Snatched From Home: What Would You Do To Save Your Children? (DI Harry Evans Book 1) (2 page)

The van reversed up to the house, Samantha and Kyle were herded through the door, upstairs and into a bedroom. The door slammed behind them. On the floor was a dirty mattress and TV with a games console.

Seeing Kyle in floods of tears, Samantha wrapped her arms around him and fought back her own sobs. She would do her crying later, when Kyle was asleep. Just now he needed her to be strong. In a soft voice she consoled him until sobs became sniffles and sniffles became snores.

The nine years that separated them meant they were closer than many siblings with less of an age gap. Kyle had been her walking, talking doll, her half-size shadow. Their bond was concrete and when terrors assaulted his dreams, it was Samantha whose comfort he sought, not their parents.

Slipping his embrace, she pulled the thin sheet over him and set about inspecting the room for ways to escape. The door was solid wood and was as old as the house in which they were kept. It was closed tight and as they’d been led into the room by Obama and Blair she had seen sturdy bolts fixed top and bottom. There was no way they’d get through the door without alerting their captors. The bedroom walls were coated with a dirty off-white paint. The lone window had been bricked up in a haphazard fashion. The ceiling was at least ten feet high, preventing her from finding a way into the attic.

A second door led to a tiny, windowless bathroom. She climbed on the toilet and looked out through the grill of the ventilator fan. Through the narrow opening she could see starlight. There were no landmarks visible. No defining characteristics to be seen; only the dark shapes of hills outlined against the starry sky.

She had tried to count time in her head while in the back of the van. Her calculations were not exact, but she was confident the van had not been driven for more than an hour. That meant they would still be somewhere in Cumbria. Judging from the number of sharp turns and potholes the van had encountered she reckoned that they were in a rural area, probably somewhere remote. The guessed knowledge of their location gave her no comfort whatsoever, but at least she’d know what to expect if they got a chance to escape.

Samantha had expected to be looking after Kyle this week, as neither of her parents had been able to get time off work. She just hadn’t expected to be looking after him in these circumstances. In silence with head bowed and hands clasped, she vowed to do whatever she could to protect her little brother.

*    *    *

Downstairs the four kidnappers were sitting around a table littered with beer cans, takeaway containers and overflowing ashtrays. The leader of the gang – Thomas Marshall, who had worn the Elvis mask – was arguing with the men who had worn the Obama and Hannibal masks.

‘I know you didn’t sign up for kidnapping but it wasn’t my decision to make. I only got the message a couple of days ago meself.’

Len Williams threw his Obama mask onto the table before giving his opinion. ‘It was bad enough when I thought we were gonna be kidnapping the wife. Whose idea was it to take the kids?’

‘Shut the fuck up and remember who we’re working for. If he says jump, we ask how high.’

Billy Alker put his beer can down beside the Blair mask he’d worn and reached for his cigarettes, ignoring the others as they argued back and forth. His thoughts were on finding a way to get some time alone with the girl. Since they’d moved up here last month there had been no female contact whatsoever. All he’d done was work all day, then spend the evenings drinking tins of beer and bullshitting with the others, before repeating the cycle the next day.

Marshall pulled him from his scheming by asking what was ready to go.

‘The two tractors, four quads and all of the power tools are ready. We’ll have the other tractor sorted by dinner time and the two ride on lawnmowers by tomorrow night.’

‘Good. The boss just sent me a message to say there’ll be a delivery tomorrow morning and he wants to collect whatever we’ve got.’

‘Fair enough. But I’m not getting up in the middle of the bastard night again to load his wagon.’ Alker waved his hand at Williams and Pete Johnstone, whose Hannibal mask hung at his side. ‘They can do it this time. I’m stayin’ in me bed.’

Victoria wiped her eyes and pushed the tissue under the sleeve of the lilac blouse she was wearing. Crying would not help her babies now. Action would save them. Not despair. Not recriminations, however tempted she may be to throw them at Nicholas.

