Captive (3 page)

‘It is now believed that Jefferies was also behind the fire at Bell-Barkov’s headquarters last October, although he denies the charges. The AFC has not claimed any involvement in the
arson attack that destroyed the company’s research centre and injured three security guards.’

The day my dad was shot was the most terrifying of my life. I hate Kyle Jefferies. I hope he never leaves prison. He’s the reason I feel scared and worried all the time.

The news presenter has moved on to saying that Bell-Barkov is a major financial supporter of this government when Mum clicks the radio off. Silence fills the car until Addy cries out.
She’s awake and has dropped her toy lamb. Mum and I both jump, then Mum laughs. ‘We’re all so twitchy.’ She reaches down in the seat well behind her to retrieve Lamby. Addy
catches the lamb up and kisses him over and over again with a loud ‘
mwah
,
mwah
’ noise. Mum pats my knee, her eyes looking for reassurance in mine. I nod quickly because my
parents need to believe that I’m all right, but inside my heart is thumping loudly.
Durdum durdum durdum durdum.

‘So,’ Mum says, a forced cheerfulness in her tone, ‘how about a song? John – you’re always good at this. What’ll it be? “Baa-Baa Black
Sheep”?’

‘Well,’ John says, ‘personally I’ve always thought you couldn’t beat the classic “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”.’

‘“Twinkle, Twinkle” it is. Come on, Addy. This is one of your favourites.’ Mum flings her arms upwards as her voice rises dangerously high. She is so desperate for
everything to be okay. ‘It’s such a gorgeous day and it’s so wonderful to be away from that bloody city.’

I’m texting Poppy (
In car with Mum. She’s singing. HELP!
) when John suddenly slams on the brakes. A car is parked diagonally across the road. My heart thuds its
uneven beat. A sixth sense tells me that something isn’t right. The car’s bonnet sparkles in the sunlight flashing through the trees that grow thick and heavy along this stretch of
road. The two motorcycles flanking us drive ahead to investigate, while John waits.

‘John?’ Mum asks, a hint of anxiety in her voice.

‘It’s all right, Mrs Knollys-Green. Probably just a broken-down vehicle. We’ll be on our way again any minute—’

He is cut off as the car in front of us explodes in vicious heat and searing light. The road beyond it disappears and trees, dirt and tarmac are flung upwards in a
whoomph
. The once-blue
sky on the horizon is obliterated by a swirling mass of smoke that’s thrown over everything like a sudden darkness. The surrounding colour shines brighter. The greenest green of the trees
lining the road, the stark blackness of a bird’s wing as the creature soars into the air, terrified by the noise. I imagine I can see a tear in the world: the point on this side of the car,
where we are alive and safe, and the point beyond where the nightmare begins, and then even that is gone, swallowed up by crackling flames.

Mum turns around in her seat, tugging at her seatbelt so she can rest her hand against Addy’s knee. Tears are pouring down Addy’s face. Mum’s mouth moves, but I can’t
hear the words. There’s something wrong with my ears, like someone turned on a tap in my head and all I can hear is gushing water. My phone has slipped out of my hand and is lying in the
footwell. I vaguely think about picking it up, but my body won’t cooperate.

John is speaking and I read his lips. ‘Just . . . fine.’ He smiles, his face opening up like a flower, and Addy seems to calm down.

They are all looking at me and I am nodding as if I am fine too. Can’t they hear the water? I tilt my head to try to dislodge the sound. The trees by the side of the road somersault and
bile rises in my throat. I level my head again and peer through the dark smog engulfing our car. The two motorcycle escorts have been flung from their bikes. One has pulled himself to standing and
is limping as he drags his leg out from under the bike, but otherwise he looks okay. The other man is lying motionless, his body crumpled at an awkward angle and his head concealed by the rising
banks of the ditch at the side of the road. John is talking into his radio. Somewhere on the other end, a team of experts are planning our next move, calling in the army and trying to calculate the
safest option while we wait for them. We have two options: stay here, where we are sitting ducks, or risk running into an ambush by going back the way we’ve come.

A treeful of frightened birds soars up through the dirty air beside the car. I wonder what new noise has disturbed them. I still can’t hear anything above the rushing in my ears. But John
suddenly throws the car’s gear stick into reverse. At the same moment my ears come unstuck. The water gurgles and disappears. Noise fills my eardrums again. Addy is screaming and, somewhere
off in the woods, there is the sound of gunfire.

