The first thing Andrea Devern noticed when she stepped out of her Mercedes C-Class Cabriolet was that there were no lights on in the house. It was 8.45 p.m. on a breezy Tuesday night in mid-September, and she had only a minute of normality left in her life.
Clicking on the Mercedes' central locking, she walked the five yards to her front gate, glancing both ways along the quiet residential street because as a Londoner born and bred Andrea was never complacent about the potential for street crime, even in an area as upmarket as Hampstead. Criminals moved around these days. They no longer kept to their own patches. They gravitated towards the money, and on Andrea's tree-lined avenue of grand three-storey townhouses, barely spitting distance from the Heath, there was plenty of that.
But there was nothing out of place tonight, unless you counted the fact that her house was in darkness. Andrea tried to remember if Pat had told her that he had arrangements, or whether he'd taken Emma off somewhere. She'd had a stressful day dealing with the management team of one of the five health spas she and her business partner owned. They'd taken it over a year ago and it had underperformed ever since. Now they were going to have to make redundancies, something that Andrea never liked doing, and it was up to her to decide who was for the push. She'd been mulling over who was going to have to go all the way back from Bedfordshire, and still she couldn't decide. By rights, it should be the manager. He was paid well over the odds, and since he was the one who'd presided over the mess the spa was now in, it appealed to Andrea's sense of justice to give him the boot; but with no one to replace him, that was looking less and less viable. Better the devil you know, and all that.
Andrea decided to worry about it tomorrow. For now, she needed a long, slow glass of Sancerre and a relaxing cigarette. Not the healthiest of options, but a woman needs some pleasures in life, especially when she worked as hard as she did.
She pressed the card key against the pressure pad on the security system and stepped through the gap as the gate slid open smoothly. As always when she entered her front garden and left the outside world behind her, she experienced a familiar sense of relief and pleasure. Sheltered by a high brick wall, the garden was a riot of colour, courtesy of the eight hundred quid a month she paid to the gardening company responsible for making it look like something from the front cover of a magazine.
She breathed in the thick, heady smell of jasmine and honeysuckle, relaxing already as she opened the front door and deactivated the alarm.
Then the phone rang.
It was her mobile. She reached into her limited edition Fendi Spy Bag and fished it out. The ringtone was 'I Will Survive', Gloria Gaynor's classic anthem of feminine defiance. It was only later that she realized how much grim irony there was in this.
The screen said 'Anonymous Call', and though she never liked answering her phone to anyone she couldn't identify, she also knew that it was possible it was business, even at this hour, and Andrea never said no to business, particularly when the market was as tough as it was at the moment. As she stepped into her empty hallway she put the phone to her ear and said, 'Hello, Andrea Devern.'
'We have your daughter.'
The words were delivered in a high-pitched, artificial voice which sounded vaguely like a man impersonating a woman.
At first she thought she'd misheard, but in the slow, heavy silence that followed, the realization came upon her like an approaching wave.
'What? What do you mean?'
'We have your daughter,' repeated the caller, and now Andrea could tell that he was using something to disguise his voice. 'She's not there, is she? Look around. Can you see her?' His tone was vaguely mocking.
Andrea looked around. The hallway was bathed in gloom, the rooms leading off it silent. There was no one there. She felt a rising sense of helpless panic, and fought to keep herself calm.
'You can't see her, can you? That's because we have her, Andrea. And if you ever want to see her again, you'll do exactly as you're told.'
Andrea felt faint. Needing some kind of support, she leaned back against the front door, her movement clicking it shut. Keep calm, she told herself. For God's sake, keep calm. If they're phoning you, then it's got to be a good sign. Surely?
'What do you want?' she whispered, her whole body tensing as she waited for the answer.
'Half a million pounds in cash.'
'I haven't got that sort of money.'
'Yes, you have. And you're going to get hold of it for us as well. You've got exactly forty-eight hours.'
'Please, I'm going to need longer than that.'
'There's no compromise. You have to get us that money.'
Andrea began to shake. She couldn't believe this was happening. One minute she'd been thinking about winding down after her meeting, the next she was plunged into a crisis involving the most precious person in the world to her: Emma, her only daughter. She exhaled slowly. It was still possible this was some kind of hoax.
'How do I know you're not lying?' she asked.
'Do you want to hear your daughter scream?' replied the caller matter-of-factly.
Oh, Jesus, no.
'Please, for God's sake, don't do anything to her. Please.'
'Then do exactly as we say, and don't ask stupid questions.'
'She's fourteen years old, for Christ's sake! What sort of animal are you?'
'One who doesn't care,' he snapped. 'Do you understand that? I don't give a toss.' His tone became more businesslike. 'So listen closely. It's ten to nine now. At nine o'clock on Thursday, in forty-eight hours' time, you're going to receive a phone call on your landline. At that point you'll have the half a million ready in used notes, denominations of fifties and twenties. Do you understand that?'
Andrea cleared her throat. 'Yes,' she said.
'You'll be told where and when to deliver it. As soon as we've received it, you get her back.'
'I want you to let me speak to her now. Please.'
'You'll speak to her when we're ready.'
'No.'
'No? I'm afraid you're not in any position to argue with us. We have your child, remember?'
She took a deep breath. 'Please. Let me speak to her. I need to know she's OK.'
'You can speak to her next time we call. When you have the money.'
'How do I know she's even alive?' Andrea shouted, determined not to cry even though she felt the tears stinging her eyes.
'Because,' said the caller calmly, 'she's no use to us dead. Now go and get that money, Andrea. Then you can speak to her. And don't even think about going to the police. Because if you do, we'll know about it. We're watching you. The whole time. The first sign of the police and Emma dies. Slowly and painfully.' There was a pause. 'Nine o'clock Thursday night. Be ready.' The line went dead.
For several seconds Andrea remained frozen to the spot, the shock of what was happening still seeping through her system. Someone had taken her daughter. Her lively, pretty fourteen-year-old girl who did well at school and who'd never hurt anyone. a Complete innocent. Her poor baby must be absolutely terrified. 'Please don't hurt her,' Andrea whispered aloud, her words sounding hollow in the empty hallway.
Andrea Devern was a tough woman, and her life hadn't been easy. A successful, financially independent entrepreneur, she'd had to fight hard to get to the position she was in now. She'd taken one hell of a lot of knocks on the way, knocks that would have finished a lot of other, more privileged people, and she'd always held firm. But nothing could have prepared her for this. Emma was Andrea's world, no question, and to think of her now, trapped and frightened with no understanding of what was going on, filled her with a helpless dread. And that was the worst part, the sheer helplessness. Her daughter was missing, and there was absolutely nothing she could do.
Except satisfy the demands of the anonymous caller and find him half a million pounds.
My only child… If anything happens to her…
She flicked shut the phone and walked into the kitchen, the heels of her court shoes clicking loudly on the mahogany floorboards. She grabbed a glass from one of the cupboards and filled it with water from the tap, then drained it in one go.
She had to keep calm, but it was hard when you were alone. And that was when her thoughts turned to Pat.
Pat Phelan. Andrea's husband of two years, and Emma's stepfather. Charming, good-looking and five years younger than her, she'd been infatuated with him when they met. A whirlwind romance had been followed by a marriage barely four months later. Her mother had described her as a 'fool' and Pat as a 'ne'er do well'. At the time Andrea had thought her mother was being shortsighted, and maybe even a little jealous, but in recent months she'd begun to get the first hints that maybe the old woman, spiteful as she'd always been, had a point. After all, it takes one to know one.
She needed Pat now, more than she ever had.
So where the hell was he?
She refilled her glass with water and swallowed another couple of large gulps, then walked over to the landline and punched in the number of his mobile. Pat didn't work. He was between jobs. It seemed he'd been between jobs pretty much ever since they'd met. His trade, if you could call it that, was bar work. He'd been working in a bar in Holborn when she'd first seen him. A month later he'd had an argument with the owner, and the job was history. He tended to be something of a house husband now. He ferried Emma to and from school most days, and picked her up from friends' houses when Andrea was at work, but more and more in the evenings he liked to go out for a couple of drinks at the local pub, or to one of his old haunts down the road in Finchley, which was where he'd been brought up. Sometimes he didn't come home until well after she was in bed.
But the thing was, Pat didn't leave Emma alone in the house. He'd only ever go out when Andrea got back from work. It was a situation that suited her well, although occasionally she wished he'd show a bit of get up and go, and maybe secure some gainful employment.
The phone rang and rang, but Pat wasn't answering. It went to message and, keeping her voice even, Andrea left one, asking – no, telling – him to call her back as soon as possible.
She slammed the receiver back in its cradle, cursing the fact that he hadn't picked up, then stood by the sink, her eyes closed, taking slow, deep breaths, trying to make sense of the situation she found herself in. Emma had been kidnapped by a ruthless individual who, from the way he spoke, clearly had an accomplice, or accomplices. She forced herself to look at things logically. The motive for abducting Emma was money. Which meant there was a good chance of getting her back. There had to be. Andrea knew she could raise half a million in the time given. It wouldn't be easy, but she had access to ready cash in a way that other people didn't. There were numbered accounts, and cash that had been squirrelled away, far from the prying eyes of the taxman, in a safety deposit box in Knightsbridge. Probably just enough to cover this amount. If she did what she was told and delivered the money to where they wanted it, she'd have her daughter back.
The thought filled her with relief, but it was an emotion that lasted barely seconds, because it relied on trusting Emma's kidnappers. What if they didn't release her? What if, God forbid, she was already dead? A spasm of sheer terror shot up her spine. If anything happened to Emma, she was finished. The thought of life without her was simply too much to bear.
