this plan was foolproof from the start. You don’t need to worry, pal. You’ll see her again. Just continue to do exactly as you’re told, and we’ll be fine.’
‘All right, well … please, let’s just get this over with.’
‘Take your next left.’
That, in itself, was unnerving. It meant they really were watching him. Who knew where from – they could be standing on a barn roof, using binoculars, for all Kelso was aware. Whatever it was, they were bloody well organised.
‘And where will that bring me to?’ he asked.
‘Oh, no …’ the voice hardened. ‘Now don’t spoil it by asking stupid questions. I thought we’d already established that once we hook up again, we’ll be searching you … just to make sure that, by some miracle, you and your friendly neighbourhood PC Plod didn’t get a chance to secrete some kind of communication device on you.’
‘I haven’t done that!’ Kelso blurted. ‘Come on … I was only in the bank ten minutes. How could anything like that have been arranged? You were watching anyway, weren’t you? You’d have seen if a police officer had arrived there.’
There was a long, judgemental silence, and then: ‘Like I said … take your next left.’
The line went dead.
Kelso shuddered, briefly feeling as if he needed to vomit, but instead he slammed his foot to the floor, accelerating from forty miles an hour to fifty. As instructed, he took a left-hand turn, but at reckless speed. It was a few seconds later, when common sense kicked in and he slowed right down again. It might seem quiet along here, but the last thing he wanted was to catch the eye of some lazy copper idling around in the back-country hoping to bag some boy-racers.
He pressed on more cautiously for perhaps another three or so miles, passing a farmhouse on his right, though it was boarded up. Fleetingly, he was taut with anticipation, recognising this as a possible spot for the handover. But he’d soon bypassed the old farm, driving steadily north, and still there was no call.
‘Come on, come on,’ he said under his breath, frantic and frustrated at the same time. ‘Please … soon, good Lord in Heaven, let this be over soon.’
The phone buzzed. He snatched it up, and saw that he’d received a text:
Next right
The car was warming up again, but the sweat on his brow owed nothing to the temperature.
When a right-hand turn approached, he swung around it, paying almost no heed to the conditions. The Peugeot slithered sideways across a road so slick with ice that it might have been double-glazed. He now found himself following a single-track lane, which hadn’t even been tarmacked, his wheels jolting amid rock-hard tractor ruts. It was a terrifying thought that he was being lured further and further from civilisation, but that had probably been the appeal of the Dunholme branch in the first place; he was nobody – just an everyday bank manager, but his bank was located on the edge of extensive countryside, from where it would be quick and simple for the robbers to vanish into the sticks. Yet more evidence of how well planned this whole thing had been. But none of that mattered right now. His overwhelming desire to feel Justine in his arms again – no doubt shivering and whimpering, teeth chattering from the cold, numb with shock, but at last safe – rendered any qualms about how isolated he was null and void.
Up ahead, he could see trees: not exactly a wood, more like a copse. The narrow lane bisected it through the middle, running on straight as a ribbon.
Maybe that would be the place? It was the first change of scenery Kelso had encountered on this drear landscape in the last few minutes. In that respect, it surely signified something. And indeed, as he passed into and among the trees, he couldn’t resist accelerating again, bouncing and rocking on the ridged, hard-frozen surface – and, as such, almost crashing head-on into the white-painted pole with the red, circular signpost at the top, which stood in a concrete base and had been planted in the dead-centre of the thoroughfare.
When the Peugeot finally halted, having slid nearly twenty yards, the signpost stood directly in front of him, only its circular red plate visible over the top of his bonnet. A single word was stencilled in black lettering in the middle of it:
STOP
Kelso climbed out and stood beside the car, his breath pluming in the frigid air.
Initially, there was no sound. He glanced left and right and saw to his surprise that he’d halted on a narrow bridge. He’d been so focused on the stop sign that he hadn’t noticed the rotted, flimsy barriers to either side of him. Not that it was much of a bridge. By the looks of it, it didn’t lead anywhere in particular; it was probably for the use of livestock.
‘Kelso!’ a harsh voice shouted.
He turned full circle.
‘Kelso!’ the voice shouted again, and, realising where it was coming from, he scrambled around the front of his Peugeot to the left-hand barrier.
Some twenty feet below, he saw what he took to be a derelict railway cutting, except that this also had been adapted into a farm track, because, almost directly underneath him, a flatbed truck was waiting. Its driver, the younger of the two hoodlums, a taller, leaner figure than the older one, but mainly identifiable because, instead of a green balaclava, he was wearing a black one, had climbed from the cab.
‘Throw the cash down!’ he called up. ‘Do it now!’
‘Where’s my wife?’ Kelso shouted back.
‘Throw it now, or you’ll never see her again.’
‘All right, for God’s sake!’
Kelso returned to his car and, one by one, humped the loaded haversacks to the barrier, dropping them over. Each one landed with a shuddering crash, bouncing the truck on its shocks. From twenty feet up, fifty grand in used banknotes made quite an impact. The younger hoodlum had clearly anticipated this, because he stood well back in case one went astray. However, when all four had landed, he hurriedly lowered the tailgate and jumped on board, opening the zips on two of them to check their contents, before climbing back down and scuttling to the driving cab.
‘Hey!’ Kelso shouted. ‘Hey … what about my wife?’
The guy never once looked back. The door slammed behind him, the vehicle juddering to life, before roaring off along the cutting, frosted leaves and clumps of frozen earth flying behind it.
‘What the …’ Kelso’s voice almost broke. ‘Good … good God almighty!’
‘Hey,’ someone behind him said.
He spun around, and almost collapsed in gratitude at the sight of the older villain, who had evidently sidled out of the trees beyond the signpost and now approached along the lane.
As before, he wore overalls, heavy gloves and a green balaclava.
Also as before, his pistol was drawn.
‘I’ve done as you asked.’ Kelso limped towards him, arms spread. ‘You saw me.’
The hoodlum pointed the gun at his chest. ‘Yeah, you’ve done as we asked.’
Kelso stumbled to a halt. ‘OK … please let’s not play this game any more. Just let me have Justine?’
‘Worried about your wife, eh?’
Despite his best efforts, Kelso’s voice took on a whining, agonised tone. ‘Please don’t do this. Just tell me where she is.’
‘Where she was before. Back at your house. Why would we bring her with us?’
‘OK … so … is that it, then?’
‘Yeah, that’s it.’ But the hoodlum didn’t lower his firearm.
Kelso was confused. ‘So … I can go?’
‘Eager