Chapter 7: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

In Warwick, Detective Inspector Ackroyd attempts to trace a mysterious telephone call Jennifer made one afternoon when she became disorientated and lost in Birmingham.

Dr Elba Intervenes

Corinne is in her office contemplating the view across the gardens. It looks beautiful, even on a late autumn day. She is thinking how fortunate she has been to be able to practice her academic training (psychology) and indulge her sexual interests (BDSM), to work with friends and congenial partners in the Inward Bound team and to run a business that generates a good income for her friends and herself.

An outside call disturbs her reverie. Administration costs having restrained Corinne from the pleasures of a Receptionist, she takes the call herself. An unfamiliar voice asks: “Is that Corinne Aimes?”

“Speaking.”

“Hi, my name is Annie Elba. Well, actually, Dr Anne Elba, to be more formal, and I am a psychologist working for the Metropolitan Police. I wonder: could I have a word with you about a friend we have in common? I really mean someone we both know. Jennifer McEwan. I think she is coming to see you this weekend...”

“Erm,...” For a moment, Corinne is taken completely by surprise. She knew Jenny and her husband were planning to visit. Their visit is in response to a short note Corinne and the IWB team had sent to Jenny, to say how relieved they were to learn that she had come home. The impending visit had thrown something of a shadow across Corinne’s mind as she thought and thought again about how it might turn out. She had not expected contact with someone working for the Metropolitan Police who seemed to know all about her business and also Jennifer’s. In a moment Corinne gathers her composure.

“Can I ask, Dr Elba, how you come to know that Mrs McEwan is coming to see us? It is a private arrangement. We have never met and have not had contact before, so I am reluctant to discuss my business and the business of people I know with people I don’t. I am sure you can understand?”

Annie is used to “tense” encounters and immediately notices how Corinne has adopted polite, formal and “distant” vocabulary to make her reply. Annie likes the way Corinne is defending herself and the confidentiality of Jenny. Annie suspects that Corinne’s firm but gentle mastery of their conversation, her presence of mind and easy self-confidence go quite a long way to explain how she and her colleagues (if they are all like Corinne) have been able to build a successful business.

But Annie is also good with words...

“Dr Aimes, I do understand you must be a little taken aback by my... unexpected ... call. Can you give me a just few moments to explain myself?”

“Yes, please do.”

“We both know Jennifer McEwan and also know that she disappeared without trace back in ‘09. You’re aware that in July this year, she reappeared in Stockholm to the complete astonishment of her husband and her parents who were, by coincidence, on holiday there. Jennifer’s father is ex-Army and took charge of the situation, calling the British Embassy and the Stockholm Police, who immediately came out to where they were staying to see her. When they learned that Jennifer was an ‘official missing person’ her case was handed to part of the Swedish Police called the Rikskriminalen Polisen who deal with trans-national crime, threats to the State and, in recent years, people-trafficking. The ‘Met, the Warwickshire Police and the RKP are all very interested to know what happened to Jenny and I guess I can also mention that our own Security Services have become involved when it came to light that Jennifer had been arrested by the CIA when she was with you.

“Well, I was asked to help in the investigation when Jenny was handed back to us by the Swedes. Jenny is now under the care of a Trauma Psychologist called Laura Malvern. You can find her on the database of the British Psychological Society. (1) You can find me there, too. The Swedes thought, and Laura and I also think, that Jenny is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome (appropriately enough) and is finding it ... let’s say challenging ... to rediscover herself once more now she is back home in England.”

“Ah, but you still have not said how you happen to know that Jennifer was coming to visit. Did she tell you?”

“She told Laura Malvern who told me.”

“Excuse me, Dr Elba, but what about client confidentiality?”

“Laura has a duty of confidentiality to Jennifer but she also has a duty of care, to protect her - and others, perhaps - from harm. We think Jennifer is still being stalked by the people who abducted her, as if they are trying to maintain control, and we wonder what comes next? At the very least, a patient cannot recover from trauma if the trauma carries on. At the very worst, are they preparing the ground for a re-abduction, if there is such a word?”

“Ah ... I see ... urm ... so, I am now thinking that Jennifer and Joseph have not reached the ‘lived happily ever’ after stage of their adventures?”

