Pantry

"Helen? The police want to talk to me." I handed her the mobile. "Could you ring them to make an appointment?"

"No, Mike. Anna should ring them. She'll have to get you there."

Helen turned the loudspeaker on. She and Anna listened to the message.

"OK, Mike," Anna said. "I'll ring them. I don't think it should be before tomorrow afternoon at the earliest."

She went out of the kitchen to ring the Police Station. She had to come back to hand the phone to me for a couple of seconds to confirm that she was speaking for me. She made an appointment for half past two on Monday. It took me a few seconds to connect that Monday was tomorrow. My brain was still fuddled.

Sitting quietly I was able to eat Helen's casserole that had been sitting in the AGA for hours. As usual, I appreciated my sister's cooking. But when I wanted to stand up to go upstairs my legs were very unstable.

Helen and Anna helped me to get beyond the kitchen. We had walk along an ancient corridor and up a stone staircase. That staircase seemed to go on forever as I struggled to climb it. We went through a small kitchen before coming into a very dim Victorian hall. There was an ornate staircase up to a landing and Anna's bedroom. Her en-suite bathroom had been portioned from a larger room. Helen and Anna helped me to sit on the edge of Anna's bed.

"Welcome to the farmhouse at Castle Farm. Mike." Anna said. "The castle is small and there's not much left after Cromwell knocked it about, but it's mine."

"A castle?" I asked.

"What's left of it, Mike." Anna said. "The pantry, my work kitchen and the corridor were parts of the fore-building. Some of the walls of this farmhouse are what's left of the keep. But you and I are safe here. The main access is through the pantry. That's barred shut. I don't use downstairs in this house because I almost live in my work kitchen. All the ground floor windows are closed with external metal and internal wooden shutters."

"Why do we need to be safe, Anna?"

"There have been some odd people wandering across the farm. That wouldn't matter during the day but they also come after dark. I keep everything locked up because farm machinery and equipment has been stolen in the neighbourhood. It worries me."

Shortly afterwards Anna went downstairs to let Helen out. While she was gone I was daydreaming about Tracy at the beginning of our relationship. Tracy had been a tigress in bed. She wanted sex hard, energetic and often. She didn't need much foreplay because she was almost always ready anywhere and anytime. I am fit. I had to be fit to keep up with Tracy's sexual demands. But as our relationship developed she wanted less sex with me and more with other men, many men. It took me weeks before I found out that when she said she was too busy to see me she was being fucked by another man. Her need for sex from multiple men had destroyed our relationship and killed my love for her.

When Anna returned she had to help me into the bathroom. I was able to wash myself, but she needed to prop me up while I shaved. I was wearing a clean, undamaged pair of boxers as I climbed into Anna's large bed. I was almost asleep when she joined me. I didn't even notice that she was completely naked beside me.

Later in the night I knew. I was shivering again. Anna pulled my head between her nude breasts and wrapped her arms and legs around me. I went back to sleep resting against her breast.

In the morning I was very aware that a naked Anna was beside me. One of her arms was cradling my head against a breast. She was snoring, a very gentle soothing noise. As I tried to move her arm instinctively tightened, pulling my head back to her breast. I relaxed and let her hold me as I went back to sleep. When I woke again she was fully dressed sitting beside the bed.

"Wha..." I blurted.

"Good morning, Mike," Anna said brightly. "How do you feel?"

"Guilty," I replied. "You have been looking after me, and last night you hugged me for hours."

"You seemed to enjoy it..."

"Enjoy it? Of course I did. It was comforting. I felt safe and loved. But why?"

"Perhaps I do love you, Mike."

That statement shook me. Anna loved me? We barely knew each other. Anna sat on the bed. Her hand stroked my hair.

"I shouldn't have said it like that. What I should have said was 'perhaps I could love you, Mike'."

"And perhaps I could love you, Anna," I replied.

She had done so much for me. If she had really been my girlfriend she couldn't have done more. Anna's care and love was deeper than Tracy's had been but less frantic and passionate. I could see us developing as boyfriend and girlfriend with a mutual trust that I thought Tracy's betrayal had killed for ever. I knew Anna much better than I had ever known Tracy. Anna wasn't perfect. She was human with flaws. She could have a fierce temper when annoyed just like the myths about redheads. But it took a lot to trigger Anna's anger. I had never reached that point with her.

