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Chapter Three
fifty minutes

Don’t call the police, or your wife and children will be executed.

Chris stood motionless for a while, leaning against the sink and staring across the kitchen at the pinboard beside the fridge. There were photos on there, tickets for a show they were going to see in a few weeks, a couple of forms to fill out for a trip Gemma was going on with Scouts. Some discount coupons for the local cinema. A few of Terri’s hair bobbles tied together.

Had the man really said that?

Chris closed his eyes and the world swam. He remembered the words coming from the man’s mouth – how they’d sounded, the shape of his lips, the dreadful meaning – yet he still doubted.

He took in a few deep breaths and smelled the coffee. His coffee, that the intruder had brewed.

He took the phone from his pocket and placed it on the worktop. As he stared at it, it rang.

Grabbing the phone, dropping it, watching it hit the floor and break, case going one way and phone the other, Chris let out a hopeless cry. He went to his knees and picked it up – still ringing, not broken – and stroked the screen to unlock.

That voice again, cool and calm and inviting no discussion. ‘Fifty minutes. Be ready.’ Chris stood again, holding the phone in both hands. Fifty minutes. Be ready. Fifty minutes until what?

The back door was closed now, but he could still see the bloody smear drying on the jamb.

Everything but his family suddenly felt so distant. His work, their friends, his hobbies, all so far away from what was happening here and now. This was so surreal that his mind had picked him up and shifted him back a pace, making acceptance of the unbelievable situation easier. He’d felt something like this before. When his father had died three years earlier, there had been none of the disbelief and hysteria he’d been prepared for all his life. A distance had fallen around him, allowing him to cope with the situation and only starting to lift as grief eroded it away. It was a defence mechanism of sorts – perhaps purely natural, or maybe engineered by modern society and family needs – and for a while he’d felt an incredible guilt. But then his mother had told him that everyone deals with bereavement and grief in a very different way, and unnecessary guilt had no place in his heart. He’d loved her more than ever for that. He still did.

He dreaded the idea of her having to grieve again.

Chris looked down at his phone. Don’t call the police or your wife and children will be executed. The words hung in the air around him as if taking on substance. Everywhere he looked he heard them. He stared at the screen display, thinking, trying to work through the situation. Clicking on the timer, he set it at forty-eight minutes and pressed start.

Several minutes had passed since the man left. Standing in the kitchen, uncertain, he edged towards the back door, lifting the wooden blind aside to look out into the back garden. Maybe he should follow. Or call the police. That was his natural instinct, anyone’s first instinct when something terrible like this happened. And how would they know? He should call them, tell them about the intruder and his missing family, and by the time they arrived …

He looked at the time on his phone. Forty-four minutes and counting.

Something moved in the garden. Chris squinted and looked again, scanning left to right across the well-maintained lawn, colourful borders, and the kids’ stuff scattered here and there. Megs loved to play in the inflatable pool when it was warm enough. She said she wanted to swim the Atlantic when she was older.

‘Shit,’ he whispered, starting to shake. Fear gripped him. Terror at what was happening to his family, and confusion about why.

Movement again, and this time he saw the cigarette smoke rising from beyond the garden’s rear hedge before it dispersed to the breeze. There was a narrow, private path behind there serving the several houses that shared this side of their street, and no reason at all for anyone to be standing there.

Placing his hand on the door handle he pushed it down, slowly, and opened the door.

A pale shape appeared behind the garden gate. Chris couldn’t see much from this far away, and the gaps between the gate’s slatted wood were only an inch across. But the smoking person was watching him.

He slammed the door again and retreated into the kitchen. ‘Fuck, fuck, this isn’t happening,’ he muttered, pacing back and forth. He was chilled from the sweaty running clothes he still wore. He should change, get warm, get ready for …

… for the countdown to zero? Was he really just going to wait here like the intruder had told him?

Bollocks to that.

He held the menu button on his phone and said, ‘Call Nick.’ The phone called his elder brother, ring tone buzzing again, again, until passing on to answer phone. Chris hung up, pressed again and said, ‘Call Angie.’ She had five kids, an irregular boyfriend, and debt up to her ears, but his youngest sister was always a rock amongst stormy seas. It rang three times before she answered.

