She excelled at cross country running but woods can be dangerous places if one is a target for unscrupulous criminals.
Rowena, at 18 years and one week, was a bright student at Clare Court but where she really excelled was on the running track and her favourite place was the school cross country track. She especially loved this stretch through Baker’s Wood because she knew that, once she reached the stile, it would be a fast run downhill across a green field and then back to school and always the hope of beating her personal best.
She was in an easy stride way ahead of the field who were out of sight somewhere behind her. Birds made various squawking noises as she disturbed them and they fluttered up into the top branches. She was splattered with mud almost up to her knees but a warm shower back at school would soon put that right and she was in good spirits as she powered along in brief black shorts and dark blue school T Shirt. Her light brown hair was tied in a pony tail which bobbed up and down as she ran.
Unfortunately, Ro was not the only person to know this track well. They must have watched the races for a period of weeks; it was open country and they could easily have sat in a car up a track off one of the narrow lanes on the route or posed as bird watchers and observed the runners in a valley from up on top of one of the hills. They would never have needed to actually come into the woods; if they saw the runners go in and then come out further down the course it would be easy enough to guess which track they took through the wood.
Her mind was on the upcoming stile and getting over it cleanly without wasting too much time when the man stood up. He must have been sitting on the ground peering between the branches of the bush which hid him. There was no mistaking him for anything innocent; he wore olive green military trousers with a long camouflage smock over the top and a black balaclava covered his entire head apart from the two eye holes. She speeded up, hoping to run around him but he made a grab for her and the man whom she had not seen put his arm around her throat. This second man must have remained in hiding and allowed her to pass him. She screamed as she felt a distinct prick into her thigh just below her shorts and then she was struggling against the man’s arm as he tightened his grip and almost choked her. But she felt the darkness rising to claim her as the drug began to work and she lost consciousness.
She awoke feeling distinctly woozy and slowly came to the realization that she was on her side on a hard floor. The cold air on her skin made her realize that she was naked which was a major shock and it was another shock when she found that she could not move. A little squirming around and looking about told her that she was bound hand and foot with her wrists behind her back. She could hear birdsong from outside and she deduced that she may be in some sort of agricultural building. The floor consisted of very old, dark boards and the roof was high and supported by great timbers like a barn or a church. The walls were of a pale color but massive lumps of plaster had fallen off and cracks ran down the wall in various places.
Her looking around revealed the presence of a man sitting on a wooden dining type chair. He was dressed just like the man in the woods although, probably, the unseen man had been similarly attired. His eyes through the slits in his balaclava were clearly looking at her which, in view of her state of undress. was a very unpleasant sensation.
“No, we didn’t rape you but we had to check for any tracking devices. Still, you never know.”
It had a faint inflection of cockney.
A female body is built in such a way that she is displaying sexual features at pretty much every angle so Rowena had no position in which she could lay without showing him something which she didn’t want him to see. She told him that she felt sick and asked for a drink of water.
“Nope”
Then she explained that her ropes were too tight and she asked for them to be slackened off just a little.
“Nope”
“Could you please stop staring at me like that?”
“Told to watch you so, watching you.”
Ah. So, she now had a piece of information.
“So, the other man is in charge then?”
“Nice try. Do you want to be gagged?”
The threat achieved its desired result in stopping the conversation. There was no clock in the room so Ro did not know how long they remained in their uncomfortable silence before she heard the clanking of the old-fashioned lock and the one door, a big oak affair, opened to admit the second man. He locked the door behind him.
His camouflage jacket was unfastened to reveal a khaki military shirt above the khaki trousers. She could not be sure whether this was the man who had been in front of her in the woods as both men looked alike in their black balaclavas. Some blue garment was draped over his arm. The newcomer knelt on the floor and began to untie her. Shedding the ropes was a huge relief and she began to massage the circulation back into her limbs while hiding as much of her body as she could.
The blue garment proved to be a nylon boilersuit such as may be worn over the clothes of a painter. He told her to put it on. It was obviously brand new and much too big for her; she had to roll up the sleeves and trousers. It was very baggy on her which was good in that it hid her figure completely but it felt awkward and some underwear or shoes would have been nice. When she was dressed the man spoke to her.
“We’re leaving. You need to behave or we will hurt you.”
He twirled her around with her back to him and she felt the cold, hard handcuffs as they snapped in place and then a narrow band of fabric came around her lower face pulling between her teeth and dragging her face out of shape. It hurt. She was making noises of protest at the gag when a hood was pulled down over her head placing her into complete darkness.
