Just My Luck(90)

‘Jake, did you know that there are companies that work to cover monies lost to ransom?’ I call through to where he is still sitting in the kitchen.

‘Too late for that,’ he bites back.

‘No, I didn’t mean we needed cover,’ I mutter impatiently. ‘Of course not, but my point is if it’s a business then …’ I quickly add a few more words to the search engine. ‘Look here!’ Jake swiftly walks over to where I’m sat and bends over me to read the screen. For a moment I feel it again, the old intimacy between us. I feel shored up, hopeful. Perhaps I can lean on him. Perhaps we can make it through this. But then Jennifer and Fred crowd around the screen too and the intimacy is loosened, lost. I push on. ‘There are companies that say their aim at all times is the safe return of a kidnap victim, that they can help with that.’

Yes, there are specialists. I should know that by now. There are specialists for everything: accountants, lawyers, florists, image consultants, party planners. Whilst planning the party I learnt there are people who make a living out of being houmous specialists, balloon sculptors and adding edible glitter to jelly. Of course there are people who specialise in safely returning your kidnapped child. It’s just a matter of money. And we have money.

‘We should get in touch with these people.’ I click on the link but again Jake stops me.

‘Just wait. Don’t do anything rash. We have to research these sites. How do we know we can trust these people? They might be scam artists.’

‘We don’t know if we can trust them but as our daughter is currently bound and gagged God knows where, we have to do something.’

‘Let me do some reading,’ offers Jennifer. It’s an eminently sensible suggestion under normal circumstances; due diligence and research before employing someone is a good plan. I want to stab her. We’re so far from normal circumstances. She is close at my side, her hand hovering over the mouse. I realise she’s expecting me to relinquish my control of the laptop. I’m not sure I can. So much seems outside of my control, I need to cling to this. Jake puts his hands on both my shoulders and gently guides me to my feet and leads me away from the laptop back to the kitchen table. He guides me into a chair and when I resist, the pressure exerted increases fractionally. I flop into the chair and he releases me. The moment he does I leap to my feet. ‘I can’t just sit here.’ I rush into the hall. All eyes are on me. They look concerned and a bit exasperated. They are looking at me as though I’m a crazy woman, but they are the crazy ones, just sitting here, accepting this, waiting.

‘Where are you going?’ demands Jake.

‘I don’t know, I need to be out there. To comb over the party site again, I need to find her.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ says Fred. I nod, grateful, willing to enter another truce with him even though he collaborated in the seizure of my phone. People are not queuing up to help me, I’ll take what I can get. I am aware that it should have been Jake offering. Jake who wants to be with me, hunting for his daughter.

Instead he says, ‘I can’t imagine it will do any good though. If we are dealing with professionals, which I think we are, they are hardly going to have left a big arrow pointing to where they’ve gone.’

‘We have to do something!’ I scream.

At that moment my phone buzzes. We all rush back to the table. I’m the most determined. An animal, I snatch at it first and answer. ‘Hello.’

‘Have you called the police?’ The voice is not recognisable. Whoever is speaking sounds like a robot. I remember from some spy film or other that you can get apps and devices that can be attached to your phone which disguise your voice. I could be talking to a man or a woman, someone from the Home Counties or someone speaking in a second language – it’s impossible to tell. I curse the person with the mind dark and clever enough to invent this app.

‘No, we haven’t.’

‘Don’t, or else.’ The mechanical way the threat is delivered in no way diminishes its power. I don’t need to know what the ‘or else’ is. I can imagine it but still – in order to underline the point – I hear my daughter yell out in pain. Her voice is not disguised. I don’t know what caused her to yell, did they hit her, kick her, pull her to her feet by her hair? Worse? I start to cry. Jake impatiently gestures to me that I should hand over the phone, but I just move further away from him, glad the table is between us and he can’t snatch it from me again.

‘We want ten million pounds.’ The robot again.

‘OK.’ It doesn’t cross my mind to argue the point. I’d give them every penny I won and every penny I had before the win. I would.

‘Bank transfer. We’ll send details. When we have the money, we’ll tell you where she is.’

‘OK.’

The line goes dead.





38


Emily


I don’t know how long I have been here. I’m too terrified and disorientated to be able to keep track. I wish I could sleep, let some time pass without this horrendous, impossible to describe fear, but I can’t sleep. I am trying, really trying, to stay calm. That’s what Mum and Dad would want. If they were here, they’d tell me it was going to be OK. They’d tell me I am brave and strong and that it will all be over soon. Mum would be the one to say, ‘Don’t think about the pain, Emily, don’t anticipate it, you make it worse. Try to think about something else.’ That’s what they said when I had to go to the doctor for injections or had to visit the dentist. It’s almost laughable that I was once scared of those things. Now I see that those things are nothing to be scared of. Nothing at all. I also see nothing is laughable and that maybe it’s not all going to be OK.