The Captive

by Deborah O'Connor

  ‘The other week with Pru, why didn’t you run?’ she said when they drew apart.

  He didn’t miss a beat.

  ‘Because it would have been wrong, it would have got you in trouble.’

  She picked up the oars and rowed over to the Queen’s Crescent side of the pond and the back of Maraschino’s house. There was no shore here; instead the water slapped against a high wall.

  ‘Look,’ said Jem as they floated toward the back of the ruined mansion. Metal rungs had been fixed into the stone. ‘A ladder.’

  Looking up, they saw the rungs led to a wooden gate.

  ‘There’s something else you need to tell your lawyer,’ she said rowing closer. ‘That might help with the appeal.’ She reached for the rope attached to the boat’s prow and tied it to the lowest part of the ladder. ‘I found a bag of money. In John’s gym locker. It could be proof, that he was taking bribes. That someone else might have had a motive to kill him.’

  ‘Money? How much?’

  ‘Sixty grand.’

  ‘Shit.’ He whistled.

  She reached out and tested the strength of the topmost rung, curling her hands round the rusted iron.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘This leads to one of those empty mansions I told you about. My client’s housekeeper showed me inside one time. You have to see it.’

  ‘No. We should go back.’

  But she was already climbing up toward the gate. She reached the top and gave it a shove. It was unlocked.

  ‘Please, let’s go home,’ said Jem from the boat as she disappeared inside.

  In the garden, Hannah waited. She guessed Jem was hoping she’d have second thoughts and return. A few seconds more and she heard him climb the steps. She turned on the torch, grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the back of the house and the basement.

  The door was thick with damp, harder to open than that day with Jane, but a few heaves of her shoulder and it gave way. Inside they were greeted by the same smell of animal droppings and dust. She showed him the garage with the Bentleys – both of them aghast at the tinted windows and the discovery of the cars’ keys under the sun visors – she showed him the staircase of ferns and their leaves all rolled up for the night, and the empty swimming pool, the rainwater plinking into its mosaic bottom.

  In the ballroom, she turned to him and took his hand.

  ‘Why didn’t you run?’ she asked again. She gestured toward the pond. ‘Why aren’t you running now?’

  He leaned forward to kiss her but Hannah turned her cheek.

  She needed to hear him say it.

  ‘I would miss you,’ he said eventually. ‘Seeing you every day. I would miss that.’

  She had her answer.

  ‘Now please, can we go back to the house,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Being out here, it’s making me nervous.’

  ‘I’m having a baby.’ The words spilled from her. ‘We’re having a baby,’ she said, slower now.

  She braced, trying to read his face, but the torchlight was meagre, his expression in shadow.

  ‘We?’ he said, and even though it was only one word, two letters, she could hear his smile, a tiny inflection at the end, like a cresting wave. ‘Parents. Us?’

  ‘Us,’ she said, quietly. She wanted to share in his apparent happiness but she was too preoccupied by the thoughts of what would happen to the three of them were their affair uncovered. Jem had yet to work through the consequences, to understand the potential horror awaiting them.

  ‘Us.’ He took her in his arms and went to waltz her around the broken ballroom. Hannah was going to resist but then she decided to move with him, that for now, for this moment, she would pretend it was all going to be OK. He danced her slowly at first and then faster, their feet crunching through the debris. She closed her eyes and let him carry her through the dark.

  Jem

  Missy Cunningham. My lawyer. Broad and blond, with cheeks permanently covered with rosacea that looks sore to the touch.

  I haven’t seen her since the trial.

  ‘So,’ she says, settling on the chair opposite. ‘You want to apply for leave to appeal?’

  The temp DLO in the corner doesn’t bat an eyelid, they’re not interested and I’m glad because I feel like I can speak more freely than when Mr Dalgleish was here.

  ‘Fresh evidence has come to light,’ pipes up Hannah from her spot by the cooker. ‘Someone else killed John. We think we might have a case.’

