Chapter 1,The Secret, part 2

The Secret, part 2.


Some twelve years earlier Johnny Foster & his daughter were in search of a runaway horse. They had hunted, without success, all the land for miles around, that surrounded Fosters Farm, except for the grounds of the old uninhabited house, which lay approximately one mile northwest, if you set off on foot, across the fields. The search had been long & it was now after 7pm & it was beginning to get dark. As the Land Rover turned into the long gravel driveway which lead to Abbots House the headlights caught the eyes of the stallion. Johnny suspected that “bloody kids” had broken the wooden fence at the back of the horse’s paddock & had driven Sun Dance out. It was the house, he was sure of it, that attracted so many damn kids out this way. Especially over the summer holidays. Sun Dance, an extremely promising one year old, that he’d been training for point-to-point racing, was grazing on the large overgrown front lawn. As they came closer they could see, in the poor light, that the horse was ok, but he looked a little tired & nearly as relieved as they were that he’d been found at last. Mandy, Johnny’s 18 year old daughter, was first to notice the light on in the otherwise dark & looming house. The property had been left for four years, or more, at this time, & technically speaking the owner could arrive back at anytime, although he thought this to be extremely unlikely, if it was true what they said. Jonny knew of the family & understood that John Miller, the youngest of the two sons, was still listed as missing, suspected dead. Everyone believed the crew of H.M.S SERPENT had perished. Much later he’d read in the News Of The World that debris, life jackets & shark bitten bodies had been washed up along the shores, as far south as Peru & to the north of San Diego. Even the Royal Navy had announced that the chances of survival were minimal & diminishing by the day. Although it was a complete mystery why the frigate had sunk in good weather. Since then, six years had passed & there’d been nothing. John Millers body had not been amongst the remains of the bodies found, that could be identified, with over 150 other sailors still unaccounted for. Therefore, the possibility of the house being lit by unfriendly, perhaps armed, burglars was much more likely. There had been a spate of such crimes in the nearby Highgreen & Ridgegate areas recently. The local rag had warned people to be on the look out & described the perpetrators as being of the dangerous variety. Not the kind of people that he’d choose to bump into at the best of times in such a remote spot, let alone when he was accompanied by Mandy. He explained to his inquisitive daughter that it wasn’t their job to investigate. No.. not on your life! They’d do the neighborly thing & report it to the police as soon as they got back home, ..just in case. Mandy tried not to look as if she was hiding something, but in truth she’d seen the light on the night before when she’d been shagging the stable hand in the back of his Ford Sierra. They had driven to the house as usual for a quickie, for he had told his young wife, who he had left at home, that he wouldn’t be long, he was just popping out for some petrol. When in fact, he’d preplanned to pick Mandy up just outside of town & pump her brains out. Their relationship was purely sexual, a secret & she felt excited at the mere thought of it. When they saw the light on they fled, deciding it was best to say nothing. For how could they explain, under the circumstances. So Jonny Foster & randy-Mandy quickly loaded Sun Dance into the horse box, which was hooked to the back of the Land Rover & drove off.

The newly promoted Sergeant James accompanied by PC Whitlow arrived at the address. They both knew of it’s past history & that, coupled with the possibility of there being armed robbers present, unnerved them somewhat, but neither would admit it. Luckily this time it turned out to be a false alarm. After entering the premises by breaking a back window pane, which was later repaired, the officers carried out a tentative, but nonetheless extensive search of the furnished building & found no one. Although there was evidence that someone had been there recently. They had found the kitchen light on & a freshly made, half eaten sandwich was lying on the dinning room table. By who exactly.. they were unsure of. There had been no evidence of forced entry, or for that matter a burglary. It was if the place had been visited by a ghost. Two weeks later James & Whitlow were not as fortunate, when they walked in on armed burglars at a farm house 18 miles to the west, just north of Highgreen, after a tip off. Their bodies were found floating in the river Bock, each with bullet wounds to the head. The Killers were never caught.

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Written by T.R.Vinnicombe (aka Dr. Peter Hodgkins) ©2009 all rights reserved & none of the contents of this site can be copied or used in any way without the written consent of the author. Published online by MicroHotStar 2009.