“Kids, where are you? Jamie, Edie, Jerry, where are you?” she yelled as she bounded down the stairs and dashed into the dining room with me close on her heels. No kids, no TV, no sign of their usual tea-time chaos, and the same in the family room, no schoolbags and coats or drawings to put on the fridge. Georgy was beginning to panic.
“Children, babies, where are you, please come out, it’s not funny!” she begged, an edge of hysteria in her voice. I looked out onto the driveway, no sign of the Ford B-Max MPV we’d bought for the school run. I was beginning to panic now; I tried Megan’s phone, it rang to voicemail, ditto the phone in the MPV; what the hell was going on? Megan was the children’s nanny, she was supposed to be immediately available anytime one of us called, that’s what we paid her for, but she wasn’t answering her phone, and no-one was picking up the car phone.
Just then Aunt Kay came down the corridor from the other end of the house looking worried.
“Will, Georgy, it’s after half-past four, where are Megan and the children? They should have been home nearly an hour ago…”
Georgy grabbed Aunt Kay’s hands, her eyes wild.
“Where’s my children, Aunt Kay, why aren’t they here, they should be here now, Aunt Kay…”
Aunt Kay looked worriedly at me but I’d just had a thought and pinged the car phone with the ‘Find My Phone’ app. It was showing the phone location as just outside Woodbury, near the kids’ school.
“Come on Georgy, I know where the car is, let’s go…”
I drove the Jeep, Georgy was jittering and having borderline hysterics by then, not that I blame her, I nearly was too, but I tried to keep on top of it. The GPS locator ‘pinged’, and the red line was showing a narrow lane, so I took it, and there was the Ford, about a hundred yards in, nosed into a hedge, the taillights shattered and the rear bumper and tailgate crushed and dented.
I slid to a halt, but Georgy beat me to the punch, leaping out before the car had even stopped moving and running to the side of the MPV, to tug wildly at the dented, locked rear door. I was right behind her, seeing my children still strapped in their car-seats in the back in the back seat, and the pale, frightened face of Megan as she huddled in the rear seat foot-well, her arms around the frightened, hysterical children.
I blipped the locks with Georgy’s set of keys and yanked the door open and immediately all four of them started crying and babbling hysterically. Georgy unclipped and grabbed Jerry, who was almost incoherent, herself crying and gabbling, while I tried to help Megan out, but she was obviously in shock, and she wouldn’t let go of the children; she fought me off in her determination to protect the children from whatever had happened here. I pulled out my phone, intending to call the police but no signal; we were in a dead-spot, which explained why no-one had called us, and poor Megan had refused to leave the children to go find help against whatever had happened here.
Georgy handed Jerry to me and tried to get Megan to let the kids up, to understand she and the children were safe, while Jerry hugged my neck so tightly it felt like he was choking me, but I didn’t care, my baby boy was obviously seriously spooked. As Georgy spoke soothingly, quietly to her, the poor girl slowly relaxed, hugging Georgy as a storm of tears burst from her. She clutched Georgy as she trembled, almost falling out of the back of the MPV, which gave me room to unclip and scoop the kids out, all three of them holding me tightly as they sobbed hysterically.
We couldn’t stay here, whoever had done this might be back, so Georgy sat on the grass verge, Jerry and Edie on her lap, Jamie in her arms, and both of them hugging Megan as I made short work of transferring the child-seats into the back seat of the Jeep, then took Jamie and strapped him in, then Edie, Georgy handed me Jerry, and hustled Megan into the front seat; she and Georgy would share the seat and seatbelt for the short drive home.
As soon as I hit the main road, two bars popped up on my phone, so I gave it to Georgy for her to call the police and tell them what had happened. Megan never said yea or nay, she was still in shock, but I had to know what had happened, who’d done this, and why; those dents in the driver’s side and passenger door weren’t impact prangs from another car; someone had tried to batter those doors open, to get to either my children or Megan; who, why, what did they want, and, more to the point, were they coming back to finish what they’d started? Home first; we were safe there, the kids would be safe there, when we got home we could puzzle this out; right now, drive, and drive safely, precious cargo in the back, get them home, then try and work out who’d do this to my kids, and why.
*****
I pulled up right in front of the central portico, and Georgy and Megan tumbled out, running around to the other side of the car to grab the kids out of the door facing the house and hustle them inside while I watched our back-trail in case anyone was following. The kids were still scared, they’d been through a terrifying experience and they could see how tense I was, even though Georgy was trying to calm them down and make a game of it, telling them jokes and silly stories about daddy fighting weasels all morning. As the family disappeared inside, a pair of West Mercia Police patrol cars, blue lights flaring, screeched into the driveway, and a Police Support Unit Mercedes Benz Sprinter van slid across the gates, blocking the driveway.