Andrea reached into her handbag and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it with shaking hands. She took a long drag and tried Pat's number again, but there was still no answer. She left a second, curt message: 'Call me now. It's urgent.'
She leaned back against one of the kitchen's spotless worktops. This house had been Andrea's dream home when she bought it five years earlier for close to a million cash, which was most of the proceeds of the 40 per cent stake she'd sold to her current business partner. It had character, space, land, everything that had been missing in the tiny flat in which she'd grown up with her two sisters and mother. It was her and Emma's safe and private haven, where they could relax and spend time together. Yet tonight it felt alien, like a place she'd just stepped into for the very first time. Normally at this time there'd be noise: music playing in Emma's room; the tinny blare of the TV; the sounds of life. Tonight her home was dead, and she wondered whether it would ever feel the same again.
She went into the lounge and over to the drinks cabinet, avoiding turning on the lights. There were photos in here, of her and Emma – Emma as a toddler; her first day at school; at the beach. She didn't want to see them. Not now. She averted her eyes and poured herself a large brandy in the gloom, taking a big hit of it. It didn't make her feel any better, but at the moment nothing was going to.
With the drink in one hand and a succession of cigarettes in the other, she paced the darkening house, upstairs and down, walking fast but heading nowhere, eyes straight ahead so she didn't have to see any reminder of Emma. Thinking, worrying, trying to keep a lid on the terror and frustration that infected every ounce of her being. She wondered where they'd snatched Emma, and how. There were no signs of a struggle anywhere in the house, and besides, the alarm had been on when she came in.
But they have her, Andrea, said a voice in her head. That's the only thing that matters. They have her.
Half an hour passed. In that time she stopped walking only once, to refill her brandy tumbler, and to look out of the French windows and into the darkness beyond, wondering if even now there was someone out there watching her, checking her reactions. She drew the curtains and resumed her pacing. She knew now she wouldn't be able to sleep until Emma was safe, and in her arms. In the meantime, all she could do was pace the prison of her house alone.
Where was Pat?
An hour passed. She called him again. Still no answer. This time she didn't bother leaving a message.
She was getting a bad feeling about this. It wasn't like him not to answer his mobile. He carried it with him everywhere. It finally occurred to her that he might be at the Eagle, a pub he often liked to drink in on his evenings out. She didn't know the number, so she looked it up in the Yellow Pages and gave them a call.
A young woman with a foreign accent answered. In the background Andrea could hear the buzz of conversation, and immediately felt a pang of jealousy. Sounding as casual as possible, she asked if Pat Phelan was in tonight.
'I'll ask,' the girl replied. 'Hold on, please.'
Andrea waited, the phone clutched tight to her ear.
Thirty seconds later the girl came back on the line. 'I'm afraid no one has seen him for a long time,' she said politely.
Andrea's jaw tightened. Tonight was Tuesday. Pat had told her he'd been at the Eagle the previous Friday night, and last Wednesday.
'Is that everything?' asked the girl.
'Yes,' said Andrea quickly. 'Thank you.'
She hung up and stared at the phone. So Pat had been lying about his whereabouts. But why?
An unpleasant thought began to form in her mind. Could he possibly be involved in this? It was difficult to believe. After all, they'd been together nearly two and a half years, and although, if she was honest, she didn't entirely trust him, particularly where other women were concerned, he'd always got on all right with Emma. They hadn't been the best of friends, and Emma had certainly not welcomed his arrival into their close family unit, but she'd come round in the end. If anything, their relations had been improving in recent months. It was too much of a step to imagine him hurting her like this.
And yet… Pat was one of the only people in the world who knew she had cash reserves she could call upon without attracting too much attention. Near enough half a million pounds of cash reserves, in fact. Nor was he whiter than white. He'd admitted to her that years earlier, as a young man, he'd had a few scrapes with the law, and had even served a few months for receiving stolen goods. Receiving stolen goods was a long, long way from abduction, but even so, in her weakened state the thought preyed on Andrea's mind that the man who, for all his faults, she still loved might have betrayed her dramatically.
'Please don't let it be you,' she whispered, staring at the phone. Because she knew if that was the case, she'd be totally on her own.
Another hour passed, and as the clock ticked towards midnight with still no word from him, her doubts grew stronger. It crossed her mind more than once to call the police, but the people she was dealing with were ruthless, and clearly well organized, and they'd already told her what would happen to Emma if she did. Andrea didn't have much faith in the forces of law and order anyway. She'd had too much experience of them for that.
No, she needed someone she could trust. Someone who'd know what to do.
There was one person who could help. She might not have spoken to him for more than a decade but she was sure he would respond in this, her hour of need. The problem was, if she brought him back, she might also be unleashing forces outside her control.
But what choice did she really have? She couldn't do this alone.
There was a grandfather clock in the hallway, bought from an Islington antique dealer at an exorbitant price several years earlier, which had always looked out of place. Something about its relentless ticking tended to soothe her, though, and when it chimed midnight she stubbed out her latest cigarette in the ashtray and made her decision.
She retrieved a small black address book from her handbag on the kitchen top and found the number she wanted in the back, with no name next to it. She turned on the overhead light to dial, stopping at the last second. Thinking. They might have bugged the landline, and if they heard her… She couldn't risk it. Instead, she fed the digits into her mobile and stepped out into the back garden.
The night was silent as she walked to the pear trees at the end, thirty yards from the house, and stopped. She looked round, listening, remembering what the kidnapper had said: We're watching you. But they couldn't see her in the back of the garden, she was sure of it.
So, taking a deep breath, she pressed the call button on the mobile.
And took her situation to a whole new level.
Jimmy Galante answered on the third ring. 'Hello,' he said quietly, his accent still firmly east London.
There was no background noise that Andrea could make out, which surprised her. Jimmy had always been something of a nightbird. Maybe he'd changed.
'It's me,' she said, keeping her voice low, knowing the risk she was taking.
'Who's me?' he asked.
'Andrea. Andrea Devern.'
He gave a raucous laugh down the phone. 'Jesus, now there's a ghost from the past. How you doing?'
'Bad. Very bad.'
'Shit, I'm sorry to hear that,' he said, but she could almost hear the smirk in his voice. Jimmy Galante was not the kind of man who wasted time or effort on sympathy. 'How did you get my number? You been keeping tabs on me, Andrea?'
She had, but she wasn't going to tell him that. At least not yet. 'Someone gave it to me.'
'Oh yeah? Who?'
'That doesn't matter. What matters is I need your help.'
'To do what?'
Andrea took a deep breath, looked round in the gloom. 'My daughter's been kidnapped. I need you to help me get her back.'
Jimmy's husky trademark chuckle rumbled down the line again. There was something inherently cruel in it. It made Andrea think of a child pulling the wings off a butterfly, or cutting a worm into quarters, and it still made her nervous, even now, years afterwards.
'Sure, Andrea, whatever you say. You don't speak to me for God knows how many years-'
'You haven't been here. You've been in Spain.'
'You could have called,' he snapped. 'In all that time, you could have fucking called. But you didn't bother, did you? Because you didn't want nothing then, but now you do, so it's' – and here he did a nasty, high-pitched imitation of Andrea – 'please, Jimmy, help me find my daughter, some nasty man's kidnapped her.' He chuckled again. 'It don't work like that, babe. I've got business interests over here now. What do I want to come back to a shithole like England for? Fuck that for a game of soldiers.'
Andrea sighed. She'd been expecting this, but it still hurt to hear his complete lack of interest, either in her or in Emma. But his reaction told her something else too. Jimmy Galante, for all his faults, wasn't involved in this. If he had been, he'd have asked more questions.
'I want you to help me, Jimmy,' said Andrea, knowing that the sudden firmness in her tone was born of desperation.
'Sorry, babe, forget it. You still ain't given me a good reason why I should.'
'Because,' she answered, 'Emma isn't just my daughter. She's yours too.'
There was a long silence at the other end, and then Jimmy started to say something, but Andrea cut him off, pressing her advantage. 'Emma's fourteen years old. Her birthday's April the second. Think of the timing, Jimmy.'
'I can't think that far back. It's been too long.'
'Try. Fifteen years ago, the summer of 1992. We were together, weren't we? That's when I got pregnant. Just before you left.'
'How the fuck do I know she's mine?' he barked. 'You was married, Andrea. Remember? You was the one shagging around behind your old man's back. Or has that conveniently slipped your mind now as well?'
'Billy was impotent,' she said, not wanting to speak ill of her dead husband, but knowing that she had no choice. 'And you were the only man I was sleeping with then. She's yours, Jimmy. Face it. Your child. And now some bastard's taken her.'
She could almost hear the cogs whirring as he thought things over down the other end of the phone. This time she left him to it.
'What's happened then?' he asked eventually, a tone of resignation in his voice.
For the first time since the phone call more than three hours earlier, Andrea experienced a tiny, barely perceptible twinge of optimism. It seemed like she might be getting Jimmy Galante onside, which meant there was a chance she was no longer facing this nightmare alone.
Constantly mentioning Emma by name, and keeping her voice as quiet as possible, she detailed the evening's events, trying not to leave anything out. When she was finished, Jimmy asked her if she could raise the money in the time she'd been given, and she told him that she reckoned she could. 'It's not going to be easy, but I can manage it,' she said.
'And your new old man… he's missing?'
'Yes,' she said slowly. 'He is.'
'You certainly know how to pick 'em, don't you, babe?'
'Don't, Jimmy.'
'Think he might be involved?'
'To be honest, I can't see it, but…' She paused a moment. 'But I can't say for sure.'
