DISAPPEARED

TW: murder, abuse, kidnapping

DISAPPEARED

Carol V. had disappeared since the sixteenth of July. From that day, indeed from the morning of that day no one had seen her or had heard anything more about her. The last person who had seen her was Roxana B., who claimed to have met Carol that morning____the morning of July 16___on the main road of the little town, the one which led to the Alpine park.

She had met Carol on that road at about half past nine in the morning. Roxana B. was ( had been) walking down the road in the opposite direction of Carol’s , when they had been facing each other, they had exchanged __Good morning___, but they didn’t stop to talk. 

Roxana B,., in her opinion, thought that Carol was going for a walk in the park, when she had met her.

Carol V. had gone to live in the small mountains town  since a few months, while she had previously lived in Turin,the regional capital city. Everyone  who knew her, her mother, her sister, her friends agreed in declaring that Carol was  very satisfied, even really happy,  to have finally been able to realize her dream of going to live in a small mountain town, far from ( away from) the busy life of the big city , where she had lived until a few months before.

It just looked like she, Carol, couldn’t have had any reason to leave voluntarily. So most people had thought it could been happened a misfortune, an accident of which she had been a victim. So it had been looked for her among the mountains, even in the Alpine park, but no trace of her had been found. It looked as if Carol had suddenly disappeared, as if vanishing, dissolving, on that road she was walking on when Roxana B. had crossed her. The hypothesis  had also been made  that Carol could have accepted a ride from someone or that she could have got into the care of someone with whom she had an appointment, and that this someone was responsible of her disappearance.

Carol V., in the small mountain town, almost a village, lived in a little, old house, which she had restored before going to live there, in the company of two cats. That morning of July 16 she had fed her cats and had set up the table for lunch, before she went out, signs that she intended to go back home, not to go away.

Her cats were two delightful Siamese  cats and, apart from Roxana B., who had met her on the road, they had the last to have seen Carol. But, too bad that cats couldn’t talk, otherwise they  could have told   a lot of interesting about Carol and her disappearance. The cats, called Sybil and Morpheus ,had seen, but they  were not able to speak. Of course, whoever knew how to listen to them, whoever was able to understand what they were saying, even without words, they, Sybil and Morpheus, could have told interesting things.

They, staying side by side, with their front paws pointing straight to the ground, had kept on staring at the set table and, from time to time, they raised their eyes, which became more and more lucid while were rising, at that young woman, the police inspector, who had come to inspect the house of the disappeared Carol V. The two cats, while they raised their eyes on the young inspector, just for a moment____and soon after they came back to staring at the table_____they also raised a little one paw and  made the gesture of stamping their foot on the ground, a silent gesture that no one noticed. Because ( since) they, Sybil and Morpheus, had something important to tell about that set table. The cats knew that it had not been their mom, Carol, who had set that table. No, they hadn’t seen their great friend set the table as it was now, as they, but even that young woman____the police inspector___could see it. To set the table, with the red and white checkered tablecloth, with the gold –rimmed plates, with the great water jug, there were also flowers, bluebells, at the centre of the table, it had been instead Muriel, who lived near Carol’s cottage, in a much larger house, which had a great garden.

Sometimes Sybil and Morpheus had come into Muriel’s garden, and always they had been chased away by her, who had screamed at them, calling them bad and ugly beasts, and she, that horrible woman, had dared  call their mom : “that slutty of your mistress!” And every time the husband of that bad and ugly woman had rushed at the screams of his wife and, making a threatening face, he too had started yelling at them , and relentlessly  had chased them, (by) throwing stones, bottles, pieces of iron, pieces of wood  against them. He had kept on chasing them, yelling terribly, even when they had come out of his garden. Oh, that one, Muriel’s husband was a scary looking man, no less scary than his wife, a very hag. Since Sybil and Morpheus were cats, who knows if they had ever heard the saying: “ God makes them and then mates them” , to which those two inevitably made you think.

Therefore, as Sybil and Morpheus knew, it had been the big and fat Muriel who had set the table. It was evening when they had seen that bad and ugly woman entering Carol’s house, without knocking, without asking permission, as if she were the mistress of the house( as if that house were hers) The big Muriel had gone into the kitchen , she had started to looking for the tablecloth, for the plates, the glasses, the cutlery , opening drawers, slamming furniture doors, rummaging everywhere. Then she had set the table, while, puffing, she was saying : “ Ah, damnation , I have to set the table too….Ah, how much effort for that there, that witch!”

While Muriel was setting the table that ugly big man of her husband had arrived, and he had said:

“ Well, it’s very well!  They must find the table set as if she had done it before going out. It’s important because  the table set, ready for lunch) will be seen ( considered) a sign that she was planning to come back home.

