by Tom Bale
Another careful step, and she manages to translate a few stray words: boat and quick or quicker. Then something about a flight – first flight? The gist seems to be that a boat is the best option to reach the airport.
There’s a pause, during which she can picture them turning to check once more that no one is within earshot. Perhaps fearing one of the servants is listening in, they switch to English. Naji says, ‘And Gabrielle?’
‘She’ll be with me.’ A snickering laugh, and then Borko adds something she doesn’t catch.
‘You’ve shown great restraint,’ Naji says with his usual smarmy admiration. ‘Though, in truth, it wouldn’t trouble me if she was on the boat with them. Kill all the birds with one stone.’
‘We’ll see. Perhaps if she fails to live up to her promise.’
Another laugh, and Gabby understands that phrase, blood runs cold. Her reaction ought to be to flee from here at once. But she can’t abandon Sam and Jody…
Can she?
Gabby quietly retreats, thankful that she’s had this vital warning. She creeps into the hallway, where she encounters a couple of the maids. They give her a slightly cool glance, but they seem to be aware that she means something to Borko, and therefore she’s allowed the run of the place.
Her focus is on preparing for the worst. Survival mode. She takes a couple of minutes to explore, then pops to her suite to collect her bag before returning to the living room. She steps outside at the far end of the terrace, pretending to search for her host. Borko raises a hand while Naji only glowers, then strides away.
‘The wife had a lot to say for herself, didn’t she?’ Borko issues a sarcastic little laugh.
Gabby shrugs. ‘I suppose she had to get it out of her system. I wouldn’t pay it much attention.’
‘Oh, I’m not. Though it’s perfectly true.’ His eyes gleam, and he gestures at a chair. ‘Are you going to sit down?’
‘Uh, I need to get to work. I’m already late.’
He looks disappointed. ‘I thought you’d want to see the family off in the morning.’
‘I do.’ She looks at her watch, notices her hand is trembling and quickly drops her arm. ‘I’ll be back this evening. Probably seven, eightish.’
He considers for a moment, as though he might not grant her permission to leave. ‘Very well. And are you satisfied with the room, or would you prefer somewhere more comfortable?’
There’s no doubting what he means, so she has to smile, flirtatiously, and give him the answer he expects.
‘I wouldn’t rule it out.’
‘I hope not.’ He ponders for a moment. ‘You know we’re going ahead with the apartment complex on Turtle Bay?’
‘In the conservation area?’
‘Mm. It turns out we don’t need to conserve quite as much as everyone said.’
‘That’s lucky for you.’
‘Isn’t it?’ He winks. ‘The first stage will be complete by the spring. I’d like to put one of the apartments at your disposal, rent free, for next season.’
Her natural reaction is shock, which she can just about get away with – so long as Borko doesn’t question why she’s shocked. Gabby covers her mouth with her hand, hoping to seem overwhelmed by his generosity.
‘It’s months yet,’ he says. ‘Take some time over your decision. But know that you will be very welcome.’
‘All right. Well… thank you.’
His body language is inviting physical contact, so she comes forward and gives him a quick embrace, a kiss on the cheek. Borko’s arms enfold her and he doesn’t let her go, waiting until she’s made eye contact before kissing her gently on the lips.
Another long second before he releases her; a hungry look in his eyes.
‘Tonight, then,’ he says, as though it’s a contract signed in blood.
72
The living room feels too public for the sort of conversation they need to have, even though they appear to be alone in the building. It’s occurred to Sam that there might be cameras watching their every move, and he whispers a warning to Jody as they return to the bedroom.
They lie side by side and quietly discuss what happened. Sam admits, reluctantly, that Jody got it right. He had planned to attack Borko.
‘What with?’
‘One of those nails from the stakes.’
‘How would that help, with armed guards everywhere?’
‘I just felt I had to do something.’
‘You’d have put us in far more danger.’ Jody seems cross, until she rests a hand on his arm and says, ‘It was unbelievably brave of you.’
