Patrick George Callaghan

Episode 32…Missing

‘Sorry doctor…. But she has gone! Your patient! I’ve checked everywhere. There is no sign of her. Her clothes are missing too. She has simply vanished into thin air!.’ The nurse was clearly very upset.

‘Alright nurse try to calm yourself’. he replied kindly. ‘It’s impossible for her to disappear in her condition, simply impossible. Make another search of the recovery room and check the toilets again. Likely she has woken disorientated and is wandering the building. Have a good look nurse, she won’t have gone far….’

Esme sat in the little tea shop that overlooked a quiet market square. It was 10.15 on a cold autumn morning. It was one year later.

‘You don’t remember this place?’ asked the man sitting opposite her. We could go up to the Common if you like… It may help.’  Charles lifted his head and looked out across the square. ‘If you’re determined to change things’. he added.

She followed his gaze across the square. ‘You think I’m wrong in pursuing this, dont you?’

‘I think Edward has learnt his lesson, as they say, and besides, immortality now runs through your veins, the immortality of coming back from the other side.’

‘The immortality of  a re-incarnation perhaps.’ She did not mock him, turning her head to study him more closely, as if he were now the master of her soul…

Episode 31…Deliverance

‘She is very weak, but still alive.’ The Doctor looked up over his horn rimmed glasses with an inquisitive stare. I’m pleased you brought her to me gentlemen. I doubt she would have survived the journey to Elmhurst General that’s at least a further ten miles. I’ve telephoned our local Constable, and you say, you both found her on Hinckley Common?.’

‘Yes, she was just lying there on the ground.’ Replied the older man. ‘My son and me, well we were walking Patch, we often do on the Common.’ He nodded towards a large black and white dog that sat quietly by the surgery door. ‘Somebody’s had a go at her Doc, don’t you think?.’

‘Well, it’s unlikely that she did those injuries to herself. But that’s a matter for the Police. Never the less, she has recieved a severe blow to her head, and yet strangely, there is no sign of a fracture to the skull according to the X-rays, which I would have expected and then there is heavy bruising to her neck suggesting strangulation of some sort. Some vomit that forced itself up had traces of what looked like, weed killer in it. All in all, the whole situation should have been fatal!.’

There was a polite knock and the surgery door opened to a barrel of a policeman sporting a red puffy face. ‘I came straight in doctor.’ He offered. ‘Hope you don’t mind. I got here as fast as I could.’ He stopped to take breath and was clearly not used to speed.

‘Of course not Jim.’ The doctor beckoned towards an unused chair.

‘That’s alright doctor, better stand while I get the details.’ He took out a small notepad and pencil from his breast pocket and swayed a little perhaps wishing he had took the offer of the comfortable looking chair.

At that moment, the surgery door opened once more and a worried looking nurse stepped into the room…

Episode 30…Rescued

‘She must have been here for some hours.’ The voice did not stir the butterfly quiet of her thoughts.

‘She’s been beaten over the head, probably with that wood!’ The voice nodded towards a Birch stake lying beside her.

‘A good looking bird, even like that. Led some bloke up the garden path, I reckon.’ said a second voice.

‘Elementary my dear Watson.’ and then there was a coarse chuckle. ‘Come on, lets get the poor bitch to Hospital.’

‘Is that wise?’ asked the second voice, ‘Yer know what the Police can be like, asking all sorts of questions.’

‘Bollocks to you man!’ replied the first voice, ‘And bring that wood! The coppers will want it… And fetch the dog!’

Palms of salvation closed in around Esme’s mind like gentle Willow leaves. She was lifted and half carried over the Gorse ground to voices that puffed and groaned in simple gossamer.

Episode 29…Madman

Cold, early winter air thrust itself around her, rushing her words uselessly over him. ‘What… What have you got there?’ she asked nervously.

‘Your simple-minded sentences are becoming annoying.’ he retorted. Then quite suddenly and without warning, he stooped down and gripped her by the throat, and in a Viper’s strike he was on top of her, pinning her down in a dead cradle hold.

She thought she screamed loudly, but heard no sound and air began to dry in her lungs. He struck out at her head, laughing; ‘It’s in your belly!’ he kept on laughing and squeezing her throat even tighter. ‘It’s the sandwiches that you ate,  don’t you see, I’ve poisoned you! You only looked upon the powder that was left in my pocket. You are so stupid, you and your lover!’

She heard nothing, choked crazily, trying to swallow that sacred air, to force it into her body. With one hand he pushed her head further to the earth rendering her neck backwards and then a sudden small rush of air entered her collapsing thoat. Another hand smacked her head like it was a toy. She tried to kick out, to force him away, but his strength took her weakness. Her eyes watered and closed and Hinckly Common became no more.