Josephine Cox - Songbird

Since this was a highly confidential phone call, Maddy could not use Brad’s home phone. She preferred to use the callbox on the village green.

The walk to the telephone booth usually took ten minutes, depending on country traffic using the narrow lanes. This evening though, the lanes seemed busier than ever, with cars and lorries, a cart piled high with logs, a horse and rider, and a group of ramblers who stopped her to ask the way.

“Got to make a detour,” Maddy muttered, “or it’ll be midnight before I get to talk with her.”

Cutting off to the right, she ran across the field and down the steep incline, before veering off up the bank toward the outer rim of the village. The telephone booth was situated at the bottom of Pound Hill.

It was not the easiest nor the shortest route, but except for the lanes, it was the only one she knew.

By the time she got to the red kiosk, the evening was already closing in. Delving into her jeans pocket, she found the necessary coins, and slotted them into the machine; the smaller ones instantly rolled out and she was about to run up to the pub and ask for change, but on a second try, the coins clicked in.

Anxiously, she dialed the number and waited; it rang and rang, and went on ringing, and still there was no reply. “That’s odd!” Maddy recalled how Grandad sometimes went out to play dominoes of an evening with his pals. But Ellen should be there, babysitting Michael. “Come on, Ellen, where are you?” she muttered frantically.

Impatient, she began hopping from one foot to the other. “Ellen, it’s me. Answer the phone!” she prayed. She let it ring for a few minutes, then, wondering if she had misdialed, she replaced the receiver, picked up her coins and started all over again.

When there was still no answer, she began to think all manner of worrying things, then tried to calm herself. There was bound to be an explanation. Then she had another, more disturbing thought. Oh no! Don’t say you’ve already left to come here… Oh please, please, still be there. But she obviously wasn’t, and Maddy was beside herself.

Maybe Ellen was next door with Nosy Nora? Yes, that was it! She’d have gone next door. Sometimes the old dear would get herself into a pickle. Either one of her light-bulbs had blown and she couldn’t reach to put another one in, or her cooker had gone on the blink, and Grandad and Ellen had to sort it out.

Frustrated, yet trying hard to convince herself that all was well, Maddy dropped the coins back into her pocket. Knowing Nora, Ellen could be round there for an hour and more, especially if their neighbor started on about her youth, and all the escapades she got up to then.

Maddy hung about for a while, before trying yet again, without success. Glancing at her watch, she realized it was time to go round to Brad’s farmhouse. Maybe she could use Brad’s phone after all. He had offered before, but the last thing she wanted was for him to get the gist of her conversations with Ellen.

This time she had little choice. I’ll just have to make certain I’m not overheard, she decided.

The car was silent and smooth as it cruised the narrow lanes near Brighill Farm. Inside, the two men kept watch, intent on their mission. “Pull over!” The driver was a bony-faced man with thick fair hair and baby-blue eyes; softly-spoken, he could have been mistaken for a true gentleman. But behind the polished veneer, he was a cold-hearted villain with an insatiable appetite for money and power.

The passenger was hard-faced and hard-cored; possessed of a cold heart and vengeful nature. “What’s wrong, boss?”

“Check that address again – and don’t put the light on. There’s a small reading light in the glove compartment. Cover it with your hand, we don’t want it showing.”

Quickly locating the light, the man in the passenger seat bent his head to examine the address. “Brighill Lane – yes, this is it, gov. We’re on the right track.”

“And have you committed her description to memory, like I said?”

The other man softly laughed. “Oh yeah. Right down to her pretty brown eyes.”

“So now, we’re looking for Brighill Cottage. Check it!”

The address was swiftly checked and confirmed, and so the car quietly glided further down the lane; both men with their eyes peeled for Maddy Delaney’s hiding place.

Disappointed and deeply apprehensive about Ellen and baby Michael, Maddy trudged home. It was almost dark now, and very lightly spattering with rain. With nothing to keep her dry should the rain come down harder, she quickened her step across the fields.

She was now back on the road, and halfway along the lane, as she walked under the light of the street lamp, they saw her , from where they were parked in the shadows on the opposite side of the lane.

“Seems like our luck’s in,” the driver said. “Get out and slip across the other side of the lane before she gets too close. Quick, man! And remember – don’t let her see you! And don’t make a move until I give you the nod. I need to make certain it’s her. If it is, for Chrissake make sure you gag her before she starts screaming and shouting. The last thing we need is one of the neighbors raising the alarm!”

While Maddy was still passing in the light of the lamp, he shoved the other man out. “Stay hidden… be ready!” He kept his gaze intent in the rearview mirror, watching Maddy as she drew closer, and the more he could see of her, the more he knew it was Drayton’s woman; the distinctive sexy walk, the slim, boyish figure and that long rich hair. “Saw you in the club many a time,” he growled, “but you never had time for a nobody like me, did you, eh? Bitch!”

Satisfied that the other man had slipped unseen to the other side of the lane, he gestured for him to stay back.

The car was so cleverly hidden that Maddy did not even see it until she was almost opposite it. When she hesitated, the driver quickly gave the nod, and it was too late. Taken completely by surprise, Maddy was grabbed from the rear, her arms pinned tight behind her back and a piece of coarse rag rammed into her mouth. Knocked off balance, she was then shoved forward, her head pushed down to her chest and the rag so far into her mouth that she found it difficult to breathe.

And no matter how she kicked and fought, she was no match for her abductor’s brute strength.

Roughly manhandled into the back of the car, her attacker threw her to the floor and, pinning her there with his feet, he pulled her arms tight behind her back until she feared they would snap out of their sockets. The pain was excruciating. She was unable to move or make a sound, except for a gurgling, muffled noise that went unheard by her abductors.

Wheels spinning over the tarmac, the driver was away in a matter of minutes, and the entire incident was executed so swiftly that no one ever knew they had been there.

Bruised and battered, fearing for her very life, Maddy was totally disorientated. Yet she was conscious enough to realize that Drayton had tracked her down at last, and that she was at his mercy.

All she could think of was Ellen, and the baby, and though she feared for her own life, her prayers were offered for them.

She could hear the driver talking to her; in a distant kind of way she recognized his voice, but didn’t know where from. “You should have known better than to think you could do the dirty on a man like Drayton and get away with it.” His voice was soft, and refined. “You above all people should know, he never lets go. Especially when some silly spiteful bitch goes out of her way to shop him to the police. Well, you’ll pay now, make no mistake about it.”

There was a pause, during which he seemed to take pleasure in making her suffer. “First though, before Danny Boy tells Drayton the good news, he’ll need a few answers. I mean, he can’t report back with only half a tale, can he? Drayton wouldn’t like that. Y’see, he’s all wound up about the kid. Wants to know where it is, and who’s got it.”