‘But stupid, as well.’
She gives him a gentle smile. ‘No worse than me ranting at Borko about how evil he is.’
‘You were amazing.’ Sighing, Sam picks up the envelope. ‘So what do you think?’
‘It sounds better than the alternative, if Gabby’s to be believed.’
‘A big if, after all the tricks that were played on us.’
Jody agrees, tapping the envelope. ‘And maybe this is fake.’
Good point. Sam slits it open. He’s picturing something snazzy, like those big cardboard cheques they bring out on Comic Relief and Children in Need, but this one is a regular size and printed on normal paper. The lottery symbol means nothing to him, though the bank’s logo is vaguely familiar.
‘BNP Paribus,’ Jody says. ‘That’s an international bank.’
‘So it’s legit?’
‘Seems to be.’
Three hundred thousand euros, as promised. The payee is Mr Sam Berry. Jody makes no comment about that, even though Sam feels sure she must be reflecting on the debts he hid from her.
This would put him in the clear with his uncle, and pay for a hell of a lot more than a wedding. They could buy their own place, just about.
He groans. ‘I’m already doing it. Dreaming about how we could spend it.’
‘We can’t let those zeros go to our heads. At the moment it’s still only a bit of paper.’
‘But that’s what they’re counting on, isn’t it? That we’re so hypnotised by the money, we accept what they did to us.’
The main door opens and they tense, but it’s only the nurse. She looks in on them, then heads to the other bedroom. A minute later she returns to say that Grace is awake.
Jody springs up, and Sam follows her across the hall. What they find is a minor miracle. Grace is sitting up, the colour restored to her cheeks, her eyes clear and bright. She is bemused by their reaction.
‘God, Mum!’ she protests when Jody pulls her into a crushing embrace.
‘You look so much better, I can’t believe it.’
‘I feel better, too.’ Grace looks at the drip. The current bag of fluid is about half empty. ‘How long do I have to keep this in?’
The nurse says she’ll fetch the doctor to find out. The activity has woken Dylan, who announces that he’s starving. He also looks to have benefitted from a nap. Talk about resilient, Jody thinks, and from that comes some cautious optimism.
Perhaps it’s an overreaction to worry about the long-term effects?
Perhaps the money is a fair deal to keep their mouths shut?
The doctor recommends that Grace stay on the drip for another twenty minutes; after that she’s free to get up, and she can eat whatever she wants, providing it’s only in small quantities.
‘Chocolate,’ she says, and Jody’s kneejerk reaction – You’re not having chocolate until you’ve eaten something healthy – is stifled by Sam, who says, ‘Sounds like a great idea.’
Lunch is a comfy indoor picnic. The maid rustles up a bar of Italian chocolate, along with crisps, pasta, salad, cold meats and a selection of bread.
That’s the only bum note. As one of the trays is set down, Dylan recoils with a cry of alarm. No one can understand what’s wrong until Sam points to a couple of bread rolls. Even he looks anxious as he tears them open, showing Dylan that there’s nothing to be scared of.
So much for the cau
tious optimism, Jody thinks.
As they eat, she and Sam have to field off a number of questions from the children. Is this house owned by the jetpack man? Is he the one who kidnapped us? And then, from Grace: ‘Why is he being nice to us now?’
‘He…’ Sam begins, then stares at Jody, lost for words.
‘There’s a lot we still don’t understand,’ Jody says. ‘He claims we were never really in danger, and it was sort of like a… a big practical joke.’
‘That’s horrible,’ Grace declares. ‘He should go to prison for doing something like that.’
Dylan nods excitedly. ‘Can we call a policeman to arrest him?’
‘Not… not really.’ Sam is cringing, and so is Jody.
‘They want to pay us some money,’ she says. ‘As a way of saying sorry.’
Grace only narrows her eyes at this; eight years old and she knows it’s a squalid deal.
After lunch the kids are persuaded to watch cartoons on TV, so Jody and Sam can continue to discuss it. They see nothing more of Borko, or Gabby, but Naji drops in, apparently to make sure they’re being well cared for.