“Unfortunately not. Well, I do not think so. Anyway, to reassure you. Laura Malvern does not tell me what Jennifer says to her in their sessions but, on one occasion recently, she has told me that Jennifer mentioned some continued contact over the internet with - let’s call them ‘the people Jenny was with when she was away’ - and that she was going to take up an invitation to come and visit you, so I thought I ought to give you a ‘heads up’ about what has been going on. I suppose this is a rather more wild explanation than you were expecting?”

Annie has successfully broken the ice between her and Corinne who replies with more warmth in her voice, “You certainly have. I hardly know where to begin. I was not expecting to hear about Jenny in the context of the police, the Swedish police and the Security Service.”

“Actually Corinne, its all of the Security Services. MI6 are looking at the international dimension. MI5 are still interested in the ‘CIA’ incident you were involved with. GCHQ are looking into unexpected internet transactions. People-trafficking has a very much higher priority nowadays. The Police and the Security Services are interested in victims, perpetrators, financing, distribution, and involvement of foreign powers. Jenny’s case is a bit special because she does not look like the typical victim but you will see when you meet her again.”

“Annie - may I call you that? - I am sorry, I now feel as if I was being obstructive to you when you have something very serious on your hands. I am just taken aback by what you have to tell me. I had a call recently from someone called Cathy Corbin who is a friend and colleague of Jenny to tell me she was back. Dr Corbin was able to tell me something about the situation but not as much as you have.”

“Please do not apologise, Corinne. The way this thing has grown legs and run has been a surprise to us, too. Anyway, this is why I am calling. The evidence is gradually mounting in favour of Jenny being an abduction victim, though it’s hard for her to be frank about her experience and, naturally, the ‘Met and also the Rikskriminalpolisen are interested to know what made Jenny a target.

If Jenny says more about that or says anything that sheds light on what has happened to her, I should be very interested to know. And, on the other hand, a person can’t recover from trauma when the trauma continues. If Laura and I are correct to think that the people Jenny was with (for want of a better phrase) are still in touch with her, I just wondered if Jenny might have asylum with you?”

“Asylum? Well, yes, if you think that would be appropriate, but don’t the police have a ‘safe house?’ What about her relatives? Frankly, I am a bit surprised when you said ... I mean, surely the abductors would not be so brazen as to try and maintain contact?”

“I agree; it is very unexpected. Perhaps ‘abductors’ is the wrong word? It might be better to imagine that Jenny formed a very controlling relationship which she wants to break, but her partner or other parties in the relationship are trying to reestablish control? And yes, the police do have safe houses, although not that many. There is also a ‘witness protection’ programme which can construct new identities for people under threat, but that would be a complete and very permanent break with everything Jenny has known. Home. Job. Occupation. Friends. Location. Even country. I hope the whole situation can be resolved well before we have to make those sorts of arrangements. At this stage, I am just exploring some options. As far as Asylum is concerned, Jenny herself would need to be convinced that some sort of relocation was a good idea and this has not even been broached to her. Her husband is working, so he needs easy access to his office. If Jenny went to live with her parents, it might be all too easy for the people pursuing her to find out where she was. Knowing what to do is not an easy call.”

After a breath, Dr Elba continues smoothly, “Corinne, can I change the focus a bit and ask what Jenny was like when she first came to you?”

“Yes of course. She was very likeable. She threw herself into the experience.”

“Was she a very submissive person?”

“Can I start by contradicting a misconception that I think I can hear in your question, about being a ‘submissive’? A submissive in the BDSM sense is often, maybe is almost always, a strong person in search for a yet stronger person, or a brave person who wants to explore what they are capable of.”

“So not a lump of jelly or clay?”

“Absolutely not jelly or clay. You need to know that we choose our adventurers with care and we deliberately screen out people we think are not ready for an IWB experience. For example, because they have unrealistic expectations, or they are being forced into it by a partner or some other person.”

“How do you know how far to go?”

“Adventurers have to give informed consent to the range of experiences they think they can accept, but everyone has a safe word, which is their trump card to stop the action dead if it turns out to be more than they can manage.”

“Sexual contact?”

“That’s really quite a difficult area. IWB is not a primarily sexual experience although there are opportunities to consent to some limited involvement but with serious caveats. We don’t want to damage relationships and sexual contact outside a relationship can be very damaging. Also, we do not want people to take away more than they came with, so we don’t let adventurers share body fluids and we reserve the right to ask for medical certificates for immunization against hepatitis if someone states that they are open to sexual contact — and we still always sheath up the boys.

