Captive

by A. J. Grainger

  “I’ll be there. I promise to guard your drink and not let anyone else touch it.”

  “I just don’t fancy it. Besides, Dad’s really fussy about where I go now.” That’s not true. Dad wants me to move on and stop worrying. It’s me who doesn’t want to go out so much.

  As usual, Poppy reads me so well. “You can’t hide forever,” she says.

  I lift the camera to my face and take a snap of the corner of her room, where the shadow of the curtains creeps across the floor like a huge hand. I switch to black and white. If I get the shot right, the picture should look like a still straight out of a Hitchcock movie. “Watch me.”

  “I’m the chancellor’s daughter, and you don’t hear me complaining.”

  “Only because no one actually knows what the chancellor does, including half the cabinet. Dad’s always saying, ‘What does that chap next door do again?’”

  “Oh, funny!”

  I take the picture and then let the camera fall back into my lap. “I hate it here, Poppy.”

  “Only one more year to go.”

  “And then five more, when he runs again.”

  “He might not.”

  “Can you imagine my dad doing anything else?”

  “He must have. He’s only been PM four years.”

  “And he spent the eighteen years before that preparing to be PM. Let’s face it, I’m stuck here.” I glance across the Downing Street garden and over its high walls at Horse Guards Parade. The early-bird tourists are already lining up for the first changing of the guard. A shadow moves at the corner of my eye, and I jump, but it’s just Poppy.

  “He’s locked up,” she says gently. “He can’t come after your father again.”

  “But if not him, then someone else—”

  There’s a knock on the door, and Poppy’s mum sticks her head around it to tell me that the car is here.

  “Have fun in Cheshire and stop worrying about everything. It’s all going to be fine,” Poppy says. “And come back for the party on Saturday night. You’re in danger of becoming a total loser.”

  I give one last nervous look out across the grounds and into the world beyond, then force a smile. “I’ll try. And Poppy,” I say at the door, “say cheese!” I snap a picture and dash down the corridor to the sound of her yelling, “I hate you, Robyn Knollys-Green! You better not post that online anywhere! I haven’t got mascara on.”

  • • •

  Ben is the police officer on duty out front today. He steps aside to let me out of the front door. “All ready for the trip, miss?” he asks. The door opens again before I can answer, and Addy dashes out, barreling into my legs. I catch her around the waist and swing her upward. Mum and Dad are right behind her. “You’ll take your pills, won’t you?” Mum is saying. “Every day, Stephen.”

  “How is it, Eliza, that you trust me to run the country but not my own life?”

  “You care about the country,” Mum says.

  Dad turns to Ben. “Do you hear this? I bet you don’t get this at home.”

  Ben smiles politely, but Mum’s jaw tightens as she grits her teeth. “So I suppose you’ll survive without us for a few days?” she says.

  “‘Liberty is one of the most precious gifts that Heaven has bestowed on mankind.’” Dad grins. “But I shall miss you, my love.”

  Mum steps back from his kiss, screwing her face up. “Stephen, darling, I’ve just done my lipstick.”

  Dad kisses Addy instead, taking her out of my arms and lifting her above his head, making her giggle. After giving her to Mum, who makes a big fuss of smoothing out the imaginary wrinkles in her dress, he turns to me. “You’re a bit big to fling in the air. Be safe,” he whispers, hugging me. It’s brief, but for a sudden I’m caught up in the familiar smell of his aftershave and I’m protected, in a world where the shooting never happened. When he steps back, the April breeze whips up my spine. Dad and I haven’t spoken much about what happened in Paris. Mum says this is unhealthy, but she wasn’t there. Remembering is bad enough. I don’t want to give words to the memories as well.

  “Look after my family,” Dad says to John, the special-ops driver, who nods and replies, “Like they were my own.” I want to make Dad promise me again that he will take a car to Parliament, but there’s no time, and I know he won’t want me making a fuss with all these people around.