My neck snaps back as John executes a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn at what feels like ninety miles an hour. Addy continues to yell. ‘It’s okay, darling. It’s okay,’
Mum says, but Addy probably can’t hear her over the sound of her own wailing.

Trees, hedgerows and ditches blur past us as the car eats up the road. My seatbelt holds me fast. I tug on it sharply, only succeeding in pulling the bonds more securely around me. Addy is
almost choking with sobs now and her eyes are wide and terrified. Mum is trying to turn around, but the movement of the car keeps slamming her against the leather seat while my belt is still trying
to suffocate me. Screw it. With a click, I release the lock and slide over to my sister, wrapping my arms around her trembling body. She wiggles into me, her little hand knotting in my T-shirt, but
her cries ease. Although, I realise that taking my belt off may not have been the smartest idea as the car hits another bump in the road and my head bashes into the roof.

‘Robyn!’ Mum yells. ‘Put your belt on.’

John takes the corner sharply and I am flung forwards. Mum cries out again. With an effort, I launch myself towards my seat, while still trying to keep hold of Addy’s hand. But the car is
moving too fast and I need both my hands to stop myself from flying into the front seat. I end up sliding down into the well behind John. As I pull myself up again and fasten my seatbelt, I catch a
glimpse out of the back window of a white van trailing us.

I don’t have time to think anything of it because the next bend in the road is acute and John misses it. The tyres slide as he turns the steering-wheel sharply to try and regain control.
It’s not enough. The car bounces, hits a crease in the road, and sky becomes earth becomes sky becomes earth as we spin over and over.

My head bangs against the window, and as I’m jolted away again, I lay my arm flat against Addy’s chest. The car flips once more and slams into a tree. Mum screams once and then
everything is silence.

I am aware of sound – the thin rhythmic drops of water from leaves, the rustling of a bird’s feathers in the undergrowth, the whoosh of steam rising from the
crushed bonnet of the car, the thick, wet glug of petrol thudding on tarmac. I open my eyes. The car is not upside down as I’d thought, and the world is the right way up. ‘Byn,’
whispers a voice that is barely a voice. Addy is staring at me from the prison of her car seat. ‘Byn?’ she says again, her face its own question.

I muster up a smile. ‘Hey, munchkin.’

There’s a soft gurgle from the front passenger seat. ‘Mum?’ The gurgle gets louder. I stretch forward as far as my still-fastened seatbelt will allow. The back of the
driver’s seat is sticky. I know that if I look down at my knees, they will be red with blood, so I don’t look. It’s not mine.

‘Mum?’ I unfasten my seatbelt and peer around at her. Her face is a white smudge against the leather seat, but she smiles weakly. ‘Is John . . . ?’ I ask. I can’t
look.

‘No . . . I think he’s breathing. Just.’

‘I’m going to get help.’

Mum shakes her head.

‘I’m fine. I can get out. I’ll stand further up the road. Make sure they know where to find us. It’s going to be all right.’ I reach down into the footwell and
fumble around to retrieve my phone.

I’m sure my head has swelled to twice its normal size, but otherwise I mostly feel okay. I try to open the door, but it won’t move. I push harder and harder, until it gives suddenly
and I fall out, hands and knees smacking the ground. A shadow falls over me. I look up and scream. A man – the figure is too big for a woman – is standing above me. Some sort of black
ski mask covers his entire face except for his eyes and mouth. He tugs me upright. I let myself get my balance and then swivel sharply, right and left, because a moving target is harder to hold on
to. I’m remembering my self-defence training, but it’s more than that, like some sort of instinct that I didn’t know I had is kicking in. He still has a firm grip on my arm.

‘BACK OFF!’ I scream right into his face and at the same time I slam my knee between his legs. I hear a groan and he finally lets go.

Then I begin to run, trying to put enough distance between us while fumbling to call for help on my phone. The man is on me again too quickly, though. He swipes the phone from my hand, and it
lands with a loud crack on the pavement. I have no time to dodge his next attack and he clamps me to his chest with arms as broad and solid as an oak door. The stench of sweat fills my nostrils. It
is not fresh. This is sweat that has been sweated and dried, sweated and dried again with no thought of a shower. At least a few days’ worth. I think of the various products in Mum’s
cabinet, like soldiers waiting for action, and try to conjure up the smell of camomile bath salts, lemon talcum powder, lavender hand soap.