Unsympathetic male hands grabbed her body and pushed her forward. She felt cold stone under her bare feet (the steps of her former prison?) and then rough ground before the men took an end each and lifted her up and onto a hard metal floor. A brief silence and then the vehicle started up and began to move.
It was a long and uncomfortable journey rolling around on the floor of what she assumed was a van. She tried to rub against the hood to perhaps pull it off but it seemed to be fastened somehow around her neck which made her very concerned about her air supply. She was hungry and thirsty now as well as, increasingly, needing the loo.
When the van eventually reached its destination there was a lot of slow manoeuvring and then the engine was shut down and she heard the rear doors open. They pulled her out and set her upon her unsteady feet – a cold concrete floor.
“You need the toilet?”
She nodded frantically and they guided her, still hooded, on a short walk probably along corridors. The hood was dragged off and she was in a dirty toilet area with an old-fashioned cistern above her and a chain hanging down. A naked electric bulb hung from the ceiling. The man was still in his military clothing complete with balaclava. The only way for her to use the toilet was to unfasten her boiler suit down the front and drag it all the way down her body exposing her breasts which he did as if it were just another routine chore. Then she sat down on the greasy wooden seat and prayed that he would turn his back – he didn’t.
When she had emptied her bladder, she needed to clean herself and she tried to communicate this fact through her gag. He reached down and removed the gag as she remained seated on the seat and she said that she could not clean herself while handcuffed.
“Stand Up”
What was he going to do? He turned her around and removed her cuffs so that she could use the loo roll which was on the wall beside her. Touching herself down there while he watched was dehumanizing then she pulled her boilersuit back into place and he grabbed her left wrist pulling it in front of her so that he could handcuff her again. She cooperated as he cuffed her hands in front of her body. She found that her feet were wet as there was a slight flood on the floor of the chamber, hopefully just of water.
He replaced the horrible hood and there was another walk which ended with the hood being removed. She was in a small room with dirty windows very high up. Metal tubing ran around the walls and there were a couple of small metal junction boxes on the wall with wires covered in black tape. There was a mattress and a chemical toilet on the floor and both men were watching her. One of them was sitting on a tall wooden stool.
“If you scream nobody but us will hear you and we will have to hurt you. We need to take your picture.”
Now she noticed a pile of white sheets and rope on the floor and the men set about rigging a clothes line across the room secured to the obsolete wall fittings. Then they threw a sheet over the line so that it hung down over the door. The stool was placed in front of the sheet and another sheet was pulled over the stool and pulled out so that it covered part of the floor. She was made to sit on the stool so that she had pure white backdrop and was on a white covered floor. One of them handed her a newspaper and told her to hold it up beside her face. It was the daily mail and had a picture of a politician on the front page.
They took about three pictures and then disassembled their impromptu studio pushing all the elements including the stool outside the room.
“Dinner will be served in due course. Make yourself at home.”
And they locked her in. There was a fluorescent strip above her, making a buzzing sound and she noticed that the switch was beside the door. Just as an experiment, she switched the light out and then back on again. Coming back on took some time and involved lots of flickering. She sat down on the mattress with her cuffed hands in her lap feeling very alone and helpless.
For the first time she had time to think clearly and she began to assess everything which she knew.
The men did not seem to be sex maniacs. Everything which they did was controlled and done for a purpose. She was fairly sure that they were just the hired help and, hopefully, their boss would be displeased if they damaged her. She was certain that the men did not make idle threats so all their warnings to behave or face being hurt were meant in earnest.
The fact that she had never seen their faces meant that they expected her to survive her captivity. She had seen enough news reports to know that the photograph with the newspaper was for the purposes of ransom and she was slightly miffed that the picture on the front page had not been of the missing girl who was being urgently sought. But would that be in tomorrow’s paper? She was already hazy on what day it was. Was this the same day as she had been taken or was it tomorrow?
She supposed that Daddy must be rich to afford her school fees, she had never really thought about it before. She did not even know what Daddy did – he was just Daddy. Was he rich enough to pay a huge ransom? Had they grabbed a random girl from the school in the hope that all of them had wealthy families and, more important, how long would she be here?
Her mind went back to the comment about a tracker. They had taken all her clothes and her watch in case she had a tracker – so they said. But what kind of person carries a tracking device? Her watch had been a gift from her parents – surely, they wouldn’t have given her a watch with a tracker, would they? But she supposed she was valuable and it was something parents might do if they feared kidnappers. But then she came back to the question about who she was. Why would specifically HER parents need to think about kidnappers?
There were just too many things which she didn’t know. Her thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the door. One man stood outside while the other brought in a red plastic tray and handed it to her as she stood up. It held a yellow plastic beaker of what proved to be orange squash and some sandwiches still in their cardboard packaging.