'All right. What's his name?'
'Pat Phelan.'
'Don't know the name.'
'He's from Finchley.'
'I know a couple of people up that end of town. I'll ask around. You haven't gone to the cops, then?'
'No. And I don't intend to either.'
'Good, no point involving those bastards. So, what do you need me to do?'
'I just need you here with me, OK? I'd feel better. After all, you are her dad.'
'I'd better be, Andrea,' he said ominously, his voice barely more than a whisper. 'Because if I'm not, and you've dragged me back under false pretences, then I really ain't going to be very happy at all. You understand what I mean?'
There was no doubt at all what he meant. There never was when Jimmy talked like that. 'Yeah, I understand,' she answered. 'But you are. I promise you that. You are.'
There was another pause.
'I'll be on the first available flight into Heathrow tomorrow,' he said at last. 'I'll call you.'
'Thanks.'
'Don't thank me,' he said blankly. 'I ain't doing it for you.' And he hung up.
Andrea exhaled loudly as she flicked the phone shut. Now there really was no going back. Part of her was afraid of what involving Jimmy was going to mean for Emma's safe release. Jimmy was a violent man. He was capable of inflicting serious injury, even killing someone, but perhaps, in the end, that was what she wanted. Revenge on the people who'd abducted her daughter and put her through such pain. And Jimmy was no fool. He wouldn't rush in guns blazing and put Emma and everyone else in danger. He possessed an animal cunning, an ability to sniff out danger, something that had served him well in the past and something, she knew, he wouldn't have lost, even during his years in Spain. You didn't lose cunning like that. It was instinctive. And she needed someone with it in her corner.
She went back inside and locked the door behind her, feeling a little better. At least she'd actually done something now, and the paralysis born of utter helplessness which had affected her all evening seemed to dissipate a little. She drank another glass of water, smoked a last cigarette, and thought about having another brandy, but decided against it. Andrea had a strong tolerance of alcohol, having consumed it regularly throughout her adult life, but she'd had more than enough tonight. She needed to keep her wits about her. It would have been all too easy simply to lose herself in the oblivion of the bottle, and behaviour like that wouldn't help Emma.
Emma. Her baby. A fourteen-year-old girl enduring her first night as the prisoner of those animals.
If she's still alive…
Andrea stopped the thought, took a deep breath and told herself not to weaken.
'Think positive. They won't hurt her. They want money.'
She repeated it to herself three times, praying to God that it was true. Then, with slow, listless movements, she got herself ready for bed knowing that, for better or for worse, Jimmy would be here tomorrow. Jimmy Galante. Armed robber, violent thug, and possibly her only hope.
As she lay under the silk sheets in the master bedroom, staring at the ceiling, with a gap beside her where Pat usually lay, it wasn't her husband she was thinking about. It was Emma.
And Jimmy.
Jimmy Galante had always been a smooth bastard. Now forty, two years older than Andrea, he still looked damn good as he walked out of the arrivals gate at Heathrow's Terminal One, dressed in a tailored suit and open-neck shirt, and Andrea noticed more than one pair of female eyes glancing at him as he walked across the concourse with a casual confidence that bordered on arrogance. Tall, broad-shouldered and tanned, his thick wavy black hair was longer than she remembered, but still as lustrous as it had been all those years ago. Even under the current circumstances, even after all these years, Andrea still felt a twinge of excitement. She wondered what it was about her, why she always seemed to go for the smooth bastards. It was something her business partner, Isobel, had once asked her, with more than a hint of disapproval in her voice, and it was a question she hadn't attempted to answer. Some women just go for the wrong sort of men, Andrea told herself, and maybe she was one of them.
As Jimmy approached her, he smiled, and there was something so knowing and cocky about his expression that it made her realize immediately why their relationship had ended. Up close the lines on his face were more pronounced, and the scar that ran down in a jagged line from just below his earlobe to his chin seemed deeper than before. But the eyes, so dark they were almost black, still commanded attention.
'Hello, babe,' he said, looking her up and down. 'You look good.'
She knew he was just saying that. She felt awful, and she was pretty sure she looked awful as well. She'd hardly slept the previous night, tossing and turning in the silence, knowing that Emma was out there somewhere, desperate for her mother's help. Emma was a tough young thing – she took after her mother in that respect – but there was no way she could have been prepared for what she had to be going through now. Andrea had always protected her from the darker things the world had to offer. She wanted for nothing materially (although she wasn't spoiled); she was being well educated at a decent private school (girls only); and her mother had always been there for her, never failing to make time in her busy schedule for her daughter and providing her with the nurturing hand any child needs. They'd always been a team, the two of them, with Andrea the senior partner.
Today had been easier than the previous night because she'd been able to keep busy. Having called Isobel to tell her that she wasn't feeling too good and was going to take the day off, she'd then phoned the dentist's and found out that Emma had kept her 4.45 appointment. She didn't know how this helped her, but for some reason the knowledge that Emma had been alive and well the previous afternoon, only a few hours before the kidnapper had called her, made it feel more likely that she was alive now.
Andrea had then spent the remainder of the morning and much of the first half of the afternoon raising the half a million she needed. This had involved emptying the two private deposit boxes she rented in separate banks in Knightsbridge, which gave her the grand total of £439,000. It was money that had been built up over a number of years as a result of various cash deals, and she'd viewed it as her retirement fund, her nest egg should things ever go badly wrong. And now they had. She'd then called the three banks where she had personal accounts, and organized the transfer of cleared funds between accounts to secure the remaining £61,000, which had proved a lot less easy than she'd anticipated, since no one these days seemed to want to hand over large sums of cash. When this had been done, she was left with a total of £11,561 in liquid assets – a pretty poor return for fourteen years of hard graft.
There'd still been aspects of the business to attend to as well. She'd received a number of calls from the company accountants regarding the Bedfordshire Spa, and even a couple of semiapologetic ones from Isobel on the same subject. She'd dealt with them as best she could but it was hard to concentrate on anything other than Emma. Andrea had built up her company, Feminine Touch Health and Beauty Spas, from absolutely nothing into a thriving business which generated turnover in excess of five million cash.
Yet ultimately, when it came down to it, this huge achievement and all the hard work that had brought it about would count for absolutely nothing if her daughter didn't come home.
Which was why Jimmy was here. To make sure she did.
'Any news?' he asked as they stood there looking at each other.
'No, nothing yet.'
'You got the money?'
She thought she saw a glint in his dark eyes when he said this, and felt a twinge of unease. The expression on his face remained irritatingly casual, and his lips formed the vague, knowing half-smile of someone who always has the answers. It concerned her that he didn't seem to be too worried about his daughter.
'I'll have it by tomorrow night,' she told him. 'Come on, let's go. I want to beat the rush-hour traffic.'
They walked in silence through the arrivals hall and into short-term parking.
'My, my, you are doing well,' said Jimmy when he saw the Mercedes.
'I've worked hard for it,' she answered curtly.
'You didn't tell me what you did for a living.'
'I know,' she said, getting inside.
They didn't speak again until they were through the slip road and on to the M4, heading back into London. Even though it was still before five, the traffic both ways was heavy, and the atmosphere in the car was tense.
'Why didn't you tell me about my daughter, Andrea?'
Andrea sighed. 'Because I thought we'd be better off without you.'
'You're certainly better off. That's for sure.'
'You know something, Jimmy? You haven't even asked her name. Your own daughter.'
Now it was Jimmy's turn to sigh. 'You already told me, Andrea. Her name's Emma. And cut me a bit of slack here, please. Number one, I didn't even know I had a daughter until last night. I still ain't seen a photo of her so I don't even know what she looks like. And number two, and much more important, I'm here, aren't I? I didn't have to come.'
'OK, OK, point taken.'
Andrea wiped sweat from her brow. The car's interior was cold with the air con blasting out on full, but she felt hot and vaguely nauseous.
'Are you all right, love?' he asked, leaning over towards her.
She could smell his cologne. It was strong but pleasant.
'Yeah, I'm fine. I think I need to eat something. I haven't had anything since a sandwich yesterday night.'
'We'll get something for you. What about your old man? Mr Phelan. Any sign of him yet?'
She shook her head. 'Nothing.'
She remembered how strange it had seemed waking up this morning without him there. He never stayed away from home. She did occasionally, for business, but not Pat. He always made it back to their bed, even if sometimes it was in the early hours. She still prayed that he had nothing to do with this, but with each hour that passed without any word from him it became more and more difficult to believe otherwise. But she didn't want to say that to Jimmy. It was bad enough that he was probably thinking it, without her admitting that once again she'd ended up with the wrong kind of man.
'I found out a little bit about him,' said Jimmy. 'He's a bit of a crook, ain't he?'
Although his tone was remarkably free of any gloating, she couldn't let it go.
'That's rich, Jimmy.'
'I was never a small-time little peasant like him, peddling dope and knock-off electrical goods.'
'He's not like that any more.'
'He doesn't need to be any more, does he? He's got you.'
Andrea fell silent. Conceded the point.
'Listen,' he said, putting a hand on her shoulder, 'I'm not trying to score points. I'm just trying to work out whether he's involved or not.'
'And do you think he is?'
Jimmy shrugged. 'Hard to tell. He's still missing, ain't he? That doesn't look too good. But it's a big step from flogging hookey gear to kidnapping.'
'Oh God, Jimmy. I don't know what to think, I really don't.'
'It'll be all right, babe. Don't worry. I'm here now.'
