The Jewel Thieves

by Daniel Guy

1.

Three in the morning and two young men arrive at the gate to Lincoln Mansions, a remote victorian country house, surrounded by a high stone wall. One parks the motorbike behind a bush, a few meters away from the main gate, while the other checks the wire cutters, torch and small crow bar are in the rucksack. They walk around the perimeter fence till they get to a section which has been replaced by a high wire fence. A hole is cut and they slip though. They make their way across the lawns to the house. There’s a bit of moonlight to guide them. They reach a basement window at the back of the house and crouch down beside it.  One holds the torch while the other tries to force the window to open as silently as he can. They hear a sound. They turn and see two men standing behind them. One points a gun. 

‘You bastards vill never learn.’

The gun is raised and two shots are fired. The two men collapse lifeless on the ground. 

2.

Frank Richards is a retired policeman, who helps out an old friend with private detective work from time to time. He’s been asked to help find a missing person, a young man called Callum, who after returning home from university, promptly disappeared a week later.  Three months have passed and he has not been seen. Frank sits facing the young man’s parents, who sit together on the sofa in their modest suburban house. 

‘I think he was depressed because he couldn’t find work.’ says the mother, holding back tears. Calum’s father sits with his arms folded, looking grumpy.  He adds, 

‘Stupid idiot insisted on studying jewellery design at university. I told him he’d never get a job with that. I wanted him to join the police.’ 

Frank spends half an hour in Callum’s bedroom, looking for clues. He takes away a scrap of paper he finds in a bookcase, with some names and telephone numbers scribbled on it, and a couple of photos that Callum’s mother has given him. 

‘I promise to do my best,’ he says to the parents at the door before he leaves. 

‘Don’t lose hope.’ he adds. 

3. 

Lincoln Mansion is owned by a Russian man called Otto, a recluse, who has lived there many years. Villagers say he’s hiding from the Russian government, but no one really knows. He rarely appears outside his isolated house. He made a fortune in the antiques trade and Lincoln Mansions is full of very beautiful and expensive objects, which is why over the years many people have attempted to rob him. 

Otto’s method of dealing with these crooks is unorthodox. In the early days he used to hand them over to the local police, but they would be released a day later and be back, trying to break in again. So he decided to solve the problem himself.  His father worked for the Russian police, specialising in death and torture, and Otto has learned much from him. In the basement, buried in the concrete floor are the mummified bodies of five men who were caught trying to break in. Otto prefers to dispense with these thieves his own way. He keeps as far away from the police as he can. 

And now he has another two of these thieving bastards in his cellar. They’re not dead yet. The gun he uses fires tranquillisers, and they have just been tied up and gagged.

Otto was annoyed that they disturbed his sleep, and this morning he’s woken late. 

He rings a bell by his bed and moments later a young man enters. He has a shaved head and is very pale, and he’s dressed in a dark blue workman’s overall. He stands at the doorway and stares vacantly ahead of him, awaiting his instruction. 

It’s Otto’s personal slave. 

‘Prepare a bath. And then go check on those two in the basement. They’re probably awake by now.’

4. 

Frank works solidly on the case. He’s shared the photo of Callum with all his police colleagues who are still working, but with no results. He’s chatted to a couple of people he’s tracked down from Callum’s university, but neither has any idea where he might be. 

Nevertheless, Frank is getting a bit of an idea what kind of man Callum is, soft, gentle, naive, and easily persuaded. From the photo, Callum appears to be a good looking young man too, slim and blond, with bright blue eyes. 

A week later Frank has got nowhere, and has no idea what next to do. Then out of the blue he gets a callback from someone on the list Frank found in Callum’s room  They chat for a while, and Frank is told that Callum used to hang out with a weird guy called Ricky Black, who lives in Bristol. Frank finds out more about Ricky.  Ricky has a criminal record for robbery and cannabis possession. Frank manages to get an address and a photo. 

5

Otto enters the cellar, followed by his slave. 

He sits down in front of Callum and Ricky, who have been stripped naked and tied to the steel chairs with cable ties. Their wrists have been tied to leather belts around their waists, and their mouths are taped shut with silver duct tape. 

