Monica's Travels 11
by Richard Alexander (Gromets Plaza)
(story continues from Monica's Travels 10)
Chapter Eleven – On the Trail
After a two hour stop at Frankfurt, we arrived at Gatwick Airport in the late afternoon. Our body clocks were confused, and by the time we had taken a train to Victoria and found a discrete hotel nearby it was early evening. Victoria would do us as a base while we tried to work out what to do next.
We found a back street pub with sawdust on the floor and ate of ye traditional pub grub, while we thought about drowning our sorrows. By the second pint of cider I had decided that we needed to do some serious research on the internet, and it didn’t take long to locate an internet café nearby. Shawnee, and to a lesser extent Trish, was wide-eyed at being in London for the first time, though Mary and I had both done it as part of our traditional “OE” – Overseas Experience – in our younger days. The place remained as enigmatic as before – on one hand dirty and graffiti encrusted, on the other still overlain with a patina of refinement and history that connected many of us Aussies with our roots.
“Look,” I said reasonably. “It’s only eight o’clock. Trish, why don’t you and Shawnee do a little exploring. Just go for a walk. We don’t know what may happen here. We may get no time to see the place, or we may get stuck here. Mary and I can do the searching on the net. We’ll ring you if we have any luck. Four to a booth is just a tad crowded, don’t you think?”
Shawnee latched on to the idea with enthusiasm, then realised what how that enthusiasm might appear.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to detract from our search, but Steven’s right, and I really would love to see something of the place. Is there anything near here?”
Mary and I looked at each other. I sighed.
“Walk down that street there. That’s Victoria Street, Shawnee. At the end of it is Westminster. On the opposite side of the river is Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Just near here is Whitehall and St James Park. Is that enough?”
“But for God’s sake stick together, don’t buy drinks from strange men and keep in touch on your mobile,” Mary said sternly.
“Yes Mistress,” Shawnee said gleefully, dragging Trish away.
* * *
The 24-hour internet café was relatively quiet and while Mary got some coffee I logged on and began my search. It was a bugger, going through all the search engines and trying to keep track of where we’d been before. Time after time the same links and answers came up, all leading nowhere.
After an hour, we tried different combinations, Simon’s, Symond’s, with or without the ‘s’. We looked at anything with yats in it. Finally we resorted to the dictionaries, and that was where we came across our first success, or so we hoped. A yat, we found, was a kind of gate, from the old English.
“So what does that tell us?” Mary said, looking not terribly impressed at what I had dug up.
“I suppose it’s a long shot, but it might tell us several things. If it is a gate, it probably means what we’re looking for is a place, like Cambridge – bridge over the river Cam. Sooo what if we take the yat away?”
“Like Simon’s Gate?”
“Supposing there was a place called Simon’s Yat? What do we have then?”
“Simon’s Yat Hall?”
“Maybe, just maybe ”
We went down the road with the search engines again, hoping like mad we were on the right track, experimenting with spellings as we went. Mary’s phone rang.
“Yes? No, we’re still here. God, it’s almost midnight! We may be on to something. Come and join us.”
As she hung up, I had just typed in Symonds Yat. The list of answers popped up.
“Bingo,” I breathed.
We found nothing on a Symonds Yat hall, but I was now sure we were on the trail. It was too weird a name to have any other meaning. By the time Shawnee and Trish arrived back, I had done some more searching.
“Good job you’ve had the tour of London,” I said. “Tomorrow we’re off to Wales.”
* * *
The next morning was a bit of a disaster. By the time we’d slept late, changed money, eaten, hired a car and generally been disorganised, the morning had gone before we were on the road. Shawnee had wanted to be navigator, and in a fit of indulgence we had given in. It had been a big mistake and we had wound up miles out of our way. Mary had demanded we stop at a secluded picnic spot where she had delved into her luggage in the boot, before ordering Shawnee out of the car. Sitting on a picnic bench, Mary had put Shawnee over her knee, pulled up her skirt and removed her panties. These had wound up in Shawnee’s mouth as she was given a thorough spanking by Mary, who was not having one of her more tolerant days. She finished the job by rubbing Finalgon ointment over Shawnee’s now glowing buttocks, then strapped her forearms together across her back with a belt. Now seated in the back alongside Trish, her mouth still full, Shawnee wriggled and squirmed in the restraints of her seat belt as the heat generating ointment burned into her bottom. Mary had regained her composure, but the damage had been done, and it was well into the afternoon before we arrived at Ross-on-Wye to start our search for a Symonds Yat hall.
