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,