  Addy is whimpering by the time I get in the car, straining against her seat belt and kicking her little legs up and down. She’s going to be restless the whole way to Cheshire. Dad pats the car door like it’s a horse’s flank. “Send my love to Granny and Grandpa. Bye, my darlings,” he yells as we drive toward the gate. I turn to wave, but he’s moved back to stand on the step and all I can see is his headless torso.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A man is standing on an upturned crate outside the mini supermarket by the Westminster tube station. His arms are spread wide, his head angled toward heaven. His mouth opens and closes with inaudible sounds, while behind him a poster flaps in the strong breeze. BE VIGILANT. REPORT ANY SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOR. He is one of the religious nuts, the ones who believe that the global financial catastrophe five years ago was an act of God. We were being punished for worshipping the false idol Money.

  The car takes a right at Parliament, passing Westminster Abbey, and drives along the north bank of the River Thames. I gaze back across at the murky brown water and Westminster Bridge. It would make a good photo: the bare black trees stenciled on the dead gray sky, the bridge disappearing behind the fog, the water punctuated by the light splattering of icy rain. If only my camera weren’t in my bag in the boot of the car. I make a square with my fingers and hold it up to the window. Click. Click. Shift the angle as the road curves with the river. Click. I’ll have to remember this view for when we drive back.

  Addy, Mum, and I are spending the rest of the Easter vacation at Groundings. I overheard Mum saying to Dad that she thought a break from London would be good. She didn’t say whether she meant it would be good for me or for her. She and Dad haven’t exactly been getting along recently, or ever really.

  Addy is sleeping now, murmuring to herself as she always does. I stare out of the window at the sky, which is as blank as a dead computer screen.

  Mum flicks on the radio: “. . . a judge this morning refused to grant bail for Kyle ‘Marble’ Jefferies, the man accused of the attempted assassination—”

  Mum switches the channel.

  “Leave it,” I say. “Please.”

  “Robyn, you know all of this,” she says gently, but she turns the radio back to the BBC. I worry more when they try to keep things from me.

  “. . . shots were fired at the PM and his elder daughter as they were fleeing a hotel in Paris in January of this year, following a bomb threat. A small radical anticapitalist and animal rights group, Action for Change (the AFC), of which Jefferies is a member, claimed responsibility for the attack. Jefferies maintains that he worked alone, but experts believe it likely that a number of people were involved.

  “The PM is believed to have been targeted because of his long-standing friendship with Michael Bell, the head of the UK’s largest pharmaceutical company, Bell-Barkov. The pharma has come under attack from these extremists before, with Bell and his staff receiving death threats over their use of animals in laboratories and drug-testing practices.

  “It is now believed that Jefferies was also behind the fire at Bell-Barkov’s headquarters last October, although he denies the charges. The AFC has not claimed any involvement in the arson attack, which destroyed the company’s research center and injured three security guards.”

  The day my father was shot was the most terrifying of my life. I hate Kyle Jefferies. I hope he never leaves prison. He’s the reason I feel scared and worried all the time.

  The news presenter has moved on to saying that Bell-Barkov is a major financial supporte
r of this government when Mum clicks the radio off. Silences fills the car until Addy cries out. She’s awake and has dropped her toy lamb. Mum and I both jump, then Mum laughs. “We’re all so twitchy.” She reaches down in the seat well behind her to retrieve Lamby. Addy catches the lamb and kisses him over and over again with a loud mwah, mwah noise. Mum pats my knee, her eyes looking for reassurance in mine. I nod quickly, because my parents need to believe that I’m all right, but inside, my heart is thumping loudly. Durdum durdum durdum durdum.

  “So,” Mum says, a forced cheerfulness in her tone, “how about a song? John . . . you’re always good at this. What’ll it be? ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep’?”

  “Well,” John says, “personally I’ve always thought you couldn’t beat the classic ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’”

  “‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ it is. Come on, Addy. This is one of your favorites.” Mum flings her arms upward as her voice rises dangerously high. She is so desperate for everything to be okay. “It’s such a gorgeous day, and it’s so wonderful to be away from that bloody city.”