It proved not nearly as difficult as we expected, by the time we had found the local tourist office, run by a cheerful blowsy woman whose name badge read “Sasha”. Somehow the name seemed incongruous given her middle age and the very English Tudor house in which the office was situated. I thought she should rather have been called Rosemary, or Marion, or some other suitably traditional name.
“Is there a place called Symonds Yat Hall near here?” I asked.
“Yes. The Earl of Penrhos has a remarkable collection of medieval torture devices – if you’re that way inclined. But it’s closed until further notice.”
“Why is that?” I asked, not at all liking what I was hearing, but now more certain than ever that we were close to where we wanted to be. The woman shrugged.
“Maybe he’s doing renovations? Maybe he’s got guests? I’ve no idea.”
“How do I get there?”
“You go south and follow the sign posts off the B4234, but you won’t get inside. He’s very particular – and just a bit eccentric, between you and me. He holds an annual medieval tournament in the grounds of the hall, but I’ve always thought he was a bit strange. I shouldn’t be saying this. You might be a friend of his, mightn’t you,” she said with an embarrassed expression.
“I’m not,” I said, “though we do have several acquaintances in common. Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome.”
* * *
A short while later we were making our way through the narrow country lanes south of Ross-on-Wye, and soon spotted the turn off. We paused to let a Land Rover with tinted windows and an open tray containing two large black metal boxes turn on to the main road. I had never seen a Land Rover with tinted glass before, and thought it odd at the time.
It was not difficult to find Symonds Yat Hall from there, and I was about to slow down and stop at the gate when Mary said sharply: “Camera!” and pointed to the tree looming above the fancy main gates. I spotted the small cctv camera and drove on.
We followed the road a little further, but it came to a barred gate, beyond which the gravel road petered out into a narrow track leading across a field towards a copse, in the wrong direction to the Hall. There was just enough room to turn the car around, and we sat there for a short while under the branches of a large oak tree, discussing our options. After a group consensus, Mary and Trish took the car back to Ross-on-Wye to find a hotel and to get some takeaway food, for we had decided the best time to scout out the Hall would be at night, when we could see what parts were occupied and which windows we should go looking in. We had seen brief glimpses of the place on the way up and its size had impressed us. We did not fancy approaching it across open ground in the daylight, never mind trying to find out where the girls were being kept.
“So we wait here until the others come back,” said Shawnee as the car disappeared back down the hill. “Why couldn’t we go with them?”
“You could’ve, but I need backup.” I sounded like a cop on a stake-out, which, in a way it was. “I want to see who’s coming and going, and to get a view of the place while it’s still light. Weren’t you listening?”
“No, my bottom was hurting still – from Mary,” she added, pouting.
“You bring these things on yourself,” I said, exasperated.
“You would side with them. It’s not my fault if I’m not very good with maps.”
“Then why were you in such a rush to be the navigator?”
“I thought I might’ve got better since the last time.”
“What was the last time?”
“You don’t want to know.” And I probably didn’t. “And besides, you guys never let me do anything important.”
“I wonder why...” I muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. Look, now’s the time to play a big part – and not to stuff up. We need to get over the wall and investigate the place. We’ll have about two hours before it starts growing dark. Coming?”
Shawnee looked dubious, then obviously decided she might be better off with me than all alone out here.
“Okay.”
We skirted alongside the dry stone wall, which was not in the best of repair. The further we got from the big impressive gates, the more run-down the wall became. We didn’t have to go too far before we found a low point where it was easy to climb over the wall. Immediately on the other side was an expanse of mature trees, with bracken and low undergrowth providing concealment at ground level.
