Mandy And The Missing: Ascent Of The Absent.

Mandy and the Missing: Ascent of the Absent

Book 1

By Laurence Buxton

2014

Dedicated to Ruth Martin, David Guest, the Boddys and everyone else who has been supportive of my writing.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 A New Beginning

Chapter 2 I Spy

Chapter 3 Seeing is Disbelieving

Chapter 4 An Act of Madness

Chapter 5 Words Left Unspoken

Chapter 6 Overdue Explanations

Chapter 7 Once Out of Mind, Now Out of Sight

Chapter 8 Home is Where the Threat is

Chapter 9 A New Menace

Chapter 10 Slightly Older, Slightly Wiser

Chapter 11 Endeth the Battle, Beginneth the War

Epilogue

Prologue

Jennyfer de Villiers stood by the water near the quay. She looked down at it – barely a few ripples across its turquoise surface – and there it was, her reflection, still bright-eyed, looking back at her quizzically amid the reflective glare from the baking summer sun, looking back at someone now invisible to the rest of the world.

Last week seemed so long ago now, like a different era – as long ago as her life before she’d moved to Southampton, when she’d had the chance to make the right choice, to stay loyal and resilient, and hadn’t. What she’d chosen to do to Lucas, she’d done – she’d tricked him, she’d run. And now, because of that, she was damned. While the world went about its own business – cruise ships sailing into the distance, cranes slowly swinging round – it was totally oblivious to hers.

And Lucas? He’d tried to help. He’d sent her numerous text messages, made numerous calls. But not because he cared, no. He’d never cared – he just wanted the solution, the thing that she had done so much to create, and now threatened to destroy its creator. Her very own Frankenstein’s monster...

And yet part of her wondered if she could yet return it, if it might not yet be too late. Would Lucas treat her well? Would he keep his promises if she kept hers? She had to think it was possible – she had to. But then she knew that whatever happened, she would never go back to the way she’d once been, the way she’d turned her back on. There would be no fresh start, no new hope. Unseen and uncared for, Jennyfer began to sob...

*

Yeah, yeah, I promise, love. Tomorrow, yeah?

Sweating through his white shirt in the blazing lunchtime sun, Ricky Mason was talking on the phone to his other half as he paced outside the Quay cafe. He was frustrated. He was getting the same old earache from her, yet again, and if he didn’t shut her up soon he wouldn’t even have time for a bleedin’ sandwich, let alone a sit-down lunch. Like he could remember the last time he’d had one of those! It’d be nice to actually get some support off her for once, he thought bitterly. First week at Kennard Chemicals wasn’t getting any better, but all the daft cow thought about was the money it brought in for her and the kids. Didn’t think how much effort had gone into him earning it…

As he rubbed his swarthy cheek he soon felt bad for his frustrated thoughts towards the woman he loved so much, but then since he – they – had relocated here from Hinckley, he’d had no-one to confide in. No friendly ear to share the occasional gripe or grievance with over a pint of Ruddles. He hadn’t even had the time to find a pub which actually served Ruddles. And the cost of relocating was more than eating into the pay-rise he’d been promised. But due to the usual administrative cock-ups, a promise was still all it was…

Then he stopped. Amid his fed-up thoughts, he could hear the sound of a girl crying. Yes, there it was! Couldn’t see her, but he could certainly hear her – sounded as if she was over near the water, though it had to be a trick, as apart from a dead old bush there was barely anything there even for someone to hide behind. The old feelings of chivalry, machismo and decency rose up in his soul, feelings he hadn’t had for as long as he could remember now, and the three together came up on top over the combined forces of cowardliness, caution and unblinking loyalty to his family over all else. For a moment, he glimpsed the kind of adventure a tiny part of him – not yet blunted by the thirteen-hour days and constant toing and froing from the Isle of Wight office – still yearned for.

He tried to tune back into the phone call, with Rita chatting on nineteen to the dozen. Hey, er, can I call you back?

She wasn’t keen, but there was something that didn’t seem right about this girl crying. He could hear her right in front of him, he could swear it, but she was nowhere to be seen! And almost involuntarily he had pressed the ‘off’ button on the phone.

He advanced towards the water, ignoring the low, drawn-out honk of the massive white passenger liner that had sailed in to his right. He was focused on the collapsed, rusted rail that led to a strip of overgrown weeds and barren earth, beyond which there was a sheer drop to the water; only the tiniest lip of concrete at the front of it. Not the tiniest sign of the weeping woman, whom he could no longer hear crying.

Er – you all right, sweet’eart? He craned his thick neck forward. What’s goin’ on? Where ya hidin’? Though it had been oddly quiet down here this lunchtime, apart from one oddball in a shapeless, tweed jacket and faded tracksuit bottoms who had been wandering about drunk, he was aware that this kind of thing would look bloody funny to anyone normal watching from the road. God knows he had the kind of face which invited suspicion rather than trust at the best of times. Then again he couldn’t just ignore a woman crying either. Whoever she was, and how she was staying out of sight when there was nothing for her to hide from him behind. Bloody odd. The sobbing had seemed to be coming from in front of the bush, not behind it, as if there would have been room anyway. There was an eerie calm.

