Chapter 2: A chance meeting

Thirty-five years ago

Valentina, or Val as nearly everyone except her mother calls her, doesn’t mind the winter snow when she’s sat around a roaring fire looking out at the white wonderland. However, when that same snow disrupts her travel plans, then she feels that she has every right to get grumpy. Being stuck in an out-of-the-way place like East Winch is a disaster ... well, at least to Val’s mind. She would like to blame her current predicament on her parents and brother, Eric, for insisting that she join them for Christmas and New Year. Her father paid for a return ticket for the coach to Nottingham, and Val’s employer, Ted, was happy to give her two weeks leave. Although only 24 years old, Val is a qualified pharmacist, and both she and Ted know that she would be hard to replace if she quit. Consequently, when Val asked for leave with only a week’s notice, she had already guessed that Ted would agree.

Val supposes that the Christmas and New Year celebrations went off okay. Nobody ended up in hospital from the family spats that inevitably cropped up during the week long family reunion. If she was being honest with herself, Val would admit that some of those family spats were of her own making. Her overbearing parents have never come to terms with Val being a lesbian. That’s even though they probably guessed her sexual preferences long before Val told them shortly after her eighteenth birthday. Val never had a boyfriend while she lived at home, and the numerous sleepovers she had with Raewyn were a strong clue about her sexual leaning. Val learned most of what she knows about sex in the intimate company of Raewyn. Moving away to Norwich at least kept the whole issue of her sexual leaning at a safe distance. It isn’t as though her parents are being denied grandchildren. Eric and his wife have already produced two kids, with another on the way.

Of course, Val fuelled her parents ire during this trip by colouring her hair purple, and wearing a studded leather collar and jacket that made her look like a cross between a punk rocker and a biker chick. The large O-shaped earrings matching the O-ring on the front of her collar, did nothing towards winning her parents’ respect. It might not have been so bad if the collar and earrings had been ditched after the first day, but Val stubbornly wore them throughout her visit. Which is probably why she’s now in this shitty mess.

A prolonged blizzard just before Val was due to return to Norwich disrupted all forms of travel. All flights and trains were cancelled and many roads were blocked. Winter snow always comes as a big surprise in England. On reflection, Val should have listened to the ‘travel only if essential’ warnings, but Hell would freeze over before she spent any more time with her parents. Val managed to get on a rescheduled coach a day later. The coach was fully loaded and set off half an hour late. It was slow going along the main roads and several diversions along secondary roads were necessary. Eventually the driver was forced to make an unscheduled stop at East Winch due to the worsening conditions. The coach could ... perhaps, should ... have returned to its last stop at King’s Lynn, but the driver chose to stay put in the expectation the A47 road to Norwich would be cleared in a couple of hours. It wasn’t. By mid afternoon, darkness was approaching and the driver was obliged to ask the coach company to arrange overnight accommodation for his fifty-two stranded passengers. Returning to King’s Lynn was no longer possible as all local roads had been closed for the night due to the drifting snow.

The coach company did their best to find accommodation for everyone. The only hotel in town couldn’t take everyone, and priority was given to families and the elderly. Val was among the nine remaining passengers waiting patiently on the rapidly cooling coach. Gradually their numbers reduced as helpful local residents offered spare bedrooms to those passengers whom they feel happy inviting into their home. Needless to say a purple haired punk rocker biker chick didn’t convey the impression of a good house-guest. Twenty minutes later, Val is the only passenger still to be billeted.

“I can offer you a bed down at the police station,” says the local police officer to Val. “It’s fairly basic, I’m afraid, but at least you’ll be warm.”

“Okay, thanks,” replies Val, guessing that she isn’t going to get a better offer.

East Winch is a small out-of-the-way place that unkind people would call a one-horse-town. Only, in the case of East Winch, somebody must have shot the horse. The police station is tiny, consisting of a small office and two cells at the rear. The offered bed turns out to be a bunk in an unused cell. At least the door is left unlocked. The metal bars between cells reveal the adjacent cell is occupied by an attractive young woman, a year or so younger than Val. She’s wearing a bright orange jumpsuit with ‘Prisoner in Transit’ in bold letters on her back. Her face seems familiar to Val, and suddenly she recalls seeing the woman getting off the coach in the company of another woman in uniform. A thick coat had disguised the bright orange outfit. Val is disturbed to see that the woman prisoner is wearing a waist chain and shackles that are restricting her movements. Given she’s locked inside the cell, the shackles seem to be unnecessary, but the police officer who offered Val a bed shows no inclination to release his prisoner from her shackles.