It was handed over without a word and then she was again locked in alone. She automatically said “thank you”.
They didn’t give her very long to eat her meal before they were back. Rowena’s eyes immediately fixed upon the chromium item slung over one man’s shoulder. She has never seen such a thing outside of pictures but it was clearly a set of leg shackles.
He advanced upon her and held out his hand to wave her down when she attempted to stand up.
“Look, there’s no need to…”
He locked one shackle onto her ankle and the other around an old-fashioned radiator on the opposite wall from the door and the light switch.
“We can’t have you playing with the lights.”
He took her tray and was gone, turning out the light as he went.
She was in the dark but a little moonlight came in through the high windows. As Rowena drifted into sleep, she was imagining the hunt for her which must be going on in the world outside her prison.
The next morning Rowena was awoken by the sunlight coming into the room and she lay there on her mattress until her breakfast was brought in with one man again staying just outside the door. She realized how professional her two jailers were in that they were prepared for her to try to attack the man with the tray in which case the other man would rush in and contain her. Breakfast was cornflakes and orange juice and while she ate, she realized that she would need to have a rather embarrassing conversation when they came to collect the tray.
They left it a long time and she, rather hesitatingly explained that she needed to empty her bowels and she could not complete the necessary cleaning operation with her hands cuffed in front of her. She further dared to ask that she be taken to the toilet which she had used previously so that she did not have noxious smells in her room from using the chemical toilet. The men looked at each other, one shrugged and the other nodded and her ankle was freed from its shackle. Her hood must have been kept just outside the cell because it was produced and pulled over her head and then she was steered to the toilet.
Once there, her hood and handcuffs were removed and the door was placed ajar so that she at least had some privacy. There was nowhere to wash her hands and she was hooded and handcuffed in front for the walk back to her room where she was again shackled to the radiator. She felt so helpless and pathetic that she had not tried to escape but these men were so careful that there was simply no opportunity. She decided that, at the first opportunity she would make a break for it; if it came to a sprint, she would certainly have the advantage.
She lay on her mattress for many hours; she could only judge the time by the arrival of meals. Today, it proved to be fish and chips in takeaway packaging. When the meal arrived, she asked what was happening about her ransom, had her father replied to the demand?
Her questions were simply ignored.
The afternoon was very long and brain numbing. She estimated that her period was around two weeks away and she really hoped to be out of here by then. The evening meal did not arrive until the sky outside the window was beginning to darken and it proved to be a bread roll and a glass of milk. She took the opportunity to beg for something to read, a book or even some magazines but the waiter simply grunted at her.
It was another long night. At breakfast she asked if her shackle could be taken off. She gave her word not to touch the light switch but he was very sharp with her.
“You don’t want to be here. We don’t want to be here. Just pray that he pays up and we can all go home.”
During the morning, she tried to play word games; she listed flowers beginning with each letter of the alphabet then played the same game with countries but somehow the game tapered off. Again, she speculated on what the police would be doing: they would have interviewed everyone at school in case they had seen any mysterious men or parked vehicles. An appeal would have been made by the newspapers. She hoped that her parents would be trying to gather the money together which would take time as surely most of their wealth would be tied up in investments. What if the ransom demand was more than they could afford? But no sensible kidnapper would do that. You would only ask for a sum which you had a chance of obtaining – unless the kidnapper overestimated the wealth of the victim. Rowena was becoming frightened, angry and frustrated because whenever she tried to think about her plight, she came up against things which she just did not know.
At lunchtime she had proof that there was a takeaway outlet nearby as she was served Chinese Chop Suey. Presumably the meal had been collected as no-one would be so stupid as to have food delivered to a secret hideout.
The takeaway packaging was left with her for perhaps a couple of hours after the meal and, when the men did come back, they brought their rope, stool and sheets for ransom photography.
The man who freed her from her shackle and handcuffs told her to strip off her boiler suit. This was a new level of horror; up to now she had only been undressed for practical purposes such as using the toilet but this order to undress had sinister overtones. She stood motionless.
“We either take a naked picture or we start snipping off fingers. Which would you like?”
He really did not seem to be much bothered which option she chose so, reluctantly, she began to remove her single garment as the two men went through the process of setting up the clothesline and the white sheets. Rowena realized that, for the first time, she was not handcuffed, shackled or hooded; it was now or never.