“This is sorta fun,” whispered Shawnee as she crept along beside me.
“Keep thinking medieval instruments of torture,” I reminded her, and she shut up with a gulp.
We had walked perhaps a hundred metres before we came to the edge of an open lawn, where the gravel driveway ran from right, past the front entrance and up to what seemed to be a multiple garage on the left end of the Hall. It all seemed quiet and unoccupied, but I didn’t believe that for a moment. Keeping well within the trees, we skirted around the perimeter of the lawn, noticing that at some stage somebody had been riding a horse over the manicured grass. We finally reached the rear of the Hall and could make out further divots and chopping up of the lawn under a horse’s hooves, particularly around a post embedded in the ground near a grassed quadrangle.
“Something pretty awful’s been going on here,” Shawnee said, sounding just a little surprised, as our gaze fell on two sets of stocks and what looked like a wooden horse.
“What did I tell you,” I hissed back at her. “Remember? Medieval? Torture?”
We retraced our steps to the front as darkness fell and I let Shawnee go out to the turning area to await the return of Trish and Mary, telling her I would join her at seven o’clock.
By the time I got back the pizza was cold, but I didn’t really care. I was ravenous, and the food disappeared without complaint. Despite her protests we left Shawnee with the car and a mobile phone to keep watch if there was any vehicle movement near the main gates. The girls had brought two penlight torches with them and by the light of these, Trish, Mary and I retraced the route we had followed in daylight. This time we could see there were no lights on at the front, as we crossed the lawn and slunk around the back.
There was only one lighted window, and creeping up to it I found myself looking side on at Leon as he sat at the kitchen table eating dinner and watching a small television on the nearby bench. The kitchen was enormous, perhaps what one might expect in such a big establishment, and Leon seemed to be on his own. He had his back to the kitchen door, which I thought might give us a chance, if it was unlocked.
“Goldmine,” I whispered to the others. “Leon’s in there having his dinner.”
“Leon!”
“Yes. We’re in the right place, there’s no doubt about that. Things are coming together.”
We planned our actions and crept to the kitchen entrance. Very gently I turned the handle and shifted my weight against the heavy door. It moved with a faint click that I hoped would not be heard above the television.
With a loud rush the three of us charged into the room, scaring Leon half out of his wits and making him fall off the chair. From there it was pretty much all over for him, as Mary and Trish had his wrists in painful bent positions that had him gasping and immobilised within seconds. I disconnected the telephone cord from the wall and from the receiver and used it to bind his wrists crossed behind him, before we sat him back on the chair again and secured his wrists to the back rail. Leon was abusive and his usual sullen self, but could barely conceal his surprise at our presence.
“Who else is in the house?” Mary demanded.
“Why don’t you go and look!” he retorted.
“Oh we will. We’re simply going through the motions of offering you an easy way out, but believe me, nothing will give us more pleasure than you insisting that we do it the hard way.” A malicious smile appeared on Mary’s lips, and I knew the expression that went with it. If Leon didn’t spill the beans when confronted with that smile he was an even bigger fool than we gave him credit for. But Leon had his macho image to protect, I guess, and I don’t think he had ever seen Mary and Trish in full flight.
“Where’re Monica and the others?” Trish challenged.
“Monica who?” Leon sneered back.
“Why don’t Trish and I have a quick look around while you keep an eye on this one,” I suggested to Mary.
“See what you can find that might help us persuade him to cooperate,” Mary said pointedly.
Trish followed me out of the kitchen into a corridor. We wandered a bit blindly, using our torches to find old fashioned light switches and then to slowly illuminate our way. I was nervous that we had only seen one light and that there may still be others in the building. If not, where was everybody? Where were the girls?
“There have to be some cellars here somewhere,” I said. “If there are no other lights, it could be because they’re all in the cellars.”
“And if there are cellars, chances are they’re connected to this part of the house,” Trish surmised. “Butlers and cooks need access to the wine and stored foods.”
