You will be free to leave, and I will be a million pounds richer.” “Let me just say, this will all soon be over. I suppose you are wondering where you are and why,” he continued. This allowed him to remove his balaclava. He then produced two blindfolds and wrapped them around the girl’s heads. He brought two chairs into the room from the corridor and placed them, back to back in the centre of the basement. Now we can get down to business,” he said. Standing in the doorway was a man dressed in a black overcoat, wearing a skiing balaclava to hide his face from his captives. A key turned in the lock and the door burst open. “We’ll be alright.” They held onto each other for comfort. “It’s okay Joan, calm down,” Jude comforted her sister. She instantly remembered the incident in the car park and began to tremble and cry. The effect of the drug was wearing off and it left Joan with a stinking headache. “Shh, shh, you’re okay, your okay,” whispered Jude to her sister as she began to shake. Joan felt the losses too, but she had Jonathon to lean on. Jonathon even gave Jude a monthly allowance so that she could come and go as she pleased without worrying about money. Joan and Jonathon had taken Jude into their home after the funerals and made sure Jude was made comfortable. That was five years ago now, but it was still hard for Jude at night, when she remembered her short coupling with David. The police thought that the couple had lost control after hearing the news of their son-in-law’s death. Jude’s parents died hours later from their injuries when they collided with a wall. Whilst out with friends, a motorist drunk at the wheel, lost control of his car hitting David’s MPV, killing David instantly. David was killed the same day as her parents two weeks after their wedding. Three month’s later Miss Jude Davies became Mrs Jude Heskins. A mutual friend, who could see the match was made in heaven, introduced them to each other.
He had no money, but he had an abundance of love for his fellow man and his sense of humour matched that of Jude’s perfectly. David was an American aid worker who had come to the UK for a holiday after three months of poverty and diseased stricken work in the depths of the Congo. Jude, on the other hand, was almost totally opposite to her sister. Jonathon was in his mid-fifties, balding and overweight. Jude had felt that her sister had married for the money. Joan had won several beauty contests in her late teens and early twenties that’s how she met her millionaire husband, Jonathon, a ‘Captain of Industry’ as Joan described him to Jude and their parents the first time they met. Joan’s makeup was smudged, but she was still the beautiful one. Joan’s slow, shallow breaths comforted Jude she brushed her sister’s brunette hair from her face.
She crawled over to her sister, her neck hurting now as she began to remember what had happened in the car park.
Next to this was a 10-gallon plastic container that looked like it was full of water. In a corner, there was a chemical toilet and a bowl with a hand-towel and soap. The damp walls were covered in very old, peeling woodchip wallpaper, the floor was cold concrete and light came from a 40W lamp that hung from a cobwebbed cord. She was lying on a mattress in what she could make out to be a basement. Joan felt a sting in her upper arm, then moments later she too was unconscious. Joan screamed but no one heard her call out as the van drove away and blended into the city traffic. Tossed into the van, Jude landed on top of Joan unconscious. She felt giddy, then, her knees gave way and she passed out. She was lifted off her feet and tossed into the back of a van.Ī hand covered Jude’s eyes and a voice whispered in her ear, “Quiet bitch, or I’ll snap your neck like a twig.” Jude resisted, a sharp pain on the back of her neck caused her to stop in her tracks. Someone had grasped hold of her and placed a black pillowcase over her head. The sun was hot, and although the climate control in Joan’s Mercedes-Benz SLK500 kept the occupants cool, it didn’t stop them from getting thirsty in the summer’s dry air.Īs they headed back to the Mercedes, Joan felt a slight push from behind, then blackness. They stopped off at a café and bought themselves a couple of cold cokes. The ceremony and newspaper interviews over, they drove through the busy city centre, headed for Joan’s health club where she was meeting her friend, Debbie. Joan, escorted by her younger sister Jude, was applauded as she cut the red ribbon, formally opening the Children’s Hospice.