Once upon a Nursery Rhyme

A new beginning

It didn't take me long to sort out my affairs, as I said, I didn't have any family to say goodbye to, I didn't have any particular friends and I had very few personal belongings, so this position suited me very well, it would be a new start, a new beginning.

I thought I would do a little research on my new employer, I know, I should have done it before the interview and definitely before accepting the job, I mean, we were going to be living in the same house - he could be a mass murderer or something.

As it turns out, he wasn't a mass murderer but a scientist, working for the government no less - it was all very secret, very hush hush, very secret squirrel, but I got the impression that he wasn't really that important, the general consensus was that he was a nice guy who idolized his wife and who went to pieces after she went missing. He adored his daughter.

The strange thing was I could find nothing about his wife Clara, I found their marriage and got her maiden name, I could find records of her birth, I could find Constance birth but although her disappearance had made the headlines at the time - I could vaguely remember it,  and I remember discussing the various options/reasons with some of the others at the home- we were split between

a) she'd done a runner because he was a mad scientist and she was scared of being experimented on,

b) she had been kidnapped and was being held to ransom for millions or for government secrets

c) she had been murdered by her mad scientist husband (we watched too much televison)

Personally I had been undecided. There were other things distracting me , his name was Oscar, he was in one of my classes but it was unrequited love, I  dont think he had ever even noticed me.

And I couldn't see the point of speculation when we would in all events never find out what happened to her, it turns out I was right, nothing was revealed as to her disappearance at the time.

Little did I know I would soon be personally involved

There was nothing since then, it was a mystery, we heard of no ransom demands, there had been no sightings of her , no body and no one had come forward with any information. No one could recall seeing her - it was as if she had vanished off the face of the earth.

At first it appeared that the Police thought she had been kidnapped because Henry - Mr Hope worked for the government but as I said, he wasn't all that important , they never received a ransom note - nor did anyone claim responsibility.

Along with the newspaper article was a photograph of both Mr and Mrs Hope on holiday somewhere, they both looked extremely happy and very much in love, Mrs Hope was a homely woman, with blond curls like her daughter, she was an older version of little Constance, the article said they had been married for 10 years before Constance had come along, a much longed for child. There seemed no rhyme or reason for her disappearance.

After reading the newspaper articles I could understand why Mr Hope seemed so paranoid about his daughter and the possibility of her disappearing too, however unlikely it seemed.

My new job was going to be interesting.

How interesting I was yet to discover.