This time she had little choice. I’ll just have to make certain I’m not overheard, she decided.

The car was silent and smooth as it cruised the narrow lanes near Brighill Farm. Inside, the two men kept watch, intent on their mission. “Pull over!” The driver was a bony-faced man with thick fair hair and baby-blue eyes; softly-spoken, he could have been mistaken for a true gentleman. But behind the polished veneer, he was a cold-hearted villain with an insatiable appetite for money and power.

The passenger was hard-faced and hard-cored; possessed of a cold heart and vengeful nature. “What’s wrong, boss?”

“Check that address again – and don’t put the light on. There’s a small reading light in the glove compartment. Cover it with your hand, we don’t want it showing.”

Quickly locating the light, the man in the passenger seat bent his head to examine the address. “Brighill Lane – yes, this is it, gov. We’re on the right track.”

“And have you committed her description to memory, like I said?”

The other man softly laughed. “Oh yeah. Right down to her pretty brown eyes.”

“So now, we’re looking for Brighill Cottage. Check it!”

The address was swiftly checked and confirmed, and so the car quietly glided further down the lane; both men with their eyes peeled for Maddy Delaney’s hiding place.

Disappointed and deeply apprehensive about Ellen and baby Michael, Maddy trudged home. It was almost dark now, and very lightly spattering with rain. With nothing to keep her dry should the rain come down harder, she quickened her step across the fields.

She was now back on the road, and halfway along the lane, as she walked under the light of the street lamp, they saw her, from where they were parked in the shadows on the opposite side of the lane.

“Seems like our luck’s in,” the driver said. “Get out and slip across the other side of the lane before she gets too close. Quick, man! And remember – don’t let her see you! And don’t make a move until I give you the nod. I need to make certain it’s her. If it is, for Chrissake make sure you gag her before she starts screaming and shouting. The last thing we need is one of the neighbors raising the alarm!”

While Maddy was still passing in the light of the lamp, he shoved the other man out. “Stay hidden… be ready!” He kept his gaze intent in the rearview mirror, watching Maddy as she drew closer, and the more he could see of her, the more he knew it was Drayton’s woman; the distinctive sexy walk, the slim, boyish figure and that long rich hair. “Saw you in the club many a time,” he growled, “but you never had time for a nobody like me, did you, eh? Bitch!”

Satisfied that the other man had slipped unseen to the other side of the lane, he gestured for him to stay back.

The car was so cleverly hidden that Maddy did not even see it until she was almost opposite it. When she hesitated, the driver quickly gave the nod, and it was too late. Taken completely by surprise, Maddy was grabbed from the rear, her arms pinned tight behind her back and a piece of coarse rag rammed into her mouth. Knocked off balance, she was then shoved forward, her head pushed down to her chest and the rag so far into her mouth that she found it difficult to breathe.

And no matter how she kicked and fought, she was no match for her abductor’s brute strength.

Roughly manhandled into the back of the car, her attacker threw her to the floor and, pinning her there with his feet, he pulled her arms tight behind her back until she feared they would snap out of their sockets. The pain was excruciating. She was unable to move or make a sound, except for a gurgling, muffled noise that went unheard by her abductors.

Wheels spinning over the tarmac, the driver was away in a matter of minutes, and the entire incident was executed so swiftly that no one ever knew they had been there.

Bruised and battered, fearing for her very life, Maddy was totally disorientated. Yet she was conscious enough to realize that Drayton had tracked her down at last, and that she was at his mercy.

All she could think of was Ellen, and the baby, and though she feared for her own life, her prayers were offered for them.

She could hear the driver talking to her; in a distant kind of way she recognized his voice, but didn’t know where from. “You should have known better than to think you could do the dirty on a man like Drayton and get away with it.” His voice was soft, and refined. “You above all people should know, he never lets go. Especially when some silly spiteful bitch goes out of her way to shop him to the police. Well, you’ll pay now, make no mistake about it.”

There was a pause, during which he seemed to take pleasure in making her suffer. “First though, before Danny Boy tells Drayton the good news, he’ll need a few answers. I mean, he can’t report back with only half a tale, can he? Drayton wouldn’t like that. Y’see, he’s all wound up about the kid. Wants to know where it is, and who’s got it.”

He gave a velvety laugh. “It’s no use you holding out, or thinking you can lie your way out of it, because then you’ll be treated real bad, until you’ll have no option but to satisfy Drayton’s curiosity. After all, he has a right to know the kid’s whereabouts – him being the child’s father and all.”

For good measure, the man in the back stamped his foot into the back of her neck, at the same time growling a warning for her not to get too clever!

Racked with pain, unable to move or breathe easily, Maddy was almost choked when a sudden gush of blood spurted from her nose to trickle, warm and sticky across her neck. She fought to keep her senses, but the pain was too great.

The last words she heard were from the driver: “Easy, matey, we don’t want to be delivering a corpse, or the two of us will likely get the same treatment!”

Desperate to have her off his hands, the driver put his foot down and sped out of Brighill. He went at great speed through the Brickhill villages, then onto Woburn and out of Aspley Guise. Once he was through Husborne Crawley, the motorway was only minutes away. “The M1 is just ahead,” he called excitedly. “Another hour before we dump her into Danny’s custody… and I for one won’t be sorry to be rid of the bitch.”

They had traveled a good distance along the M1 when it happened. Maddy had opened her eyes; she could feel the thrust of a powerful engine driving them along, and knew that they were going dangerously fast. She told herself that either they would all be killed before they got her to this “Danny” they talked of, or she would be handed over and murdered when they were done with her. Killed on the road, or murdered by one of Drayton’s henchmen. Either way she would be a goner, and Michael would be left without his mammy.

She decided she would pretend to be unconscious, and that somehow, if the chance arose, she would make a break for it.

She glanced up. In the flickering light from the motorway lamps, she saw that her captor must have realized that she was unconscious, because he was not paying her any attention. Instead, he was yelling at the driver to, “Slow down, you damned lunatic, or you’ll kill us all!”

Having been held up behind two juggernauts and a car hogging the fast lane for several miles, the driver was losing his temper; one minute he was surging forward, and the next he was shaking his fist and shouting obscenities at every driver who got in his way.

Seeing his chance to get out from behind the juggernaut, he swerved out in front of a coach, shot past at speed and almost clipped the car in front as he tried frantically to get back in.

As a result, he was forced to slow down, and allow the coach to pull in front; and all the while there were car horns honking and people shouting through open windows at him, “Bloody fool… shouldn’t be on the road!”