‘Chris.’

‘Angie, it’s me, something’s happened, something awful, and I need you to—’

‘I can’t talk right now.’

‘What? Something’s happened to Terri and the kids and you have to do something for me, but quietly, carefully. I need you to call the police.’

Silence. He could hear Angie breathing.

‘Angie?’

‘I can’t talk right now.’ Her voice broke, just slightly. Then there was the sound of fumbling before the call was disconnected.

Chris stared at the phone again, trying to make sense of his sister’s words. Angie having a bad day? She had a lot of them, but she’d never been like that to him, ever. He’d pulled himself out of the kind of lives his siblings lived, made a career for himself, made money. But they were still all the same really. They still loved each other. ‘Angie,’ he said, and the image came to him of her sitting alone in her kitchen, staring at the phone and shaking, while a stranger stood beside her own back door.

Chris snorted, shook his head. Pressed the button again. ‘Call Jake.’ He’d know what to do. Chris’s best friend was a gruff bloke and could be a bit of a dick sometimes – his delightful ex-wife could attest to that – but he valued their friendship, and they were always there for each other. It was picked up after two rings.

‘Jake, thank God. You’ve got to help me, mate, I’m in some scary deep shit here.’

‘Get the fuck out of my life,’ Jake said, and then he hung up.

Chris blinked at his phone. He tried to retain Jake’s tone, the sound of his voice, but his words scorched away any ability to recall. Had he really just heard that from his best friend?

‘This is … ’ Chris started, and he laughed. Once, loud, an unbelieving outburst. But there was nothing at all to laugh at here. The bloody dab on the door was testament to that. ‘What do I do?’ Chris whispered. ‘Just what?’

Filling the kettle, turning it on, he was moving on auto-pilot as he tried to think things through. He glanced at his phone timer again. Less than thirty minutes to go.

He clicked on the Facebook app and entered his password. Account temporarily suspended.

‘What?’ he whispered. ‘You’re kidding.’

He exited Facebook and opened his email account. It usually went straight to his inbox, but instead it came up with his password entry. His heart fluttered. Didn’t matter, that happened sometimes, once every few weeks he had to enter it again. Security measures, he supposed.

But even as he tapped in his password he felt the weight of dread.

Password not recognised. Please enter again. Be aware that password is case sensitive.

He entered it again, carefully, but already knowing what would happen.

Forgotten password?

How the fuck? How could they have done this? Maybe it was him, typing with clumsy, scared fingers …

… But no. It wasn’t him at all.

The kettle boiled and Chris poured water into a mug with one hand. The other hovered over the phone, thumb stroking the ‘phone’ symbol, finger hovering over the 9.

It’s a joke. A prank. A scam, scumbags scaring me to try and get some cash out of me. Or a reality TV show. Or … Anything but what it seemed. It had to be. Because things like this didn’t happen in real life.

He tapped 9 … 9 …

The piercing electronic whistle was almost unbearable, screeching through the house from his phone, the small flatscreen TV on the kitchen worktop, and whining in from the living room where the big plasma TV had burst into life. Chris juggled the phone and almost dropped it, face screwed up against the sudden, unexpected sound. He pressed his right shoulder and left hand to his ears, still clasping the phone in his right hand and looking at the screen. Ready to hit the last 9 that would move events on apace and, perhaps, reveal more of what was really going on.

The keypad on his phone’s screen had been replaced by something else. Winded, stunned, he barely even noticed that the deafening sound had ceased.

He thought it was a photo, but then he saw Megs nuzzle her head against Terri’s leg, and Gemma stretched her tied legs and shuffled to change position.

‘Oh no … ’ he breathed. His throat was dry, voice hardly registering.

