Jessica gaped at the figure of her ex-husband. He was barely recognisable. His clothes were dirty and unkempt. He’d gained a huge amount of weight since she’d last seen him, that day in court when the restraining order had been put in place.
Shocked disbelief was quickly turning to rage. ‘Have you gone out of your mind?’ she screamed at him.
‘What do you want, Drew?’ Mike asked, his voice low and steady.
‘I’ve come for Carl,’ Drew replied.
Jessica drew a stunned breath. ‘What do you mean, you’ve come for Carl?’
‘You heard me,’ Drew said. ‘I’ve come to fetch him.’
‘Have you been drinking? Are you completely insane? You can’t come here like this. You can’t come anywhere near Carl. The restraining order, remember?’
‘Dad!’ It was Carl. He was standing rigidly at the top of the stairs. Gripping the banister rail.
‘Come down, son,’ Drew said. ‘I’m taking you away from this place.’
‘Go back to your room, Carl!’ Jessica shouted in a panicky quaver. ‘You hear me? Right now!’
Carl hesitated. Then started making his way anxiously down the stairs. Drew nodded to him. He gave a twisted kind of smile through his messy beard.
‘Carl! Jessica yelled. ‘What did I just tell you?’
The boy glanced at her, then at Mike, then back at his father. He paused nervously on the stairs.
‘You’re upset, Drew,’ Mike said, moving warily towards him. ‘We understand how much it’s hurt you that you couldn’t see Carl any more. But maybe it doesn’t have to be forever. Let’s talk it through like civilized people. Maybe we can come to an agreement.’
‘Agreement,’ Drew snorted in disgust. ‘Like hell we will. Like I’d make an agreement with you.’
‘You’re frightening the boy,’ Mike said. ‘Don’t you care about that, Drew? About his feelings?’ He took another step forward.
‘Don’t you come any closer,’ Drew warned. From the pocket of his jeans, he pulled a gun. It was a small semi-automatic pistol, black, ugly and purposeful, and its stubby barrel was pointing at Mike’s chest. Jessica let out a cry.
‘One more step,’ Drew said to Mike. ‘I’ll blow a hole right through you. I mean it.’
Mike went very still. His gaze fixed on the muzzle of the small pistol in Drew’s hand. It was trembling slightly. Drew was sweating and his breathing was rapid and ragged, clearly teetering on the verge of panic. Mike was very afraid of what might happen if he tipped over that edge.
‘Come here, Carl,’ Drew said, holding out his free hand. The boy paused, then slowly descended the rest of the stairs. ‘Dad—’ he murmured. Drew grasped him by the arm and held him close. Whispered something in his ear. The boy looked up at him.
‘Let him go!’ Jessica screamed. ‘Drew! Please! Why are you doing this?’
Drew wagged the barrel of the gun down the passage that led past the stairs. The door on the right led down to the cellar. It was an old door, solid oak. The ring of a large iron key protruded from the lock. ‘The two of you,’ Drew said. ‘Get in there.’
‘You don’t want to do this,’ Mike said as Drew herded them towards the cellar. ‘You know what’s going to happen. Drop the gun. I said, drop the gun, Drew.’ He spoke softly, calmly.
Drew blinked. He clasped the boy even more tightly to his side. ‘Don’t talk to me. Don’t look at me. Get in there now! You first, you piece of shit. I’m not joking. You get in there now or I’ll shoot you. I mean it. I will.’
‘I’m begging you, Drew…’ Jessica sobbed.
‘Open the door.’
Mike turned the key with a sigh. The lock clunked. The door creaked open. Cool, slightly dank air wafted up from the dark space below. He reached slowly up to the light switch and turned it on to reveal the flight of concrete steps leading down to the cellar. There were packing cases and boxes, an old table, stacked chairs. Against one rough whitewashed wall leaned the two bikes that Drew and Jessica had once enjoyed cycling around the island on. Happier times. Now they were gone.
Jessica was frantically weeping as she and Mike descended the cellar steps. Drew watched them from the doorway, still pointing the gun, his arm around Carl’s shoulders.
‘Mummy loves you, Carl,’ Jessica sobbed. ‘You hear me? Mummy loves you!’
‘You harm him,’ Mike warned Drew, ‘and I swear you’ll pay dearly for it.’
Drew made no reply. He slammed the cellar door, shutting off the anguished cry from Jessica. He turned the lock. Left the key in place, sideways so that it couldn’t be pushed through from inside. There were wire coat hangers and all kinds of things in the cellar that could be used to pick the lock.
‘Dad—’ Carl said in a shaky voice.
Drew slipped the gun back into his pocket. He squeezed his boy’s arm tightly. ‘Let’s get your things, Carl. We’re leaving.’
‘Where are we going?’ the boy asked, staring up at him. He could remember all the times in the past when his father had been drunk, sometimes hopelessly inebriated, incoherent, reeking of booze, hardly able to stand. A miserable, heartbreaking sight that Carl had almost become used to.
But not now. Now he could see his father was completely sober.
‘I have it all planned,’ Drew said. ‘Everything.’
2
Ben Hope stepped out of the rented Ford Mondeo and looked up at the house. The warm sea breeze ruffled his thick blond hair, which he wore a little longer now that he’d been out of the military for almost a year. In the background, he could hear the waves crashing against the rocks. It was a sound that made him think of home.
The house looked just the way it had on the TV news, big and expensive. Not for the first time since he’d got the call, he wondered what would make a well-known, comfortably-off professional photographer decide to break into his former home, hold up his ex-wife and her new man at gunpoint and kidnap his own twelve-year-old son. Ben was keeping an open mind.
He took out his cigarettes, the blue pack of French Gauloises that he was smoking these days. He lit one from the fat orange flame of his Zippo, shielding it from the wind. Clanged the lighter shut, dropped the warm metal in the pocket of his leather jacket and started walking up the winding path between crisp expanses of manicured lawn towards the house.
The last desultory-looking stragglers left over from the army of media who’d been besieging the place since the news had broken two weeks ago were wrapping up their gear to go home. One of them, a wiry guy in a baseball cap and a Velvet Revolver T-shirt, was trying to ignite a cigarette with a match but getting nowhere in the wind. ‘Got a light, mate?’ he asked, seeing Ben’s Gauloise. Ben paused, fished out the Zippo and helped him out.
‘So, you a relative of the Hunters, then?’ the guy asked eagerly, puffing smoke. ‘Friend of the family, maybe? Care to make any comments?’
Ben just looked at him. He could see from the hungry glow in his eyes that he was desperate to milk a few more drops out of the two-week-old story that had already started fading from the news.
‘Or are you with the cops?’ the guy added hopefully. ‘Come on, give us something.’
Ben shook his head. ‘I’m just here to clean the swimming pool,’ he said. He walked on. From behind him he heard one of them say, ‘But they don’t have a swimming pool, do they?’ By then Ben was already climbing the steps to the front door. He flicked away the part-smoked Gauloise and rang the bell twice.
The woman who answered the door was tall, about five-nine, with long chestnut hair. Ben recognised her as Jessica Hunter. He knew she was only thirty-five, but the strain of the last two weeks had made her look older than her years, haggard with worry.