Anna leant over to kiss me on the lips. It was a brief touch but I felt it meant a lot to both of us.

Anna told me to stay in bed for a quarter of an hour while she went to see the farm workers. They needed to be told we would be at the Police station in the afternoon, and they had other tasks to be scheduled.

While she was gone I tried to work out my feelings for Anna. I had always liked her as my sister's friend. I had never considered her as a potential girlfriend, perhaps because she was like the girl next door, too close to be more than a friend. Yet last night she had been more than a friend. Even if she had really been my girlfriend she couldn't have helped me more. Maybe a girlfriend wouldn't have dressed me up as Rosie/Mary when I was in no state to refuse, but she hadn't really abused me. She had used me to exorcise some of her own demons. That could have been unwise but I hadn't really objected. I didn't want her dressing me up again, but if the Mary mask had been destroyed, she wouldn't.

When she returned I was surprised that I still needed Anna's help to dress myself, and to get back downstairs to her work kitchen. When I was sitting in the armchair beside the AGA I felt comfortable and almost as if I belonged there, watching Anna make breakfast for us.

Anna had forgotten one task for the farm workers. She left me for a few minutes, going through the metal door. That leads to the packing shed where the Polish women work when they're not out and about around the farm..

I sat in the kitchen for the rest of the morning and even ate lunch off a tray. After lunch Anna unbarred the pantry door. I could walk by myself to her truck. Climbing up into the cab was an effort but I managed.

Anna drove me to the Police Station and came in with me. I asked for Detective Sergeant Andrews. I had to wait a few minutes while he found a vacant interview room. He was willing for Anna to be with me. I appreciated that because I was still feeling shaky again and my brain was not wholly in gear.

"Mr Roberts..."

"Please call me Mike," I replied.

"OK, Mike. What we want to talk about is Tracy's voluntary statement. She's been released on police bail while we decide what to do. I understand you had to take out an injunction against her?"

DS Andrews obviously wanted me to explain that.

"She had been my girlfriend but it didn't work out. I ended the relationship but she wouldn't accept it was over. She kept turning up at my house, at wherever I was working, bombarding me with emails, voicemails and text messages. She was not a threat but a considerable nuisance. However, once the injunction was in place she observed it. I've had no contact from Tracy at all..."

"Until Saturday night," DS Andrews prompted.

"I know nothing about Saturday night," I answered. "I was out of my skull on something I had been given without my knowledge. The last thing I knew was having a quiet pint in the pub. The next thing?"

"He came to on the floor of my pantry," Anna interrupted, "still confused, sick, vomiting, shivering and he was still under the influence of whatever drug he had been given. Even this morning he's not fully recovered."

"I'm not surprised," DS Andrews said. "Some of the others are still in hospital beds. Mike looks remarkably well compared with them."

"If I am, I have Anna to thank," I said. "She was looking after me. She still is."

I took Anna's hand and squeezed it. I continued to hold her hand.

"OK. That makes my task harder. You can't confirm Tracy's statement."

"To my knowledge..." I laughed, "...or lack of it, I have no idea whether Tracy was there or not. As far as I know, my last contact with her was shortly before the injunction was issued."

"OK. All I can ask is whether, from your prior knowledge of Tracy, whether you think her statement is likely to be an accurate account. Here it is. Would you believe what she has said?" DS Andrews passed me several photocopied sheets of typing. He left us to read the statement while he went to get us some cups of tea.

I sat back in my chair. Anna and I read the statement together. I was surprised that I had difficulty focusing on the text. It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust another indication that the drug was still having an effect.

"I've just made the connection," Anna said. "Your Tracy..."

"She's not mine," I retorted.

"OK. This Tracy is the same one as the Tracy I know. She visits the farm frequently."

I didn't comment. I was busy trying to read Tracy's statement.

In summary Tracy's statement says that she was with a group of friends that were invited to a rave in a field at a secret location. She was told that a local music act she liked would be performing. The location would be communicated on Saturday evening, with a rendezvous at a pub advised by text message first. Only those who came to the pub would be told the actual location -- verbally with NO electronic messaging.