We tried a series of doors off the corridor, finally finding one with steps leading down to a gloomy passageway that smelt of mould and dust. There were no lights on, nor was there any sound to indicate that there was any occupation down here. We found the light switch and checked out the series of heavy bolted doors that gave off the passageway. A couple had very good ranges of wine stored in them, while the others were empty. More ominously, however, they all had numerous solid iron rings attached to the wall, some with newish chains locked to them.
“This stuff has nothing to do with wine cellars,” Trish said firmly.
“My bet is they were here,” I agreed, looking at the straw on the floor of an extremely small cell in which it was impossible to stand up and where a person could barely lie down.
“So where are they now? Where is everybody, for that matter? That’s what’s making me nervous. It’s like one of those awful films when you can see the bad guys are coming up the drive but the hero has no way of knowing ”
“That’s what we have Shawnee for,” I said.
“Why doesn’t that fill me with confidence?” Trish retorted as we retraced our steps along the passage. “I wonder where these stairs go?”
We followed them up to find an odd sort of door at the top. Unlatching it, we found it moved much more slowly than a normal door, opening into a dark space that echoed. Our torches swept round a huge room that was obviously a library. I found a light switch and our initial impression was confirmed.
“What do you think this is all about,” Trish asked rhetorically, picking out four pulleys discretely mounted on the underside of the mezzanine floor.
“Count them,” I said. “One, two, three, four. How many missing people? The plot sickens, I think.”
We tried out a door leading off the library. It led through a dining room and beyond that we found ourselves in a big open room of some sort.
“I hope people will just think Leon’s prowling around, if they return,” I observed, moving towards the light switch. “But I do wonder where everyone is. There must be a fair sized staff to look after a place like this.” I turned on the lights and we saw the horrific instruments of torture that occupied the open space in what had turned out to be a chapel.
The vertical and horizontal racks had none of the padded benching of those in Bilboes. They looked centuries old and had a creepy air of having seen unspeakable atrocities in their existence. On one of the pews pushed to one side were several pieces of rope coiled up and three pairs of iron ankle cuffs with connecting chains. Beside them were three heavy wrought iron yokes. Trish and I exchanged knowing looks, and I picked up the rope.
At the end of the room nearest the pulpit was an odd-looking object like an overgrown Darlek. Trish and I approached it curiously, and saw how the two front panels of the giant doll-like device opened out to reveal awful spikes on the inside. Hurriedly I pushed the doors closed. This place was really giving me the creeps.
Through a further door and down another corridor we found ourselves in an identical room, but without the pews and trappings of religion, save for the oppressive legacy of the inquisition. This room held stocks, a whipping pillory, a wheel, and all the other accoutrement of religious intolerance and social intolerance down the ages. But there was more to this place than just the display of pain-inflicting devices. There were suits of armour and all manner of weird and wonderful steel garments. Then, in a side room, we struck the jackpot – a wall display of paddles, whips, floggers, and restraints, including masks, gags and bondage gear that would have done Bilboes proud.
“Whoever owns this place is into B and D in a serious way,” Trish said.
“Which is all the more cause for worry. We need to find out who does own the place and what’s happened to Monica and the others.”
“But at least we’ve found our means of interrogation,” Trish murmured.
* * *
We\ wasted no time, and twenty minutes later Leon was hanging on the vertical rack, stark naked, and starting to wish he had not been so arrogant before. A number of sand bags hung from his ankles, probably adding thirty or forty pounds to his own weight. Mary and Trish were adding lead weights sequentially to a wire noose around his scrotum, one around the head of his dick, and two screw nipple clamps. Leon, presumably through bravado and some false sense of superiority had elected to tell the girls to do something unprintable and physically impossible, when they asked him nicely to help us in our enquiries. Now he was paying the price, burbling incoherently around the iron and rubber bit gag strapped tightly in his mouth, as Trish and Mary now longer seemed interested in asking questions.
I excused myself to make a phone call to Shawnee, since I didn’t want the gagged screams to spoil my hearing. Shawnee was fine and there was no sign of life down the lane leading to the gate.