‘Are you closer to a decision?’ he asks.
‘I think so.’ Jody is about to accept their offer, based on what she and Sam have agreed, when he drops a bombshell.
‘It’s not enough for what we suffered.’
Naji arches one eyebrow. ‘Oh?’
‘We want four hundred thousand.’ There’s a slight tremor in Sam’s voice, but you’d have to know him well to hear it. Jody catches Naji’s eye and nods firmly.
‘Then I will consult with Borko.’
‘And we don’t have our passports,’ Jody adds. ‘We’d like them back right now, along with the other paperwork, our keys and our phones.’
Naji says nothing to this. The moment he leaves, Jody gapes at Sam. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘Just popped into my head. Besides, it’s true, isn’t it? Look at how Dylan reacted to the bread. None of us are gonna forget this any time soon. Anyway, it’s small change to Borko.’
So it proves. Within ten minutes Naji is back, with a face like he’s sucking lemons.
‘Four hundred thousand. With Borko’s compliments.’ He takes the first cheque back and hands them a new envelope, along with a leather document wallet bulging with papers and keys.
‘Everything but the phones. Those we cannot return until you leave here, for security reasons.’
It sounds a bit lame to Jody, but neither she nor Sam is in the mood to argue. Frankly, they can’t believe the bluff worked.
‘Should have asked for half a million,’ Jody mutters afterwards, then has to stress that she’s joking; otherwise Sam might start berating himself again.
‘I wanted to test them,’ he says. ‘Half a million, they’d think we were getting greedy. This seems fair to me.’
She shuts her eyes for a second. Like Sam, she’s caught herself idly making shopping lists, musing over gifts for family and friends, wondering about long-term investments so the kids have the money to put down on homes of their own one day.
It ought to be intoxicating, knowing they have a small fortune to spend. But it’s not. It feels wrong.
73
Soon the kids are bored with TV. They want to go outside. Sam isn’t sure at first, though he too is beginning to tire of the unnaturally cool air.
There are servants coming by every few minutes to see if they want anything, but also, Sam suspects, keeping an eye on them. He asks about the pool, and after a quick consultation with someone, they’re told the answer is yes, go ahead.
It turns out there are actually several pools, on different levels, linked by a network of slides and chutes. And they have the whole thing to themselves. Ridiculous.
Sam takes the kids on the slides and does his best to look like he’s enjoying it. Jody is a lot more reluctant to join in, or allow herself to relax. She needs some persuading even to lie and sunbathe, knowing Borko and Naji might be watching from the house.
‘Does it matter?’ Sam asks. ‘The past few days they’ve seen every bloody move we made.’
After lazing away the afternoon, they shower and change. For an early dinner they’re invited into the main house and decide to accept, though they’re dreading the thought of small talk with Borko or Naji. They’re waited on in a dining room groaning with chandeliers and oil paintings, at a marble slab of a table that could happily seat twenty people, but thankfully their host and his sidekick are nowhere to be seen.
Grace and Dylan are wilting by the third course, revive briefly for ice cream, then make a demand that’s practically unheard of: they want to go to bed.
As ever, one of the staff accompanies them to the guest block. There’s a single guard outside the building, a different one from earlier. He’s sitting in a garden chair with a paperback on his knee, and barely gives them a glance.
Sam can’t help snorting. We’re obviously not seen as much of a threat.
It’s a little after eight when he and Jody settle the kids and cross the hall to their own room. If they hadn’t been so exhausted – and if they hadn’t just argued – then a bit of fooling around might have been on the cards.
The argument was polite, conducted in careful whispers while Grace and Dylan were brushing their teeth. Jody wanted to tell the kids they might be flying home tomorrow, while Sam was concerned about raising their hopes.
‘I already did that last night,’ he pointed out. ‘What if it doesn’t happen?’
‘If it doesn’t happen, disappointing them will be the least of our worries.’
