Of Polka Dot Shorts and Nightmares.
Author's Notes:-
This is the Chapter that includes some references to the X-files. Nothing much though, so if you haven't seen it don't worry about.
Responses to Reviewers
Mz - They are my favourite shows too. Here's the next chapter, Enjoy.
Gem6 - Glad your liking it so far. This is nothing like I normally write so I wasn't sure how it would go down. No Probs about the Dedication thing. I would have lost confidence in writing ages ago if it wasn't for you.
stacey - You don't really need to have seen the x-files to understand this. I just put that in because there are a few slight references to it.
Fabio - Glad your liking it so far. Here's chapter 2. Enjoy.
DAY 2
Andrea's flat, 6am the next morning:
The buzzing of the alarm clock disturbs the silence of the room. Reaching over with a lazy arm, Andrea hits the snooze button. She rolls over and sits up, yawning her head off. She stretches her arms up above her head, then relaxes back to her previous position. Gathering all of her energy, she gets out of bed and heads straight to the shower.
At the loss of contact Neil wakes up. Noticing Andrea is no longer beside him, he gets out of bed and looks around for her. Hearing the gentle sound of falling water, he concludes she must be in the shower, and so makes his way quietly into the bathroom. He sneaks up behind her and wraps his arms around her waist, giving her a good morning kiss.
They shower in silence and hurry to get ready for work. When they are ready, they jump into Neil's car and drive towards the station. Neil drops Andrea off a couple of street's away from the station entrance.
"Will this be ok?" he asks.
"Perfect," answers Andrea getting out of the car, "I'll see you inside in a bit."
"Yeah."
Andrea gets out of the car and continues the rest of the journey to work, on foot. A few seconds later, Neil drives past.
In the Ladies Locker Room:
Andrea walks in the ladies locker room to find, Yvonne, Honey and Kerry, talking about boyfriends. At her entrance the others immediately turn there attentions onto her.
"So Andrea, what about you? Who's in your sights?" asks Honey
Andrea answers with a secretive smile, "Who says I like anyone."
"Oh, come on," Kerry butts in, "your face says it all, so, who is it?"
Not wanting to tell them about the DI, she stalls, "It's no one you know," she answers.
"But there is someone?" interrupts Yvonne.
"Yeah," she reluctantly tells them.
The girls continue on with there conversation.
"Want to know what I've heard?" asks Yvonne.
"Yeah, what?" asks Honey.
"The boys in CID think the DI is going out with someone in the station, on the quiet."
"Yeah right, like who?" laughs Andrea nervously. They can't know. she argues with herself.
"Don't know," says Yvonne, "but I'm planning on finding out. You was working with him all yesterday wasn't you Andy, did he say anything interesting? Any clues?"
"Sorry," she answers, "nothing."
They leave the locker room, still laughing and joking, and make their way into the briefing room.
Gina Gold follows them inside. She walks to the front of the room and then makes a coughing noise to get everyone's attention.
Everybody stops what they are doing and listen to what she has to say,
"Ok everyone, today's assignments, PC's Hemmingway and Dunbar are still helping CID, PC's Powell and Stamp, in the Area car, Sergeant Smith and PC Hunter, sierra 2, the rest of you are on foot patrol."
She gives them a few seconds to let it sink in before sending them on there way.
Yvonne and Andrea, walk in companionable silence up to CID. They are met with the DI yelling at someone.
"No change there then," comments Yvonne elbowing Andrea in the ribs.
Hearing the new voices, Neil whips round to face them.
"The uniform girls are here," calls out Rob loudly, earning a laugh from Phil and Ken.
"Gina managed to spare you for another day then," is the greeting they get, "Ok lets get to work. Phil have you uncovered anything new on this nightmare business?"
"Yes Gov, two of the other victims parents have reported the same thing."
"Ok, what else have we got?"
"Not a lot gov, we've pinned on a map the places the children have been abducted from to see if we can find a pattern, but nothing so far."
"Has anyone else got anything to add?"
Everybody shakes there head, no.
"What about the places the bodies were found?" starts Andrea, "is there any links there."
"Don't think so," answers Phil, pinning the places on the map anyway.
Andrea steps closer to the map and studies it intently, tracing circles with her fingers. She stops suddenly and turns to face the others. "Here," she says, circling an area of the map with her finger, "the children are being taken to a building somewhere in this area."
"How do you work that one out?" asks Neil stepping up beside her to get a better look at the map.
"This is the centre of all the places the children were taken from and the centre of where their bodies were found. It makes perfect sense."
"Maybe, but that's a pretty large area. It will take forever to search it all so how do we narrow it down?"
"That bit I haven't worked out yet."
"Well at least that's a start. Ok, lets all start by looking into which of these buildings is the most likely target. Which ones are unused, dig up everything you can, we need to know what we're looking at here, I'm gonna go and speak to the parents of the latest victim, see if I can find out anything else useful."
He goes into his office and grabs his jacket, and then walks back out into main office. "Andrea, your coming with me," he says heading for the stairs.
"Hooo, someones got an admirer," sniggers Yvonne, "he wouldn't happen to be Mr Mystery Lover, would he," she adds a lot quieter.