Giving no time for them to react, she ducked past the sheet and out of the open door and began running at full speed. She was in a large space, probably an abandoned factory unit and a white van was parked a short distance from the door to the old office which she had left. Running barefoot was not a problem; she felt like a gazelle but she had no idea of where she was running to. Very soon there was a door in front of her. To one side was the double door where the van had obviously entered but she was at the pedestrian door and she grabbed the handle only to find that it was locked and there was no key. That was when the first man caught her, put his arm around her throat and put her on her back on the ground.
The second man was right behind and she was terrified at what they would do to her. All they did initially was to drag her back to her office/cell but then the man holding her grabbed a handful of hair, pulling her feet off the ground and slapped her so hard on her cheek that she crashed to the floor. He immediately pulled her upright and barked at her to sit on the stool which had been knocked over but which the other man had now righted and covered with the spare sheet.
She was shaking as she sat on the stool and the men took care to arrange the sheet in front of her so that it covered the floor. The second man went behind her and cuffed her hands behind her ensuring that he dragged her arms up behind her back during the process so that she screamed in pain. Then he stepped out of shot and she was able to lower her cuffed hands to a more natural position behind her.
The man with the camera ordered her to open her legs which she did not want to do but the man beside her lifted his hand and she obeyed, displaying her pussy to the camera.
They took around three or four pictures and then she was again shackled to the radiator but her mattress was removed and thrown outside the room. It took only seconds to untie the clothesline and remove, sheets, rope and stool then she was locked in. The tears flowed freely for a long time as she lay on the floor with her ankle chained and her hands cuffed behind her back. The men had made one simple mistake in both concentrating on setting up the sheets while she was unchained and she was certain they would not be so lax in future.
The second ransom picture worried her greatly because she thought it could only mean that her father had not met the ransom demand and they needed a more shocking picture to increase the pressure on him. What would they do if he failed to respond to their second picture?
In time the light in the window faded to darkness but she did not really sleep so much as slip in and out of a mild doze.
Despite her perception of dozing, she must have slept because she was shocked awake by loud bangs and brief shouts. It was still dark. She had no idea what was happening when the door to her cell came crashing open and a large man entered. He wore a dark hoody with the hood up and, inside the hood, he had a scarf covering his lower face. The black handgun which he was carrying looked much bigger than guns looked in films.
“Rowena?”
She nodded.
He found the light switch and was joined by a second man. She saw another man moving about outside the door. There was some pulling at her shackle and, after a while a man came in with keys which he had removed from the bodies (bodies?). Rowena realized later that, somehow being completely naked with three masked men had not seemed to be a concern at all.
They freed her from shackles and handcuffs and she stood up holding her blanket tightly around her.
“It’s OK love. It’s nearly over but we were never here so you have to escape on your own.”
As he spoke, he and his fellow were escorting her to the remains of the door which she had seen yesterday. The lights were on now so she could not avoid seeing one of her captors lying face up with a bloody mess where his stomach used to be. She had seen that a couple of her liberators had sawn off shotguns which, judging by the damage, had been used on the door instead of a key. The other kidnapper was face down in a pool of blood. Both of them also had serious head wounds. Rowena found that she could not really feel anything.
They were outside now and it was freezing cold so she found that she was shaking.
“Can’t give you a coat. It could be traced back. Run in that direction and bang on the first door you come to. You can mention that you were freed by masked men but leave it as long as you can so we can get clear. At first, you are in shock and can’t remember anything. Daddy sends his love and will see you soon.”
She did run on her bare feet which almost lost all feeling. Very soon she came to a row of shops including a takeaway. All the shops were closed but she came to a door between a newsagent and a chemist – surely it led to the flat above? She banged as hard as she could and did not stop until a man opened the door in his dressing gown. It seemed a strange place to have a door.
There was a muddle of hot drinks, borrowed dressing gowns, and lots of police. Her parents turned up in the Jag at around 8am when she was still in the flat. She had refused to leave the flat until her parents arrived and the police could hardly force her into a car against her will as she was a victim and not a suspect.
Her parents had brought some clothes and they took her to the local nick where she “remembered” the men who had freed her. At some point she was checked over at the hospital and the scars from the handcuffs were treated and bandaged.
Rowena slept in her own bed at home that night. She was not in the habit of listening to the news but she did happen to hear a story on the radio about a man being shot in London. There were no witnesses and the man was described as Bernie Soper a businessman and owner of several nightclubs.
Daddy had to go to work after lunch and, alone with Mummy, Rowena tried to fill in some of the gaps in the story. The gunmen who had freed her had mentioned Daddy so who were they?
“Well Daddy knows lots of people but we don’t talk about those things at home.”
When Rowena returned to finish her final term at school her Daddy drove her and he assured her that she would be safe as the scum who grabbed her would not be troubling anyone else ever and the word was out not to mess with his family.