Encounter : Part Three - Conclusion

3 Encounter : Conclusion

(The story so far) Adam Kesteven was stranded on the road one night and ended up at Shaston House. There he met certain dubious characters including Mrs. Miller and Nurse Harrington. Duncan came out as a gay man to Adam, but Adam was not gay. However he was given a special pill to make him gay and this changed his character. Meanwhile Amy, Adam’s old girlfriend, is missing him and goes to look for him. She enquires at Shaston house but they say they have never seen him. Amy then decides to send Shirley her old friend to go and make enquiries at Shaston House and to see if Adam is in fact there. He is and Shirley finds it all very creepy. She meets Ida Jennings who makes love to her as all members of the group are gay. There are locked rooms in Shaston and Shirley wants to get inside to uncover the mystery of the place.

After breakfast the next day Shirley got away to her room on her own and phoned Amy: she had arranged to ring Amy regularly at certain times.

“This place is creepy, Amy. They are all gay. Adam is here and seems to be getting on fine with everybody, but it’s as if he’s drugged and has become a puppet.”

“Oh, Shirley, I don’t like it.”

“ No, I’ve had to hide my mobile as they are not allowed, and quite honestly I am not surprised. They don’t want anybody to have contact with the outside world. Also they have this creepy nurse doling out pills. I’m just pretending to take them when in fact I flush them down the toilet.”

“Good, don’t chance anything. Do you think I should phone the police?”

“No, not yet. I want to find out more.”

“Alright then, but I don’t like it, I don’t like it one little bit.”

Shirley then began to wonder about the locked chapel. Why was it locked? She considered there must be something very telling in there. She determined that today she would find out what lay inside that room. She had seen it on TV; they used a nail file to jemmy locks. She would go after lights out tonight, steal herself away to near the east wing.

Ida didn’t visit her that night. She was mighty glad of that, for the last thing Shirley was, was a lesbian. She took the nail file out of her vanity case and made for the locked chapel. All was quiet. It was just after two and nothing stirred. Nobody was about, but just then she heard voices; she ducked out of sight behind a stone pillar and two surly men passed by. Thank God they hadn’t seen her. She was at the chapel door now, she tried to jemmy the lock, this was more difficult than she had at first imagined, but eventually the lock gave and turned, to her delight.

As she opened the door she could tell there was a light still burning. She became afraid, maybe there was someone in there, but no the place was deserted. And yet on seeing what was in there her heart sank. This was a shrine, but not a holy one; it was a shrine to Adolph Hitler. His portrait hung at the far end of the room with a beautiful ormulu frame surrounding it and with an altar beneath it. And burning was the light I’d seen on opening the door, an eternal flame that never went out. It was his sanctuary. The room was heady with fragrance. White lilies and lilac blossom, red gardenias and a black foliage plant trumpeted the colours of the Third Reich’s flag, and strewn around the room were other flags with swastikas everywhere.

Shirley was horrified. She’d stumbled on a neo-Nazi group. At the other end of the room were packing cases. She wondered what was inside them. She prised open the top of one of them. Inside were gun components. These people were gun-running. They must be making guns here in the so-called workroom of the east wing then transporting them abroad, probably to eastern europe. Shirley remembered the men she had spoken to earlier that day; they were from eastern europe.

Shirley left the chapel quickly and turned the lock shut with her nail file. Nothing should be discovered. Tomorrow she was outta there, no matter what. She got back to her room unseen, but as she opened the door she was confronted by Ida Jennings and Mrs. Miller.

“What is this?” said Mrs. Miller, holding up Shirley’s mobile phone.

“Oh, I forgot I had it with me.”

“Did you indeed? Who are you really, Miss Shirley Green?”

 “I’m who I say I am.”

“Then why did we find tablet remains in the toilet? They hadn’t flushed away like you thought, Miss Shirley Green. Fetch Nurse Harrington, Ida, quickly.”

Nurse Harrington arrived in two minutes flat, her hand big with a threatening syringe.

“Inject now, Nurse Harrington,” said Mrs. Miller, “this is a subversive.”

 Shirley fell to the ground with a thud. They picked her up and dragged her to the bed.

“She’ll be out cold for a long time. It will give us time to decide what to do with her.”

 “And I thought she was so complicit,” said Ida.

“No, it wouldn’t surprise me if she had come looking for that Adam Kesteven.”

“Well, he’s thoroughly complicit. We took him to the the workroom in the east wing and the dummy took to it like a duck to water.”

Night gave way to morning and Amy Brown waited for Shirley’s call. Nine-thirty passed and there had been no call. This was one of the appointed times they had pre-arranged. Amy was worried, maybe everything had gone pear-shaped. She rang the police with her suspicions. Shirley had not had time to spill the full story but she’d learned enough to make Amy think the worst. Mrs. Miller had lied about Adam being there, and now Shirley was not contacting her.

Sirens blared out in the morning sun, the cavalry were on the way. Men in flak jackets carrying weapons surrounded Shaston House. Mrs. Miller and Nurse Harrington were about to be arrested. They left by the back door and got into their waiting cars, but as they raced down the drive, shots rang out as a warning, and then at the end of the drive they found police cars and vans blocking their exit. It was all over for the Eagle Ensigns. They were cuffed and thrown into the police vans.

Later that day Adam was in a psychiatric ward after being de-programmed by the doctors. He was taking a refreshing cup of tea with Amy, the love of his life, and Shirley was there too.

“It was a near thing, Amy, the Nazis almost got me.”

“Not quite, Adam, Shirley came to the rescue. You are much too good to lose.”