought she recognized her.
“Oh hello Becky!” said the woman.
“Oh, why it’s Mrs Pembroke!” Becky smiled and laughed at the coincidence. She remembered telling this poor woman how much she wanted to kill herself. “My, what a surprise!”
A man followed from behind a bush, also out of breath. “Oh, is this your husband? It’s a pleasure to meet you!”
Becky was uncharacteristically polite and cheerful, but why not? This was a new dawn. This poor woman, she had only tried to help her and Becky had been horrible to her.
“Ah, you must be Becky!” said the man, a large, jowelled double chinned beast of a man.
“Yes, yes I am…” Becky suddenly felt curious, had they followed her? Did they know what she had been planning?
Her eyes went to the huge holdall on wheels that the man was carrying behind him.
“Whatever brings you here, Mrs Pembroke?” asked Becky, curious but still not in the least bit aware of the terrible danger she was in.
“Funny you should ask that Becky…” Edwina approached her and held out a long metal rod. Becky looked dumbly at it as it extended to her torso, then collapsed in a heap as the shock went through her.
Edward looked around anxiously. He then approached the young girl, knelt down, and punched her in the gut.
Becky thought she was going to die, the pain in her insides was excruciating. She could not speak, she could barely breathe and her sight was blurred.
“Right, wrists first, come on, Edwina, sit on her legs.”
Edwina fell on Becky’s legs like a hyena and bear hugged them together while Edward quickly cuffed her wrists, something he had practiced on Edwina countless times. Then Edward quickly produced a gag wrapped it around the poor girl’s head and pushed the red ball deep into her mouth, stretching her mouth obscenely.
“Now, ankles, let’s go!”
After the ankles were secure, Edwina walked around, checking if anyone was coming. “Oh fuck, there is a family coming this way Ed, quickly!”
Edward refused to panic. He pulled Becky up, punched her in the stomach again, and pushed her into the holdall head first. He then wheeled it towards the approaching family, loudly coughing.
Becky was in a daze, she was upside down her insides were torn apart and she couldn’t breathe, she could barely make a sound.
As the family approached, Edward continued to cough, hoping to cover up any sound coming from the holdall. A small dog tried to bark and get at it, but the Pembrokes shooed him away.
“He wants our picnic!” laughed Edwina.
The Pembrokes continued to wheel the holdall through the uneven surface, coldly avoiding eye contact with anyone else. Eventually, they found a quiet spot.
Edward was able to sort Becky out in a more comfortable, quieter position while ignoring her pleading tearful blue eyes. He reached around her clothes, groping ever part of her, looking for a phone or anything. He ripped off her pedant.
“We need to get rid of that air tag” said Edwina. “Let’s throw it in the river!”
Edwina jogged over to the river to throw it in then rejoined Edward as they made a grim, tense march back to their van. It seemed to take forever, but it only took them fifteen minutes. They then had to wait a few minutes before a group passed by, before bundling the holdall into the back of the van, and driving off.
“We’ve done it Ed. We are going home with a girl!”
“Why don’t you check on her, but Edwina, don’t be playing with her! Just make sure she is secure, and she cannot make any noise! We can play with her when we are home. For now, my God, we just need to get home!”
“Becky? Becky?” Eleanour Parker was calling all over the house. Her daughter seemed to have turned her phone off. And she had disappeared. “Stupid girl, she will turn up for lunch.” Her mother went back to her work, unaware that her daughter’s life had taken a disturbing turn for the worse.
