She sat in the service station finishing her coffee before the last leg of her journey up the A1. She was on her way home to Lincolnshire after visiting her 2 daughters in Berkshire. One had recently gifted her with her first grand-daughter and was struggling to cope in the first few months of motherhood; the other had a lazy live-in boyfriend who contributed nothing to the finances and lived his life on handouts and cannabis. Neither of the daughters was having the best of times and she frequently made the trip down to give what support she could.
She always stayed at the same guest house while she was down there so that, at the end of a difficult day's troubleshooting, she had somewhere relatively comfortable to retire to. The guest house was fairly cheap and basic: clean but without too many home comforts. The whole house had been given over to individual rooms and, although smartly refurbished, the rooms were small and the walls were thin. It was the kind of place that attracted itinerant workers and businessmen whose expense accounts did not stretch to the Radissons and Hiltons of this world. On more than one occasion, she had caught the eye of one of these temporary residents and they had smiled at her in the hope, perhaps, of a more intimate coming together. At 52, she was still a good looking woman and it was obvious that some saw her as a potential distraction for when they were away from home.
She smiled inwardly at the thought of what had happened the night before. Tired after helping to look after the new baby, she had returned to the guest house early to catch up on some sleep and had drifted away quickly. However, she was awoken at some time during the night by a noise that only became discernable once she started to come round and get her bearings. The couple in the next room were going at it. There was no finesse. The wall was pleading mercy as they banged into it, bucking and rocking their way to conclusion. The woman sounded like every actress on the C List porn circuit, begging, wailing and screaming profanities whether she was enjoying it or not. The man could just about be heard moaning his approval as the encounter ran its course. While it all sounded amateurish and trashy she could not help feeling aroused as she lay there listening in the dark. In her imagination, she was the woman being ploughed and the man laying into her was one of the many good looking men she had met over the years and whose images were still stored in her mind's bank. Her hand had gone down between her legs and met the inevitable wetness that was building up, and she brought herself off to the soundtrack of the baying woman. She had seem them both the next morning as she left for the trip up north: he in a scruffy hoody and dirty jeans, his partner in sweat pants with greasy hair and a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Gormless and vacant, they presented an image far removed from the one she had envisaged in her fantasies of the night before.
She had missed him while she was away and the experience at the guest house had only served to heighten the sentiment that she wanted a piece of the action when she got home. After she had seen Wayne and Waynetta, she had sent him a text-message: 'I want a good seeing-to when I get home.' She had been disappointed at the lack of a reply and, as she walked from the cafeteria to her car, she was thinking, 'Fuck him then!' There must have been some telepathy in the air that afternoon but in the noisy atmosphere of the service station forecourt, she nearly missed the ping on her mobile to tell her that a new message awaited her attention. 'When you get home, there will be an envelope for you on the mantelpiece.'
He was an RAF officer who worked at the Officers and Aircrew Selection Centre at RAF Cranwell. Week in, week out, groups of hopefuls attended the Centre in the hope of securing a career as an RAF officer, maybe a fast jet pilot, engineer or intelligence gatherer. His job was to select the Service's future leaders and, to catch the selectors' eye, the candidates had to show their worth in a series of theoretical and practical exercises. The practical tasks were assessed in what was called the Exercise Hangar. It was an old 1930s aeroplane hangar which had been converted into an area resembling Richard O'Brien's Crystal Maze. Partitioned into about 30 different exercises, candidates were taken from one area to another and did their best to lead each other through the various tasks. Along the sides of the Exercise Hangar were what would have been offices although these too had been changed. There was an eating area for when the candidates took lunch, storage areas for equipment and a first aid room (with, curiously, a physiotherapist couch) for when the inevitable accidents happened. These side rooms then gave out to a public road via several fire doors and, outside the first aid room, there was also a lay-by where the military ambulance would park so that the medical staff could quickly attend to any injured candidates. At night, every building would be secured and subject to mobile, armed patrols. The IRA no longer posed quite the same threat to military bases these days but the rise of jihadist extremism had meant that vigilance was still in the uppermost thoughts of those of lived and worked there.
They had been together for nearly 16 years. As with many lovers, their early months and years were characterised by hungry passion and a desire to explore each other's sexual boundaries but, to his regret, this early, almost gluttonous, desire had waned as time had gone on. His appetite was still insatiable; he thought constantly about sex with her and would easily have her twice a day if she wanted him. But life happens to people; existence throws at you everyday situations that require you to immerse yourself in. As a result, her interest in sex had waned and he spent days wondering when the next time would be. When they did come together, he liked it to be memorable, so quantity had given way to quality. He liked to plan things...
A week before, he had been in the First Aid Room and noticed that his work colleagues were having trouble closing the fire door. This got him thinking. Once they had left the room, he opened the door onto the main road and then shut it in a manner that made it look as if it was properly locked. On the way home that night, he pulled into the lay-by and, with a firm shove, he was able to enter the hangar again. Nobody could know that the building was effectively insecure; the door appeared locked from the outside. This was perfect; a plan was developing.
She got home at 4 o'clock that afternoon and immediately noticed the envelope on the mantelpiece. However, it had been a long drive home and her first thought was of a large Bacardi and coke. She settled down with her drink and opened the envelope; there was a single sheet of paper and a Β£10 note inside it:
INSTRUCTIONS
Welcome home. Have a good, long bath.
I have laid out some clothes for you on the bed. Wear them.
Be ready for 1900.
At 1900, a taxi will arrive for you. Get in.
The driver will take you somewhere; he knows where to go. Pay him with the money provided.
Get yourself a drink at the bar.
Wait.
This looked interesting. She noted the authoritarian tone: curt instructions and 24-hour clock timings. She poured another drink and went upstairs for a bath.