“We think Boy-Boy and Girl-Girl experiences are maybe emotionally safer than Boy-Girl experiences and perhaps less likely to de-stabilise the home relationship. It is interesting, by the way, how often female partners are quite keen for their man to have some Boy-Boy experience if he is the course participant!

“And, of course, it’s OK for one partner to visit and fuck the other partner if the other partner is one of the Adventurers. There is one quite edgy game we have played with some couples where the ‘participating partner’ gets strapped down and left blindfolded or hooded so they think it’s a ‘bondage experience’ but, after a reasonable spell, the other partner comes and gives them a thorough seeing to. They can’t see who it is, but they know all about what’s happening. A serious mind-fuck as well as a body fuck. Anyway, we have to choose the participants with great care if we are thinking about arranging something like that!

“All parties, which is to say both partners, must sign consent forms now and so when a hypothetical Girl-Girl or Boy-Boy interaction takes place, there might be four consent forms signed — not actually the case when Jenny came to us.”

“Cross infection control?”

“You mean with gags, hoods and insertables?”

“Yes, and so on...”

“We have a very well organized decontamination unit and all insertables go through a washer/disinfector and then on to an autoclave which performs to operating theatre standard. One of our team is a senior surgical nurse in her day job, so she was able to advise and put us in contact with specialists in cross infection control, decontamination and sterilization”

“So, a serious investment?”

“Tell me about it! We are also equipped to draw tattoos and perform body piercings — and we do, by the way. All the staff involved are professionally trained and experienced in that sort of work and have certificates of competence and knowledge of relevant cross infection control from their local Health Authority. The sterilization equipment is regularly maintained and inspected and we carry pressure vessel insurance for the autoclaves and so on...”

“Wow, the things you have to do to run an adult experience centre!”

“As I said, tell me about it!”

“I don’t want to be impertinent, but how did — how do you finance all this?”

“That’s quite a long story, but we started up with a Management Training company and it was relatively easy to apply for start-up grants for that sort of thing. The Management Training generated the initial income. We then began the IWB experiences as an experiment between management courses, and were pleasantly surprised at how the idea took off. IWB courses are a lot more fun to do than management courses but in retrospect, IWB was right for the time. Later, we received inward investment, actually from a Transport and Logistics company.”

“Logistics?”

“A bit of a surprise to us, too. They have been surprisingly generous. Neither of our enterprises, that’s Huntingdon Management Sciences and IWB, has really anything directly to do with Transport and Logistics. We think the Chairman might be a ‘player’ himself, which is how we came to his attention. Maybe he sends his staff, or the staff he wants straightened out!”

Maybe, thinks Annie, but her attention is really caught by the word Transport. What sort of freight might a Transport and Logistics operation handle? Would their expertise extend to perishable cargo? Perhaps the most perishable cargo of all: people?

An Alien Encounter

We’re visiting Inward Bound, Jenny and me. I’m not exactly sure why she wanted to come, but she was insistent. I thought it would just drag up all sorts of unpleasant memories from the past, but all she would tell me was that she has things she needs to tell Corinne and her colleagues here. Perhaps her sessions with Laura Malvern have brought her to a place where she can deal with what has happened to her? An emotional place and a geographical place?

Corinne comes out to greet us, just as she did when I first visited. She throws her arms round Jenny. “Such a relief to see you again,” she says.

Then there is Charlotte at her elbow. Cool and elegant and warm and affectionate, all at the same time. “Jenny. Back at last! I am so glad you brought Joe. Did he tell you he came to see us to find out more about the girl he married?”

Jenny smiles. She wipes away a tear and we follow Corinne and Charlotte into Inward Bound.

Frankly, I have very mixed feelings about this place. It’s where the nightmare began; at least, that’s how it seems to me. It is staffed by caring people who are trying to help their “guests” find out a bit more about themselves, but it is the portal through which so much else has flowed and much of that has been so very painful. Jenny enjoyed her experience but for me, I keep thinking that if Jenny had not come here she would never have been taken away.

Presently, we’re sitting in Corinne’s office. Corinne. Charlotte. Me. Jenny. Josephine. Ylena. There is a knock at the door. “Come in,” calls Corinne. The door opens and in comes a completely naked girl pushing a trolley that’s carrying all that’s needed for afternoon tea! She isn’t entirely naked though, because she has a silver metallic collar around her neck and matching wrist and ankle cuffs — but they don’t really count.

“I hope you don’t mind,” says Josephine by way of explanation, “but we have a course running.”

“We thought we should see you promptly,” continues Charlotte.