The face I saw climbing out of the first police car drew a sigh of relief from me; Charlie Bowen, Police Superintendent, my former platoon commander back in the sand, and Edie’s Godfather. I could see the anger on his face even if he tried to hide it, he loved my kids, and Edie loved her Godfather, and the thought someone had tried to harm them had infuriated him, that was obvious.
“How are the kids, Will, how are they taking it?” he demanded as he approached me at a run.
“Talk to me, Will, what’s the SP?” he said as led me a little way away from the rest of his uniforms. “My lads are going to follow form, there’s a specialist on her way who deals with children traumatised by attempted kidnappings, which is how we have to approach this, so we’ll wait for her, but tell me what you know, and how you got to the kids.”
“Not much to say, honestly. The kids are fine, scared, shaken up, but unharmed, maybe your psych girl can dig out of them what happened, I haven’t tried yet; just make sure she goes easy; they’re only small. I can tell you what I know, which isn’t much. Georgy and I came back home from a day on one of the sites, fell asleep, and woke up after 4, and that’s when we realised the kids weren’t home yet. I knew Megan was in town to collect them, but calling her phone or the carphone failed, I found the carphone on GPS and it led us to the minivan.”
My voice shook as what had so nearly happened to my children hit me.
“Someone rammed them, Charlie, someone forced them off the road, and tried to get to the kids; thank God for the side-impact protection, it kept them safe and the doors held. The van is pretty badly dented up but they were unharmed. Megan’s in shock, I found her in the rear footwell, her arms wrapped around the kids, she actually fought me off, all she wanted to do was protect my kids; if I could give her a medal I would, she earned it today, believe me…”
Charlie looked at me curiously.
“Will, this wasn’t an attempted kidnapping. Think about it: they battered and clubbed the doors hard enough to dent them, but all they had to do to get to the kids was smash the glass and pop the doors. Why didn’t they do that? I’ll tell you why; they were sending you a message: ‘Look how easily we can get to you’. This is personal, Will, someone’s after you, and today was just them showing you where your weaknesses are. They know by now you’ll probably have worked it out, so they’re going to try something else. They’re getting inside your head, Will, and they’ll be back, I guarantee it, question is, when, and what will they do next? You need to call this in, Will, you know who, get them down here ASAP.”
*****
The psychologist-person tried to interview the kids but they’d had enough and clammed up, peering at her suspiciously from behind Georgy like three scared mice. Eventually Georgy had had enough of her and her questions too and shooed her out, she was just spooking the kids even more and they were tired, strung-out, scared, hungry, and in no mood for anything except their Mummy and me. When the cops finally left, except for the police car parked prominently by the main gate, we gathered in the dining-room for a family pow-wow over dinner. Feeding the kids took our minds off the events earlier, but they weren’t far from our thoughts.
When dinner was done, Jamie, for once, allowed his mother to hold and hug him on her lap, Edie of course was snuggled on my lap, and Jerry was wrapped tight around his Aunt Kay, his favourite spot.
“What happens next, children?” asked Aunt Kay, rocking Jerry like the infant he actually was, “this is not over is it? Are the people who did this coming back for more, and how are we going to stop them next time?”
Georgy shook her head slightly, rolling her eyes imperceptibly at the children.
“Daddy and Uncle Charlie made some calls, and guess what babies?” she sing-songed brightly, no trace of stress or worry in her voice; a small part of me wondered how she did that, because I was trying manfully to hold a deep, killing rage down inside me; someone had tried to harm my kids!
The kids looked at her curiously.
“Uncle Andy and Uncle Rex are coming for a visit, they want to see you kids and maybe take you all on a little adventure, would you like that?”
Andy ‘Jarhead’ Simmons and Rex ‘Bonzo’ Miller were my two Scimitar ARV (Armed Reconnaissance Vehicle) crew from back in the sand, they’d had my back numerous times when things got hairy, and we’d been shot up, blown-up, and bailed out together three times. We’d made it back alive, alone and unsupported, to the Bastion in one of the most dangerous places in the world solely because we’d trusted each other, and now I needed them again. They were my Best Man and Groomsman, and, more importantly, Jamie and Jerry’s Godfathers, and the two most capable, reliable, soldiers I knew. They’d be furious that my kids, their godchildren, had been attacked; with them on hand we’d have more than a fair chance against whoever was behind all this.