To think of how she’d loved him. The sacrifices she’d made for him, only for him to bring this ridiculous situation to their door. Her children kidnapped as collateral against
his
gambling debts. The thought of him filled her with revulsion, but deep down she knew she would need him to get Samantha and Kyle back.

Victoria quashed down the nagging doubt that a good wife should know a husband’s debts. Should have known he was gambling. Should have recognised the stress and worry he must have been carrying. She was not going to allow herself to shoulder any blame for this. It was his doing, not hers.

With the kettle filled, she switched it on and resisted the temptation to half fill her mug with brandy before adding the coffee. Retrieving her briefcase, she prepared her things while the kettle boiled. A pad, pen and calculator were aligned on the kitchen table beside her laptop, which she powered up.

Her beloved kitchen, the heart of their home, would now become her operations centre. The heat and ambience of the room had left with Samantha and Kyle. Until the laughter of her children again burbled in her ears, it would be the cold functional place it was when they bought the house some twenty years earlier.

‘Nicholas. Get your sorry arse in here.’

A sheepish Nicholas entered. ‘I’m sorry, Victoria. So very sorry.’

‘Sit down and shut up. If anything happens to Sam and Kyle then you’ll be a damn sight sorrier. Believe me, I’ll make sure of it.’ Victoria was not ready for his apologies and she didn’t care about the hurt in his eyes when she spoke to him.

Fighting the panic that threatened to overtake her, Victoria focused her mind on working out their finances. This whole mess was about money and until she knew if they had enough for the ransom, she didn’t dare to think of the consequences.

‘Get your laptop,’ she said as she picked up her pen and opened the pad.

While he got his laptop, she drew a series of columns on the pad, titled ‘Accounts’, ‘Cars’, ‘Loans’, ‘Jewellery’, ‘Shop’ and ‘Miscellaneous’.

Using the laptop to establish totals for their joint account and her personal one, she noted down the figures. Next she went onto the
AutoTrader
website to get approximate values for her car and the van Nicholas used for his shop. Taking a guess at the worth of her jewellery, she wrote down £2,000. Another £2,500 was added under the miscellaneous column for household items like the TVs, laptops, etc., which she planned to sell online.

As Nicholas plugged in his laptop and switched it on she started questioning him about his finances.

‘What do you expect to take this week?’

‘Anywhere between twelve and fifteen hundred.’

‘Does anyone owe you for outstanding bills?’

‘Joe Hilton owes me six hundred and forty something pounds and there’s the Laingson account. They pay monthly, and their bill is always around a grand.’

‘Anyone else?’

‘A dozen or so small builders have accounts. But they would be less than a hundred quid apiece.’

‘That’s still almost a grand.’ Victoria scratched her nose as she thought. ‘Right. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to contact all of them tomorrow morning offering a special rate for preferred customers. If they pay you cash by Thursday night then they only have to pay seventy-five per cent of the bill.’

‘Tomorrow’s Easter Saturday. I don’t know if they’ll be in their offices then.’

‘I know it’s Easter Saturday tomorrow, but if we don’t get the money by next Friday my children will be mutilated.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Stop saying bloody sorry and start telling me what money is in your accounts.’

‘There’s five thousand, three hundred and twenty five in the business account.’

‘What about your personal account?’

Nicholas couldn’t bring himself to look at his wife as he told her the account was overdrawn.

Victoria glared at him until he met her eye. ‘That’s hardly a surprise to me after everything else I’ve learned tonight.’

‘How much have we got?’

‘If we sell my car, your van, my jewellery, the tellies, the kid’s laptops and scrape every penny from our accounts and the shop then we’ll have just over forty-two thousand pounds. We’re short by fifty-three grand.’

‘Christ Almighty. What are we going to do to get the rest of the money?’

‘For a start you are going to get on the phone to your parents and every friend we’ve ever had.’

‘What am I going to say?’

‘Whatever the hell you like as long as it’s not the truth. You’re a salesman. Sell yourself. Do whatever the hell it takes. Just borrow as much money as you can. Tell whatever lies you need to.’

You’ve become good at lying lately
, the unspoken words echoed in her head.

‘We’ll never raise enough to pay them back.’