With that, he shrugged and let her go ahead. Jody kissed them goodnight and said, ‘Get to sleep quickly, and in the morning we’ll be making plans to go home.’
‘Real home?’ Dylan asked.
‘Real home,’ Jody confirmed. ‘Won’t that be nice?’
‘You’d better not just be saying that,’ Grace warned, pulling the covers up over her head.
‘Can’t fool ’em anymore, can we?’ Sam says as they lie down.
‘Unfortunately, no.’ Almost immediately, Jody feels her eyes growing heavy. She forces herself up and into the bathroom.
‘You’re getting ready for bed?’ Sam asks.
‘Yeah. I’m shattered.’
She comes out to find him smoothing his hand across the sheets, an expression of sheer bliss on his face.
‘Uh oh, it’s a man with a bed fetish.’
‘Too bloody right, after three nights on sand.’
He uses the bathroom while Jody adjusts the aircon, then slips into bed.
‘Funny that your mate Gabby’s not been round,’ she says when Sam emerges.
‘Huh. Probably glad to see the back of us.’
‘How fake, pretending she cares about our safety.’ Jody snorts, watching Sam closely. All he does is shrug.
He climbs into bed, stretches and sighs with pleasure, then they share a quick hug and a kiss and say goodnight. Within seconds the smooth cool support of the mattress is pulling Jody down into sleep.
Untold luxury, she thinks, and remembers how she felt that afternoon when she was lying by the pool, trying to savour her brief experience of the billionaire lifestyle. What she understood then was that it means nothing to live in such palatial surroundings if you’re not safe, if you’re not secure.
It all seems a bit foolish now, recalling how anxious she felt.
Because they are safe, aren’t they?
74
A schoolfriend once said Gabby’s mum reminded her of the character Margo from The Good Life, a classic 1970s sitcom about a young couple who opt out of the rat race and attempt a life of self-sufficiency in the unlikely setting of the Surrey commuter belt. Margo is the sharp-tongued, snobbish but essentially good-hearted next door neighbour.
Gabby could see what her friend meant, both in terms of looks and character, and for years she took it as an unkind comparison. She thought it meant her mum was seen as a snooty bitch. N
obody wanted to be Margo; they wanted to be Barbara, the elfin blonde goddess next door.
But now, as she returns to Borko’s home hours later than agreed, she’s hijacked by a sudden wave of love and appreciation for her mother. It doesn’t matter that she vehemently disapproved of Gabby’s decision to take this job; in fact, her barely-veiled contempt for the whole idea of package holidays seems a lot easier to understand now. After all, Gabby regularly jokes with her fellow reps that this would be a fantastic job – if it weren’t for the tourists.
Something to ponder: not just that she is turning into her mother, but that she doesn’t particularly mind very much.
It’s her mother who misses her – or notices her absence, at least – more than anyone else. Her father, she’s always felt, loves her more in theory than in practice. On the rare occasion he makes contact, it’s invariably the result of a nudge from her mother, even though her parents have been separated for nearly a decade. Her eldest brother, Oliver, a derivatives trader in New York, hasn’t given a flying fuck about her since she was six or seven. The middle child, Rory, has been trekking through Central America for nearly three years and sends brilliantly entertaining emails to the whole family, but rarely asks after any of them.
So it’s her mother, undoubtedly, who will be burdened with the funeral arrangements if it all goes badly wrong tonight.
A member of staff escorts Gabby to the living room where Borko sits alone, nursing a brandy while watching what appears to be a highlights reel of Sam and Jody’s tribulations.
‘You are late,’ Borko says, without looking round.
‘Sorry. Work was a pig today.’ Before she can lose her nerve, Gabby hurries forward and places a kiss on the top of his head. ‘I’ll never understand how people on holiday can end up being so miserable all the time.’
‘I messaged you.’
‘I’ve only just seen it. Sorry.’ The breathless delivery sounds good; it doesn’t have to be faked, because her heart is thudding like a jackhammer.