Otto nods at the slave, who steps forward, brings out from the pocket of his dark blue overall a roll of clear plastic food bags. He walks round to the backs of the chairs, opens out a bag and slips it over Callum’s face. Immediately Callum writhes as violently as he can in the chair, twisting his head, but to no avail. The slave tears off another bag from the roll and slips it over Ricky’s head. Both men writhe, and their muffled cried echo around the large empty cellar.  Otto speaks softly, with a heavy Russian accent.  

‘Do not panic. For the moment you can breathe. So just sit quietly and listen carefully. When people try to break into my house, I catch them and I suffocate them.  The last three are buried beneath this floor. Over there, you can see that the floor is not finished, and there is a trench for at least another two. You must resign yourself to the same fate…’

Callum’s heart is pacing. He is afraid and confused. The soft clear plastic is sticking to his face. He looks out through the soft clear plastic at Otto and the slave. The slave looks like a zombie, someone clearly not in a normal state, his mouth slightly ajar, a sort of contented half-smile on a vacant face. Otto is dressed in a black suit. His black hair is greased back tight to his head.

He speaks again. 

‘There is a possibility that one of you will live. I need a second slave. I am working this one too hard and there is much gardening to be done. As you can see, my slave is very obedient.  This is because he has been brainwashed. He can no longer think for himself. He is a mindless zombie, capable only of following instructions…

He was like you, a common thief, and when I caught him I suffocated him as I suffocate anyone who tries to rob me. This one however I noticed was aroused by being suffocated and I realised at once that this made him very susceptible to mind-control and enslavement. After a few days of programming he was happy to become a mindless slave and now he lives here with me permanently. He has no need to think. No responsibilities any more except to serve me.’

Otto turns to his slave, who is standing perfectly still, staring blankly out in front of him, a thin dribble of drool, sliding down his chin. 

‘He enjoys it here because he is in a state of constant arousal. Show them, slave.’

The slave unbuttons his fly and his enormous erect cock flops out. 

Otto continues.

‘I have learned a few tricks from my father, to turn people into mindless obedient slaves, and now you two will be subjected to the same torture. I need just one slave, so at least one of you will die. Let the process begin.’

He nods to his slave, who walks round to seal the clear plastic bags tight around the heads of the two robbers. Otto watches. There’s something he finds fascinating about the sight of their terrified faces inside the clear plastic bags, the way the plastic sticks tight to their faces one moment and then billows out to a balloon the next. 

He loves to watch them slowly fade, their desperate movements begin to weaken, their muffled cries soften and the best moment for Otto is when their bodies finally sag and the plastic bag fills out slowly one final time as the final breath leaves their body. 

His slave likes it too. He stands with his cock out stiff. 

6.

Frank checks into a small hotel in Bristol. The following morning he meets an old friend, a police detective, who lives in the city.  They settle in a quiet cafe and Frank is shown a folder of young men currently missing in the area. There by coincidence is Ricky Black’s face. Frank picks it out and shows it to his ex-colleague. 

‘He’s a friend of Callums. They were mates at university. Can you get me any more information about him?’

‘Sure. All we know is that he’s been missing for four days. And he’s got a criminal record, just attempted robbery and cannabis possession.’

Later that day, Frank’s mate calls back with some good news. A motorbike has been retrieved, abandoned in a quiet country road. Turns out it’s Ricky’s. It’s been left outside the gates of a country house. Frank finds out that the owner, an elusive Russian man called Otto, was arrested ten years ago for shooting a man who was trying to break into the house, but he was let off because he had friends in government. 

The moment Frank gets Ricky’s address he goes round to pay a visit. There is no one at the flat so he rings a neighbour’s bell and an old lady opens the door.  Frank says he’s a policemen and wants to know if she’s seen her neighbour Ricky recently. 

‘Ricky? No, thank God. He’s not been there for a week. When he’s here he plays loud music. I’ve had a very peaceful few days, thank you very much, I can tell you, and I hope he doesn’t come back.’

Frank shows her a photo of Callum.

‘And have you seen this man?’

She snatches the photo and holds it close to her eyes. 

‘Oh yeah. He moved in with Ricky about three months ago.  I think he’s gay. The both of them just sit around the flat all day smoking weed. I can smell it from my bedroom window. They left the flat together in the middle of the night, about four days ago and I haven’t seen them since. I heard them clumping down the stairs. It woke me up. I guess they’ve gone away for a bit.’

