The Abductee

By the same author

The Traveller

Trevor Lloyd

The Abductee

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Copyright  CTrevor Lloyd2013

For my wife and family and any of my descendants who wish to take up a pen.

The lightning and thunder;

They go and come and;

But the stars and the stillness

Are always at home.

GEORGE MACDONALD

CHAPTER ONE

The little girl was playing with her doll, while her mother was watching her through the kitchen window as she instructed her imaginary friend on the lawn of the back garden. It had been recently mown, in fact it was the first cut of spring and as the watery sun came out it reflected on the wheels of the doll’s pram whose image stood out at the corner of the garden; reminding Monica of a birthday card representation.  As the clouds ebbed away the daylight gradually grew brighter so that eventually the garden was now revealed as a neat rectangle of raised lawn surrounding by a narrow earth border protected by a low fence, old fashioned and minimal betraying few shadows. Beyond the garden was a higher swathe of rough pasture tended by a flock of sheep bleating as they moved slowly around as rural and redolent as yesteryears nature and above all as neat as a pastoral painting.

Monica Peters kept that ideal picture in mind while she grabbed the upright vacuum cleaner to stamp on its switch and worked with practiced efficiency through the front and back living room’s before ending up in the hall.  By the time the contents of the dust collector were emptied into the kitchen bin and the electric cable was clipped onto vacuum cleaner’s frame once again the machine was standing silently in its usual station in the cupboard under the stairs. A glance through the kitchen window revealed the same idyllic picture as before and Monica felt the maternal contentment that comes as an extra blessing in life when mother and child are in harmony.

Monica had gained her nursing degree while working as a ward attendant and was now graded as a hospital staff nurse. The proffered house was a stroke of luck for John, Monica’s fire fighting husband, as part of his job package.  After living in digs in a multicultural sink estate with threats on every corner this was absolute heaven.

With constant glances through the window she prepared a cordial drink and joined her daughter in the garden, the familiar yet still uplifting smells of newly cut grass and the background sounds of bleating sheep added new elements to the morning not altogether revealed by window watching alone.

Here you are Meredith you must be thirsty so I’ve brought you a drink

The fair haired child looked across the fields and responded, Yes mummy we are, Sadie is and so are the sheep.

Monica nodded wisely, getting into the moment, I expect your doll is quite thirsty but the sheep will have to look after themselves. Their own mother’s are looking after them after all

She hugged Meredith and stayed to watch for a moment before deciding to return to the kitchen to surprise her daughter with a picnic lunch. Monica was just opening the refrigerator door to search for a tub of margarine spread when the telephone rang.

Monica tutted, earlier she had decided to disable her mobile phone to deter the intimidating calls coming from the hospital, it seemed like a living being who insisted that she curtail her maternity leave. She had a clear vision for her own child’s rearing and she was not convinced by inner city politics or post feminism.

Monica was determined to stay at home and not be called to task by her former employers at the local hospital who expected her to balance her career with motherhood so that at some stage her daughter would inevitably become a latch key kid. Gritting her teeth she gave a cursory inspection to the wall clock in the front living room before taking the call, it was twelve ten.

Good afternoon.

Hello is that Monica Peters?

Monica recognised the caller immediately, her adversarial care manager Kelly Botham was a ferocious advocate of target achievement and micro-managing to the point of bullying.

Look what I want you to do is to reconsider your options, let’s face it by taking a leave of absence for simple childminding is barmy. You could come back and not have to rely on your partner, be more productive.

Let me stop you there Kelly! The person you refer to as my partner is my husband the man I happen to love. Childminding isn’t barmy indeed my grandmothers and great grandmothers were proud of motherhood and expected to be kept.

But

Let me finish, I am productive and what’s more I am fulfilled as a mother, you should try it sometime.

Kelly was gay and not in the least interested in reproduction issues, she was an in your face defiant example of living the lesbian dream.  Moreover she was also prone to thinking like a psychopath; often ending a lecture with, My way is the only way.