But it wouldn't be all right, Andrea knew that. Whatever happened, the life she'd worked so hard to build up, and the life of her precious daughter, had changed irreversibly. Even in the best-case scenario, with Emma returned to her physically unharmed, she would be a different person, permanently scarred by the trauma of this situation. And Pat… well, Pat wasn't coming back. There was no doubt about that. And the thing was, she thought they'd been pretty happy. She would miss him, too – unless, of course, he was involved. But her instincts told her he wasn't; that he wasn't capable of putting Emma through such an ordeal. Because the thing was, as Jimmy had pointed out, he really didn't need to. He had access to money, he drove a nice car, he didn't need to work for a living, he enjoyed two or three foreign holidays a year, and he had freedom, too. Andrea cut Pat a lot of slack, so why put it all at risk for a share in half a million pounds, and the possibility that he'd end up in jail for the next ten years? She didn't buy it.
But she still couldn't explain his absence.
Jimmy's hand massaged her shoulder, slowly and deliberately. The sensation filled her with conflicting feelings. She still loved Pat, or at least she thought she did, but Jimmy had always done something to her, and even now she felt the first stirrings of arousal, accompanied by sharp pangs of guilt that she could even think about sex when her daughter was in the position she was in. Yet she couldn't help feeling much more secure with Jimmy here with her. He was strong, stronger than Pat could ever be, and she needed that now. But he was also trouble, and there was no part for him in her life now. Once this was over, she'd say goodbye to him for ever.
Although something told her it wasn't necessarily going to be as easy as that.
'Half a million quid. It looks beautiful.'
Jimmy Galante had always loved money. He just hadn't liked the part where you had to work for it, which was why he'd chosen armed robbery and major drug dealing as his means of making a living.
The ransom was in a large Adidas holdall that Andrea had dug out from the loft, which was now sitting open on the coffee table in her living room. Jimmy was sitting on one of the leather armchairs with a large wad of fifties secured by a rubber band in his hand. His dark eyes moved from the wad to the contents of the holdall, then back again. The expression on his face was pure, unadulterated excitement.
'It's not all there yet,' she told him. 'I'm still sixty short. I need to pick up the rest at the bank tomorrow.'
'Where did all this lot come from, then?'
'Never you mind.'
He grinned. 'Been hiding it from the taxman, have you?'
'It's none of your business, Jimmy. The lucky thing is I've got it. It means our daughter can come home.'
The grin disappeared, and he nodded soberly, returning the wad of fifties to the holdall.
Initially, Andrea had been reluctant to bring Jimmy back here. She knew the kidnappers had been watching her and was afraid they might have bugged the house, so on Jimmy's advice they'd driven to a shop in Kensington which sold surveillance products and Andrea had bought a bug finder for a hundred pounds.
When they'd got back it was already dark, and after checking there was no one watching from the street, she and Jimmy had hurried inside, and he'd gone to work with the bug finder. It had taken him only seconds to locate a tiny electronic trip switch attached to the bottom of the skirting on the front door which would have alerted the kidnappers remotely as soon as the front door was opened, and was clearly how they'd known to phone her as soon as she'd got home the previous night.
Inside the house, though, the bug finder hadn't picked up anything, but this didn't stop Andrea feeling that the place had been violated by the kidnappers. It was now twenty-four hours since she'd found out about Emma's disappearance.
She watched Jimmy carefully as she sat smoking what was probably her fortieth cigarette of the day and drinking her third glass of red wine, and wondered if she could trust him. She'd hoped that telling him that Emma was his daughter would stir his parental instinct, but now she wasn't so sure it even existed. In the four hours since she'd picked him up from the airport, he'd hardly asked about Emma at all, seeming far more concerned about filling his stomach. He'd insisted on ordering an Indian takeaway, at the same time bemoaning the quality of them in his little corner of the Costa del Sol. Andrea had hardly been able to touch hers, but Jimmy had fallen upon his food ravenously. He'd eaten enough for two men, and washed it all down with four cans of Stella.
When Andrea had shown him a picture of Emma she'd brought with her to the airport, she'd said quietly, and with a sense of awe in her voice, 'This is your daughter, Jimmy. This is Emma.' His reaction had been a vague half-smile and a murmured, 'She's pretty.' Nothing else. Just those two words. She's pretty. For Andrea, this hadn't been enough. She'd wanted more. In truth, Emma didn't look much like Jimmy, but then again she didn't look much like either of them. Andrea was a natural brunette, with features that were sharp and well defined – a very attractive woman, but one with a hard edge to her. Emma, meanwhile, was a natural blonde, with small, delicate features, a round snub nose, and lively blue eyes. She was pretty in a sweet, cherubic way, and looked young for her age. The photo Andrea had shown Jimmy was a head-and-shoulders shot taken on Hampstead Heath the previous summer. Emma was grinning at the camera, showing a neat row of white teeth courtesy of the brace she'd been wearing for the previous six months, and which had been taken out the week before that shot. It was a celebration smile, and to Andrea the most beautiful smile in the world. It killed her to look at it. But not Jimmy. All he could manage was, 'She's pretty.'
She wondered if he genuinely believed he was the father or whether he'd concluded she was bullshitting in order to get his help. It was difficult to tell. That was the thing with Jimmy. He rarely let on what he was thinking, preferring to play mind games and keep people guessing.
As she sat there watching him, she realized she'd never really known him. On the one hand he was a ruthless bastard capable of terrible violence. On the other, he was also capable of great shows of affection. She remembered how once, not long after she'd first started seeing him, she arrived at his flat for a prearranged visit only to find that he wasn't there. Even though it was the early days of mobile phones, both of them had one, and she called him. He didn't answer so she took a walk round his neighbourhood before trying his number again. This time he answered, and he sounded breathless. Apologizing for the delay but not going into any detail as to what had caused it, he told her that he'd be back at the flat in fifteen minutes, although it was actually nearer half an hour before he finally pulled up in his Jaguar XJ6.
As he stepped out, Andrea could tell that something wasn't right. He was looking worn out, and his hair, usually so immaculately styled, was unkempt. His shirt was partly untucked, and as he jogged across the road towards her she saw a handkerchief tied tightly round his left hand.
'What happened to you?' she asked with a smile, looking towards the hand.
'Nothing for you to worry about,' he answered with a smile of his own, kissing her on the lips before ushering her inside the building. 'Sorry I'm late.'
Andrea knew better than to ask too many questions. She was aware that Jimmy operated outside the law. That much was obvious. He didn't appear to have a proper job but always had plenty of money. He'd told her he owned a construction business but was suitably vague, and tended to keep very odd hours for someone running his own company, often staying in bed with her until mid-afternoon on a weekday. Andrea was no fool. She knew. And the truth was that at the time it didn't bother her unduly. In fact, she found the whole thing very exciting. Jimmy was handsome and mysterious, a fantastic lover, and possessed the kind of wild streak a young woman like her couldn't help but find attractive.
Once they were inside the flat, Jimmy showed that wild streak by pulling her close and kissing her hard, then lifting her in his arms and taking her through to the bedroom, where he flung her on the bed and tore off her clothes. They made intense, passionate love, several times in quick succession, and when they were lying, sated, in each other's arms, his free hand – the one with the handkerchief wrapped round it – gently stroking her belly, he said he had something for her.
'What?' she asked, intrigued, trying to ignore the tiny flecks of blood on his fingers, just visible beneath the fabric.
He clambered off the bed and walked over to where his jeans lay on the floor. She watched as he leaned down to pick them up, admiring his naked body, thinking about the orgasm she'd just had, thinking about how happy Jimmy made her, wondering how she was ever going to tell her husband.
When he returned to the bed he had a small black box in the palm of his good hand.
'For you, my lady,' he said with a mock bow.
She smiled. 'What is it?'
'Open it and find out.'
So she did. And let out a little gasp. It was a gold necklace, eighteen carat at least, with a goldlined emerald heart roughly the size of a five-pence piece on the end.
'Oh, Jimmy,' she whispered. 'It's beautiful.'
'I bought it this morning,' he told her.
She reached up and kissed him tenderly on the lips, feeling for that moment like the happiest woman in the world.
'I love it. Thank you.'
They spent the rest of the afternoon and much of the evening in bed. The lovemaking was some of the best Andrea had ever experienced. She could remember what they'd done together even now. The following morning, wearing that beautiful necklace and thinking that she'd really landed on her feet, she cooked Jimmy breakfast in bed, then went out to get the papers.
Glancing through the Sun on the way back to the flat, a photo caught her eye. It was of an ordinary-looking middle-aged man with a beard and a side-parting, and the headline beside him read 'Hundred K Robbery: Security Guard Fights for Life'. Even before she read the article, Andrea knew instinctively that Jimmy was involved. What followed simply confirmed her suspicions. It seemed that a gang of four robbers armed with a variety of firearms had held up a security van as it made a cash pick-up from a branch of Barclays Bank in Wembley. The security guard carrying the case containing the money, whom the paper identified as forty-seven-year-old father of two Alan Jones – the man in the photograph – had tried to resist when one of the gang had grabbed the case. In the ensuing mêlée he was punched savagely in the face several times and knocked unconscious, having struck his head on the concrete as he fell. An eyewitness was quoted as saying that the robber had then kicked him several times, even though it was obvious he was no longer any threat. He was now in intensive care where his condition was described as 'poorly but stable'.
Andrea saw that the time of the robbery was 2.10 the previous afternoon, barely an hour before Jimmy had turned up back at the flat looking dishevelled and wearing a makeshift bandage on his left hand. Jimmy had told her that at one time he'd been an amateur middleweight boxer and had won eleven of his twelve bouts, six by knockout. Not exactly overwhelming proof of guilt, but it didn't need to be. Andrea just knew.
