Episode 4

Detective Harris stood before a frightened woman just outside of Frenier’s home. She had told of the weird noise and how she had banged upon the door. The lack of response had been the last straw.

“I understand that you saw a visitor?” he said.

The woman nodded vigorously.

“He was a fairly tall chap with a grey trench coat sir. That’s his car over there.”

Placing the unlit cigar into his mouth, he glanced at the vehicle and winced.

“Ben of course. That is all I need.”

He reached inside his jacket and dialled a number. Moments later, a voicemail message answered.

“Hi, I’m Ben. Please leave a message after the tone.”

The detective switched it off.

“I hate voicemail.”

He thanked the witness before entering the small home. Forensic teams were checking it over, dusting for prints, and examining the cool ash.

“I certainly don’t like the catty carpet,” he muttered to an officer.

The senior forensic officer padded over.

“That ash by the chairs is wood by the way sir.”

This piece of good news surprised him.

“Which means they are probably still alive. Any idea who put it there?”

The officer shook his head.

“We found something really peculiar though.”

He produced a bag that contained a silver ring. As the detective watched, the forensic officer held a compass to it.

“What’s the point of that?” Harris asked.

“The needle is pointing toward the ring sir. That can only mean one thing. That ring is heavily magnetised.”

The detective screwed his eyes for a moment.

“Is such a thing possible?”

The forensic expert smiled.

“Run a heavy current across wires and you get an electromagnetic field sir. Generators use that technology. However in a place like this...”

There was no need for that sentence to b completed. Harris had got the picture.

“The woman said Ben went in but nobody left. Any prints of a third suspect?”

The forensic chap shook his head.

“There were only two folk in here sir. You would almost think they had vanished into thin air.

Harris grinned at such impossibility, and started nosing around. The home was well kept of course, and nothing of real interest was discovered. Within the bedroom however lay a strange magazine about alien abduction.

Harris picked it up and began flicking through it.

“Same old garbage I see. Hello, what’s this?”

He saw on the rear page a dark ink stamp bearing the name of Kevin. Underneath was the address on Nevis Road.

“I’ll have to speak to this odd fellow.”
---
“Who is it?”

“Police sir...Can I have a word please?”

When the door opened at last, Harris almost laughed at the weird pink hair.

“What is this about?”

The detective pulled the magazine from his jacket pocket and said, “Your name was on it.”

Kevin glanced at the evidence and became defensive.

“When was reading abduction magazines a crime?”

The detective pushed a foot inside the door and hissed, “Ever since two people vanish.”

Kevin stepped back and Harris entered. He was shocked at the magazines strewn across the floor, but not at the subject matter.

“You are really involved in this then,” Harris observed.

“It’s my main hobby.”

“One of the folk who vanished is Ben. A reporter for the Bugel. The second is a lady by the name of Frenier.”

“You said they had vanished. Can you be a little more specific?”

The detective thought this over. After all, civilians aren’t supposed to ask questions.

“Vanished is perhaps a bad word to use on this occasion. Let’s just say gone awol.”

Kevin cleared a seat and invited Harris to sit down before joining him.

“That reporter was here not that long ago. He was following up on the death of his partner.”

Harris knew the story but was surprised at the delay.

“He found something out?”

“Shirley left my name in her diary detective. He was only here to find out why we met.”

Harris gazed at him coldly.

“Were you having an affair?”

Kevin was shocked at this disgusting suggestion.

“I damn well resent that sir. She only wanted to know my opinion concerning a friend’s abduction story.”

Harris raised his eyebrows sharply.

“This friend was not Frenier by any chance?”

Kevin nodded.

“When she left here, Shirley was blowing a fuse shall we say.”

The detective entered deep thought mode, sifting the facts carefully.

“So Ben arrives here, gets the lowdown on Frenier, and goes awol with her.”

“Look detective, I’m a pretty sharp guy at times. You are hiding something.”

The detective gulped, and decided to divulge a fact about the strange case.

“We found two piles of wood ash in the living area sir. Does that mean anything to you?”

Kevin blanched and leaping down, began searching through his untidy record keeping.

“Now where the hell is it?”

A moment later he pulled out an edition dated 1995. He flicked through it rapidly until he found the correct page.

“Here we are. In 1922 in eastern Russia, a family of three simply vanished from their hunting lodge. Only three piles of wood ash were discovered. It says here that they were never seen again.”

The detective winced as Kevin handed the account over.

“You need my help detective.”

“We don’t work well with civilian's sir. If I start blabbing about alien abduction, my superiors will put me inside a funny farm.”

“In ufo encounters, radios have gone dead, compasses go haywire, and the odd plane falls from the sky.”

“We found a magnetised ring at the scene.”

“I now regret doubting Shirley’s account about her friend. This is a genuine case.”

Harris threw the account upon the floor and chewed heavily on the cigar.

“So how do we get them back?”

“We don’t,” Kevin replied. “At least not until their abductors are finished with them. As for poor Shelley. Perhaps she was an unknown abduction victim. Something may have gone wrong. That may explain the strangeness of her death.”

Harris absorbed this information easily, but was in a quandary concerning his next move.

“Would they be returned to the scene?”

Kevin shook his head.

“Not necessarily detective. An American victim ended up a hundred miles from her bedroom, with no memory of how she got there.”

“Which means we are stuffed.”

Kevin suddenly brightened up.

“I am an old friend of Ben. If I know him, he’ll be trying to figure out an escape plan.”

Harris nodded and stood to leave.

“Thanks for the info. If he should turn up...”

“Don’t worry sir. I’ll make sure that you know about it. After he explains everything to me of course.”

Harris smiled easily, and left the strange enthusiast to his important hobby. As he sat inside his vehicle, a thought came to his frantic mind.

“Wherever you are Ben, get your arse home soon.”

TBC...