When I returned, Leon was blubbering and tears were streaming down his face as Mary stood before him with a riding crop. Already there were a series of red stripes over his thighs and very close to his drooping dick.
“Do we have an answer?” I asked him. He nodded desperately and made affirmative noises through the gag. I motioned to Trish to remove the bar from his mouth.
“Oh please, take these things off me! It’s unbearable! I’ll do anything you want! Oh Jesus! What do you people want with me? You’re insane!”
Mary struck him twice – a forehand and a backhand – across the clamped nipples, and Leon let loose a piercing yowl.
“Where’s Monica?” I demanded, feeling decidedly unsympathetic.
“She left here a couple of hours ago! In the Land Rover, with the Chinese chick.”
“What? How? Where were they going?” For a brief moment I hoped they had either escaped or been let go.
“In boxes. They’re being flown to America. The Wong woman’s going with them!”
We were stunned. The silence was broken only by Leon’s wretched sobbing, as Mary, Trish and I looked aghast at each other.
“Flying from where? To where?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” Leon burbled, aware of the impact his words had had, and equally aware of the impact that was likely to come his way. “They were going in a private jet – the Earl’s maybe, or maybe it was Jade Wong’s.”
There were so many questions welling up.
“Who’s the Earl? Is he the owner of this place?” This from Trish. “Who else is here with him? Where is he now?”
“Yeah - yeah, he owns it all. The staff are on holiday There’s him, Warren, me and Jade But she’s gone to America. He’s getting paid for Monica and the Chinese chick.”
“Her name’s Emma, dammit!” I stormed at him. “Now where did they leave from? Which airport?” I grabbed him by the hair and banged his head back against the wooden bars of the rack. Trish caught my arm as if to restrain me, but then seemed to have second thoughts. Rivulets of sweat rolled down Leon’s temples and dripped on to his chest.
“There’s a private airfield near Hereford It’s called Hampton Bishop But I don’t know where they were going Somewhere near New York, I think, but I don’t know, truly ”
This really rocked me. It was getting worse by the minute, with every answer.
“And where are the others? Leila and Jill?”
“They’re at Carreg Cannen It’s a ruined castle near here. Warren and the Earl took them there on horseback.”
“On horseback?”
“Yeah – it’s a long way round by car, and the Earl likes to play at knights in armour. He and Warren were dressed up as knights and the girls were wearing peasant clothes. I think they’re going to stay there for a few days ”
“How do we get there?”
“I don’t know – I’ve never been there!”
“Liar!” said Mary snapping at his dick with the riding crop.
“Oowww! Shit! I swear I haven’t! I know it’s a couple of miles from here across country, but maybe ten miles from the main road back the way you came!”
“Won’t there be sightseers visiting?”
“No, it’s being repaired, I think. There’s a moat and a drawbridge which can isolate the place Oh please, take these weights off ” he moaned through clenched teeth.
I motioned Mary and Trish to join me outside the room, and we gathered in a huddle in the gloomy corridor.
“This is getting serious,” I said. “If we don’t get after Monica we could lose her totally.”
“We should split up,” Mary asserted. “You two go after Monica, and Shawnee and I will investigate the castle.”
“That sounds dodgy,” I said unhappily. “You’d be outnumbered.”
“Look, we don’t have time to argue! You guys take the car and we’ll use one of the cars from here. They’re bound to have a few. We can stay in touch by mobile.”
I wasn’t happy, but I couldn’t see any alternative. We had to get after Monica as soon as possible before the trail went cold.
“All right. But for goodness sake be careful. No heroics. Promise?”
“Of course,” said Mary with her enigmatic smile that I had never managed to read or understand.
* * *
Ten minutes later Trish and I were heading back down the gravel road away from Symonds Yat Hall. I was uneasy about leaving Mary and Shawnee. Mary was too strong willed and Shawnee was straight out dippy at times. But I felt the choice was the best we could do. I wanted Trish with me, and I think Mary sensed that in her proposal. We worked well together and thought similarly.
“What was Mary intending to do with Leon?” I asked Trish, since I had been out getting the car and talking to Shawnee before Trish had joined me.