Stupidly, she didn't say anything. Instead, trying to be as casual as possible, she watched him out of the corner of her eye as he lay in bed, casually perusing the paper, a cigarette in his mouth, as calm as you like. He went straight to the robbery story – she counted the pages – and read it twice before running through the sports pages at the back. Then, with a predatory half-smile, he chucked the paper aside and patted the sheets.
'Why don't you come back to bed, love? We've got some unfinished business to attend to.'
And she had, too, something which when she thought about it now made her cringe with shame. They'd made love again twice, and all the time she couldn't stop thinking about the security guard lying in a hospital bed connected to a load of tubes while his family sat round him, waiting for news. But Jimmy… Jimmy had forgotten him already. The whole thing was simply business to him, nothing more and nothing less.
After they'd finished, he got a call on his mobile and went out of the room, talking quietly. He returned a few minutes later, saying he had to go out. He was still acting casually, but she could tell he was tense.
And that's when she came out with it.
'You didn't have anything to do with yesterday, did you, Jimmy? You know, that robbery where the guard got hurt?'
'Course I didn't,' he answered, but she could tell that she'd rattled him. It was something in his eyes.
She looked at his hand. The handkerchief was gone now, but the knuckles were dark with bruises. He glanced down at them as well, then back at her. This time his expression had changed. There was a darkness in it.
'Why'd you think that?'
She immediately regretted asking. What, after all, was the point? He was always going to deny it.
'I don't know. I…' She stopped, not sure how to finish the sentence.
'I told you, I work in the building trade.'
She nodded. 'Sure, Jimmy.'
He came over to the side of the bed.
'Don't I treat you right or something?'
'Course you do,' she answered, feeling a little uneasy, not liking the way he was looking at her.
He crouched down so they were level, the smile he was giving her devoid of any warmth, his dark eyes boring into her.
'You know, I like you a lot, Andrea. I think we could do real well together. That's why I bought you the necklace.' He paused, touching the emerald heart. 'But don't go asking silly questions, all right? About stuff that doesn't concern you.' The fingers of his good hand stroked her cheek tenderly but she felt herself tensing under the touch. The truth was, she was scared. 'Because otherwise…' He wrapped a lock of her hair round his middle finger. 'Otherwise we're going to fall out. Understand?'
She nodded.
'And I don't want that to happen. Because I like you. I really do.'
She felt a sharp pang of pain as he yanked the lock of hair, and she cried out. Immediately he let go, his lips parted in a pleasant, loving smile that almost made her think she'd imagined what had just happened. He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips, before pulling back.
'I've really got to go, luv. I'll call you later. Let yourself out, OK?'
And that was that. Chucking on some clothes, he'd left her there alone, wondering what on earth she'd got herself into.
She should have finished it there and then, of course. Someone who could beat and kick an innocent man to within an inch of his life and then, an hour later, come back home as if nothing had happened and make love to his girlfriend clearly had no conscience. And already he was exerting his dominance over her. If he could pull her hair like that, it wouldn't be much of a jump to hitting her. She didn't need this. She had a husband, a man who looked after and cared for her. It wasn't as if she was one of those women who put up with abusive partners because they had no self-esteem. Andrea knew she was a good looking woman. She'd always been able to attract men.
But she hadn't finished it. To her eternal regret. And now, years later, Jimmy Galante was back, staring at money that she, Andrea, had worked so hard to earn. And she still feared him, although in her current situation she feared not having him around even more.
He drank from the tumbler of whisky she'd poured for him and looked over with one of his mocking smiles.
'Half a million quid, eh, Andrea? Who'd have thought you'd ever have that kind of money.'
'I always did,' she answered firmly.
'You know,' he said, watching her over the rim of the glass, 'I've been following your progress over the years. I'm impressed by how far you've come, living in a nice, big, flash pad like this.' He gestured vaguely with an arm.
'Money isn't everything, Jimmy.'
'It is when you ain't got none.'
'I'm sure you manage. You don't look like you're starving.'
'You think there's money out in Spain? There's fuck all. I get by, that's all.'
He sounded bitter, which was Jimmy all over. Andrea had no sympathy. No one had ever given her anything. She'd had to go out and graft for it and had proved that you could be successful if you were willing to put in the sweat and the tears. No one had ever given Jimmy anything, either. He'd grown up in a Hackney council flat, with damp on the walls and cockroaches in the grime encrusted spaces behind the cheap, flimsy kitchen units. The difference was that he hadn't wanted to work, and had taken what wasn't his, and by any means necessary. His fly-by-night lifestyle might have been exciting to her once, but she was young then. Now it simply depressed her that she'd ever fallen for his charms.
Andrea changed the subject. 'If you've been following my progress all these years, you must have known I had a daughter.'
He nodded. 'Yeah, I did.'
'And it never occurred to you that Emma might have been yours?'
He shrugged. 'No, it didn't. I mean, let's face it, babe, you weren't exactly whiter than white where men were concerned, were you?'
It was a cheap shot, but she let it go.
'I mean, she doesn't exactly look like me, does she?' he continued.
'She doesn't exactly look like me either, Jimmy, but I can tell you with total and utter certainty that she's mine.' She paused. 'And yours.'
He nodded, conceding the point, then once again his eyes drifted down towards the holdall of money. 'I'm looking forward to meeting her,' he said, but his tone was vague and it was clear his attention was focused elsewhere.
'You'll love her,' said Andrea quietly, feeling a sudden and terrible longing for her daughter. Tears stung at her eyes. She'd held it together so well today, but now, more than thirty-six hours since she'd last seen and touched Emma, the grim reality of her situation once again took her in its grip.
And there was something else, too. Could she really trust Jimmy?
The phone rang. The landline. It startled her.
She and Jimmy exchanged glances. She got to her feet, walked out into the hallway and picked up the receiver.
'Hello?'
'Mum?'
Relief and shock soared through her. It was Emma. Her Emma!
'Darling, oh God, is that you?'
'Yeah, it's me.'
'Are you OK, baby? Is everything OK?' Tears were streaming down her face, but she didn't care. She was just ecstatic to be hearing her daughter's voice.
'I'm fine,' answered Emma, her voice small. She sounded afraid. 'They say I should be home tomorrow, if you've got the money.'
'I've got the money, baby, don't worry. We're going to have you home by tomorrow night, I swear it. God, it's so good to hear you're all right.
They haven't hurt you, have they?'
'No, but it's…'
Emma broke off, and there was a minor commotion at the other end. It sounded like she was being moved away from the phone, and Andrea felt a wave of panic, as if she was losing her all over again. Emma cried out, but the cry was cut short. It sounded as if it was being muffled.
'Emma?' she shouted as the panic shot through her. 'Emma, darling, are you OK?'
For a few seconds there was silence. Then came the sound of a door being shut and a new voice came on the line.
'You've spoken to her, and you know she's alive, so we've kept our side of the bargain.' Once again the voice was disguised but the tone was more aggressive. Andrea thought it might be a different person from the one who'd called the previous night. 'Now it's your turn to keep yours. Have you got the money?'
'Most of it,' she answered breathlessly. 'I'll have the rest by tomorrow.'
'Good. Then you'll be hearing from us tomorrow night to make the final arrangements.'
'Don't hurt her, please,' begged Andrea, hating herself for showing her desperation, but unable to stop. The line, however, was already dead.
Slowly, she put down the phone. Jimmy had followed her out into the hallway and was staring at her with a look of concern. He didn't say anything for a couple of seconds, then he stepped forward and took her in his arms. She sank into them, burying her head against his chest.
'It's going to be all right,' he said quietly, the deep, gruff intonation of his voice suddenly making her feel safe.
That was the thing with Jimmy. Even now, he could inspire so many different and conflicting emotions. She breathed in his scent. He must have splashed on some more cologne after he'd had a shower earlier. It smelled strong, but somehow comforting.
'I spoke to her,' said Andrea, pulling away and looking at Jimmy. 'She's alive, Jimmy. She's alive.'
'See, I told you it was going to be all right, babe,' he said, continuing to hold her. 'These guys are professionals. They're not going to do anything to hurt her. She's their prime asset.'
Andrea didn't like his choice of words, nor the fact that he still hadn't referred to Emma by name, but she was too excited by the fact that she'd spoken to her to pay too much attention to that. Finally, she had confirmation that Emma was OK. She was scared, but it didn't sound like they'd hurt her, which meant she was going to get her back. This time tomorrow, she'd be safe and sound.
Jimmy's hand ran down her back and moved across her buttocks. At the same time, he pulled her closer, and she could feel the hardness growing between his legs. 'It's going to be OK, babe. I'm here now. I'm back.' His grip on her tightened as he rubbed his cock against the material of her gypsy skirt.
She thought of Pat. Her husband. How their love life, once so vigorous, had slackened in recent months until, in the past few weeks, it had evaporated to almost nothing. Pat wasn't coming back. She was sure of that. One man leaves her life, another returns.
Jimmy lifted her chin so she was looking up into his dark eyes, seeing the lust in them.
'You still look beautiful, babe,' he whispered.
But she didn't want Jimmy. Not like that. She'd already betrayed one husband with him. Whatever Pat's faults, whatever he might have done, she wasn't going to betray a second. She pulled away from his kiss, trying to move backwards, but his hand grabbed her chin roughly and turned it back so she was facing him.
'Come on, I know you feel the same way.'
He was smiling now. As cocky as ever, forcing her towards him. She could smell the booze on his breath. Anger overtook her – anger that the bastard could be so cold to both her and Emma's plight – and she slapped his hand away, wrenching herself free from his grasp with more force than she'd intended.
