Last year it had been a saddle girth loosened just enough to make sure she would fall off her pony. The year before it had been thorns hidden under the saddle. Emma had detected the sabotage both times and gone on to win her age group at the summer gymkhana, but this year she had no chance. She had just changed into her competition clothes (crisp white short-sleeved shirt, buff jodhpurs inside shiny black riding boots, hair neatly netted under her helmet and a pair of businesslike string-backed gloves) when she had been set upon by two heavily-built youths, their faces disguised in black balaclavas, bound, gagged and shut in this horsebox.
Emma knew exactly who was behind this outrage: Jessica Watson-Parker, just as it had been the two previous years. The assailants had clearly been her brothers. What was Emma to do about the situation? She was on her back on a bale of hay. Her knees were bent with her feet resting on a higher bale and more bales packed around her so that she was in a tiny capsule of air inside a solid mass of horse fodder. She had been tied up with baler twine. A single strand of twine could be pulled apart with the fingers, but wind it around limbs enough times and it became a very effective binding. Her arms were behind her back, each wrist tied to the opposite elbow and her forearms lashed together. The rough twine bit into her skin painfully. Her legs were bound together above the knees and at her ankles. There was something thick and soft between her teeth; possibly a woollen scarf.
Gymkhana was supposed to be a light-hearted sport to enliven the County Agricultural Show. The event included a series of challenges such as leading the pony while hopping in a sack, riding under a bar barely higher than the horse’s back, carrying a potato and dropping it accurately in a bucket and a gallop to the finish. Emma was competitive, and knew that it sometimes didn’t bring out the best in her, but this behaviour by Jessica was way over the top.
In frustration, Emma pushed hard with her feet. To her surprise, it was her head that moved, her helmet pushing one of the bales a few centimetres. She hesitated: what would happen if the hay were to collapse? She considered for a moment. Bales weigh about 25kg each, not enough to crush her. The worst outcome would be getting trapped under them, not really different to her current predicament. She pushed harder and found herself in a head-first avalanche of hay bales.
Emma looked around; she was in a small horsebox. The door had been left open and the ramp lowered. She shuffled along on her bottom, using her heels to drag herself across the ribbed wooden floor. When she reached the ramp, she was able to use its raised metal edge to saw through the twine securing her ankles. She swung her legs over the side of the ramp then bounced herself onto her feet and set out for the Judges’ Tent, walking as quickly as she could with the twine biting painfully into her legs. Emma passed several people who registered astonishment at a bound and gagged girl but stood aside as her purposeful stride and the steely glint in her eyes made it clear she was on a mission.
Emma stomped her way into the Judges’ Tent and announced her arrival with a muffled cry for help through her gag. The half dozen or so people in the tent looked up from their work and froze in shock at her appearance before rushing to her aid.
As soon as she could speak, Emma requested a delay in her event. One of the people attending to her immediately went to announce a half hour delay over the PA. A few minutes later, she was sitting having her grazed arms dressed by a St John Ambulance volunteer and telling her story to a woman police officer.
The policewoman snapped her notebook closed then spoke to one of the judges. An announcement went out over the PA: “Jessica Watson-Parker to the Judges’ Tent, please.”
Jessica appeared a few minutes later. She hesitated for the tiniest fraction of a second when she saw Emma, but quickly recovered her poise and went to speak to the judges. The police officer had been waiting discreetly at the side of the tent and went across to join the conversation. Emma couldn’t hear the words that were spoken but saw Jessica become increasingly alarmed, looking first at the judges then at the policewoman. The officer put her hand on Jessica’s shoulder, evidently arresting her. To Emma’s delight, Jessica reacted by clenching her fist and taking a swing at the officer, only to find herself thrown to the ground and handcuffed.
Despite her ordeal and the bandages she now sported on both wrists, Emma was at her very best for the competition and won easily. Maybe the adrenaline from being tied up helped; the sheer pleasure of seeing Jessica watch her from the back seat of a police car certainly did.