As a woman you are facing a life sentence, pick up the phone when you want some time to yourself even if it’s only for part time work.

Look Kelly, we are settled as a family this is not some idle whim.

That was when Monica felt her ears pop as if the air pressure had changed, a slight whistling noise and a crackle on the phone intruded on her response.  Quite suddenly her body ached tortuously as if her very life was ebbing away; then she put down the handset believing that she had been cut off. She felt fuzzy, sort of disorientated and the light felt eerily strange. She looked at the wall clock that was dutifully ticking on the chimney breast wall and her mouth opened in shock, it was after four o’ clock, surely she hadn’t missed four hours speaking on the telephone.

Meredith!  She immediately thought of her daughter.

Moving as fast as her unfeeling legs would allow she made it to the kitchen window and noticed the sheep, they were lying on their sides as if they were sleeping; there was smoke emanating from some of them. Emotional bells of alarm electrified her; there was no sign of Meredith in fact both the toy pram and Sadie her doll were missing too. Forcing her body into a spastic like run she moved into the field and gargled her daughter’s name from strangulating throat muscles but there was no reply.

The highest point. She thought, I must reach the highest point.

She used up her last reserves of energy and reached the peak of the hill known as Bell Tor. Nothing moved or registered on her senses as anything resembling her daughter’s form down in the valley which was cordoned by a ribbon of road in the far distance. She gasped, still gripped by fear’s shadow realising that her child had been taken.  The world refused to stop turning and began to engulf her senses until her body finally betrayed itself and she collapsed in an untidy heap on the summit, her last conscious thought was that her life was futile without Meredith.

John Peter’s blue watch shift had just ended and he returned home after a prior visit to a corner supermarket for a bottle of milk, the journey home was uneventful and by four forty he was unlocking his front door when he heard a fire engine siren. Entering the house he immediately headed down the hall to the kitchen window overlooking the rear garden and was rewarded with the sight of a fire unit in the pasture beyond.  Monica must be outside, he thought and entered the garden. Thinking that she might have gone further he strolled onto the site of the incident. He recognised the crew and waited for them to damp down the blackened field before approaching.

Hi Paul everything OK?

The yellow helmeted team leader, Paul Kirby recognised John and confided in him.

This is odd.

How?

The sheep have scattered but most are incinerated in a circular pattern.

A younger recruit was pacing the site and steadily moving up to the brow of the hill when he reached for his radio, one four to one one, are you receiving over.

Yes one four, over.

I’ve found a body, over.

Instantly Kirby pulled an oxygen resuscitation pack from the side of the unit and raced uphill with several of the team. John followed.

When John caught up with the group he saw Paul holding an oxygen mask against a woman’s face, he recognised her clothes and realised who it was before shouting, That’s my wife!

Paul looked up and keyed his chest microphone.

Control from one one are you receiving, over?

Control receiving over.

Please send an ambulance to present site; a female, late twenties, unconscious, possible assault.

John knew that he could not accompany his wife in the ambulance until he had located his daughter. When he had exhausted all likely places his daughter might be hiding in he finally realised that Meredith was indeed missing.

The fire crew had left the scene and John was thankful, his thoughts were spinning in his mind with no answers forthcoming.  Who had attacked his wife and why was his little girl missing, furthermore why had the sheep been incinerated? More and more mental anguish inflicted itself before a knock on the front door announced the arrival of the police who had no doubt been alerted to the possibility of assault.

A uniformed constable and a female plain clothes detective declared unnecessarily.

Worcester Police, Staines Division. Detective Constable Marshall and Constable Tom Benton.

Peters momentarily took in the police duo, both were young looking and fit in build with dark hair but that was where the comparison ended.  The constable was tall and mundane in countenance whereas the Detective’s features were winsome.  Even with the minimum of eye shadow and a neutral shade of lipstick could not mask her aura of beauty, it was disarming and he instinctively knew that it was meant to put him on the back step.

John Peters, please come in.

"Now Mr Peters we have