'You fucking bitch,' he snarled, clenching his fists; but she stood her ground, glaring back at him.
'I'm not the little girl you used to know, Jimmy. So don't you dare try it. Think of someone else for a change. Like Emma… your daughter.'
'Still a tease, ain't you, babe?' he said quietly, and then with a snort of derision he walked past her back into the living room.
The next day, Thursday, was excruciating. It was the waiting.
Jimmy apologized for his behaviour in the morning, which was typical of him. Always changing tack. She accepted the apology but she didn't believe it was genuine. Jimmy Galante was not the sort of person to feel remorse about anything he'd done. If he was, he'd never sleep at night, and she knew from experience that he slept like a log.
Their conversation over coffee in the kitchen was strained, and she was pleased to get out of the house and leave him behind. He'd wanted to come with her as she drove to the bank to pick up the remainder of the money, but she told him it would be easier if he didn't. 'It'll just arouse suspicions,' she explained, knowing that this was just an excuse. She took the holdall containing the money with her as well.
'Don't you trust me or something?' he asked her at the door.
And the truth, of course, was that she didn't. But she didn't say this. Instead she looked him right in the eye and said, 'This money represents our daughter's freedom. It's not going out of my sight today.'
Jimmy nodded and left it at that.
The bank were reluctant to part with the money, even though it was hers, and she had to go into the back and endure a lecture from the manager about the perils of being in possession of large sums of cash and sign a load of paperwork before they let her out with what was rightfully hers.
For lunch she grabbed a sandwich and took a walk on Hampstead Heath, leaving the money locked in the boot of the car. Usually it was a place of tranquillity where she could relax and enjoy the illusion of being somewhere in the country. Today, however, she paced relentlessly, counting down the minutes and hours, worrying about someone stealing the car and therefore the money, and when she encountered passers-by she felt bitterness and jealousy at the way they went about their easy lives while she suffered alone in hers. Waiting, always waiting.
She was home by mid-afternoon, and carried the holdall with difficulty up to the front door. Half a million pounds, she was discovering, weighed one hell of a lot. Jimmy was out, for which she was thankful, and she took the opportunity to sit on a lounger in the back garden, look out at the trees and listen to the sounds of early autumn. This was her refuge, her place of peace, and today it gave her hope. There was still that numb fear that it could all go wrong, and that these people, whoever they were, were simply stringing her along, but Andrea was a pragmatist, and the more she thought about it the more she shared Jimmy's view that their primary motive was money. If she did what she was told, they would release Emma. And then maybe, just maybe, things could start to get back to normal. Just the two of them together again.
Jimmy returned at seven o'clock, telling her not to worry because he'd been careful leaving and coming back. She didn't bother asking him where he'd been, assuming he'd been visiting associates. Frankly, she didn't care. She just wanted tonight sorted, and then she wanted rid of him for ever. It remained to be seen whether she'd made a mistake by involving him at all, but it was too late to worry about that now. Tonight she had to focus on the task ahead.
And so, for the next two hours, the waiting continued. They didn't speak much. There was little to say, and it was difficult to plan anything given that neither of them knew what procedures the kidnappers intended to set for them. Andrea kept looking at her watch. Sometimes she counted the seconds ticking on the clock in the hallway, and all the time the tension cranked up inside her little by little.
The clock struck nine.
She looked across at Jimmy. Her mouth was dry. He looked back, and for the first time she saw that he too was worried. He was frowning, his eyebrows almost touching, the lines on his forehead heavily pronounced and suddenly making him look his age. The room was thick with silence.
A minute passed. Andrea counted the seconds on the clock. Neither of them spoke, but Jimmy looked at his watch several times and sighed. It was a cheap thing with a black plastic strap, not like the Cartier he'd worn when she'd first known him. Times had obviously been hard for Jimmy. Maybe even hard enough for him to consider getting involved in a kidnap… No, she didn't want to go down that route. She had to trust somebody, and right now there was no one else.
The phone rang. The receiver was next to her on the coffee table. She picked up immediately.
'Yes?'
'Have you got a pen and paper?' asked the disguised voice – the one that had first called her, she thought.
'Yes.'
'Good. Do exactly what I say and you'll have your daughter back before the end of the night.'
'That's all I want,' she told him.
'Fuck us about, though, and she dies. Painfully. Do you understand?'
She tensed, thinking of Jimmy. Was it a big mistake bringing him in? She said that she understood.
'Here are your instructions. Get in your car – the Mercedes – and drive up to the junction of the M1 and the M25, then proceed eastbound on the M25 to junction twenty-five. Turn left on to the A10, then turn left again at the next roundabout on to the B198 signposted to Rosedale.' He waited while she wrote all this down. His breathing was audible on Andrea's end of the phone. 'There's a turning on the left about two hundred metres down. Follow the road for approximately three quarters of a mile until you see a sign on the right for Gabriel's Saw Mill. Drive down there two hundred metres.' He paused again. 'At that point the track forks. Take the right-hand fork and follow it approximately fifty metres. A burnt-out single-storey building with no front door will appear on your right. You can't miss it. Stop the car but leave the engine running. Take the bag containing the money inside, and drop it against the front wall so that it can't be seen from outside. There's a turning circle another twenty metres down the track. Drive down to that, turn round and leave.'
'What about Emma?'
'When you get back on to the road, turn right and keep going about half a mile and you'll come to a phone box on the left. Go inside and wait for our call. As soon as we've confirmed that all the money's there, and you haven't tried anything stupid, we'll make contact and give you instructions on where to collect your daughter.'
'I need to speak to her.'
'Not now. Do as you're instructed and you'll be seeing her soon enough. One other thing: turn off your mobile and don't bring it with you.'
'OK,' she said reluctantly. She didn't like the idea of being without it.
'Now get moving. You've got exactly forty-five minutes to get to the drop-off point. And remember, we're watching.'
The line went dead and Andrea put the receiver down.
'What's the plan?' asked Jimmy, looking at her closely.
Briefly, she went through the instructions she'd been given. 'I don't think you should come,' she added when she'd finished. 'They said they were going to be watching me. If they see you, it could jeopardize things. I can't afford that.'
'She's my daughter too,' he answered. 'I'm coming with you.'
'What's the point, Jimmy? I'm delivering the money, that's all.'
'Because I don't trust them. That's the point. What if they're bullshitting about letting her go?'
'But you were the one who told me they just wanted cash. That they didn't want to hurt her.'
'Well, maybe that is all they want, but there's still no guarantee they'll release her. They might hold out for more cash. But if you drop me off a couple of hundred yards from where you're making the drop, I'll make my own way down there and keep an eye on the place. I'll see who goes in, see if I recognize them. I might be able to get their registration number.'
'What good'll that do?'
'There's still a couple of coppers I know. They'll be able to trace who the car belongs to.'
Andrea didn't like the sound of this at all.
'But it's risky, isn't it? What happens if they see you? Then they're not going to let Emma go, are they? They might kill her.'
Jimmy shook his head. 'They ain't going to kill her. She's worth more to them alive. And they ain't going to see me, either. I'll be quiet. And I'll be careful. I don't want anything to happen to Emma either, you know.'
Andrea sighed, trying to think. Not following the kidnappers' instructions to the letter was a huge risk, but what if Jimmy was right? What if they weren't going to let Emma go? Surely it was better to have an insurance policy in the form of Jimmy watching the place – someone cunning enough to spot a double-cross, and hard enough, if necessary, to do something about it. But, did she even trust him? She wiped sweat from her brow, wrestling with the alternatives, knowing she had only seconds to make up her mind. Knowing that even one wrong move could end the life of her only child.
She took several deep breaths, telling herself to keep calm, for Emma's sake.
'What if they're out there now watching the house?' she asked. 'If they see us leaving together…'
He shook his head. 'They're not watching the house. If they were, they'd already know I was here. Anyway, there won't be enough of them to do that.'
'How do you know?' she demanded.
'This ain't a big firm, babe. No way. There'll only be a couple of them. Any more and there'd be too much chance of a leak. Also, they'd stand out sitting in a car in a nice, quiet street like this for hours on end. They won't want to risk that. But we'll play it safe. You go out the front, and I'll come out nice and quiet behind you, and I'll stay down in the seat. It'll be dark, no one'll see.'
His words were filled with a quiet confidence that was proving seductive.
'What happens afterwards? Where will I pick you up from? They told me not to bring my mobile phone.'
He reached into his pocket and retrieved a cheap Nokia handset. 'Take this,' he said. 'It's a spare one of mine.'
'I told you, they don't want me to take one.'
'No, babe, they don't want you to bring your mobile phone. There's a difference.'
'What do you mean?'
'They're just covering themselves. If you have gone to the police then one of the ways they can track your movements would be using your mobile. That's why they don't want you to have it. They probably know your number so they can phone to check whether it's switched off.' He handed her the Nokia. 'But they don't know the number of this one.'
'OK,' she said uncertainly as he gave her the handset.
'Put it on vibrate, OK? I've got another phone. You drop me off just before we get to the ransom drop. Then an hour after we part company, I'll text you. If it's safe for you, you call my number and we can arrange to meet.'
She nodded, coming to a decision. 'All right, let's go.'
At 9.47 p.m. Andrea's Mercedes was moving at a steady thirty miles an hour along a quiet country B road with a cornfield stretching into the darkness on one side and a bank of beech and oak trees rising up on the other. A car passed them going the other way and moving far too fast, but there was no traffic behind. Andrea slowed as she spotted the dilapidated sign for Gabriel's Saw Mill nailed to a tree up ahead.