Tracy was a hanger-on, not part of the organisers of the rave, nor was she organiser of the group of friends. She was going with another woman who had suggested that Tracy might enjoy it. Their group came in an old minibus. Only at the last minute did Tracy appreciate that she would technically be breaching the injunction because the chosen pub was in the town she was banned from visiting. At that point she couldn't do anything about it and thought it wouldn't matter. After all they would be at the pub for a very short time before going to the rave. If she kept a low profile she thought no one would notice.

The Police knew that Tracy was wrong because the CCTV system had identified her.

Tracy's statement continued. In the crowd of people in the pub when her group arrived she hadn't seen me, but the organisers had. What Tracy hadn't known was that the rave had been set up by local drug dealers to publicise a new range of so-called legal highs. Samples would be available for the revellers to try, and one was a new date-rape drug that made anyone who took it vulnerable to any suggestions.

The organisers wanted to demonstrate the date-rape drug. Tracy didn't see it happen but was told that when one of the dealers saw that I had left my drink, they added the drug. They would persuade me to join the rave and they would demonstrate how suggestible I had become on the rave's makeshift stage.

When Tracy and her friends arrived at the field she saw me being persuaded to go on to the stage. She was horrified when the dealers made me do the sort of antics beloved of stage hypnotists. For the final part they told me to strip naked and wave my penis at the crowd. After five minutes I was led off stage as the music started. Tracy went to find me, slumped in a plastic garden chair behind the stage. She grabbed my clothes and told me to get dressed. I tried to comply but she had to tell me to stay still while she put my clothes on. She was seriously worried that I did exactly what she told me to do. That wasn't like me.

The DJ was encouraging all the ravers to strip and many were shedding their clothes. Tracy l was afraid that the dealers would try something else on me, either more demeaning acts on stage, or give me more drugs. They were handing out drugs to almost everyone.

She led me to the edge of the field away from the entrance and ordered me to leave, to get to a road, and to find help for myself. She was startled at the impact of her strong order to get away. I rushed the barbed wire fence and charged through rather than over it. She wanted to tell me to be more careful but I was away and running. That was the last she had seen of me.

"That would explain why your jeans were so badly ripped," Anna said, pointing at that passage.

Tracy became more concerned not just about the behaviour of some of the other people who were trying the legal highs but also that this event was nothing like that she had been told would happen. Many people were buying date-rape drugs for immediate use on their partner of the opposite sex. Even reluctant women were being persuaded to strip naked. Tracy was on the edge of the stage, trying to persuade the drug dealers to be more responsible when the Police arrived. She was one of those arrested. When Police opened her handbag back-pack they found many wraps of legal and illegal drugs, hundreds of them. She claimed she had no idea how they got there, but that she had put her back pack down to climb on the stage shortly before the Police raid. She had indicated that she wanted it when arrested and it was taken by a policewoman.

At the station she had admitted going to the pub and the rave but denied that she had known it would be a venue for drug dealing. She repeatedly and frantically asked for news of me, but the Police knew nothing.

There was a policeman's note attached. The consequences of the police raid had turned into a major incident because so many people needed hospitalisation. Hundreds of people were naked and dozens had lost not just their money and mobile phones but their clothing as well. The loss of the clothing might be because there was confusion when the Police arrived but the money and mobiles were stolen.

Apart from Tracy, five known drug dealers had been arrested but none had any drugs on them. The drugs in Tracy's bag would have been sufficient for the whole event. They weighed a substantial amount but Tracy claimed she had not handled her bag during the short time between when she put it down and the time she was arrested. If so, she would have noticed the increased weight, but since she hadn't touched it, she didn't know.

DS Andrews came in with the mugs of tea just as I had finished reading.

"Well, Mike? What do you think?"

"Tracy was a pain," I emphasised the word pain, "and a nuisance to me, but not since the injunction. As far as I know she would NEVER be involved in drugs. She hated them particularly as one her cousins died from a so-called legal high. If she was persuaded to go to an event which was mainly about drug-pushing, she had been lied to. My problem with Tracy is that she was convinced that I was her ideal husband and she didn't want to accept our break-up. But she never harmed me, nor was there any indication that she would. She was a considerable irritation, that's all.

