I Am Watching You(65)

Stupid of him. How did he think that would play out? Henry stops all the imaginary calls to friends and banks. The local church. The online appeal for cash. He lets go of the scene in his head. A bag of money for Karl. Anna being released from a car, running towards him. Daddy . . .

His mind is exhausted from all the chopping and changing. The runaway ideas. The hopes raised and dashed. The horrible imaginings. From the news. All these blessed pictures on social media. The police aren’t going to let Karl go, ransom or no ransom. There is no obvious way to make Anna safe. Nothing he can do. That burning in his chest again. Fists clenched tight, eyes fixed again on the cushion.

‘I was wondering if I could ask you to look at a photograph, Mr Ballard.’

Henry notices the formality. Cathy has encouraged them to use her first name. She always calls Barbara by hers. At first she called him Henry, all tea and sympathy and tilting of the head. But since the barn and the shotgun and the interview, he is Mr Ballard. Will probably stay Mr Ballard from here on – a whisker from suspect status – until this is all resolved.

You disgust me, Dad.

‘This photograph, Mr Ballard. It hasn’t been shared widely. I should warn you, it’s another shot of Karl at the window with the gun. The very upsetting image. The one that was understandably too much for your wife. But it’s taken from a different angle. And it would help if you would look at it very carefully for me. If you think you’re up to that?’

‘Of course I’m up to it.’ A lie. Henry braces himself. He does not want to look.

Cathy passes him not her iPhone, but her larger iPad.

‘It’s a shot taken from the flats opposite. From a higher angle. It’s been tidied up a bit and there’s a zoom.’ She sweeps her finger across the screen to show him the second version.

Henry feels his lip trembling. ‘So what am I supposed to say? Supposed to be seeing?’ Torture. He doesn’t want to look at it. The gun. The hair.

‘Karl has refused to let his hostage speak to the negotiator. Also, he hasn’t sent a photograph through to the police team, which they have requested several times. It’s standard procedure. To calm things down and to reassure that the hostage is OK. It’s an exchange process. Bartering. If you send us a photograph or let us speak to the hostage, we will do this . . . Send in food, or another phone, or headache tablets or asthma inhalers or whatever it is he needs.’

The hostage? Why is she saying that? Why isn’t she calling her Anna? How dare she. This is his daughter. She should use her name . . .

‘What I’m asking is this. From this photograph, how sure can you be, Mr Ballard, that this is definitely Anna?’

And now Henry’s head is in a whirl. Is she serious? A maniac on a train talks his daughter into some seedy club after her theatre trip. He gets her drunk and God knows what. He kidnaps her. He takes her to Spain. He holes up in a flat with a gun and . . .

‘Please look at the photograph very carefully. Especially the girl’s body shape. Her waist. The width of her shoulders in particular. Is that Anna?’

Henry looks at the image, feeling the ache of his frown. Shape? What does she mean – shape? Only in this moment does he realise he has a terrible headache. Maybe a migraine; he has had it for hours now, ever since the police station.

The photograph is grainy, not good quality, especially in the zoomed version. The hair is definitely Anna’s.

‘I don’t understand. Who the hell else could this be?’

‘Please. Just look carefully.’

Henry stares at the girl, back to the window with a gun to her head. He finds that he is rocking his body now. He is thinking of Anna facing away from him, looking out of the kitchen window. Look, Daddy, there’s that magpie, back again . . .

What is he supposed to be seeing in this picture? Body shape? What kind of person asks a father to think about his daughter’s body shape?

In this photograph, Anna is wearing a tight jumper. Grey, though that might be distorted by the camera, the picture almost certainly taken on a phone.

Henry looks, as instructed, at the waist. The shoulders.

A jarring. Something not right. Oh my God . . .

‘Are you saying she might be pregnant? Is that what you’re implying?’ Henry is fighting very hard not to lose it. He does not want to lose control in front of this woman. He looks again at the photograph and again feels the jarring. Something he cannot quite understand.

‘No. That’s not what I mean to imply. Her shape. Shoulders. Waist. We all have a set shape, Mr Ballard – a ratio which doesn’t change even when we lose weight or put on weight. Or even pregnancy, though that isn’t what I meant at all. Shoulder-to-hip ratio. Does this look like Anna to you?’

And now Henry is holding his breath as the enormity of the question and the consequence is sinking in. ‘I think we need to call Jenny down here.’





CHAPTER 40


THE WITNESS

I am relieved that Tony has finally gone upstairs to change.

‘He doesn’t mean to be like that.’ I am staring at Matthew, but my thoughts have followed my husband upstairs, watching him put his suit carrier behind the door. His toiletry bag back in the bathroom. Tired. Sitting on the bed. Worried for me.

‘No, don’t apologise. It’s good that he’s protective. I’d be exactly the same if it were my wife, and I’m actually very glad we’ve met now. It’s better. For you, I mean.’