  ‘We?’ Missy raises her eyebrows. ‘Well,’ she says, looking from me to Hannah, reading the situation perfectly, ‘isn’t this unexpected?’

  Hannah pinks, embarrassed, and so I smile and mouth to her that it’s OK and then, on reflex, I look at her belly.

  I’m going to be a father. Me.

  After we got back from the mansion last night I didn’t sleep.

  They’re surprising, my feelings.

  Still, I mustn’t lose focus. I need to keep going, to do what I came here to do.

  ‘Why don’t we start at the beginning?’ says Missy, taking out her notepad and pen. ‘Tell me what you know.’

  Hannah goes through the phone calls and the SIM card and the Heppels. She tells her about the money she found in John’s locker and this guy called Slig, how he was rumoured to have murdered a detective.

  ‘Jem said you advised him not to admit the pickpocketing,’ says Hannah, ‘in court, I mean. Or that he heard John on the phone?’

  Missy looks to me for confirmation it was OK to answer.

  ‘The prosecution had already painted John’s murder as a mugging gone wrong,’ she says when I nod my permission. ‘It wouldn’t have helped matters one bit if Jem had volunteered the fact that he was a thief, that he was stealing from people that night. It would have made it even easier for the jury to convict.’ She shifts on her chair. ‘As for the purported call he overheard, it’s like everything you’ve just told me. Hearsay. Especially your late husband’s alleged corruption. Not enough to merit an appeal.’

  Hannah goes to protest and Missy holds out a hand to stop her.

  ‘Still, I’ll file an application later today.’ She puts on her coat. ‘You never know.’ She looks again from me to Hannah. Smirks. ‘Stranger things have happened at sea.’

  Hannah

  Hannah was the one who suggested Jem spend Christmas Day and Boxing Day outside the cell. The holiday, with its break from DLO visits, outside sessions and shower time, offered a rare chance for them to be together like a normal couple, for them to be free.

  Jem wasn’t sure, but Hannah was persuasive. They’d be hyper-careful. No one would ever know. In case someone from the service did decide to randomly come knocking, she would keep the front door locked and bolted, the curtains closed, so they’d have ample time for Jem to return to his cell before anyone could come inside.

  She got her wish.

  Her parents had asked if she wanted to come to them for the holidays. They’d expected her to hire a carer to tend to Jem’s needs while she was gone. How could she tell them that she’d bought a chicken to roast and crackers to pull and collected stories of Grace Paley for Jem to open on Christmas morning? In the end she’d lied, told them she had too much work on to leave London, that she’d catch up with them in the new year.

  Free rein. At first Jem found it bewildering. He moved through the house slowly, not sure where to sit or stand. It was like he’d forgotten how to be outside the confines of his seven metres square; he no longer knew how to inhabit the space available to him. Once, he found himself in a different room to Hannah and panicked, calling for her and banging his shoulders against walls in his haste to locate her in the house.

  Gradually he began to relax.

  On Christmas morning she presented him with his gifts.

  ‘I didn’t get you anything,’ he said, tearing the paper on the Grace Paley. And then, when he moved on to her second gift: ‘You didn’t.’

  He set the board game on the table, smoothed his
fingers across the picture on the front.

  YAHTZEE! THE FUN GAME THAT MAKES THINKING FUN!

  They spent the rest of the day nesting under blankets on the sofa, playing the game, eating and watching movies. That night they bathed together. Their conversation was dominated by one topic: their future as a family of three.

  Sexual relationships with prisoners were forbidden. If anyone were to discover their secret, they’d both be sentenced and imprisoned in the cells inside Islington’s civic centre. Hannah had spent ages researching online and had discovered that she would be allowed to keep the baby for the first few months of its life but then it would be taken from her and placed into care.

  They decided that their utmost priority was to protect their secret at all costs, to make sure they stayed together, in this house.

  When it came to their relationship they agreed that, so as not to arouse suspicion, once the holidays were over Hannah would start mentioning to the DLO that she had started dating. Eventually she would attribute her emerging baby bump to a fictional lover, a one-night stand she never heard from again.