It was evening, not morning, when Sybil and Morpheus had seen the big terrible Muriel and her husband in the kitchen of Carol’s house. Muriel and her husband, from the faces they had, from the gestures they were making while they were talking , ( they) seemed to have just solved a big problem, and that for this they felt relieved, and also pleased in how they had managed to solve it, getting rid of an heavy burden. That evening , as during all that day, Sybil and Morpheus had never seen their mom and great friend Carol , so they were almost worried, of course, as they could be as cats.   The previous night they had slept, as always, on the bed where Carol lay. But when they had  woken up in the night, Carol was no longer in the bed or in the room. Oh, she might have gone to the bathroom, they had thought. And when, after not a few time, they had not seen her come back , they had thought she might have gone out, since it happened often that their  mother went out in the middle of the night , for a walk. Ah, but when it had happened she always had taken them with her. “ On, darlings, do you like to go out for walking under the moon light? “ She asked them,  and they, hearing her invitation, every time pricked up their ears and jumped out of the bed. Yeah, why hadn’t her mom done it that night? Eh, there was really something to worry about. They had looked each other, wondering if had been better to go out looking for their mom. Then they had remained into the house, waiting for her come back. But they hadn’t been able to fall asleep again.   

It was not yet day, it was just dawning, when Sybil and Morpheus had heard strong blows, like slammer blows, accompanied by a sinister mutter. “ What is happening?” they had wondered, terribly terrified, looking into each other’s eyes, their ears getting longer and longer, their fur stood up so much that they seemed to have become porcupines. They had jumped out of the bed and, even if trembling with fear, they had managed to open a window. They were going to jump out of the window when they, suddenly, had remained still, as petrified on the window sill, since they had seen those two, the big Muriel and her terrifying husband, who were dragging a big, long black sack across the back of their house. They had put the big black sack on the ground and he, Muriel’s husband, had entered the garage, to come out of it shortly afterwards, driving his big car. That terrible man had got out of the car and had opened its wide trunk. Then he and his wife had lifted the big black sack, each lifting it by one end, and had placed it into the trunk ( of the car).

That scary man, closing the trunk, had said, in a satisfied tone: “ Oh, well, the most is done!” And, so saying, he had rubbed one hand against the other. “ But no, my dear, you don’t have at all to worry! Who could ever have seen us at this hour? Look: there is no light on….oh, here all people are still sleeping” Muriel’s husband had added.    Yes, true, it was unlikely for any of the neighbors to have seen Muriel and his husband put the black sack into the trunk of the car. But they, Carol’s cats, had seen them, even though they didn’t know what was inside the big black sack. And yet, really ( truly) could they not have guessed it? Could they not have felt it? Oh, since cat’s capability of feeling is very much superior to that of any human being, then perhaps we can think that  Sybil and Morpheus , in that dawn, with a light which was just beginning to appear, still uncertain, flickering , they did not want to feel what was into that black sack. Or maybe they didn’t want believe what they felt there was into it. Inside that big black sack there was her mom, her great friend dead. Carol had been killed with a hammer blows to her head by those two, Muriel and his husband, since she could have become a dangerous witness to them. In fact Carol, during one of her walks by night had seen Muriel and her husband  to bury something, indeed someone in their garden. Carol, who had a torch with her, driven by curiosity, had illuminated those two, so much busy around the grave, and it had seemed to her to see, into the pit, a little hand, a hand like those of a child. Unfortunately at least Muriel had to have noticed her, while Carol was watching them, while the light of her torch was illuminating the pit which they, Muriel and her husband, had just started to cover with the earth. 

Precisely a few weeks earlier in a village near the one where Carol had moved recently two little girls and a little boy had disappeared. People, but also police investigators thought that the three children had been kidnapped, not for the purpose of collecting a ransom, since all those children were of poor, indeed disadvantaged families, but for other purposes. It had been assumed that the children could have been kidnapped by pedophiles, but it even had been thought they could have been kidnapped to take their organs to be transplanted, after killing them.

The night when Carol really disappeared, she had heard knocks on the door and, as soon as she had opened ( the door), she had been put into a sack, without even having time to see who had put her into the sack.  But she had understood, before being hammered to death, that they were, her neighbors, Muriel and his husband.  Her last thought had been for her beloved kittens, which would have been waiting for her in vain…who knows what could have become of them.

Carol V. had not disappeared on July 16, as everyone believed, since Roxana B. had said to have met her on the road that morning, but she had disappeared two nights before, killed by Muriel and his husband. Roxana B. had lied when she had said to have seen Carol on the morning of 16 July. Roxana B. was Muriel’s sister in law.