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They leave the house
together at 8 o'clock every morning, three of them in one car, the
Volvo, although sometimes they'll use the shiny green Jaguar crouching
low in the carport, a lithe beast ready to pounce on unsuspecting
traffic gazelle of the Ford and Vauxhall species.
Rodderick is dropped
at school first where his ageing, doting parents watch him with proud
smiles. I also smile when I watch but anticipation replaces pride as
the engine of my glee.
With seeming
reluctance, for they wait and watch their son for far too long, they
drive to work, their little business that provides fiscal security for
all of them. That business, founded in nineteen seventy on general
security at a time when the unions were mutating into powerful and
disruptive monsters in the face of the new conservative government,
honed its product line to cater for the Thatcherite culture of
personal gain and property paranoia that was a by-product of the
enterprising eighties and now specialises in home security products.
Home security! I
laughed when I found that out. It's just so...... so insulting.
Within three years it
was yielding a net profit of around fifty thousand pounds per annum.
Not bad for the seventies. Intelligent market analysis on the part of
Rodderick's father, ensured their success and saw the couple evolve
from wealthy entrepreneurs in nineteen seventy three to home security
tycoons of the caring, sharing nineties.
Rodderick was born in
'eighty two, when Georgina was thirty four and, from what I
understand, the birth was difficult and the severe
haemorrhaging that accompanied his departure from the womb ensured
that George, as I've taken to calling her, could never have another
child.
Shame.....
She works part time,
in the mornings, and fills her afternoons with moronic traipses
through fashion and furniture shops. Once a week, usually a Friday,
she visits 'Hairdos and don'ts' and pays the Frankensteins of
vanity therein to make a monster of her, anew.
The thing that emerges
makes me cringe. Spurious snow-white hair buttressed by a thermal
coating of hairspray atop a painted face with skin browned like a
Christmas turkey, although not as attractive or mouthwatering. Her
addiction to the sunbeds is matched only by
the obsessive custody
that she has fashioned for her son. To protect is good, and their
careers lay testament to that simple fact, but the aegis under which
this boy exists amounts to social asphyxiation.
They need to be more
trusting in society, to let the boy experience his world before
uncontrollable fear of it sets in. They need to let go of him and I
have to say, knowing them as I do, that shouldn't be too difficult.
But George always
breaks off, like Cinderella just before midnight, and makes her way to
the school before the home bell rings so that she can be there for her
son, the proud, protective mother from the black lagoon.
She'll watch for him
emerging from the building, frown apparent until he appears. That's
when her mouth pushes the maze of deep crevasses that cover her face
aside to make room for a broad, relieved smile and she begins to
frantically wave and bounce up and down so that the boy is presented
with the sight of something resembling a spring-loaded, animated
figurine that's been badly damaged in a fire. They're very careful,
very methodical as if they constantly fear external intervention.
During the past year
of my surveillance, I've come to feel as if I know them and it seems
necessary, even proper, that they should know me.
From afar, I've been
with them, watching, listening, learning. I've mapped their lives, and
familiarised myself with every facet of their existence because I am
drawn to them.
To the adroit Bernard
and repellent George I feel a great attraction but it is Rodderick who
holds the greatest interest for me. His existence is fascinating and I
find myself meeting him in my deepest thoughts and longest, most vivid
dreams.
The allurement I feel
is powerful, too powerful to ignore. I should really concentrate on
getting a better job, away from here. I've got good qualifications,
good enough to get me into university but here I am, working in the
school canteen because this position suits my needs.
Suppose I did go to
university and got a degree. That's no guarantee of success or
happiness. Not these days.
Then I think of
Rodderick and his wealthy, doting parents who are in a perfect
position to help me out. I just need to make them aware of my plight.
Make them aware of who I am. The beautiful, vivacious twenty one year
old woman who is going to change their lives.
And again I think of
Rodderick.
This job is the key to
my plan. From this menial position I can get close to Rodderick when
his parents least suspect any interference. They turn him over to the
school every weekday morning in an operation resembling the exchange
of spies at a Russian borderpoint and from then on, they breath a
little easier, knowing that the educational establishment will assume
the protective duties that have become their subconscious, or perhaps
conscious rituals.
That is their mistake
and it is one that I intend to wield like a claymore.