  As for the day-to-day mechanics of how they would live as a family, things were a bit less clear. His lawyer thought it unlikely Jem would get leave to appeal, that his conviction would be quashed, and so the most probable scenario was that they’d have to figure out a way to live like this.

  Who, they wondered, should they tell the baby Jem was? What should the baby call him? Should they ever allow the baby in the cell?

  Despite their fears, there was joy. Every time they caught each other’s eye they shared small, secret smiles, Jem asking Hannah almost every hour how she was feeling until she asked him to please stop.

  Due to her diabetes, Hannah wanted to see a specialist who could offer some guidance on these crucial early months and, frustrated with the wait time outlined by her GP, she’d put in a call to Dr Hess, the obstetrician she’d been referred to before embarking on IVF all those years earlier. Dr Hess was a private consultant and so she’d have to pay, but she didn’t care; she wanted to see someone now, before any problems might arise.

  The thing Hannah had been most looking forward to was sleeping next to Jem in bed, but on Christmas night she woke in the early hours to find him gone. She discovered him staring out at the pond from the landing window. The next night she woke to find him asleep on the floor next to where she lay. He said he was struggling to adjust to life outside bars, that even with the front door locked he was terrified they would be caught.

  They’d agreed that Jem would return to his cell the day after Boxing Day. But when the time came Hannah found she wasn’t ready to revert to business as usual just yet and suggested they have one last breakfast together. Jem said he would make pancakes and after turning on the radio, he set to work. The kitchen bin was overflowing and so while he cracked eggs Hannah took the rubbish bag up to the wheelie bins out front.

  She had intended to scuttle out and in as quickly as possible, to have the door re-bolted in a flash, but then she made the mistake of looking around.

  On the other side of the road, Kiki Masters was in her garden, hands clutched to her chest. She was crying, her lips moving quickly, like she was mouthing the same prayer over and over, her eyes fixed on a spot somewhere near the top of her house.

  Hannah followed the trajectory of her gaze and was greeted by the sight of Rupert, two storeys up, his limbs spreadeagled against the building. He glanced right, assessing the brick, and stretched a hand and a foot toward some invisible hold. Then he did it over and over again, his fingers and toes intuiting the tiniest of gaps in the mortar, until he reached a point below the third floor.

  Was Kiki locked out? Had she asked him to break in through an open upstairs window?

  Then she saw it. A flit of grey in the horse chestnut tree. Poobah, Kiki’s cat. He must have escaped again but instead of sneaking into Hannah’s house, this time he’d clambered onto the highest branch he could and now, judging by his pitiful meowing, was at a loss as to how to get back down.

  Rupert steadied himself against the wall and, once he was sure of his hold, reached one arm back and grabbed Poobah by the scruff. Kiki was waiting to catch him and as he dropped the cat into her arms she bellowed and buried her face in his fur.

  Rupert made his way down and, after accepting Kiki’s thanks, crossed the street to Hannah.

  ‘Rupert Cammish, feline rescuer extraordinaire,’ he said, and performed an exaggerated bow. ‘At your service.’

  Hannah forced a laugh but all she could think about was Jem. If Rupert caught him out of the cell he’d be obliged to report it. They’d be done for. She considered her options and decided her best bet would be to try to keep him talking and hope Jem would hear them and know he needed to get back behind bars.

  ‘He’d been up there for hours,’ Rupert said, brushing the dirt from his suit. ‘Kiki was about to call the fire brigade. Then I arrived.’ He grinned. ‘And now for my second good deed of the day.’

  Hannah remembered the radio. They’d had it on loud. Would Jem even be able to hear them talking over the noise?

  ‘In a fortnight’s time you will no longer have a prisoner.’ Rupert let out the words at the same time as his breath, then fixed his expression – eyes wide, smile high – and held it, ready for the response he seemed sure would come.

  ‘What?’

  Rupert kept his face frozen, holding out for a reaction, but when a few more seconds had elapsed and she still hadn’t understood his meaning his face sagged.

