The Passengers(42)
You have to make them want to save you, Claire told herself. Do whatever it takes to keep your baby alive.
As her pregnancy had advanced, barely a couple of hours would pass before she’d feel the urge to urinate. And the longer the car journey continued, the more Claire knew she couldn’t hold it in any longer. She looked around the vehicle’s interior but there were no containers to pass water into. Besides, the world was watching and would she really want the indignation of them seeing her do that? There was no choice but to just wet herself. So she moved to the other front passenger seat and did just that. It brought her only fleeting moment of relief that morning.
She had potentially seventy minutes left until the Hacker killed her. Feeling her baby move sharply again, she feared Tate was absorbing her stress, so she forced herself to think of something positive.
Claire longed to hear Ben’s voice so she removed her phone from her pocket and located a folder containing videos they’d made of one another. The one she chose she had recorded earlier in the year. Standing in their kitchen, she relived the moment he came through the front door and dropped his backpack by the sofa. He looked puzzled as to why she was pointing her camera phone at him.
‘Is that thing on?’ he asked and the picture shook a little as Claire replied with a nod. ‘Why? And why is there a glass of Champagne and a bag on the table? Shit, have I missed our anniversary? Wait, no, that’s November. What are you up to?’
‘Open it,’ she giggled and he made his way towards her.
Ben’s brow crinkled and he pulled on the strings to open a small, blue bag. He removed from it a light-blue teddy bear, with a five-centimetre square screen in its belly.
‘Squeeze its paw,’ Claire invited. Ben obliged and nothing happened. ‘The other one, and watch the screen.’
Claire’s camera closed in tightly on Ben’s face and as the bear’s mouth moved, it sounded like a heartbeat. A three-dimensional image appeared on its stomach like it was inside the toy. It was of an unborn child moving. ‘We’re pregnant,’ she whispered. ‘You’re going to be a dad.’
Ben looked at her, wide-eyed, then back to the bear. ‘Really?’ he asked. ‘Really?’ He grabbed her by her waist, lifted her up into the air and squeezed her tightly.
Now, from inside her car, Claire burst into tears watching her husband gently place her back on the ground and steady himself against the table. It was a child they had tried so desperately to have but that both were beginning to give up hope they might ever see.
‘Are you happy?’ she heard herself ask.
‘What do you think?’ Ben replied. The screen became blurry as he went to hold her again. Claire shut her eyes tightly and it was like he was holding her now, her nose buried in his neck, inhaling his joy.
Claire always assumed that if they were side by side, she and Ben could conquer any obstacle that got in their way. That morning she learned she was wrong.
She snapped back to the present when, without warning, vibrations travelled through her body followed by a rumbling outside. She turned to see a convoy of four police motorbikes and several heavily armoured army vehicles appear outside, flanking either side of her vehicle. Above her, a helicopter had replaced the drone.
‘Oh God no,’ she said, panicked and hesitant of the extra attention they were going to bring her. But as the bikes sped ahead, she realised they were clearing a path for her. The armoured vehicles moved to each side and police cars behind prevented any other driver from overtaking.
It suddenly dawned on her that, her whole life, other people had protected her. Throughout their fractured childhood of care homes and foster parents, it had been her brother Andy who had given her the security she needed. But when he chose a life of petty crime over her, she chose education and met Ben. He had taken over the challenge of making her feel safe. And now it was Tate’s turn. If they were to survive this ordeal, she pledged never to allow her boy to be responsible for his mother again.
From what she had heard, Jack Larsson was the most unlikable of the jurors. But having seen him win the upper hand over his political opposition during televised debates, she knew he was also the most tenacious and well-schooled in the art of persuasion. Having picked her to represent meant he must have thought he stood a good chance of keeping her alive. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.
And neither would she. Immediately, she resolved to toughen up and take back some semblance of control of her life. Aware once again of the dashboard camera, she began to rub her bump more and talk to it, reminding Tate that she loved him and that she was praying they wouldn’t die. All the time, she spoke loud enough for her microphone to pick up her words. If the key to her survival was to get the world to pity her and vote for her, it was a small price to pay. She had to remind the jurors they wouldn’t be condemning just one person to their death.
But inside, Claire was acutely aware that if she were freed from the car, she would need to vanish from the scene – and vanish quickly. Nobody could discover the truth about what she had done before her hijacking, not until long after she had gone to ground.
Chapter 31
SOFIA BRADBURY
Sofia shook her head vigorously.
‘Oh, no, no,’ she said. ‘I do not like this. Not one bit. Look at it, Oscar, it’s distasteful, isn’t it?’ Her dog’s eyes remained closed. ‘How can anyone think that pretending to blow up someone in a car in such graphic detail passes for entertainment? Because I can tell you, it most certainly does not.’