I am sure I see Jenny taking a deep breath, but she merely says, “No, that’s fine. I am a bit of an expert myself.”

“We all have milk but does anyone have sugar?”

“Actually,” says Jenny, “can I have no milk but a spot of jam?”

“Jam?” queries Corinne.

It is Ylena who offers the explanation: “Chai byez malakom, s djam. Chai pa russki, da?” She turns to Corinne and Charlotte. “Russian tea.”

Jenny answers effortlessly, “Da, spaseeba, Gaspazha. Chai s djam. Chai pa russki.” (2)

There has been a lot in this innocent exchange about what to put in tea. I catch Corinne looking at Ylena, who smiles at her and Charlotte.

In a moment, the slave girl — or should I say “guest,” or perhaps “adventurer” — is back with a small jar of raspberry jam and the little tea party begins in earnest.

“We were so worried about you,” begins Josephine. “We had the Police...”

“And we had Joe,” adds Charlotte. “Joe was the worst. Asking questions about everything. Almost expected him to turn out all the drawers onto the floor to see what was actually inside!”

It is time for me to speak. “Well, I was a man on a mission. I was determined to find the girl I had lost!”

“Yes, you were,” adds Corinne, “and now Jenny is back. So. Jenny. Do you want to do the talking? It is such a relief to see you again and looking so well. You look as if you have had six months in Jamaica!”

Jenny bats the compliment away. “Actually, Corinne, I think it was because of the medicine I was given. Here you were helping me to find out who I was. There, I was expected to become what someone else wanted.”

Corinne made a light-hearted ice-breaker remark and Jenny replied with a difficult reality. The temperature in the room seems to have dropped a few degrees colder.

In a pause, Charlotte says, “Jenny is there anything we can do?”

“I just ... I have got to tell you about the data I collected when I was with you.”

I notice Corinne is now leaning forward in her chair.

“All the data,” continues Jenny, “all the data was copied, or duplicates obtained, and sent to where I was. Everything. All the computer files, with the data sheets, all the books and journals. Absolutely everything.”

By now it is possible to hear a pin drop in the room. Jenny has everyone’s complete attention. Especially mine. I have never heard her say anything like this before. I’m starting to understand why she wanted to come.

“Every day, I had to work on the data, just as I would have done here. I had a statistician to help me and there was a senior psychologist.”

“I completed the project and wrote it up, just as I would have done if I had been at Warwick University. I even had a viva on the project and, in due course, I was given citizenship of the country where I was and I formally graduated. I am a PhD.”

Every one stares at Jenny, incredulous. Including me.

“Jenny, this is terribly serious,” says Josephine. “We promised our clients complete anonymity...”

It’s the rational thing to say, but seems to be a puny sort of remark in the wake of what Jenny has just announced.

“Yes, I know that, but there was nothing I could do about it.”

“But could you not have just point blank refused?”

“The first day they set me to work on the data, I had the chance to be alone with the computer. It had an email programme. I sent emails to Joe and everybody asking to be rescued, but it was just a trap. The emails did not transmit except to my Supervisor. It was a test and I failed. I got thoroughly caned for my efforts. I did not argue after that. After all, there was just me all on my own, don’t you see? I mean, what would you have done?”

Josephine and the others look uncomfortable. They know they would have done exactly the same in her shoes.

I put my arm around her as she tries to collect herself. I take her hand — it is very cold — and squeeze it to remind her that I am here.

Jenny takes a deep breath and continues. “The data shows that, using the questionnaires, you can identify people who are easiest to train. The data showed that most people do things at the end of your course that they would not have done at the beginning. In your hands, this is just people getting more confident. In other people’s hands, this is identifying people who will be good slaves and who can be trained most successfully. And, I am sorry but, after a while with just me alone with them, I began to love it. If Gaspazha Svetlana had not ordered me to leave the boat, I would have stayed. I am sorry, Joe. I am so sorry. I did not want to come back. You were all far too far away. It seemed such a huge gulf to cross. I did not think I could do it anymore, and I did not know if I really wanted to. I am so very sorry, but that is the truth.”

By now, tears are streaming down Jenny’s face, although her voice is steady and determined, like a runner at the end of a race, as she tries to get through what she has to say. I am feeling numb now I have heard so much more of Jenny’s story and learned just how close I was to losing her forever; how our relationship, our whole marriage was saved by the inexplicable actions of someone called “Gaspazha Svetlana.”