Frank, nods, finishes scribbling notes in his note book.

‘Thank you. You have been very helpful.’

7.

Days have passed. Callum and Ricky have been subjected to long periods of suffocation many times, day and night. Ricky passed out after a day and never recovered consciousness. and Callum watched as Ricky’s body was wrapped in plastic sheeting and then tipped into a trench at the end of the cellar. He watched Otto’s slave mixing up concrete and pouring it into the trench till the floor was levelled out… 

Callum, barely alive and exhausted, is now starting to accept his fate. He understands the rules now. Every time the plastic bag is tied over his head he has to masturbate till he orgasms, and then the bag is taken off.  Then headphones are placed over his ears and he has to listen to a Russian voice telling him to accept his re-programming, to keep rubbing his cock to keep himself on the edge of orgasm, and to keep repeating the same mantra aloud ‘I am a mindless obedient plastic slave.’ He’s been in a hazy trance for three days. It’s a simple existence in a way. He doesn’t have to think. He just feels numb. Even the murder of his mate Rick has been erased from his memory. Nothing matters any more. He sits there drooling, waiting for the next time he is suffocated. He knows what he must do. 

‘I am a plastic slave..’ he mumbles, over and over again. 

8. 

Three days later Frank is standing at the large iron gates of Lincoln House. He looks around at the surveillance cameras pointing at the gate. He rings the bell and Otto answers. 

‘Good morning,’ says Frank. ‘My name’s Frank Green and I’m a private detective. I am looking for a missing person. Perhaps you can help me.’

The door opens and Frank walks along the gravel drive to the front door, where Otto is waiting for him. 

Frank pulls out a photo of Callum from the inside pocket of his jacket and holds it up in front of Otto.  Otto studies it for a moment, while he works out exactly what to say next. He takes a breath and replies,

‘Yes. He is here, living with me. Would you like to meet him?’ 

Frank is barely able to hide his delight. 

‘Er yes! Please!’

Otto turns and leads him into a large hallway filled with antique furniture. The walls are covered with paintings, and shelves are adorned with ornaments that glitter with diamonds. 

‘Wait there. I shall fetch him.’

Moments later he reappears with Callum walking in behind him. Callum is dressed in a dark blue overall, identical to Otto’s first slave. 

‘Hello Callum. My name’s Frank and I’m a private detective. Your parents contracted me find you. They’re very worried about you.’

Frank waits for Callum to reply but instead it is Otto who speaks.

‘Well, you can see for yourself, Callum is here and happy to be with me. He is a grown man and can make his own decisions, no?’

Frank studies Callum’s face. The young man looks dazed and vacant. He glances down and notices a bulge in Callum’s groin. This confuses him further. 

‘Callum? Is this true? You are happy to be here?’

Callum’s gaze slowly turns to Frank. 

For a moment there is silence as both Frank and Otto await a reply. 

Then finally Callum speaks, slowly and softly;

‘Yes. Tell my parents I am happy here and I will contact them one day. Please do not tell them where I am.’

Frank is uneasy about this response but cannot think of anything else to say, except,

‘..Erm…ok’

A minute later he is walking down the gravel path back to the gate. Behind him Otto and Callum stand side by side, watching him go.  Frank gets into his car and calls Callum’s parents. Callum’s father answers. 

‘I’ve found your son. He’s alive and well and living in Bristol.’

There is a pause. 

‘Ok. Right. I’ll tell his mum. Send us your invoice and I’ll settle by the end of the week.’ says Callum’s father. He doesn’t sound particularly thrilled. 

Frank doesn’t care. He ends the call, and breathes out a long sigh, happy enough that the case is solved and some useful cash will soon roll into his bank account. 

But wait. He thinks about Ricky Black. Maybe he should call his colleague, to say he’s been to Lincoln Mansions but there was no sign of Ricky. It dawns on him also that perhaps he should have shown the Russian guy a photo of Ricky too. He scratches his chin for a moment, and thinks for a moment of going back. He decides it’s not his job, and he starts the engine and begins the long journey home. 

Daniel Guy.