Captive (8 page)

I sit back down and rest my legs on the arm of Dad’s chair. He rubs my toes absent-mindedly, like he used to when I was a kid.

‘You stink,’ Feather says. ‘You have to take a bath.’

After making sure I ate my sandwich, she left me to rest a bit. I actually fell asleep, amazingly, and I do feel better now. But I still have a fragile tight-skinned feeling, like even the
sheets on the bed might bruise me. I’m hoping the sickness was just tiredness, or fear. I don’t want them to be drugging me.

After taking me back to the bathroom, Feather lets the taps run in the bath. They don’t bother to blindfold me on trips to the bathroom now. The tub is stained, making the water turn
mustard-yellow. The thought of sitting in it is not appealing, even if I do smell. My disgust must show on my face because Feather asks me acidly whether I’d like the butler to clean it
first.

After she’s gone – ‘Don’t take too long. The make-up assistants are waiting . . .’ – I stare at the water spluttering from the tap, imagining taking off my
filthy, stinking clothes and sliding down under it, working the soap up into a lather and drawing it up over my arms. I could even wash the grease and blood out of my hair. And on the toilet seat
is a pile of clean clothes. A T-shirt, underwear, a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a navy blue hoodie. They look warm and comfortable. I desperately want to be clean – and yet something stops
me. I am too afraid to take my clothes off and sit in that bathtub. Not because of the stupid yellow water, but because what if someone came in and saw me naked? What if Scar . . .? I know what was
in his mind when he came to my cell alone, and the thought of what he could have done makes my stomach fist.

But I am afraid of what Feather will do to me if I don’t bathe. She held my head under water when I passed out. I can’t imagine her having any qualms about holding the rest of me
under when I am conscious.

The bath is a quarter full now, so I turn off the tap.
Come on, Robyn. Just do it quickly. Clothes off. In. Dunk. Wash. Out. Clean clothes on.

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

What if I didn’t have to take my clothes off? Could I do it then? Feather would hear the water swishing and I would be a little cleaner when I came out. Before I can analyze this too much,
I step fully clothed into the tub. When I sit, my skirt balloons up around me and my BETWEEN YOU AND ME T-shirt becomes see-through with the water. But at least I am not naked.

I dunk my head, then grab the soap and lather it over my scalp. I wash quickly, pulling my clothes away from my skin. When I’m done, I clamber out, fabric sticking to me. Feather has
already started banging on the door and telling me to hurry the hell up. At the sound of her voice, my hands start shaking and it is an effort to wrap the towel around me. I remember something the
therapist I saw after the shooting in Paris said about breathing from the belly to calm anxiety, so I try it now: sticking my belly out and imagining tugging the oxygen right down into my lungs. In
my mind, I go over all the things I know about these people: Scar’s slashed fingers, Talon’s green eyes, Feather’s dark ones and how she is so small. And the most important thing:
the reason I am here is because Feather wants her brother, Kyle Jefferies, freed. That means I know her surname as well. Next I remember the layout upstairs and how many steps it is from my cell to
the bottom of the staircase. These are all things I can use, if not now, then later. They will either help me escape or they will help the police catch these people.

My hands have stopped shaking. I work my way out of my own clothes and into the new ones. Feather bangs on the door as I am pulling the hoodie over my head.

I am staring dumbly at the red light of a video camera. My cell has been made into a makeshift studio, with a blackout curtain pinned to the window and a lamp angled on my
face. On the floor in front of the bed is a sheet of paper with the words I am supposed to have memorised. I can’t remember a single one, even though I have spent a long time looking at them.
My brain is in panic mode, where it just keeps saying ‘Remember this, remember this’ over and over again, until the words are blurring on the page and adrenaline is surging through me,
making my chest hot. I’m getting a tension headache too and the sick feeling is back. Never mind remembering the words on this page. There’s a very real possibility I will throw up all
over them.

All three of my kidnappers are here: Talon and Feather by the door, Scar working the camera, his hulking frame bent almost double to be at the same height as the tripod. It is the first time I
have seen him since I tried to escape. His eyes still slither over me and I sense his excitement as he flicks his slimy tongue across his lower lip. There is something else beyond desire in his
look now. Anger? No. It is more like resentment; the others don’t trust him to guard me any more. Neither do I. It could be the one thing the three of us agree on.