'This is it,' she whispered, indicating right.
Jimmy was hunched down in the front passenger seat, a position he'd adopted ever since they'd left the motorway.
'All right, babe,' he whispered. 'I'm out as soon as you make the turning, unless I hear any different.'
'I don't like this, Jimmy, I really don't like this.' The doubts were savaging her now. If he makes a mistake…
'It's just an insurance policy. Better safe than sorry.'
She steered the Mercedes into the turning, little more than a dirt track which was only just wide enough for the car. Ahead, the trees loomed, blotting out the light of the moon.
'Wish me luck, babe.'
'Good luck,' she answered without looking at him as she peered through the windscreen into the darkness.
A second later the door opened – a foot, maybe a foot and a half – and Jimmy slid through the gap. Then he shut the door silently behind him and Andrea drove on, risking a brief glance in the rear-view mirror as he disappeared into the woods.
Suddenly she was on her own.
Up ahead the trees seemed to rise up to greet her, and the only sounds were the tyres crunching on the track's loose gravel and her own low, tense breathing. This was it, the moment of truth. Close to all of Andrea's life savings were in the holdall in the footwell of the front passenger seat. She would have given everything, down to the clothes on her back, to have Emma returned to her safely, but if this failed and her tormentors didn't keep their side of the bargain she didn't know what else she could do, or where she could get any more money from.
The track forked as the kidnapper had said it would, and she followed it to the right as instructed. The road surface became pitted and potholed and she was forced to slow right down as she manoeuvred the Mercedes round the worst of the holes. Nothing moved in the darkness up ahead and on either side of her the wall of trees looked impenetrable.
And then it appeared to her right, a concrete outbuilding with blackened walls set back a few yards from the track, its roof all but gone, a black hole where the front door was.
She stopped the car and jerked on the handbrake, slipping the gearstick into neutral. For a few seconds she just sat there, listening to the silence, wondering if the man on the phone was watching her now, the man who'd abducted her daughter. Wondering too whether he'd hear Jimmy's approach and call the whole thing off.
Nothing moved. Andrea could hear her heart beating.
Finally, she bent down and pulled up the holdall, leaning back against the weight, and manoeuvred it awkwardly out of the car. As she stood up, she took one last look around before walking slowly up to the building, carrying the holdall two-handed, stopping at the gap where the front door had been.
It suddenly occurred to her that it might well be easier for the kidnappers simply to lie in wait, take the money and kill her, then go back and do exactly the same to Emma. Job done. Right now, Andrea, there could be someone just inside this door, a crowbar in his hand, ready to smash your skull in.
'Just do as he said,' she muttered to herself: drop the money, leave, go to the phone box and wait for the call that would reunite her with her daughter.
She stepped inside. Pale shards of moonlight shone through the huge hole in the roof, revealing an empty room with cement flooring, and a few tins of paint in one corner. To her right, a wooden door hanging off one of its hinges led into a poky little room which had probably once been a storage cupboard. The air smelled musty and vaguely of turps. There was no one there, no crowbar-wielding maniac. Taking a deep breath, she put the holdall on the floor next to the wall, then quickly turned and walked back outside.
And stopped.
She thought she saw movement in the trees ahead of her, something rustling. She stood still, staring, but as she watched, the movement stopped. But she knew she hadn't imagined it, and, feeling a new and very strong urge to get out of this place, she hurried over to where the car sat idling and jumped inside, reversing back the way she'd come in rather than going any further into the woods and using the turning circle she'd been told to use.
It was only when she was back on the road that she sighed with relief. She may have just parted with half a million pounds of her hard-earned money, with still no sign of her daughter, but at least she was out of that place. She wondered if it had been Jimmy she'd heard. She hoped it wasn't. If he could draw attention to himself like that then it might not just be her who'd noticed his presence. It wasn't something she wanted to think about.
A few minutes later the phone box she was after – a modern glass BT one – came into view at the edge of a village which was little more than a tiny collection of houses. It was up on a verge just beyond a bus stop, and partly concealed by the branches of a large oak tree. She pulled up twenty yards short of it, parking her car as close to the verge as possible, and banged on the hazard lights.
Once she was inside the phone box, she stood and waited for the last act, praying that this was finally it. The end of the nightmare.
The time was 9.56 p.m.
The phone didn't ring. Ten minutes passed, then twenty, and still Andrea stood in the bright light of the booth, staring at the receiver as the occasional car hissed past in the darkness outside, willing the call to come through. Hoping, praying…
A memory came back to her of a time years ago when she'd lost Emma on a crowded beach in Spain. They'd been on holiday with a new boyfriend of Andrea's, an Aussie bar manager called Bryan she'd met a few months earlier. Andrea had been besotted with Bryan, who was tall, blond and a lot younger, and for a very short time she'd even thought he was going to be the one. She was all over him on the beach that day, and for just a few moments – no more than that, because Emma was always the most important thing in the world to her – just for those few moments, she hadn't paid attention to her four-year-old daughter, and when she'd pulled away from Bryan and looked around, Emma wasn't there any more.
God, the terror she'd felt. It had almost been worse than when she'd got the call from the kidnapper. She'd jumped up, called out her daughter's name, looked round desperately, but all she could see was a sea of half-naked strangers stretching in both directions as far as the eye could see, like something out of the worst kind of nightmare. She'd panicked, really panicked. All she could think was that Emma had been taken. My baby's been snatched by paedophiles, predators who'll abuse her and kill her. I'll never see her again, and it will all be my fault. Because I put myself before her. She'd run round, not sure which way to go, knowing that the wrong decision would take her even further from Emma, ignoring the blank, uncaring stares of the other beachgoers as she called out, her voice an anguished howl.
In the end it was Bryan who found her, walking along the shore several hundred yards away, all alone, crying her eyes out. She was only missing five minutes, but Andrea could still recall the intense, almost physical joy she'd felt when she saw Bryan coming back with Emma in his arms. She'd never experienced anything like it, either before or since.
Within weeks she'd finished with Bryan – not because he was at fault, but because she would forever associate him with her own selfishness – and she'd sworn then never to let anyone get in the way of her and Emma. She'd kept to her vow, too. Until now.
There was a vibration in her jeans pocket. It was the mobile Jimmy had given her. She looked at her watch. It was 10.18. Pulling it from her pocket, she saw that he'd sent a text.
She read the words on the screen, then read them again.
GET BACK TO DROP-OFF POINT NOW.
It was half an hour since she'd dropped him off.
He'd specifically told her he wouldn't contact her for an hour. Something had made him change his mind. Could it be good news? But if so, why hadn't he just called? She thought about calling him back, but stopped herself. Far better simply to wait here, as she'd been instructed, until the kidnappers called. But why hadn't they done so already? They must have counted the money by now.
The minutes passed. Outside, another car drove past, slowed down, then accelerated again. She suddenly felt very exposed out here in the middle of the country late at night, illuminated for all to see by the phone booth's light.
God, what the hell was Jimmy doing? Had he done something stupid, like confront the kidnappers?
Had he beaten a confession out of one of them? If he had, she'd kill him. All she wanted was her daughter back. Christ, they could have the money. It was totally and utterly irrelevant to her now without Emma. Everything was.
The phone vibrated again. It was another message from Jimmy.
GET BACK TO DROP-OFF POINT NOW. URGENT!
Andrea leaned against the glass panel of the phone booth, staring down at the screen, her stomach churning, wondering what the hell she should do. Then she made a decision and called Jimmy's number.
It rang and rang. She counted each ring, and when the number hit twelve she hung up. What the hell was he playing at?
She replaced the mobile in her pocket and stared at the phone unit on the booth's wall. The gunmetal-grey stand was covered in carved teenage graffiti, and the receiver was scratched and old. It was also not ringing.
What are you going to do, babe? They're not calling, are they? You could be here for hours.
But if I go… If I go and they call… What then?
Andrea agonized. She clenched her fists, and gritted her teeth, squeezed her eyes shut. Tried, tried, tried to make the right decision. Cursed herself for bringing in Jimmy. Cursed Jimmy for complicating things, and then not being there when she needed to talk to him. And still the fucking phone wasn't ringing, and it was now 10.35.
Flinging open the door in one angry movement, Andrea hurried out of the phone booth, jumped back in the car and executed a rapid three-point turn in the road before driving back the way she'd come, going fast and trying her best not to think about the fact that even now the phone might be ringing away as the kidnapper called to give her instructions about where to find Emma.
She was back at the turning to Gabriel's Saw Mill in under two minutes. Once again the track was empty and silent as she drove down it, taking the right-hand fork, looking for but not seeing any sign of Jimmy. She could only assume that he'd meant the abandoned outbuilding when he'd said in the message to get back to the drop-off point, but when she stopped the car outside, it looked just as deserted as it had done before.
This time she killed the lights and the engine, and put the keys in her pocket as she got out. It was a risk – she might need to make a quick getaway – but if she moved away from an idling car, she fancied the idea of someone driving it off and leaving her out here alone even less.
'Jimmy?' she called out, trying to keep her voice down as she slid her gaze along the silent tree line.
No answer.
She turned in the direction of the outbuilding, and swallowed. She didn't want to go back in there, but nor did she want to stay out here, with just the slow, quiet rustling of the leaves in the breeze for company.
'Jimmy?' she called again, a little louder this time, but with exactly the same effect.
She walked up to the hole in the outbuilding where the door had once been, and slowly poked her head inside. The holdall containing the money was gone. Aside from that, everything was just like it was before. The smell of turps, the inner door hanging off its hinges…
Except, now there was the sound of dripping.
