The error message again. One attempt left.
What the fuck?
He checked the code again. Then entered it again, checking each digit in turn. Please God . . .
To his immense relief it clicked open. He pushed it, walked through and it swung closed behind him with a loud clang. Then he ran again, along the row of lock-up units, with roll-up door after roll-up door, until he reached number 257, a small unit, measuring just eight foot by six foot.
There was a combination padlock on the door and, glancing at his watch, he saw he now had under four minutes. His brain seized up and he could not think clearly. What the hell was the combination? For several precious seconds it eluded him. Somewhere close by a flash of light followed by a series of explosions in the air ripped the silence.
He was panic-stricken. He’d deliberately set up this code with a memorable number but his mind was blank. What had he used? Then he remembered, Freya’s birthday. Seconds later, to his immense relief it unlocked.
Leaning down, he tugged the handle of the door and hauled it up. Then he tapped the torch app on his phone and shone it at the interior. There were just a few items in here, large objects they had bought on a whim at car boot sales in recent years but had no room for in their current house – their dream was one day to buy a larger place in the countryside. Among the items was a red and green Victorian clothes mangle, a tailor’s headless mannequin, an oak wine barrel and a vintage grocer’s bicycle with a basket. In the far corner stood a small rectangular package, the Fragonard painting, bound first in protective bubble wrap, with an outer layer of carboard taped around it.
God, so much of their future lay with this painting. Was there anything he could do? Anything at all? He tried to think clearly. The American’s threat re. Tom. Really? Was it a bluff?
It wasn’t a bluff.
No amount of money was worth risking his life, and God knows what these monsters would do if he tried anything. Nothing was worth the risk.
He picked the painting up, and it felt almost lighter than air. Hurrying out of the unit, he pulled the door down, securing it with the code, then ran back. After negotiating the outer gate, he raced to his car. As he opened the boot, the American said, ‘Nice work, Mr Kipling, you still have forty-five seconds to spare.’
‘Good,’ he panted. ‘Phone your mate back at my house and tell him to give Tom the meds.’
‘I’m real sorry, Mr Kipling. That’s not going to happen until we get back to your house and I have the original Fragonard in my hands. I need to check that package properly. So my advice is we should get going. The clock’s ticking.’
Harry laid the picture flat and slammed the boot shut. He flashed back, momentarily, to that late September day when they’d taken this picture to the Antiques Roadshow, and security guards had escorted them back to this vehicle. When he and Freya had been so full of excitement, of hope and of almost disbelief. The kind of feeling, he thought, a lottery winner must experience when checking the numbers and realizing they were a match.
And now these bastards were taking all that from him. And he couldn’t do a damned thing about it.
Or could he?
As he drove back towards Brighton, in silence, he was still trying to think of something he could do. The occasional wild thought snaked into his mind. And every street light they passed lit up the menace of the two masked faces behind him in his mirror.
He glanced at the car clock: 8.42. They’d be home in ten minutes.
Still he kept thinking.
And still he came up with nothing. Nothing but anger at himself for being so helpless.
87
Tuesday, 5 November
It was approaching 9 p.m. when Harry drove the Volvo onto the driveway of his house. The American took possession of the painting and the three of them walked up to the front door.
‘You have what you want,’ Harry said. ‘Will you now leave us alone and let me give our son his meds?’ He held out his hand for the injector kit.
Kilgore replied, ‘First we open the package. I don’t want to be taken for a fool, Mr Kipling.’
As they entered the house, Harry heard the sound of a football game. He rushed through to the lounge and to his relief he saw that Tom was still conscious, but still looking woozy. There was only a faint expression of recognition in his face. Freya seemed OK, but he could see the terror in her eyes. Their guard was holding the TV remote and watching the game.
‘Can you get me a knife?’ Kilgore, still holding the package, asked Harry. Then, irked, he turned to the heavy with the remote. ‘Turn that goddamn thing off.’
‘Boss, it’s a big game—’
‘Goddamn turn it off!’
He turned it off.
Harry gave Freya a nervous, reassuring smile, hurried to the kitchen and returned with a small serrated knife which he handed to the American. Then he watched as the man cut away the tape securing the cardboard, followed by the bubble wrap. There was no excitement in his actions, no sense of a child tearing open Christmas wrapping; just something coldly forensic about him.
Lifting the framed painting clear, Kilgore held it up to the light and examined it carefully, then turned it over and studied the canvas back. Finally, he turned to Harry. ‘This is the painting you bought at a car boot sale, is that right?’
‘It is,’ he replied. ‘Well, just to be clear, it wasn’t this painting that I actually thought I was buying. I bought a painting with a hideous old lady’s face on it, because I liked the frame, not the painting itself. We later discovered this one was underneath. As you can see, it’s the same original frame as you must have seen on the Antiques Roadshow.’
Kilgore handed the painting to the heavy who’d accompanied them on the journey, picked up Freya’s phone from the coffee table, tapped in the code, then tapped the app and held it to the disc on Tom’s arm. Then he showed the readout to Freya and Harry.
2. The arrow was still pointing down.
Harry saw only one doughnut had been eaten.
Kilgore dug his hand in his pocket, pulled out the injector kit and put it down on the coffee table, alongside the phones and doughnuts.
‘Guess you folk had better give this lad a pretty big dose after we’ve gone. I wouldn’t leave it for too long, if you know what I’m saying.’
Before Harry could react, he felt his arms seized and pulled behind him. An instant later, grey gaffer tape was being wound around him, pinning his arms back. Then he was forced down onto the same chair as before and taped to it.
‘At least give our son a bite of another doughnut.’
He watched the American lift Daniel Hegarty’s copy of the Fragonard off the wall. Kilgore turned to him. ‘You won’t mind if I take this too?’
‘Like I have a choice?’
Harry saw the serpent smile through the slit in the balaclava. ‘We all have choices in life all the time, Mr Kipling. But choices come with consequences. My employer, as I said, made you a very generous offer of fifty thousand pounds, and your choice was to reject it. Now you have the consequence.’ He paused. ‘It shouldn’t take you too long to free yourself from your bindings. Fifteen or twenty minutes. Tom should still be alive then, and we’ll be long gone. Enjoy the rest of your evening.’
An instant later, before he could respond, a strip of gaffer tape was pulled tight across Harry’s mouth.
The three men left the room. As he stared at Freya, he heard the click of the front door closing. Then he looked at Tom. He tried to stand but the heavy chair he was taped to dragged him back down. He frantically signalled to Tom, who was barely focusing.