‘What’s the matter, Princess?’ he scoffs. ‘Can’t read?’

‘We’re waiting, Robyn,’ Feather says. She and Talon are standing close together. I wonder how he can stand being so near her.

‘I . . . I can’t remember all the words.’

Feather mutters a series of obscenities at me and about me.

‘It’s a long speech,’ Talon interrupts. ‘Give her time.’

‘Marble doesn’t have time.’

‘We’ve time,’ Talon says quietly, touching her arm. A look of understanding passes between them, and Feather’s fingers flex and relax.

After retrieving the sheet of paper from the floor and holding it out to me, Talon tells me to divide it into sections. ‘We’ll film a bit at a time.’

‘Won’t work. It’ll look like shit,’ Feather says.

He persuades her to just give it a go. ‘Read the first few paragraphs over to yourself, Robyn, and then we’ll record them,’ Talon says.

I look at the paper, letting my hair fall in front of my face, like it might protect me from them.

Hi, Dad,
I read to myself.
I’m safe, but I’m scared and I want to come home, even though they’re treating me well. My kidnappers want to make it clear that they are
not terrorists. They just believe that this sort of decisive action is the only way to bring public attention to their cause.
The next few paragraphs are about corporate greed and
Bell-Barkov’s drug-testing programme. All the stuff that Feather was talking to me about earlier. I read the page over three more times.

Feather is pacing the cell, her fingers beating a rhythm on the wall; Scar sticks his finger in his nose and rummages around, and Talon waits quietly. ‘Ready?’ he finally asks. His
voice is kind. His eyes are gentle; it’s as if he really wants me to succeed.

I skim the paragraphs again, and then nod. After smearing the contents of his nose on the wall under the window, Scar grins and presses RECORD. The red light blinks at me again. My mind goes
blank. I get as far as the second sentence and falter.

Feather smacks her fist into her palm. The snapping sound makes my stomach turn over.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’ll try harder. “Hi, Dad. I’m safe, but—”’

‘She needs to do it in her own words,’ Talon says.

Feather silences him with a wave of her hand. ‘No. She’ll get it muddled. We need to clearly state what we want. The
trouble is that she doesn’t have enough at stake. We have treated her too well. She thinks we aren’t serious. Scar, show the clip.’

Scar pulls his phone out of his pocket and shoves it in my face as Talon drops his head, as though ashamed. For a second or two, the camera screen is grainy and there are blurred shapes that
slowly resolve themselves into people and then what I recognize as press photographers and journalists. The image bounces and then refocuses on a sign for the London Clinic. The camera moves down
and shows Mum, Dad and Addy, emerging from the glass double-fronted doors. Mum’s arm is in a sling and Addy is clutching at her, little fingers wrapped in her skirt. Her toy lamb is caught
tight in her other arm. Dad acknowledges the press with a brief nod of his head and then leads Mum and my sister to the waiting car. The image tightens, cropping off Mum and Dad, to concentrate on
Addy. My heart clenches at the sight of her large scared eyes. There is a bloody scratch just above her right eye. Suddenly she turns her head. Caught dead centre in the shot, she seems to be
staring right into the camera, but of course she can’t be, because she has no idea that she is being watched. Being stalked.

I lunge at Feather, fists flying and legs kicking. I want to hurt her, knock her to the floor and punch her again and again and again until she knows what it’s like to be in pain, to be
sick and hungry and lonely and tired and more scared than you ever thought possible. She goes down easily and I manage to land a few feeble smacks to her face and arms before Talon drags me off
her. The rage is in me, though, and I am a wild animal, biting and scratching and howling. My hands become claws that tear at his face; my teeth fangs that sink into any bare skin I find.
You
will not hurt my sister. You. Will. Not!

