Chapter 7: Return From The Pub

Madeleine was shivering, cold and wet, on the floor of the pump tower. She had been half drowned by her terrifying experience in the sluice and while the woman that had pulled her from the water had taken the trouble to wrap her in some old sacking, her clothes were still soaking wet and she was shivering with cold. She had been dragged over to one of the other pillars and tied against it, to stop her, as the woman had said, getting into any more trouble.

Krysta had been rewarded for the struggles that dislodged the brake with a rope around her neck holding her head back against her pillar. Intended to discourage her from further efforts to free herself, it was working, Madeleine could see the terrified look on Krysta's face as she stood hardly daring to move less she choke herself.

Their attackers had left them about fifteen minutes before. Now Madeleine could hear the sound of Celia's car returning as she and Angela got back from the pub. Madeleine first thought she should try to attract their attention; then feared that it would only warn their attacker; then that Celia and Angela represented their only hope of freedom. And where was Penny? Had she been seized as well or had she somehow managed to escape?

The slamming of Angela's car doors told Madeleine that if she was to try to attract attention it had to be now. In desperation she tried to cry out but her gag was no less effective for having been jammed in her mouth for half an hour or more. There was no sign that she had been heard.

"Spooky noises!" Angela exclaimed as she and Celia headed for the door of the cottage.

"What WAS that? It sounded like some strange bird or something. Could be an owl, I guess. We'll ask Krysta; she'll know," Celia said as she opened the door.

The two girls stepped through the door into the dark of the lounge. As Angela fumbled for the light switch Celia pushed the door shut.

Before she could turn the light on, Angela felt someone grip her hand, spin her around and pulled her backwards. She collided with whoever it was that had grabbed her as a hand clamped over her mouth. Thinking that Penny was attempting to recreate some of her stories she was perhaps less panicked than she should have been.

Celia was experiencing something similar. As the door swung shut, she too had been gripped with cry-stifling efficiency.

It was only when the lights came on and the two girls realised that their masked and black clad captors were not any of their other week-end companions, that the terror began.

Angela was wrestled face down to the floor in spite of her struggles. The weight of her assailant laying on her back pushed her down hard against the floor as a man's voice hissed, "Keep foocking quiet". With the man's gloved hand firmly over her lips she could do little else as the man pushed the barrel of a pistol where she could see it. "And foocking still too," he snarled as he slid the pistol around to press it against the back of her neck.

Celia was treated no less harshly. Her captor, span her around and slammed her back against the wall, knocking the breath from her. By the time she had recovered, she was staring into grey emotionless eyes, a gloved hand was clamped over her mouth and the wide blade of a knife was pricking against the underside of her chin. "Very still, ducks," a woman's voice said, "Very still and very, very quiet."

Celia whimpered behind the woman's gloved hand and was rewarded with the order to "Open wide!" Leather fingers pushed between her lips and pressed a wad of cloth between them stuffing her mouth full. "Don't try to spit that out."