  • • •

  I’m typing a text to Poppy (IN CAR WITH MUM. SHE’S SINGING. HELP!) when John suddenly slams on the brakes. A car is parked diagonally across the road. My heart thuds its uneven beat. A sixth sense tells me that something isn’t right. The car’s bonnet sparkles in the sun, its metal flashing through the trees that grow thick and heavy along this stretch of road. The two motorcycles flanking us drive ahead to investigate, while John waits.

  “John?” Mum asks, a hint of anxiety in her voice.

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Knollys-Green. Probably just a broken­-down vehicle. We’ll be on our way again any minute—”

  He is cut off as the car in front of us explodes in vicious heat and searing light. The road beyond it disappears, and trees, dirt, and tarmac are flung upward in a whoomph. The once-blue sky on the horizon is obliterated by a swirling mass of smoke that’s thrown over everything like a sudden darkness. The surrounding color shines brighter. The greenest green of the trees lining the road, the stark blackness of a bird’s wing as the creature soars into the air, terrified by the noise. I imagine I can see a tear in the world: the point on this side of the car, where we are alive and safe, and the point beyond where the nightmare begins, and then even that is gone, swallowed up by crackling flames.

  Mum turns around in her seat, tugging at her seat belt so she can rest her hand against Addy’s knee. Tears are pouring down Addy’s face. Mum’s mouth moves, but I can’t hear the words. There’s something wrong with my ears, like someone turned on a tap in my head, and all I can hear is gushing water. My phone has slipped out of my hand and is lying in the footwell. I vaguely think about picking it up, but my body won’t cooperate.

  John is speaking, and I read his lips. “Just . . . fine.” He smiles, his face opening up like a flower, and Addy seems to calm down.

  They are all looking at me, and I am nodding as if I am fine too. Can’t they hear the water? I tilt my head to try to dislodge the sound. The trees by the side of the road somer­sault, and bile rises in my throat. I level my head again and peer through the dark smog engulfing our car. The two motorcycle escorts have been flung from their bikes. One has pulled himself to standing and is limping as he drags his leg out from under the bike, but otherwise he looks okay. The other man is lying motionless, his body crumpled at an awkward angle and his head concealed by the rising banks of the ditch at the side of the road. John is talking into his radio. Somewhere on the other end, a team of experts are planning our next move, calling in the army and trying to calculate the safest option while we wait for them. We have two options: stay here where we are sitting ducks, or risk running into an ambush by going back the way we’ve come.

  A tree full of frightened birds soars up through the dirty air beside the car. I wonder what new noise has disturbed them. I still can’t hear anything above the rushing in my ears. But John suddenly throws the car’s gear stick into reverse. At the same moment my ears come unstuck. The water gurgles and disappears. Noise fills my eardrums again. Addy is screaming, and somewhere off in the woods, there is the sound of gunfire.

  My neck snaps back as John executes a 180-degree turn at what feels like ninety miles an hour. Addy continues to yell. “It’s okay, darling. It’s okay,” Mum says, but Addy probably can’t hear her over the sound of her own wailing.

  Trees, hedgerows, and ditches blur past us as the car eats up the road. My seat belt holds me fast. I tug on it sharply, only succeeding in pulling the bonds more securely around me. Addy is almost choking with sobs now, and her eyes are wide and terrified. Mum is trying to turn around, but the movement of the car keeps slamming her against the leather seat while my belt is still trying to suffocate me. Screw it. With a click, I release the lock and slide over to my sister, wrapping my arms around her trembling body. She wiggles into me, her little hand knotting in my T-shirt, but her cries ease. Although I realize that taking my belt off may not have been the smartest idea as the car hits another bump in the road and my head bashes into the roof.

  “Robyn!” Mum shouts. “Put your belt on.”

  John takes the corner sharply, and I am flung forward. Mum cries out again. With an effort, I launch myself toward my seat, while still trying to keep hold of Addy’s hand. But the car is moving too fast, and I need both my hands to stop myself from flying into the front seat. I end up sliding down into the well behind John. As I pull myself up again and fasten my seat belt, I catch a glimpse out the back window of a white van trailing us.