It doesn’t work. I draw a deep breath. Sweat. Days-old sweat.

I wriggle and squirm, but it does no good.

‘Calm down, Princess. We just want to talk, somewhere more private, like.’ He nods his head in the direction of the white van, parked up on the other side of the road. Something
sharp presses into the base of my spine, piercing my thin T-shirt. ‘Now move or I’ll cut you. Scream and I’ll cut you.’ Another prick of the blade.

He walks me down the road, and I remember something that Gordon, Dad’s head of security, once said. He was talking about the time he’d spent in Colombia where the threat of kidnap is
high.
‘You have a sixty-five percent chance of getting away in the first five minutes of being taken. Once you are in a vehicle, your chance of escape drops to thirty-five per cent. Kick,
scream, bite. Use the weapons you have. Do not let them get you into a vehicle.’

John has radioed for help. The entire British army should be on its way any second. I just have to hold out a little longer.

I kick.

I scream.

I bite.

His grip loosens. It’s enough. I jam my elbow hard into the space between his ribs. He lets out an ‘
Umph
’ and I surge forward. He snatches for me, not managing to get a
hold of me, but it’s enough to knock me off balance. A pair of arms comes out of nowhere and catches me before my face can connect with the cold hard pavement. I’m pinned to the ground
and someone leans over me. Someone new, someone who seems to have come out of nowhere. I can see his eyes through his mask. They are bright green, like light hitting deep water. His mouth moves
through a word that I can barely believe is ‘Sorry’ as he lifts a strong-smelling cloth to my face. The harsh chemical is a whoosh in my lungs; black moths cloud my vision and
consciousness recedes into darkness.

Addy is grizzly. She’s lying on the sofa at our flat in Downing Street, covered in chicken pox. Mum is sat beside her, holding both of her hands in an attempt to stop
her scratching.

‘We’re not going, are we?’ I say, leaning against the doorframe.

Mum’s eyes are dark pips in a white face. ‘Oh, darling. I’m sorry. I just can’t leave her like this. We’ll go later in the year. It has been a terrible January
there anyway. They’ve had snow like you wouldn’t believe. Maybe during summer recess . . . We could try again then. If your father ever takes any time off, we could maybe
go—’ Addy whimpers, trying to tug her hands from Mum’s. ‘You mustn’t scratch, darling,’ Mum says gently. Addy pulls harder, letting out a thin whine, her rosebud
mouth puckering into a sulk. ‘Shh.’ Mum peels a sticky feather-like strand of hair off my sister’s forehead.

I push myself off the doorframe and head down the corridor. ‘Don’t be too disappointed, sweetheart,’ Mum calls after me.

I wave vaguely over my shoulder.

The kitchen is dark, the winter sun barely piercing the cloud cover. I don’t bother turning on the light. Instead, I flick on the TV. Its screen casts a sallow glow over the room.
Outside, the sky is grey. It’s snowing in Paris. Poppy and I checked the weather report this morning. I was trying to get her to look at these amazing photos that Henri Cartier-Bresson took
of the city, but she was totally uninterested. She mainly wanted to know if I was taking my new T-shirt to Paris and if I wasn’t, could she borrow it. I refused to answer her question until
she looked at three of the photos. There is one in particular, taken in black-and-white from one of the viewing platforms on the Eiffel Tower, that looks like a spider or some other huge insect is
crawling up the side of the building. It is incredible but Poppy just asked why it wasn’t in colour. I called her an ignoramus and said I was reconsidering our friendship. She stuck her
tongue out at me.

‘Are you ready to go?’ Dad asks. He’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

‘We’re not going.’

‘Says who?’

‘Mum, because Addy—’

‘Is sick, yes, but you’re not. So, my darling daughter, how do you fancy three days in Paris with your old man?’

The sound of my heart is loud in my ears as I rise up through the layers of unconsciousness. My eyelids flicker – bright white light – red inside my eyelids –
bright white walls – red inside my eyelids. I force my eyes open and will them to stay that way. I am lying on my back in a small, cold room. My mouth is gagged and my arms have been pulled
up over my head and secured to a metal headboard behind me. Where am I? Why am I . . .? The memories rush in like a tidal wave. Trees, dirt and road flying upwards in a catastrophe of noise . . .
Mum. Addy!