At first she thought she was imagining it, that it was the wind playing tricks. But it wasn't. It was definitely there.
Drip, drip, drip…
Coming from the room off to the right.
'Jimmy,' she hissed, 'are you there?'
Nothing.
Fear ran its fingers up Andrea's spine. She wanted to run. But where?
Get back to the phone box. Now. They might be calling. You could miss them!
But where's that dripping coming from?
Suddenly every drop seemed loud inside her head, and as her fear built, so too did her curiosity.
She took three paces inside the room, turned her head and looked into the gloom beyond the hanging door.
'Oh Jesus,' she gasped. 'Oh no.'
Her hand shot to her mouth, covering her scream as she took a step backwards, unable to take her eyes off Jimmy Galante's corpse. They'd impaled him on a rusty butcher's hook, which had been rigged up on an exposed wooden beam running below the ceiling join. He hung there unsteady and sprawling, like a stringless marionette, head slumped forward, feet just about touching the grimy stone floor, arms dangling uselessly at his side. The sky blue polo shirt he'd been wearing earlier was stained black in the semi-darkness, and the dripping she could hear was the blood splattering steadily on to the floor from the gaping wound in his neck where his throat had been sliced wide open.
But there was worse. All his fingers were missing, on both hands. They'd been crudely hacked off, leaving nothing more than uneven, bloodied stumps.
She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Jimmy had been such a powerful presence, and to see him butchered like this was almost too much to bear.
'Oh Jimmy,' she whispered. 'What have they done to you?'
His right arm twitched. She was sure of it. She stared hard into the darkness, asking herself if she'd imagined it.
But then it twitched again.
Oh God, he was still alive.
She rushed forward, half-slipping in the pool of blood that was forming on the floor, and leant down in front of him.
'Jimmy, it's me,' she said urgently, putting one arm round his shoulders and using her free hand to lift up his chin. 'We're going to get you…'
She never finished the sentence, the shock of Jimmy's sightless, dead eyes staring back at her stopping her dead in her tracks. He was gone. The man she'd been relying on was gone. She let go of him and staggered backwards, wondering how this nightmare could get any worse, unable to believe what she'd just witnessed because to believe it was to admit to herself that the animals she was dealing with were capable of the worst kind of atrocity.
And as she leaned against the opposite wall, unable to move, she barely noticed the mobile phone in her pocket as it started to vibrate.
Andrea ran outside into the darkness, desperate to put some distance between her and Jimmy as the mobile continued to vibrate. This wasn't a message. It was a call.
She pulled it from her pocket and said 'Hello?' breathlessly into the mouthpiece.
'Hello, Andrea.' It was the artificial voice of the kidnapper, his tone neutral.
'You've got the money. Now where's my daughter?'
'She's safe.'
'But where is she? I've given you the money, every penny of it. I've kept my side of the bargain-'
'But you haven't though, Andrea, have you? I told you to come alone, didn't I?' He paused, taking his time. 'And you didn't. You decided it would be better to bring someone along to spy on us. That was very stupid. I told you we were watching your every move.'
Andrea felt her heart lurch. 'Please, I'm so sorry. I just wasn't sure what to do. You've got your money. Please let my daughter go.'
'It's going to cost you.'
'For Christ's sake, I've got no more money. You've had everything.'
'There's always more.'
'Listen, please-'
'No, you listen, and you listen very carefully. You fucked up. You didn't follow the simple instructions you were given. So now it's going to cost you another half a million if you want to see your daughter alive again.'
'But I told you, I haven't got that sort of money.'
'You've got another forty-eight hours to find it. That's the deadline. Use the time wisely. And remember, do not tell anyone this time. No one at all. Or Emma dies.'
'Let me speak to my daughter. You've got to let me speak to her.'
'You'll speak to her again, but when we're ready. Not now.'
The line went dead while Andrea was still talking desperately into the mouthpiece, the knowledge that she had indeed totally screwed up ringing round her head. It was all Jimmy's fault. Even after all these years he still had the capacity to cause her pain. But this was pain like she'd never felt before.
Hold together, Andrea. You owe it to Emma. Hold together.
But God it was hard. It was so damn hard. Tears stung her eyes and she wiped them away angrily as she ran over to the car and jumped inside, switching on the engine. She lit a cigarette and took urgent drags, then drove down to the end of the track and turned round.
As she got back on the main road and drove back in the direction of London, she stared wide-eyed out of the windscreen, silently repeating the mantra over again: Stay strong, stay strong, stay strong. She knew she couldn't collapse under the pressure, because if she did she would never get up again, and right now she couldn't afford that, not while Emma remained in the clutches of those animals.
She thought about them now, the people she was up against. Jimmy Galante was no pushover. He was a hard man, a street fighter with the kind of low cunning that only the truest criminals possess, and yet he'd been discovered by the man or men he was supposed to be watching, and butchered like a dog. These people were ruthless. And worse, they knew exactly what they were doing. She couldn't fight them alone, she knew that. Yet involving others had already backfired. Which left what?
There was, of course, only one alternative. The police. At least they might know what to do. It was a huge risk, given how brutally efficient Emma's kidnappers were. If they found out that the police were involved, they might panic and kill her, but then they might well kill her anyway, especially if Andrea couldn't raise the new money fast enough. Once again she was being forced into a corner, knowing that the wrong move would have terrifying ramifications.
So intensely was she concentrating that she didn't notice that her car was veering into the centre of the road until she saw headlights rushing towards her and heard the sound of the other car's horn. She swung the wheel hard left and slammed on the brakes, going into a wild skid that whirled the car round a hundred and eighty degrees in a screech of tyres before she finally came to a halt, facing the wrong way down the empty road.
Except it wasn't empty. The car that had been coming towards her had now stopped about thirty yards ahead. As she watched, her hands gripping the steering wheel as if it was the edge of a cliff she was hanging from, it did a three-point turn and started driving back towards her, the lights on its roof flashing a bright blue against the night sky.
Andrea cursed. Of all the bad luck, she had to run into probably the only police patrol car in a ten-mile radius.
Act natural. For Christ's sake, act natural.
She glanced briefly in the rear-view mirror and was shocked by the face that stared back at her.
Her expression was tight and haunted, making her look a good five years older than she was, her hair a tangled mess.
Stay calm. Act natural.
The police car came to a halt five feet in front of her bumper, and its two occupants slowly clambered out of each side, donning their caps.
She wound down her window as the driver stopped beside it and leaned down. He was middle-aged, heavy-set but running to fat, with a thick moustache and a gruff expression that suggested whatever she said wasn't going to be enough to stop her getting booked for careless driving. But she had to try.
'I'm sorry, officer,' she announced before he had a chance to speak. 'I think I must just have lost concentration. I've had a very busy day at work.'
'I'm afraid that's not an excuse, madam,' he told her sternly. 'You really shouldn't be driving if you're tired.'
Typical copper, she thought. Always acting holier than thou. I bet he's driven knackered plenty of times. But she knew she couldn't say anything to antagonize him. Instead, she apologized for a second time.
'Where have you been this evening?' he asked, his expression unchanged.
Belatedly, she realized her hands were still gripping the steering wheel. She removed them, saw that they were shaking, put them in her lap.
'Work,' she answered.
'Where do you work?'
Her mind went blank. Completely. For a moment, she couldn't even remember where she was. 'Erm…' Her hesitation sounded ridiculous, she knew it. But she just couldn't think. 'Er…'
'Would you mind stepping out of the car, madam?' he asked, reaching in with a gloved hand and removing her keys from the ignition. 'I have to tell you that I've got reason to believe you've been drinking, so we're going to ask you to take a breath test. Do you understand?'
She nodded weakly. 'Sure.'
Stay calm, Andrea, stay calm. You haven't been drinking. One shot of brandy two hours ago, nowhere near enough to make you over the limit. The worst that can happen is they book you for dangerous driving. They'll issue you with a ticket, let you go, and you can go home and try to think of a way of finding another half a million pounds in cash by Saturday to save your fourteen-year-old daughter's life.
She stepped out of the car, unsteady on her feet as all the knocks of the past forty-eight hours rose up and battered her like winter waves on a sea wall. She was finally crumbling, and she knew it.
'Are you all right, madam?' It was the driver's colleague. He was a taller, younger guy, with the air of the college graduate about him, and he was holding a breathalyser under his arm.
'Yeah, thanks. I'm fine.' She tried to smile but didn't quite make it.
The young cop was staring at her chest. 'What's that?'
'What's what?'
She looked down, saw what he was staring at.
There was a thick patch of blood on her jacket where she'd grabbed hold of Jimmy. Jesus, how could she have missed that? There were further flecks of it lower down, as well as a single thumbsized spot on her T-shirt, which suddenly seemed to stick out a mile in the flashing lights.
The older cop stepped forward, staring too.
'Have you been hurt?' he asked.
She turned round quickly. 'No, I'm fine. Honestly.'
'This is blood,' he said. 'You'd better take your jacket off. You might have cut yourself.'
'I haven't.'
The two cops were watching her closely. The older one seemed to come to a decision.
'Take your jacket off, madam.'
She felt like asking why, but knew she was going to have to cooperate eventually, so she slipped it off and gave it to the older cop, who lifted it to his nose and sniffed it suspiciously.
'This is definitely blood,' he said.
Andrea stood there, her heart pounding. Now that they could see she wasn't hurt, one of them was going to ask the obvious question. It was the younger one who did.
'Care to explain how it got on your shirt and jacket, madam?'
Andrea took a deep breath. The decision about what her next move would be had finally been made for her.
'Yes,' she said, looking at them both in turn. 'I think I'd better.'