Her statement seems plausible to me. If she had seen me in distress she would have acted. After all, she still thinks she loves me. I can understand her ordering me to get away. If, and I believe it does, that date-rape drug acts as she said it did, I could have also understood if she had wanted to use the opportunity to tell me to make love to her, except for her hatred of drugs. Her account seems reasonable. As for the quantity of drugs found in her bag? I don't believe Tracy would have been carrying them."

"That fits," DS Andrews said, "we've tested the packs for fingerprints and taken DNA. The fingerprint results are in. None of Tracy's fingerprints are on any package. The dealers were sloppy. Their fingerprints are all over. The DNA? We won't know for a week."

"So Tracy's in the clear?" Anna asked. "I know Tracy now. I didn't when she was with Mike. I agree with Mike. Tracy wouldn't use drugs."

"Except for breaching the injunction she's no longer of interest to us," DS Andrews said, "and that would require a complaint from Mike."

"Who isn't going to complain," I said forcefully. "Even if I don't believe Tracy's whole statement, and I'm inclined to, I have no evidence that she acted against me. An inadvertent breach wouldn't really matter after she has obeyed the ruling scrupulously for nearly a year. I think, but don't know, that the existence of the injunction made her accept the reality of our break-up and move on. As it is I don't know and certainly can't give evidence under oath that I saw Tracy on Saturday night."

"Thank you, Mike, and Anna. We'll drop all charges against Tracy and cancel her bail conditions. The date-rape drug that gave you and the others such bad reactions is banned for any use in this country. In other countries it was used by vets to tranquillise big cats such as lions and tigers. Originally it was used by circus lion tamers, and each of you was given more than the dose for a large lion. "

"Ouch!" Anna said.

"Ouch indeed," DS Andrews continued. "Those in hospital are expected to stay at least another forty-eight hours. The smaller women were very badly affected. Thank you for coming in, Mike. You must be fairly fit to be so coherent so soon."

"Anna helped." I said. "Without her I would have been in real trouble."

"But be careful, Mike. The medics suggest that the drug has an effect for at least three days and apparent normality can be followed by another severe reaction. Go home..."

"He's not going home," Anna interrupted. "He's staying with me until he's better."

"That's probably for the best. But I have two more pieces of information for you both. We talked to some of those at the rave but we can't use some of their statements because they were drugged or intoxicated. The first is that Mike was deliberately chosen as the test subject to implicate Tracy. Someone wanted Tracy to get into trouble and knew that contact with Mike was a way to do it."

"But no one knew I would be in that pub," I objected.

"Perhaps not. It might have been a spur of the moment thing that fitted their intentions. Tracy was set up. Her so-called friends knew it was a drug fest, knew how she felt about drugs, and yet lied to her so she would go with them. The second thing? They were already planning the next rave, a larger one, and the site was to be Anna's farm. For some reason they wanted to hurt Anna. I can't think of a link between Tracy/Mike and Anna. Can you?"

"Anna is my sister's friend. As far as I knew until I came here, Tracy had never met Anna, nor even known of her existence. You didn't know Tracy when she was with me, did you Anna?"

"Until now I didn't know Tracy had been your girlfriend. Helen had told me you had once had an awkward ex-girlfriend but that simple statement was all I knew. The Tracy I know now has never mentioned you. I thought the name was just a coincidence."

"Like my knowledge of Wayne in Anna's past." I said. "I didn't know anything about Wayne, only that Helen had been helping Anna rebuild her life after an abusive relationship, unspecified. We didn't, and don't know much about each other's past relationships. We have liked each other for years, and my sister's opinion of Anna is very good. So, now, is mine."

"Wayne? Would that be convicted rapist Wayne?" DS Andrews asked.

"Yes," we said together.

"There's the missing link," DS Andrews said. "Tracy provided information about Wayne's movements at the time of one of the rapes. Wayne had been her boyfriend for a short time. We also interviewed Anna about Wayne once the connection to the rapes had been made through DNA. Anna couldn't tell us anything but if Wayne thought she had..."