The corridor is quiet
now and, as I gaze into its deep perspective, I am reminded of my own
schooldays. How different things seem from my uniform clad days of
huddling outside during the winter month breaktimes and walking, NOT
RUNNING, through bare corridors between barren, cold classrooms.
There's a large red
Coke vending machine at the end of this corridor and the kids, who
will flood into this quiet passageway any minute now, are bedecked in
young attire as trendy and bright as the murals that cover almost
every available inch of neutral wallspace.
That's the bell now.
What I need to do is find young Rodderick. I know that he's in that
classroom just down the hall so I just need to ensure that he doesn't
slip past me; ah, there's the boy now.
Time to put my plan
into action. No turning back now....
Barbara Cartland with
an abortive facelift, on a pogo-stick. I approach through a mist of
January breath rising from the young, jabbering mouths that seem to
carry me along, towards the school gate.
I've almost reached
her but still she doesn't look at me. She stands on tiptoes and cocks
her head to the right to stare past me in search of her beloved son. I
have to move fast now.
There isn't much time.
"Excuse me, are you
waiting for Rodderick?" I ask innocently. Immediately, she locks her
eyes on me like twin laser sights.
"Yes. Have you seen
him?" she answers.
"I have to talk to
you. It's very important."
"Do you know where my
son is?" she asks again and her frown deepens, crowding her eyes into
slits. My heart is thumping. This is more nerve-racking than I
expected.
"He's safe but you
have to listen to what I have to say."
"OH MY GOD!! RODDERICK?"
The realisation of what might be happening increases her volume almost
to a shout and she tries to get past me.
"Don't be stupid!" I
growl through clenched teeth and grab her sheepskin clad arm. "Listen
carefully and everything will be fine. If you walk away from me now,
well, I guarantee you'll regret it. Okay?" I think I broke a nail
there.
She nods briskly and I
can almost feel the nervous tension in her as she bites her lower lip
and looks at me with hateful, tear filled eyes.
"Oh come on, George,
you must know the drill for this kind of thing, eh?" I hope she
doesn't mind being called George. "You've done something bad, very
bad."
"How could you do this
to us?" she sobs. "How could you be so evil? Oh my God, I can't
believe this is happening!"
"I want you to think
about your son, about how much he means to you and how much you love
him but most of all, how much you would be willing to sacrifice for
his welfare. When you've thought, I want you to read this, Read it and
think about me, George. That's all."
Clutching the envelope
that had been thrust into her hand, Georgina watched the young woman
walk briskly away into the mass of schoolchildren. Blind panic gripped
her and she began to stumble forward against the flow of bodies with
the intention of finding someone in authority. That was when she heard
Rodderick's voice.
"MUM! Over here!" he
called and was immediately gathered up by his sobbing mother.
"Sorry I'm late. One
of the canteen ladies said that Mr Gregson wanted to see me but I
couldn't find him." explained the boy, perplexed at his mother's
reaction. "What's that you've got?"
Georgina had forgotten
about the envelope but now she ripped it open with a snarl and
unfolded a single sheet of paper.
My parents
died a year ago ;
it read. Their only legacy to me was an
admission of their past. I discovered that I was adopted as a baby but
not through the normal channels and not legally. My parents were
considered unsuitable by the authorities so they resorted to paying
money for a child. They bought me but my availability came about as a
result of something that happened to you and your husband in nineteen
seventy four.
You know what that
was, I have no doubt.
When I was taken
from you, the police advised you not to pay a penny and you complied.
My kidnappers perseverance was finite, though, because they already
had a buyer set up in the event that you refused once too often. The
buyers, my parents, paid handsomely for me although I do not know the
exact figures involved in their gain and, indeed, your loss.
I know they told
you that I'd been killed but that was your final punishment, the
castigation of your greed or callowness. Which, I do not know.
You may think me an
impostor so I offer this one morsel of proof. In contact with you, my
kidnappers used the password of 'Catriona'
Your daughter,
Samantha.
"Samantha..."
whispered Georgina and looked in the direction of her daughter's
departure.
"Roddy, will you do
something for me?" she asked, urgently. The boy nodded. "Can you make
your own way home today. I know I've never asked you before but you
know the way. I have to do something really important."
"GREAT!!!" agreed the
boy, enthusiastically.
"Okay, then. Off you
go." instructed Georgina with a smile and set off in the opposite
direction to catch up with her daughter.
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