When she has fully recovered from her operation, it is important she adopts a healthy lifestyle to reduce the risk of developing further heart problems in the future. We need to get her to stop smoking, to start eating healthily, to drink less and at least exercise a little bit!”
“I’m glad she’s through the first part anyway” said Colin and Athena squeezed his arm.
“Thank you for last night” she whispered “it was sweet of you not to take advantage of me.”
“That’s funny” replied Colin “that’s exactly what I was going to say!”
Athena smiled. “You’ve eaten I take it?” she asked.
Colin nodded “I was just going back to my room to decide where I might spend my few days off. Erebus told you I wasn’t coming straight back after Dunfermline I assume?”
“He did and he also asked if I had any objection to you being sent out into the field to live somewhere appropriate for any future direct actions you might undertake for us. I told him I wanted you to stay here at Larcombe permanently.”
“Really?” said Colin “do you still feel you need to keep an eye on me?”
“No Phoenix” she said as she started to walk away from him towards the canteen “I can’t bear the thought of you being hundreds of miles away when I might need you to hold me like you did last night.”
Athena stopped. She walked back and held his hands in hers.
“It’s been a long time” she said “be patient with me.”
Colin kissed her softly on her lips.
“I’ll see you when I get back from my holiday Athena; take care until then.”
Athena went towards the canteen and Colin headed off to the stable block. He turned to glance back as he neared his quarters and Athena was standing by the door to the building, waiting for him to look her way. She waved briefly and went inside.
Colin set about planning his holiday and couldn’t concentrate on anywhere or anything. All he could think about was how great it had been to kiss her; he imagined kissing her body from tip to toe.
“Another cold shower before bed” he groaned “and up early in the morning to see if I can’t finally plan this bloody holiday!”
Colin was at Bath Spa station yet again on Monday; the first leg of his journey was about to begin. He had everything he needed in his trusty rucksack for his mission and his short break. He also had a sizeable wedge of notes to buy anything else he needed that he wasn’t carrying with him.
He hadn’t seen Athena since that Friday evening; Erebus and the others had occupied her time pretty much completely on Olympus business. There had been no further updates on her mother’s progress; Colin assumed that no news was good news.
The train left the station on the short hop to Bristol. Colin looked out of the window and was glad that once his holiday was over, he’d be returning to the Roman city. He hadn’t fancied pitching up in a strange town and starting afresh. He also had the promise of a relationship with Athena to come back for; how important that relationship would be in his life he couldn’t tell yet, but it was looking pretty good at the moment!
Colin knew that the next six or seven hours were going to be a drag; trekking across country to Birmingham New Street, then up the west coast further and further north until he arrived in Edinburgh. He soon found his eyes were dropping and he was asleep while the train plodded through to Gloucester and Cheltenham; he was changing trains again before he knew it. While he was at Birmingham he had a couple of minutes to spare, so he bought a magazine and a hot sausage roll. When he looked at the change he’d got from a tenner he wondered how long the money he had would last him! Things had got dearer even since he’d returned from The Gambia.
The sausage roll was great though and the magazine kept his interest for some time, so it wasn’t all bad. He needed something to occupy his mind; staring out of the window as the train made its way through the last of the Midlands was not really an option. Colin watched the changing scenery on the other side of the glass and ticked off the stations as he travelled further up country. As the train threaded its way through the busy traffic hub of Crewe Colin thought that although the price of a sausage roll has changed dramatically, some things don’t change that much.
Colin at last stood on the platform at Edinburgh waiting for his final connecting train. Just over half an hour later Colin walked out of the station at Dunfermline; it was almost nine o’clock. It was bloody cold; well what did he expect in late October in Scotland?
His research had found a reasonable bed and breakfast within a short walk of the station and it wasn’t long before he was unpacking his overnight things from his rucksack. He hit the hay knowing that if everything went to plan then he’d be off on his holiday within twenty four hours.
Donald MacDonald was in his customary position; he was sat in his car watching the children as they arrived to start the school day. He was slumped down a little so that from the other side of the green opposite the school gates, it was virtually impossible to see whether there was anyone in the car at all.
He had left the house at a quarter to eight as usual, after what had become his staple breakfast diet; a bowl of porridge and a tumbler of whisky. Donald MacDonald was on a slippery slope.
His career had gone down the toilet. Despite all the evidence, Donald believed he had been stitched up by the two sisters and even complained to the few friends he had left that the pathetic community sentence he had received had been punitive.
The crafty copper conveniently forgot about all the other young girls who had been sweet talked into giving him favours to stop him telling their parents tales about what they’d been up to.
“If I turn up at your house, in my police car, in my uniform and say you were smoking and drinking lager in the park; who do you think your mammy’s going to believe, eh? Right then darling, perhaps there’s a way we can make this problem go away.”
That slippery slope had led him on to more and more material being downloaded from the internet; particularly after his father had gone into the home. Somehow Donald had managed to keep that pretty quiet; one of the factors behind the leniency of his sentence had been his invalid father after all. Donald’s brief had painted a sad and sorry picture of the effects on his father’s life if Donald, his sole carer, was to be given a custodial sentence.
With his father out of the way, and Donald’s ‘sole carer’ role discarded without a backward look, there was no one to see what he was getting up to; Donald could watch what he liked when he liked. The more he watched, the more he wanted to act out his fantasies. Somewhere deep inside him was a ‘good angel’ telling him it was wrong and that he should get help; the whisky helped to drown out that voice.
It was taking larger and larger amounts to shut the angel up these days; Donald couldn’t function without a drink inside him as soon as he awoke. The devil angel on his other shoulder was winning the battle and Donald’s visits to the school were now a daily occurrence during term time. To begin with, he had just been looking. In the last couple of weeks he had been taking photographs of some of the prettier girls. The surveillance section at Larcombe Manor had identified most of them from Donald’s computer.
Donald was perhaps only a day or two away from selecting his target. He had driven around this area so often over the past twenty odd years; he knew the streets like the back of his hand. The nights were drawing in quickly now; A few of the children he was watching attended after school clubs and a couple of his favourites walked home alone after four o’clock in the afternoon. He planned to follow them and choose his spot. Once they were in his car his fantasies could become reality.