Scar joins in the fight. I elbow him in the nose and then I bite his disgusting scarred finger so deep the tang of blood fills my mouth. He slaps me on the side of the head, making the world
somersault. After fumbling at his waist, he draws a knife from his belt—

There’s a yell from behind us and we all turn to Feather, who is pointing her gun right at us. ‘Enough!’ she says. ‘Stand up. All of you . . . Robyn, your little sister is cute. I imagine she would be terrified if someone were to grab her and bundle her into the back of a van. Read the speech again
now. Read it and memorise it. You have half an hour, else . . .’ She snatches the phone from my hand and clicks it off. Addy is swallowed up in darkness.

“On the twenty-eighth of January of this year, Kyle Jefferies – known to his friends as Marble – was forced from his house at gunpoint by six police officers
for allegedly shooting you, Dad. Since then he has been remanded in custody, and refused bail. If he is convicted, he could face life in prison. But he’s innocent! It was all a set-up. You
have to let him go. My kidnappers are willing to make a deal with you. They will release me when you release Marble. Please, Dad, release Marble so I can come home . . .”’ I stumble to
a halt. I am shaking with fear. I can’t remember the rest of the speech. An image of Addy being dragged screaming from her bed in the middle of the night or snatched on the street flashes
through my mind and I beg Feather to give me a minute to sort myself out before I finish the recording.

I suck in the stale air of my cell and force the vision of Addy out of my head. At the moment she is at home with Dad and Mum, playing with her toys, stroke-slapping my poor cat and probably
bossing everyone around as usual. She’s safe. Now it’s up to me to make sure she stays that way.

I don’t want Kyle Jefferies released from prison. He is a terrorist. He deserves to be locked up, so that he can never hurt anyone again. But right at this second, it isn’t his
freedom I’m asking for. It’s mine. Dad will know I don’t mean what I’m saying, and if he doesn’t, because he is too panicked at the thought of what these arseholes
might be doing to me, then his team of advisors will tell him. The Special Ops police force and MI5 will already be looking for me. It won’t take them long to find me. I just need to hang on
and to stop these people going after my sister until then. Dad often says that the end justifies the means.
Sometimes, Bobs, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to get something done. Use
any weapons available to you.
And the weapons at my disposal right now are my kidnappers’ own words. I will use them to set myself free and keep my sister safe.

And I make a pact with myself. I am going to survive this. One day I am going to walk free from here and I am going to see my sister and my parents again. I will do whatever it takes.

The camera light is still flashing. I look deep into its eye and I speak for Addy and for Mum and for Dad. This time my words are clear and I don’t falter. I am speaking Feather’s
sentences but with my eyes, my lips, my tears, I am saying,
I love you, Addy. I love you, Dad and Mum. I am alive and I am coming home.

I do the whole speech in one take and when I look down, I realise that my hands are no longer shaking. I finish with, ‘“The date is the thirteenth of April and actor Maria Cartwright
died today, aged eighty-three.”’

Feather tells me that the last sentence is to authenticate the tape. It is to mark the date and prove that I’m still alive.

‘Good,’ Feather says when I’m done. ‘The tears are a nice touch. Now I believe you want to go home. Now I believe you want to save your sister.’

Scar dismantles the video equipment. I watch him from my crouched position on the bed. Have I done enough? Is Addy safe?

By the door, Talon and Feather talk in low whispers. Talon says something about there being no mention of Jez. Feather doesn’t answer immediately. Instead she scoops up a cable at her
feet, unplugs it from the wall and begins looping it around her forearm. ‘Marble is our priority for the moment,’ she says.

‘But Jez is dead.’

‘Exactly! Nothing can hurt him right now, but Marble is in prison! How the hell do you think he’s coping with that? You know how fragile he is. As soon as we know that he’s
going to be released without charge, we’ll shift focus to Jez. You’ll get your revenge, don’t worry.’

‘I don’t care about revenge. I care about the truth,’ he snaps. After a pause, he says, ‘Robyn must be thirsty. I’ll get her a drink.’

‘Enjoying his role as nursery maid, that one,’ Scar snarls when he’s gone.

Something about Scar’s comment must register with Feather, because she looks at me, a calculating expression on her face.

I shift uneasily. ‘Will . . . is Addy going to be okay?’

‘We’ll just have to wait for the critics’ verdict on your little performance, won’t we?’ Feather replies, but she is only half listening and her eyes have drifted
to the door Talon just walked through.