by Jake Cross
He kissed her forehead and stood up. ‘Then let’s go get it.’
The concierge had to escort them upstairs, but he asked no questions. The quirky rich. And he left them alone once in the strongroom. The same card key that got her in the building unlocked an electronic lock on Box A.MID431. Amongst a few old pieces of useless paperwork she hadn’t returned to Eastman, there it was. A CD in a plastic case, no label on disk or case.
Nick beat her to it.
‘Why now, Anna? Years later? Why all of a sudden did Eastman decide he needed this disk? I understand that he’s in a much bigger role now, with further to fall, but he’s been Secretary of State for Education for six months. Why now?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve asked myself that, over and over. What could have prompted him? I follow the news, just in case there was ever some new interest in the hit-and-run case, but there’s been nothing. No new witnesses or evidence, nothing that might have prompted the police to reopen the investigation. I just don’t know. Can I have the disk?’
He didn’t move. ‘Whatever it is, it’s important to Eastman. If he’s worried about exposure, look at him now. Involved in kidnapping.’
She looked horrified. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I don’t think they’ll just let you walk away as if nothing has happened. So we’re not just handing this over. I think we have to give it to the police.’
Her jaw fell. ‘No, we can’t.’
‘If you hand yourself in, the sentence will be lighter, Anna.’
‘But they’ve got Josie. They’ll let Josie go. We can’t risk it.’
‘They must know we could get her back and then go to the police anyway. That’s too risky for them. I don’t think they’ll let you go.’
‘They won’t kill her.’ She shoved him in the chest, but he held his footing. ‘They just want the disk, and we won’t get Josie unless they do. Give it to me.’
She tried to snatch it, but was too slow. ‘I didn’t say Josie. I pray they don’t want to hurt Josie, because she’s an innocent child. She doesn’t know anything. But you know enough to send Eastman down. It’s you who’s in danger, Anna. I think they’ll kill you once they have this disk. Eastman has got too much to lose. His people will kill you so his secret stays safe. You ran away from home, didn’t you? The police will think you fled the country or something to avoid prison.’
She said nothing.
‘Anna, we give this to the police and we tell them everything. And we just have to hope Josie is let go. I hate the idea of antagonising these people, but we can’t give them the disk. It’s got to go to the police now. No more running and lying.’
He was taken aback when she immediately said, ‘Okay. You’re right.’
They composed themselves and walked downstairs, where Nick planned to use the phone in reception. The concierge smiled as they appeared, and asked no questions. And that was when it happened.
She put her fingers in his eyes, and while he was distracted the disk was snatched from his hand.
‘Help me,’ she yelled.
A trick, he realised. He grabbed her hand as she ran for the door, but someone then grabbed him. The big concierge, who clearly doubled as security given his bulk and strength and speed, twisted Nick’s arm behind his back and swept out his legs. He hit the marble floor hard enough to lose his breath.
‘Anna! No. Stop.’
But she didn’t stop. She slapped the button to release the door and barged it open, and vanished.
* * *
Upon exiting, Anna stopped on the marble steps and took a breath to prepare herself for the next stage. She would walk the forty metres along the Strand, and then she would stop level with the side street where the car was parked. But instead of heading down, she would cross the road and from the far side, the safe side, she would call out over the heads of pedestrians with no knowledge of the terror in her heart. She would order the Ogres to fetch her daughter. And they would have to do it. No choice. No way could they abduct her in plain sight of hundreds of people. And Josie would be brought—
‘A disk?’ Ball Cap said, appearing out of nowhere like a spirit and clamping his hand around her arm. No one saw, or they saw and didn’t care. He took the disk from her fingers. ‘Aw, I just have to know what’s on this.’
‘When I get my daughter. I want her right now.’
‘Well, maybe we should stop standing around here waiting for Superman to rescue you, eh?’
He started to lead her across the road, his grip hard but useless because she actually got to the other side before him. Every step was one closer to Josie. He reached out to open the back door of his car, but her hand got there first. If he was planning to force her down on to the floor, no need. She assumed the position. His feet lay on her back. The car was on the move two seconds later.
‘It’s a disk,’ he said. Dominic told him to not worry about it. ‘But what’s on it?’ That would be worrying about it, and I told you not to. ‘Must be the unreleased new Star Wars film for them to want it this bad.’ Let’s pretend it is. Just keep it safe.
The car turned this way and that, deep in winding streets, probably reversing the route they had taken to get here. Thirty seconds, maybe forty. Closer and closer to Josie. She could smell her scent on the pyjamas still.
‘We didn’t come this way,’ Ball Cap said.
‘It’s fine.’
‘You look puzzled, pal. Want me to drive?’
‘It’s fine. Just watch the countess.’
After another turn, the car made a sharp stop.
‘Are we lost?’ Ball Cap said.
‘This’ll do,’ Dominic said.
‘This’ll do?’
‘This is it, I meant.’
And right there she realised something was badly wrong. She struggled upright, on to the seat. Ball Cap was otherwise engaged and didn’t resist when she got away from his feet. She saw that they were at the end of a narrow road, a row of white garages on the left and a blue townhouse on the right, all overshadowed by taller buildings. But she focussed on what lay ahead: a chain-link fence at the end of the road, beyond which the land tumbled away.