Hello? he said, puzzled. Something felt really odd about all this.

He looked down at the lake. And then he saw her reflection for a second – he was sure. A woman of about 5’4", dark-haired, wearing pale blue – and she was gone. He looked up in shock. She wasn’t there – but she had been. He was sure of it…

He saw that her reflection – not her, her reflection – had turned towards him.

Hey! he exclaimed.

He reached out to where she should be. He started as he heard a deep female gasp – yes, he felt what should have been her arm; he could feel the soft, slightly damp fabric and the solidity of flesh beneath. But then he felt something else – a shockingly heavy blow to his face – and instinctively defended himself, raising an arm. But he couldn’t see what had hit him. He lashed out in a panic, felt his hand connect – he heard a scream, a female scream – and knew it was her. The girl!

For a split-second, amid the strangeness of the situation, he felt a deep sense of shame. What had he done – hitting a woman? Then he felt a shove on his chest, as if someone had pushed him. Confused, he fell backwards towards the lake and was hit with a sense of overwhelming panic to match his loss of balance – he couldn’t swim. He desperately felt a surge of guilt and images of Rita, Charlie and little Ellie flashed through his brain. It was almost the last thought he ever had. As he descended to the bottom, thrashing but attracting no assistance from the still-quiet businesses he had just been standing in front of, he felt a massive thud at the back of his head. Everything went white, then black… and…

One last thought, amid the panic and the shock. Not of his family, but of the nymph-like figure that had drawn him to this. Who was she?

And he felt no more. Ever again.

Chapter 1

A New Beginning

Finally reached Southampton Catholic College thought Mandy Murray, with real relief. At bloody last! Four hours, three service stations, numerous bloody queues and a refill later, she’d arrived. The teenager gave out a less-than-silent curse, grateful that Mam wasn’t with her, and shook her hands at the searing heat that wearing all her rings had inflicted on her fingers. Should never have worn ’em. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Thanks to the holiday season traffic, the journey down from her home in Throckmorton, Worcestershire had been so fraught she might as well have driven down from her childhood home in Edinburgh. She wouldn’t be any less knackered…

All Saints College? She gave a laugh, and another choice phrase. If there’d been any saints around now, they wouldn’t have appreciated her language. Not that that was her first concern – her circulation was. The eighteen-year-old eased herself out of her little black Micra, stiffly rubbing the feeling back into her stiff, slightly muscular limbs. She felt like she’d become a part of it, and once again cursed having a cockpit so cramped for her slightly lanky frame. She ran a hand through her short, slicked-back, close-to-the-skull, platinum-blonde hair and counted her blessings. How on earth her car had lasted two and a half hours without overheating had been a miracle!

Mind you, despite stopping more than once and for more than a while, the heat she’d endured on the way down had taken its toll on more than just her. You could probably fry an egg on that bonnet now, she thought ruefully, and she cast a concerned eye towards the back seat. Wedged behind her battered and tiny acoustic guitar, under a tea towel and fastened in with the rear seatbelt, was the cage containing her two hamsters, Diesel and Hammy, who were still clattering the cage wildly. She sighed with relief. She’d been terrified they would’ve been cooked in these temperatures, particularly the jet-black Diesel. Poor little babies – they were probably parched. Best get the little lads in the cool as soon as possible, she pondered, though then again she didn’t really want to turn up on the door waving a cage with two rodents in it…

She walked away from the tiny car park and up the light grey, paving stone path, vaguely aware of the small lines of tiny, foot-tall rose bushes alongside the slabs on either sides of the path, up to where it seemed to head back to the road, and also off to the left halfway along. They even surrounded a little verge where a few female students were having a cider-fuelled picnic, apparently oblivious to a skinny lad with low-hanging jeans and a mop of brown hair, lying face down in the soil with them. Yes, she was in the right part of the campus all right; she recognised these scenes from the brochure. She walked, stiff-limbed along the pathway that took her to the correct front door, scanning the numbers on the tiny, two-floored buildings to her right as she went. She couldn’t wait to have a shower, as if there was one thing she smelled of right now, she reasoned, it probably wasn’t roses…

Hmm, number 4, yes this was the one. It had a yellow door, and though hardly palatial and squished in with at least six similar places in the row, was probably still slightly bigger (or no smaller) than the place she and Mam had been living in for the past couple of years in Throckmorton. At least the place was near to the city centre, as life out in the middle of the English countryside – forcing her to drive a good half-hour to get to anywhere near the action – had tried her patience, and love of mixers, to the absolute limit.

As she reached the door she heard a frantic squawking, which seemed to particularly panic the tawny-and-white Hammy. Always the nervous one, she thought to herself, though she had to confess it had