"As if," is all Andrea says, walking out of the office, jogging a few steps to catch up with Neil.
They don't speak till they get to the safety of the car park and his car.
"The girls are getting suspicious," explains Andrea, "they were talking in the locker room this morning, and are convinced your going out with someone from work."
"Have they got any ideas who?" Neil asks.
"Not yet no, but we've got to be more careful."
They arrive at the worried parent's house and knock on the door. It is opened almost immediately.
"Police I assume," says the man, "Come in," he adds when they nod in response.
Neil and Andrea follow the man into the warm living room.
"Mr and Mrs Doggnett, DI Manson and PC Dunbar, Sun Hill," introduces Neil.
"Nice to meet you," says Mr Doggnett shaking hands with each in turn, "please call me John. Have you found anything yet?"
"Possibly," answers Neil, "According to one of my officers, your wife said something about your son suffering from a horrific nightmare the night before he was taken."
"Yes," explains John, "I know this may sound awfully strange officers, but our son has a special gift."
"What sort of a gift?" asks Andrea.
"He has dreams, visions you could call them, usually they are nothing, but sometimes …"
"I see," says Neil.
Mrs Doggnett steps in, "it sort of runs in the family," she explains.
"Ok, is there anything else you can tell us that may help us find who is behind this?"
"Mommy, when is Mattie coming home," comes a small voice from the doorway.
"Come here Josie," calls Monica to her daughter.
The little girl, runs over and sits on her mothers lap.
"This is our daughter, Josie," John explains to the police officers.
"Hello," says Andrea to the little girl.
Josie, says a small "Hello," before hiding her face in her mothers chest shyly.
"I don't think there is anything else we can tell you," says Monica, turning to Neil and Andrea once again, "except that the dream is probably the biggest clue any of us are ever gonna get."
John shows the two officers to the door. Before they go John stops them and says, "Please find Matthew, I'm not sure either of us could cope with this happening again."
"What do you mean?" asks Andrea.
John takes a calming breath before answering, "I had another son, a long time ago now, … he was killed; it was just like this, he was abducted from outside our house in broad daylight, I was at work at the time, I was a New York cop, He was found face down in a forest , three days later. I went through hell for years afterwards. I can't go through that again."
"Don't worry Mr Doggnett, we'll find your son."
Later that day:
Neil and Andrea were back in Sun Hill. Everybody was busy digging up information on the possible whereabouts of the boy. Nobody able to find anything useful.
The hours crawl by with night drawing closer and closer. Just as they are about to give in for the day and head home they get a breakthrough.
A probable building comes to there attention. The building, an old pantomime theatre, is the most likely location, for the abducted children to be held and killed.
Neil organises a team and they go raid the building. Inside the broken down, abandoned building, they find a maze of corridors. They slit into pairs and take a corridor each.
They come upon a room, with a locked door. "This looks promising," comments Neil kicking the door down.
They break through the door and stop to look around the room. It is large and round and the walls are decorated with multi-coloured spots.
Andrea, come to a sudden stop, with a shocked expression on her face.
"Oh. My God," she says, when she regains use of her voice, "its exactly the same as in my dream."
"What are you talking about?" asks Yvonne, who comes up behind them, followed closely by Tony Stamp.
"Last night," explains Andrea, "I had a nightmare, it was the same as the little boy's. It was this room. We've gotta be close."
They continue moving through the room and find another door at the opposite side of room. This door opens easily and they all walk through. They find themselves in another room. This one is totally black and smells strongly of smoke. In the middle of the room is a chair, blacked with fire. Tied to the chair with metal chains is a small charred body.
"It's the boy," states Yvonne.
Tony rushes over and feels for a pulse. "He's got a pulse." He announces, "it's faint but it's their."
Yvonne gets straight on her radio for an ambulance and relays the details. The boy slowly regains consciousness, just as the paramedics arrive, and he is transported to the ambulance and taken to the local hospital.
The Sun Hill officers seal off the scene for the crime scene investigators and head back to Sun Hill.
Andrea's Flat, A Few Hours Later:
"I can't believe that boy is still alive," states Andrea.
"I know, it's a miracle," says Neil.
"Who could do such a thing?"
"I don't know, but whoever's behind this is in line for a long stretch in prison when we catch him."
"IF we catch him."
"We will it's just a matter of time."
They sink down on the sofa in front of the television, not really paying attention to it, but chatting between them.
"What was that with Yvonne about earlier? Do they know about us?"
"I don't think so. I hope not, it's some sort of rumour she heard from Phil or something."
"We've got to be careful about who knows. It could put both of our jobs in jeopardy, not to mention everything else."
"I know."
"Changing the subject, have you dug up anything else on Gabriel?"
"No, nothing, I thought we'd have found something else by now."
"Is Bruce still threatening to go on with his plan?"
"Yeah. God, this is such a mess."
"We'll work something out."
As the hours roll round and midnight draws closer, they migrate to bed, knowing that tomorrow will be a tiring day.
Another Chapter Complete and who knows how many more to come. (I can count at least 3 so far, maybe more, i was thinking about doing a week in there lives sort of thing but i don't know yet. You'll have to wait and see.)
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