‘So where’s the kid?’ Ball Cap said.
‘Where’s my daughter?’
‘Don’t know, don’t care,’ Dominic said. He turned in his seat and stared at her. One hand held a knife, but it was the other she couldn’t get her eyes off. It fingered the necklace he had no business being within a thousand miles of. ‘Sorry, but we can’t let you go. You might tell the police after all.’
The shock numbed her. ‘My daughter,’ was all she could manage.
‘Your kid’s seen our faces. Ten years from now, some police hypnotist will get a decent photofit out of her and we’ll all be doomed. Sorry. But I’ve gotta make sure she doesn’t do that.’
‘This wasn’t the plan,’ Ball Cap said. ‘We got what we needed. If the kid’s not here, just kick her out and let’s be on our way. She can’t tell the cops anything about us.’
Dominic shook his head. ‘We’ll steal another car. Get out, Alan. Shit, I used your real name. You want to risk it now, Mr Anderson? Ooops.’
‘Jesus Christ, Dominic Watson-Bruce.’
Dominic looked pained for a second, but quickly seemed to decide it didn’t matter if his name was out there. He also started to get out, then changed his mind about that, too. He grinned at her.
‘Since this is the end, I have to know. What’s this all about, countess? What’s on the disk?’
He didn’t know? That threw her mind into a tumble. ‘Something else you don’t know, then.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
For a reason she didn’t know and cared never to learn, his obliviousness to their connection suddenly spiked deep and painfully. ‘You don’t know who I am, do you?’
His eyes leaped away from her, to behind, and for a fraction of a second she put it down to shame, that maybe something had dawned on him because of her question.
But all she got was that fragment of time, because in the very next she felt a terrible impact in her back. The car was shunted forward, hard, to a score of rending metal. The chain-link fence lost resistance at one post and opened like a door to let the vehicle through.
The front dipped, as if about to tumble over a cliff, but in the next moment the car was bumping slowly down a slight decline, carving through flowers. Stones the size of sleeping dogs marked the boundary between the small hill and the rear carpark of a Perry’s car dealership. The car struck one, wobbled violently as the front end climbed atop, and stopped dead. She was thrown forward to crack her temple on the headrest of the driver’s seat.
The next thing she knew, her door was yanked open. Dominic was there, grabbing her with his powerful arms, pulling her out. He must have lost the knife. The struggle caused the carefully balanced front end to list here and there like a great beast injured and staggering.
‘You bastards,’ she heard a familiar voice yell.
Nick. He must have escaped the concierge in time to see which car she got into.
Barely able to comprehend, she looked up the hill, which was a lawn decorated with red and blue and green and yellow flowers: a ‘Britain in Bloom’ logo inside a ring of turned earth. A little graft of nature in the centre of the concrete jungle. The car had sliced twin tracks right through it. Atop the ruined lawn she saw her father’s car, smashed front end poking out over the cliff like a nosey animal. She had no idea where they were, but, despite the garden, it had to still be the centre of London.
And Nick was there, staggering out of the vehicle, his head wound leaking blood again.
As he started down the slanted lawn, she tried to break free of Dominic’s grip and go to him. She got only a few feet before her head scrambled. Her brain cut contact with her legs and they shut off. Her head got another whack, this time by mown grass.
Looking up, she saw Dominic step forward, up the hill, getting between her and Nick, who was coming down like a runaway train. Dominic turned partly to his left and raised his right arm, curling it before his face, like someone trying to protect himself. But in his hanging left hand, hidden from Nick’s view by his leg, was a short piece of metal that instantly elongated in length with a click.
Nick stumbled on.
‘Where’s my daughter?’ he yelled.
A trick, she realised. She tried to shout, but it was too late.
Feigning cowering behind his raised right arm, Dominic suddenly turned and brought his left arm up and around, swinging the extendable baton at Nick’s head. Full of forward momentum, he took the blow hard, almost on the same spot where he’d been struck the last time he’d met this man. His legs collapsed under him. She almost felt the earth vibrate under the hard impact of his body hitting the dirt. He tumbled past her and came to a stop in the ring of turned earth, face up.
‘Déjà vu, asswipe,’ Dominic said. He took four strides down the hill and bent over Nick.
‘Nick!’ she yelled.
Dominic grabbed Nick’s shoulder and flipped him over easily. Then he knelt on her husband’s back and put hands in his hair, full weight bearing down on locked arms. She actually saw Nick’s face sink two inches into the soil.
A shadow fell over her. Ball Cap, standing nearby.
‘It’s over, don’t you hear the sirens?’
Dominic ignored his colleague’s shout. Nick was thrashing under powerful hands intent on forcing the life out of him, but no match for the skinnier, smaller man. She was too dazed from the crash to get up, to help him. But over the drumbeat of rushing blood in her head, she heard the sirens, loud and getting louder. She expected the two men to flee.
But Dominic remained right where he was, hard fingers locked on the back of Nick’s head.
‘You go kill her, I got this guy. Race you.’