Terri was sitting on a bench in what looked to be the inside of a dirty van. The walls were rough and spotted with rust patches. A naked light flickered somewhere out of sight. His wife was tied to the bench with ropes around her legs and waist. She was blindfolded, and wearing loose jogging bottoms and a tee shirt. Megs was kneeling beside her, also blindfolded, sobbing softly. Gemma was tied up on the floor on Terri’s other side.

There was a dark stain across the right shoulder of Gemma’s school shirt. It seemed to match the patches on the walls, as if the truck also bled.

‘No,’ Chris said again, louder. ‘Terri. Terri! Girls?’ But they couldn’t hear.

The image changed quickly, turning as whoever held the camera or phone on the other end switched it around to face themselves. It was a woman. Fiftyish, attractive, but with cold eyes. She smiled broadly, but only with her mouth.

She held up a gun.

‘One 9 away from this,’ she said, waving it back and forth and pointing it out of sight at his blindfolded family. ‘Last chance. Next time we won’t warn you again.’

‘What do you want?’ Chris shouted. ‘Just tell me, I’ll do anything, let them go and—’

‘You’re probably ranting and raving a bit right now,’ the woman continued. She had a nice voice, calming, controlled. She could have been a school teacher. ‘I can’t hear you. But I know you can hear me. So calm down.’ She looked aside at her watch. ‘Twenty-three minutes. Be ready.’ She smiled again, then the picture flickered off. His phone went dead.

‘Ready for what?’ Chris shouted. He raised his hand to hurl the phone at the wall, but held back at the last instant. ‘For what?’ He looked around for cameras, microphones, evidence of things in his home being tampered with. His home. They’d come in here, invaded his space, taken away his family …

He couldn’t shake the image of his girls tied up like that. Megs crying and nestling against her mum. Gemma, bloodied, struggling and stretching, probably doing her best to release herself from her bindings. And Terri, sitting there looking far calmer than she must feel. At that moment he would have given absolutely anything to have them back safe and sound. His safety, his sanity, his life, without a moment’s hesitation he’d have handed them all over.

‘I don’t have much money,’ he said. ‘Twenty grand saved, a bit more, but I can’t just get it. It’ll take five working days. Is that what you want? It must be. Money.’ He frowned, thinking that through and really not understanding it at all. They lived in a nice house, but nothing special. Two cars, both over three years old. His architect’s firm was reasonably successful, but he was the sole employee, turnover around seventy grand each year. Nice, but nothing spectacular. Nothing that would attract the attention of the sort of people who could do this.

Take his family, threaten his siblings and friends. Carry guns. Use his own tech against him.

He put his phone screen-down on the kitchen worktop and paced the kitchen again. He was sweating again now, chilled from his long run. He’d always had something of a vivid imagination, and now and then he’d written ideas down with the intention of one day writing a book. Terri had been encouraging, but it had never gone much beyond a few pages of notes and several tentative first chapters. Once, out on a long run, he’d imagined the end of the world. Running the barely used public footpaths across the top of a local range of hills, he’d lost himself for a few miles daydreaming about what would happen if he got home from the run and everything had changed. His family, friends, neighbours, associates, all gone. Turn on the TV … white noise. Nothing on the radio. Leave home and everything is normal, return two hours later and find he’s the only man left alive.

Now, that had happened. His whole world had changed, and unless he did precisely as instructed, they would end it. He didn’t know what they wanted. But in less than twenty minutes he would find out.

Chris couldn’t keep still. He walked back and forth, looking down at his phone every few seconds and waiting for it to make a noise. If the Black Sabbath song ‘Paranoid’ rang out it would be Jake calling him back to offer help. A whistle would be an email. A double-ping would be a text, perhaps from one of his siblings if they had a chance to secretly get in touch, tell him they were with him, they were doing their best. He picked it up and turned it over, checking the screen anyway in case he hadn’t heard. But there were no messages, emails, or missed calls.

He didn’t want to call his elderly mother. Not after what Angie had said, and Jake. He didn’t want to know.

Landline, he thought. I could contact the police that way. But that would be stupid. Whatever their reasons for doing this, they’d planned it in detail. They’d have the landline covered. Bugged, perhaps, if what he saw in movies was true. It was far too risky.

