Immaculate

Chapter 2 - Everything will be fine? How?

She heard a commotion in the hallway and went to look. It was two policemen, a man and a woman, who were arriving to take Harry's first statement about what had happened to him after all.

The pair broke up. The policeman addressed Harry, while his colleague asked Debbra to accompany her. "Where are you taking her? Stay here with me, I want her here," Harry told them, fidgeting. "Calm down, my colleague will hear her statement too, it's necessary. And I'll talk to you. It'll be quick, I promise. Can you tell us what you remember?"

Debbra was led into the hall by the officer, who began asking several questions in a row. "Let's go to my car, I'll show you the clothes he was wearing and that I took off because they were wet", she suggested to the police officer, who accompanied her. Turning on a flashlight that swept the interior of the SUV, the officer watched as Debbra took the T-shirt, the shorts, the strips of rags that had been used as bindings and the gag, and the socks, and handed them to the officer.

The policewoman took a plastic wrapper out of her pocket and put the pieces away. "It could be evidence," he said, to which Debbra pointed out. "There will be my material in there, because I took everything off his body and used the shirt to wipe some blood off his face," he explained. "Okay, no problem," she replied. "Now tell me in detail how you found it. What were you doing there, at that moment? Is it your way? Is it your routine to go there on that day and time?"

Debbra explained that she only left her cottage nearby to buy the blessed leeks for soup. He went to the trunk and opened it, displaying the purchases and the tax coupon, which had been in one of the bags. The policewoman photographed everything, ordered Debbra to lock the car. "Ok, for now I need your name, address, phone number and that's all. Let's go inside", he said.

Reaching the bedroom again, Debbra could hear Harry bringing his dramatic report to an end. A little while before, he had told the cop that he had left his house, in Hampstead, an upscale neighborhood of London, for an innocent walk, in the middle of Sunday morning. 

He left alone, without attracting the attention of the security guards. Instead of using the gym or the indoor area of his house, he decided to do something different. He preferred to wander alone through The Hill Garden And Pergola, a beautiful garden nearby, but was intercepted by three men, one of whom was armed, before even entering the public park.

They confiscated his cell phone and put it in the trunk of a dark sedan and sped away, apparently heading north. They stopped, according to Harry, in some isolated places, buildings and abandoned ruins, to threaten him with the gun. They wanted him to go to ATMs to withdraw money. At least one withdrawal had been made, into an 'auxiliary' account he kept for safekeeping.

In his documents, his civil name began with Harrold Edward, which apparently meant that the marginals did not identify him right away. However, as the hours passed they were getting more irritated, they wanted more money and Harry claimed he didn't have it. 

The credit cards he used to use, also for security purposes, never displayed his name, but instead displayed a discreet and almost random name of a legal entity: H.E.S. Service- a small company through which he moved modest amounts, enough to cover small daily expenses.

The bandits attacked him a few times, and it was with a butt that he ended up with the cut on his eyebrow. It was already night when they decided to hit him a little more. In the confusion, they ended up shooting, but apparently just to scare him, so the shot grazed him, in one of his arms. Afterwards, they threw him on the road, immobilized, semi-conscious, in a terrible cold.

He didn't remember how long he had been there, but he remembered perfectly the pain of the ice in his bound hands and feet, the burning sensation in his injured arm, he remembered losing track of space and time, not being able to stretch or stretchstand up, paralyzed with fear, pain and cold.