‘It’s over, pal. Let’s not add years to the sentence.’
Dominic ignored his partner. Knowing he didn’t have time to end Nick by suffocation, he reached for his discarded baton. Even in daylight, Anna saw the air above the road at the top of the lawn pulse with blue light. The sirens seemed so close that another inch would put them in her head.
‘Dom, c’mon, man, stop.’
Up the baton sailed, ready for the downward curve. Anna turned away. At the top of the lawn, bodies appeared at the cliff edge. Blue uniforms and high-vis jackets. Police. Lots. They crowded around the car, filing past, sailing over the edge and down, like a tide.
And that was when Ball Cap slid his arm around Dominic’s neck. He fell back, peeling Dominic off Nick like a plaster from skin, and tearing away those lethal hands. Nick seemed to use the last of his energy to heave himself over on to his back, and lay coughing as he tried to suck in air.
‘You’ll thank me later, Dom,’ Ball Cap said.
On his back, with Dominic’s spine against his chest, he locked in the chokehold. Thrashing, Dominic’s legs kicked fast and hard, and she watched them strike Nick’s chest and face. He struggled even to raise his arms to defend himself. Quickly, she crawled to him and collapsed on top, and those heavy blows dug into her flesh instead.
Policemen shouting. Policemen everywhere, looming over, cutting off the light. Someone tugged at her and she rolled off Nick to lie beside him, and found herself staring up at a face she knew. It was Lucy Miller.
‘They don’t have my girl!’ she screamed up at the woman.
Other police moved into her vision, surrounding her. She looked to one side and saw police prising Ball Cap off his unconscious partner’s back. She screamed it again: ‘They don’t have my girl.’
She lashed out, swiping aside two police officers and crawling between them. Someone grabbed her arm, but her free one lashed out again, this time towards Dominic, who was unconscious and being sat upright by two officers. Before anyone could stop her, she pulled her arm free and both hands clamped hard around his throat. Her fingernails raked skin as she was dragged backwards, away, and she clutched her fists hard to her chest.
She looked around. Nick was still awake but groggy as he returned her stare from just inches away. As Miller tried to soothe her and Bennet knelt by Nick to help him sit up, she heard her husband speak through lips coated in soil:
‘There was a third option after all. That they would just kill Josie and I’d never see her again. That she was already dead.’
As Ball Cap was being led to a police car in handcuffs, he called out across the heads of a dozen police officers:
‘I want to talk to you, Anna. Just you. Talk to me, I’ll tell you what I know. Or the police can drag it out of me over the next month or so.’
She was being escorted, with Nick, to an ambulance, but she stopped. Miller said, Not a good idea, but her grip loosened. Anna tugged free, turned and ran. Policemen rushed towards her. Miller had slyly given her freedom for this, but couldn’t pretend to treasure the rulebook any longer. When she was grabbed and it was over, Miller only gave it a second’s thought:
‘Let her go.’
Just moments later she was in the back seat of a police car with Ball Cap again, who now didn’t have a cap. And had no control over her. Officers surrounded the car, ready in case he tried anything, even cuffed. She wouldn’t look at him. But she asked him, Please, help me.
He wouldn’t look at her, either. ‘I don’t know who’s got the money and I don’t know where your kid is, first of all. Sorry about that.’
She took a deep breath. But didn’t move. She was willing to hear the rest.
‘And I’m sorry about that.’ He nodded at her shoulder, and she put a hand there. Her hand brushed her hair, catching something weighty and solid. Bubblegum. She hadn’t even noticed. She didn’t care.
He got that and said, ‘My name is Alan Anderson. I’m in this with my woman, Elsie, and she’s got your girl. Her and my partner’s wife. Her name is Louise. Someone decided a couple of girls should watch the kid. Me and Dom back there, we got you. And there’s another guy involved, I think
. But all I did was help snatch the kid, make some stupid phone calls, and then bring you here. It’s all I know. Bring her to this bank and get what she brings out, go home, get paid, live happily ever after. That was my orders. The kid wasn’t my business. What I’m saying is the kid side of it is all separate and I can’t help you get to her. After the last of the ransom calls, we all had to get new burner phones and I ain’t got my girl’s number, so I can’t call her for you or anything like that. Not allowed, probably in case the cops grab one of us. Which they just did. We’re to stay hidden for today and tomorrow we meet up at a place where Dom says. I don’t know where and his girl is running things the other end.’
Now, finally, he looked at her. ‘But based on what my man there just tried to do, seems obvious they didn’t plan to get her back to you or let you go. So I did what I could to help. I can’t do any more. Didn’t want you holding your breath while the cops put the thumbscrews on me. Dom probably knows more. Maybe he will have a change of heart and call his girl. I don’t know. I hope so. I ain’t got a say in that. All I can say is this: I’m sorry.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything to me. It doesn’t get my daughter back.’
‘I was working at a scrapyard in Fatfield with my girl and she offered me the kidnap job. I don’t know who planned it, okay? I don’t know who’s calling the shots and I don’t know what any of this is about. But there’s a scrapyard in Northampton. Maybe your kid’s there. She’s not at the one in Fatfield. I don’t know of any other places.’
