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He needs a heroine to save him and she arrives
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This is my story for the Summer Lovin' competition and it's set in July, during the two weeks of Wimbledon, but the locations are not limited to London.
In days of old, when knights were bold, a handsome knight in shining armour would gallop in, sword in hand, to rescue the beautiful maiden. Fighting his way past the disreputable henchmen he would find and vanquish the dastardly villain. But these are modern times, a time of female equality, and this time it's a beautiful heroine who arrives to rescue the handsome young man, keep him safe from the henchmen, and finally the evil villain will receive his just reward.
This being Romance the ending is inevitable, although you do have to wait a while for the sex, because I've tried to write an interesting story in which the sex is integral, and hopefully after reading the story, you will feel I've succeeded.
I've tried a different approach by using two tenses. The scenes with the heroine are all first person as seen from her point of view whereas everything else is third person. I hope you appreciate what I'm tried to do and don't find it confusing.
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Black is the colour of evil. The colour of night without a moon. That's when they came. Under the cloak of concealment and deceit. All in black, creeping along, their soft soles not making a sound. Their black gloves leaving no trace. They opened the door with a key. With the key they had somehow obtained. All was silent as the liquid soaked cloth covered his face. His eyes opened but, in those first few seconds of awakening, the brain doesn't see and he sank back into the chemically induced sleep. The larger of the two men hoisted him over his shoulder like a sack of feathers, the smaller opening the door, beckoning him out into the empty corridor. Everything was quiet, as they had been told it would be, as they escaped with their prize.
The kidnapping was efficiently done. A lot of planning had gone into it, as one would expect if the perpetrators wanted to be successful. Most kidnappers will hide their victim as far away from the scene as possible. A remote location is very popular. But, as the police and the media were mingling with the student body and the administration trying to come to grips with what had happened, he was being held less than a mile away in a luxury home the kidnappers had rented.
It was the beginning of July and Wimbledon had started yesterday. One of the few years when it seemed not to be raining. Spectators, packed like sardines, queuing in the sweltering heat. The crowds had begun arriving for the last three days, accommodation in London was at a premium, and if you hadn't booked it months ago you didn't have any. They had rented the house, at a cost of twenty thousand, for the two weeks of the tournament. Every year the owners went on a cruise to get away from the annoyance of a Grand Slam tennis event and weren't bothered who they rented the house as long as they got the money and no breakages. The kidnappers had provided impeccable, but false, references.
Because of who his father was the details of the kidnapping were all over the media and the kidnapping rivalled Wimbledon for the headlines. It had been captured on closed circuit television, which the media were desperate to get their hands on but the police were having none of it. In any case, the cctv hadn't revealed anything in the way of identification and not much else either. Two men, both wearing balaclavas, had entered the university, gone to his room and abducted him. They'd carried him, still wearing his pyjamas, to a plain van and the kidnapping had been concluded in less than fifteen minutes from them arriving to driving away.
He was just an ordinary student, in his final year, except he just happened to be the son of a man worth, at the last estimation, over eight hundred million.
"We don't have a single lead to go on, Boss," said Detective Sergeant Lewis, shaking his head as he looked at the recording for the umpteenth time, trying to see something which would be of help. This one is going to be a stinker, he thought, as he addressed the man stood behind him, and those also in the squad room.
"No sightings whatsoever. They must have driven straight out of the city and, in the hours before it was reported, they could be in Scotland for all we know. If it wasn't for who he was we wouldn't even have done anything until tomorrow. We would have told anyone concerned twenty four hours would have to elapse before him being considered missing. It would probably have been forty eight hours before the cctv would be checked. That first day he would have just been a student who had stayed out all night, probably with a girl, because he had no lessons that day."
"I agree," said the man he was addressing, running his hand through the greying hair that had seen more cases, and captured more criminals, than he, or anyone else, could remember.
"But that doesn't mean we aren't doing anything. We've got a nationwide alert out, we've got the ports covered, although I don't think they'll be on a ferry to Ireland or France, and I don't think they will have used a plane. In fact, I don't think they will have gone very far."
"I tend to agree with you, Chief Inspector Morse," boomed Superintendent Dexter. "I also think they haven't gone far."
Both Morse and Lewis turned to view the man who had come into the squad room unnoticed, which was difficult going by the size of him. Nearly seven feet tall when wearing his peaked cap, Dexter was a hard man to miss. Of the several people in the room he was the only one in a dark blue uniform, neatly pressed, shoes and buttons shining.
"Settle down, lads," he said, in a quieter voice, as everyone stood up. "Before you think anything, I'm here because of who the victim's father is, not to run the investigation. For one thing, I know Morse is a better detective then I will ever be, so I'm here just in a supervisory capacity. I'll also handle the press briefings because, and I'm sure he'll agree with me, that's a job Morse hates."
A chuckle ran round the room, everyone knowing it was true because, as good a detective as he was, Morse wasn't a people person.
"So what's your next step, Morse?" Dexter's manner with Morse was more of a friendly colleague than a superior. They had attended the police academy at the same time but afterwards their paths had taken different directions. Both were happy holding their current positions, particularly Morse.
"We've started on a house to house search between the university and Wimbledon. If we find nothing we'll widen the search. There's no point in us running around the country without any idea where we're going. I'll leave that up to the locals."
Morse wasn't being sarcastic when he spoke, he was giving his opinion in the same matter of fact way he always did.
"Gather round everybody, and we'll look at the street map," called out Lewis.
With fifteen police officers and ten desks in a room only big enough for eight it was really tight, not helped by the presence of Dexter. There was the sound of chairs scraping backwards as officers tried to find room to see the board.
