9th May
I re-joined Etienne on the beach at Mundesley. Between us we had searched every street within a quarter of a mile and checked the small coffee shop.
I had repeatedly tried to ring Helen, but I just kept getting a message which suggested that her mobile might be out of range.
‘Where the hell are they?’ I said in frustration. ‘They’ve been gone three hours. Helen can’t still be walking with him, hoping he might remember something.’
The feelings that I now experienced were the same as I recalled from when Helen had been kidnapped at Duck’s farm. I was desperately worried about her. There was something very definitely wrong.
‘I’ll put a message out to the police to look for both of them,’ said Etienne, taking his mobile from his pocket.
As he was making that call, a black transit van pulled up nearby.
A man and a woman got out.
The man approached me. ‘Hello,’ he said, ‘I’m Rod Dowsing. Did you see it?’
‘See what?’ I asked.
‘The UFO. I and my wife, Crystal, are UFO hunters. There were sightings all around here. The old lady in the house over there,’ he pointed to a building across the road, ‘said that a spacecraft rose out of the sea, just over here,’ he pointed towards the sea, ‘and hovered over the beach for several minutes.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I don’t give much credence to UFO phenomena.’
As I spoke, I glanced over the shoulder of Rod Dowsing to where Etienne was looking back at me. As our eyes met, it was clear that we were having the same thought.
‘It’s all real, believe me,’ said Rod. ‘There’s just a big conspiracy to keep it secret from the rest of us.’
While we had been talking, a woman who I assumed to be Rod’s wife, Crystal, had removed some equipment from the back of the van. She began to carry it to the beach.
‘What’s all that?’ I asked.
‘We’ve got a radiation detector and a psychic energy detector,’ Rod replied. ‘We’ll also be meditating to pick up any extraterrestrial vibrations. If they’ve been here, we’ll detect them,’ he concluded with confidence as he turned away from me and walked onto the beach to commence his investigations.
Etienne and I walked in silence to a bench about fifty metres from the van. We sat down.
‘Not much we can do,’ said Etienne, ‘until we’ve got more information to work on.’
At that moment, my mobile rang.
‘Is that you, Swan?’ It was Helen’s voice.
‘Darling! Are you OK? Where are you?’
‘I’m fine. Sorry I couldn’t get in touch before. I can’t talk for long. I’m about fifty miles above Dorset in that starcruiser that Christian borrowed. We’ve just kidnapped Bishop Forrester. I’ve spoken to Joan, and we’re going to land at Bovington after dark to try to minimise further UFO hysteria. Can you and Etienne meet us there?’
‘Well … yes,’ I said. ‘How was the rest of your day?’
I heard her laugh. ‘Oh, pretty uneventful.’