“I think she’s going to rough him up a bit then leave him in the dungeon as some sort of insurance.”
“Hmmm. I wouldn’t want to be Leon right now.”
“He should have thought of that before he joined up with this lot,” Trish declared flatly. “He gets no sympathy out of me. And remember the havoc he caused during the Games, leaking information to Warren? Remember Monica and the block of concrete? Remember Warren and the vibrators during the cross-town walk? Leon did his best to deny us this trip.”
“I rather wish he’d succeeded, right now,” I sighed, watching the outline of the stone walls beside the lane passing in the headlights. “How far to the next turn-off?”
Trish looked down at the map she was following under the passenger reading light. “We go left at the next intersection and that will take us through Ross-on-Wye and then follow the signs to the A49 to Hereford. I’d guess maybe half an hour, at this time of night.”
* * *
Just after we’d turned off to Hampton Bishop, there’d been a phone call from Mary – or rather Shawnee. It was the usual garbled Shawnee version, but we gathered they had commandeered the Earl’s BMW and had thrown Leon in the boot. They’d left the car in some woods near where they reckoned the castle was, along a dirt road. Shawnee had said that the road stopped at a locked gate and they would have to go on from there on foot. Trish told her to be careful, and had hung up, just as we spotted a sign to the Hampton Bishop airfield.
The place was deserted when we got there, just a small collection of buildings under a couple of security lights. A heritage plaque on one wall identified that the place had been a fighter base during the Second World War, while another sign gave details of various contacts concerning the local aero club and also air traffic control. We also found a Land Rover with several ropes coiled on the floor of the open tray.
“This really riles me,” I said vehemently to Trish. “We passed this damned vehicle on our way to the Hall, not realising that Jade Wong was driving it and poor Monica and Emma were in those boxes.” Trish laid her hand on my arm.
“I know. It’s hard. But we can only do our best from here on. We have to think about the next step.”
“Which is?”
“Why, going to America, of course.”
I hadn’t even thought of the logistics of this. We carried our passports with us, with the requisite visas, but I had been so preoccupied with England, my mind couldn’t jump ahead to America.
“You’re right. But we have to have some sort of plan. We need to know where they’ve taken Mon and Emma.”
“Watch and learn, brother,” Trish said confidently, pulling out her mobile phone and walking over to one of the notices under the dim illumination from the light overhead.
“Hello? Yes, this is Sergeant Taylor of Dover Customs and Excise. Look, we’ve been tracking some people we believe may be smuggling dope, but we appear to have just missed them. We’ve tracked them to Hampton Bishop airfield, where we think a private jet has taken them out of the country. Can you advise of any flight plans lodged in the last few hours from here?” There was a pause, while Trish winked at me and I could do nothing but gape at her ingenuity. I noticed that during her conversation her Canadian accent had become a rather middle class English one. “Uh-huh. And where is that? Okay. And what would be their ETA there? That’s local time? Terrific. I’ll contact our colleagues over there. Thank you for you assistance.” She grinned at me. “Gee I’m good sometimes.”
“Well, oh brainy one?”
“A Gulfstream left here around seven pm, bound for some place called Bamber Lake, in New Jersey.”
I looked at my watch. It was gone nine o’clock.
“What’s the time difference between here and America? Five hours? Maybe it will take 5 or 6 hours to fly there, which means they’ll be there perhaps by one in the morning here, which will be eight in the evening there. We have to get on the first flight out. Let’s get back and pick up our stuff while you check out the airlines on the phone.”
Trish was about to dial as we headed to the car when the phone rang. Trish answered and I saw her expression change to one of dismay. Then it seemed that the phone went dead, and as she lowered it from her ear she looked at me.
“That was Mary They’ve been caught at the castle by Warren and the Earl. Apparently the drawbridge was linked to an automatic motion detector, and after they’d crossed it, it rose, trapping them between it and the portcullis. Mary just had time for the call before Warren and his mate got to them. So now what do we do?”
* * *
20.03.04
story continues in Monica's Travels 12
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