He paused by the chopping board and leaned back against the kitchen units. Eighteen minutes.

He made himself a drink. Tea, lots of sugar. As a teenager he’d always laughed at his parents whenever their first reaction to a crisis was to make tea, but as he’d grown older he’d come to recognise its calming properties. It wasn’t anything chemical, he thought, nor was it the warmth. It was distraction. Waiting for the water to boil, stirring the tea bag, adding the milk, watching the tea darken, all these took time. But he couldn’t distract himself from this.

He glanced up and saw the knife block. Six knives, all of them sharp. Terri had spent over a hundred quid on them, and he’d expressed his doubt that they were worth the money. But they were good knives that had kept their keenness over time.

Without pausing to scare himself out of it, he grabbed a medium-sized knife and slipped it into the waist of his running trousers, dropping his sweaty shirt over the handle with one hand as he picked up his mug with the other.

He turned and breathed across the hot tea, steam filming his eyes and warming his skin. The knife was cold against his hip. And just what the fuck am I going to do with that? he thought, trying to imagine himself plunging it into someone’s stomach. He almost puked.

‘I’m ready,’ he said. ‘No need to hang about.’ The phone said fourteen minutes.

Slowly, he sipped at the hot tea and managed to convince himself that everything would be fine. If they’d planned to harm him or his family they’d have done so by now. They wanted something of him, though he couldn’t imagine what. He’d made no enemies in life that he could think of. He’d always been fair in business. He and Terri led a boringly normal life in many ways – loyal to each other, adoring of their children. He vented any need for excitement through his running, triathlons, mountain racing. There are worse mid-life crises, Terri said to him sometimes when he signed up for another extreme race.

Chris closed his eyes and breathed in the tea fumes, but found nothing approaching calmness. He felt like crying at the memory of seeing his family like that, taken somewhere unknown, bound and gagged. It had been a woman guarding them, but he couldn’t help imagining how vulnerable they were to the men involved in this, too. Terri in what she called her comfy clothing, unconsciously attractive. Gemma, awkward and pretty, just developing into womanhood. Little Megs.

He opened his eyes, furious, and swigged at his tea. On the fridge door facing him, held on by magnets, were several drawings by Megs, a few money-off coupons for their local supermarket, and a twenty-pound note. Gemma had been due to go to the cinema with her friends that evening.

He heard a knock from somewhere beyond the kitchen door.

Holding his breath, Chris put the mug down slowly, mouth slightly open, listening hard. The heating was off now, though the boiler was still warming the water. But he hadn’t recognised the sound.

It came once more, definitely an impact of some sort. His phone showed nothing so he turned it face-down again. Taking the knife from his belt and holding it down by his side, he walked through into the corridor beyond the kitchen door. Ahead of him the front door was still closed, and there was no sign of movement elsewhere.

Studio, he thought. To his right a shorter corridor led beneath the staircase to another door, beyond which their converted garage had become his business studio. It was a good size, with computer station, an old-fashioned drawing board, walls lined with pictures displaying his designs, and an informal area for clients with leather sofa and coffee machine. Nothing extravagant, but comfortable. And now there was someone there.

He thought about edging through the door, moving cautiously, carefully. But that’s what they expected of him.

And he was angry.

Gripping the knife hard by his side he surged forward, shoved the door open and stepped quickly into the studio.

Something tripped him, he fell, one hand out to break his fall, the other twisted painfully as the knife was stripped from his grasp. He struck the timber flooring and tried to roll. A weight bore down on him, trapping him on his side with one arm crushed beneath his body, the other pressed between him and the person attacking him.

Chris kicked and writhed. A hand clamped down hard across his mouth. Another held his own knife against his throat.

He strained his neck and looked up into the woman’s face. She looked hard, unflustered, and totally in control.

‘I’m here to help,’ she whispered. ‘If you want to live past the next twenty-four hours and see your family again, do everything I say.’ She sat up and slowly took her hand from his mouth.

‘Who … ?’ he asked.

‘I’m the one that got away. My name’s Rose.’