  ‘I lodged another Foster Host transfer request on your behalf. Pulled in a few favours. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to get your hopes up, but this morning I got the call.’ Another smile, even bigger than the last. ‘It’s been approved. They move him on 7th January. As of next Friday you’re free.’

  The street seemed to tilt and sway.

  ‘I thought you’d be happy?’

  ‘I am, I am,’ she said, scrambling for the right words. ‘It’s a shock, that’s all.’

  He sank back on his heels.

  ‘I guess it is a bit out of the blue,’ he said, clearly meaning the words as a comfort to himself as much as her.

  Hannah nodded weakly.

  ‘Right,’ he said, trying to disguise his hurt. He’d clearly been excited to finally be able to tell her. ‘I’m on my way to work, can’t stay.’

  She should have been relieved – he wasn’t going to come inside, she and Jem were safe. But the information barely registered and after she’d watched him go she stood there a moment, trying to process the news.

  Back indoors, she stepped into the kitchen to find Jem placing the pancakes on the table. Seeing her, he smiled.

  Hannah kept her face still.

  ‘Ask me how I’m feeling,’ she said.

  Jem

  I’ve been working at the bar a few months when I find out not all is as it seems.

  It’s Wednesday night and me, Chickie and Maya are busy setting up – unstacking chairs, stocking fridges, mopping hallways – when a man I presume to be the bar’s owner arrives to see Monty. Shiny-suited with black, slicked-back hair, he comes at the same time every week, stays ten minutes, then leaves. He and Monty always go into the back office together and until tonight I’d thought he was in there to check over the books, sign his name against any necessary paperwork.

  I think he’s been and gone and so after I’m done mopping the corridor, I push on the office door and drag my bucket inside.

  Monty is on me in an instant.

  ‘What the fuck?’ He pushes me back out into the corridor, then he gives the bucket a kick. It tips over, dirty suds flooding the stretch I’ve just finished.

  Chickie sees and, after grabbing another mop, comes to help me clean up.

  ‘Don’t take it personal,’ he says, soaking up the worst of the spill, ‘he’s always tense on collection night.’

  I cock my head to one side, confused.

  ‘You know,’ he
nods toward the office door, ‘when the grand fromage comes to get their cash.’

  I stop and lean on my mop, waiting for more.

  ‘You really have no idea?’ He gestures toward the bar. ‘This place is a front. Money-laundering. It comes in here, they scrub it nice and clean, it goes back out again.’ He nods at the office door. ‘What do you think they do in there every week?’

  I only caught a brief glance of the desk but I saw no piles of cash, just a laptop and one of the silver hard drives Monty keeps lying around.

  ‘There was no money.’

  ‘Of course there was.’ He laughs. ‘What? You think they still deal in used twenties? It’s cryptocurrency. Bitcoin. The police can’t trace that shit.’

  Chickie worked it all out ages ago.

  ‘Bitcoin isn’t an actual, tangible thing,’ he tells me later as we walk to get the night tube home. ‘It exists in the digital world. But most people don’t like to leave that stuff lying around online – too easy to steal. So they store it offline, on a USB or, if you have a lot of currency, on a hard drive.’

  ‘So what, if someone were to nick one of those drives they could just plug it into their computer and be rich?’

  ‘If only.’ He laughs. ‘The only way you can access what’s on the drive is with a PIN number, but because Monty and his overlords are so super-paranoid, they have this whole multi-factor authentication shit going on.’

  ‘Multi-what?’

  ‘It’s like paying someone with your online banking for the first time, that way they text a number to your phone? When they want to access the currency they plug the drive into the computer, type in the PIN Monty keeps on this metal card thing in his wallet and then a one-time passcode is pinged to that pager round Monty’s neck. Type that in and bingo.’

  ‘How much do you think is on there?’ I ask Chickie as we part ways at the bottom of the escalator.

  ‘To go to all that effort?’ He whistles. ‘It’s not going to be small change now, is it?’