‘Sod paying them back. That problem can wait until my kids are home. If we’d known about this months ago we could have remortgaged the house or the shop. We haven’t even time to take out a loan.

Nicholas poured himself a glass of water and went through to the living room to start making calls.

There weren’t many people he could ask for a loan. They were both only children and while his parents were alive they too had no siblings. Victoria was estranged from her family and hadn’t spoken to any of them since her mother’s funeral sixteen years ago.

While her husband was on the phone, Victoria retrieved the packet of menthol cigarettes she kept hidden behind the baked beans and stepped out into the garden. Sheltering in the lee of the conservatory, she sparked the lighter and drew the minty smoke into her lungs.

As she smoked an idea pushed its way to the front of her thoughts. It was not something she wanted to do. It was not a course of action she wanted to take. It went against all of her principles and values, but she would take it, if Nicholas couldn’t beg enough money to pay the ransom. It held risks and dangers, but there was more than enough at stake for her to take any risk necessary.

Filling her cup with more coffee, Victoria sat down at her place and started scribbling a new list onto her pad. She knew there was no way Nicholas would be able to raise enough money from friends and family. She was now working out the details of her plan. Planning, plotting and scheming were the emotional crutches she now relied on.

Victoria’s hand strayed across to her mobile for the twentieth time and once again she pulled it back lest she call the police. The consequences for her children were far too great for her to risk. Yet every instinct of her middle-class lifestyle screamed at her to make the call. She picked up the mobile and dropped it into her bag.

Out of sight, out of mind.

A sheet of paper was laid down on top of her notes. In Nicholas’s neat cursive script was a list of names and pledged amounts. The total at the bottom amounted to £15,000.

After checking the total, Victoria read down the list of names and saw Nicholas had spoken to everyone who may be in a position to help them.

‘What did you say to them?’ Victoria didn’t care, but knew she’d better know in case she had to speak to one of them.

‘I told them I’d been offered a lease on larger premises, but I had to pay cash upfront. I also told them we’d pay them back their money with a five per cent increase within a month.’

‘Why did you say that?’ Victoria was gobsmacked at her husband’s stupidity. Here they were in danger of losing everything to save their children and he was offering interest on loans they couldn’t afford to repay.

‘To give them some reassurance.’

As the sense of his words sank in she nodded. ‘Was there no way you could get any more? We’re still thirty-eight grand short.’

‘I’m sorry but no. I think that they all gave as much as they were prepared to.

‘Right then, I’ve been thinking. Here are the options we have left. One, we take out every payday loan we can and pay the ransom to release Samantha and Kyle. We also remortgage the house and shop so that we can pay them back first. Friends and family can wait. Hopefully we can avoid bankruptcy, but if it happens then so be it. It’ll be a small price to pay.’

Nicholas’s shame-faced grimace told the tale of his feelings for option one. ‘What other options have you thought of?’

When Victoria told him of her plan, he shook his head. ‘We can’t do that. We’d never be able to do that.’

‘I agree. So it’s option one.’

‘There is something I have to tell you, Victoria.’ Nicholas’s face was downcast as he explained in a bland tone that he’d already remortgaged the house and shop two months ago to pay off other gambling debts.

‘Why the bloody hell didn’t you tell me? What else haven’t you told me, you useless bastard? Our kids have been kidnapped because of your fucking idiotic behaviour and our only chance of getting the money will see us out on the bloody street.’

‘I’m sorry, Vicks.’ Fat tears rolled down Nicholas’s face as he swore there were no more nasty surprises to come. Taking a deep breath he steadied himself. ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to get them back.’

‘Don’t you fucking “Vicks” me.’ The steely venom in Victoria’s voice cut through Nicholas’s self-pity making his head snap up. ‘Go get some sleep. We start with my plan tomorrow.’

Her husband’s use of her pet name had struck a blow deep into her heart. Even if the kids were rescued unharmed she knew her marriage was now dead. A chasm had opened up between her and the man she’d married. No bridge could ever span this ravine. Nothing he could say or do would repair the damage caused by his lies.