  I don’t have time to think anything of it, because the next bend in the road is acute and John misses it. The tires slide as he turns the steering wheel sharply to try and regain control. It’s not enough. The car bounces, hits a crease in the road, and sky becomes earth becomes sky becomes earth as we spin over and over.

  My head bangs against the window, and as I’m jolted away again, I lay my arm flat against Addy’s chest. The car flips once more, and slams into a tree. Mum screams once and then everything is silent.

  • • •

  I am aware of sound—the thin, rhythmic drops of water from leaves, the rustling of a bird’s feathers in the undergrowth, the whoosh of steam rising from the crushed bonnet of the car, the thick, wet glug of petrol thudding on tarmac. I open my eyes. The car is not upside down as I’d thought, and the world is the right way up. “Byn,” whispers a voice that is barely a voice. Addy is staring at me from the prison of her car seat. “Byn?” she says again, her face its own question.

  I muster up a smile. “Hey, munchkin.”

  There’s a soft gurgle from the front passenger seat. “Mum?” The gurgle gets louder. I stretch forward as far as my still-fastened seat belt will allow. The back of the driver’s seat is sticky. I know that if I look down at my knees, they will be red with blood, so I don’t look. It’s not mine.

  “Mum?” I unfasten my seat belt and peer around at her. Her face is a white smudge against the leather seat, but she smiles weakly. “Is John . . . ?” I ask. I can’t look.

  “No . . . I think he’s breathing. Just.”

  “I’m going to get help.”

  Mum shakes her head.

  “I’m fine. I can get out. I’ll stand farther up the road. Make sure they know where to find us. It’s going to be all right.” I reach down into the footwell and fumble around to retrieve my phone.

  I’m sure my head has swelled to twice its normal size, but otherwise I mostly feel fine. I try to open the door, but it won’t move. I push harder and harder, until it gives suddenly and I fall out, hands and knees smacking the ground. A shadow falls over me. I look up and scream. A man—the figure is too big for a woman—is standing above me. Some sort of black ski mask covers his entire face except for his eyes and mouth. He tugs me upright. I let myself get my balance and then swivel sharply, right and left, because a moving target is harder to hold on t
o. I’m remembering my self-defense training, but it’s more than that, like some sort of instinct that I didn’t know I had is kicking in. He still has a firm grip on my arm.

  “BACK OFF!” I scream right into his face, and at the same time I slam my knee between his legs. I hear a groan, and he finally lets go.

  Then I begin to run, trying to put enough distance between us while fumbling to call for help on my phone. The man is on me again too quickly, though. He swipes the phone from my hand, and it lands with a loud crack on the pavement. I have no time to dodge his next attack, and he clamps me to his chest with arms as broad and solid as an oak door. The stench of sweat fills my nostrils. It is not fresh. This is sweat that has been sweated and dried, sweated and dried again with no thought of a shower. At least a few days’ worth. I think of the various products in Mum’s cabinet, like soldiers waiting for action, and try to conjure up the smell of chamomile bath salts, lemon talcum powder, lavender hand soap.

  It doesn’t work. I draw a deep breath. Sweat. Days-old sweat.

  I wriggle and squirm, but it does no good.

  “Calm down, Princess. We just want to talk, somewhere more private, like.” He nods his head in the direction of the white van, parked up on the other side of the road. Something sharp presses into the base of my spine, piercing my thin T-shirt. “Now move or I’ll cut you. Scream and I’ll cut you.” Another prick of the blade.

  He walks me down the road, and I remember something that Gordon, Dad’s head of security, once said. He was talking about the time he’d spent in Colombia, where the threat of kidnapping is high. You have a sixty-five percent chance of getting away in the first five minutes of being taken. Once you are in a vehicle, your chance of escape drops to thirty-five percent. Kick, scream, bite. Use the weapons you have. Do not let them get you into a vehicle.

  John has radioed for help. The entire British army should be on its way any second. I just have to hold out a little longer.