Captive

by A. J. Grainger

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

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

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

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

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

  “But Jez is dead.”

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

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

  “Enjoying his role as nursemaid, that one,” Scar snarls when he’s gone.

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

  I shift uneasily. “Will . . . is Addy going to be okay?”

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

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Dad and I are drinking hot chocolate on the Champs-Élysées. This afternoon the sky is blue and the sun is bright. A woman is marching past the café. The baguette in her bag is waving furiously, like it is conducting an invisible orchestra.

  “What would you have called me if Robin hadn’t died?” I ask.

  Dad is silent, so I flake off a piece of pastry and dunk it in my hot chocolate, then ask if we can go to the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson museum sometime. I’m hoping for tomorrow

  “I thought we were talking about your brother.”

  I dunk another piece of pastry, letting go this time and watching it disappear beneath the froth. “I didn’t think you wanted to.”

  “You give up too easily. How will I ever make a politician of you? Maybe Katherine, after your grandmother. Maybe Millicent, or Dorothy.”

  I screw up my face, and he smiles.

  “Does it upset you to have your brother’s name?”

  “No . . . not really. Sometimes. Do you wish I had been a boy?”

  “Robyn Elizabeth Knollys-Green, I have been in politics for more years than I care to admit. In that time, I have averted wars, rebuilt an ailing economy, and met more foreign dignitaries than I can count. And yet you and your sister, and your brother, are my proudest achievements. There is nothing about you that I would change.”

  The sun is bright through the café window. It lights Dad up from behind and makes the gray in his hair shine almost gold. “Never wish things to be different,” he says. “It is an impossible task, aside from anything else. And thinking about impossible tasks is rather exhausting. Things are as they are. It is up to us how we handle them. And never apologize for who you are. No”—a smile twitches on his lips—“never apologize period, or at least, not loud enough for anyone to hear you.”

  “Do you never apologize for anything?”

  “No. My thought is and must always be: ‘I am able to save this country, and no one else can.’”

  “Who said that?”

  “William Pitt. The Elder.”

  “You are always quoting somebody.”

  “Words are a powerful weapon. A single word can change a destiny. You wouldn’t waste a bullet—or a nuclear warhead. Don’t waste a word.”

  I swish my spoon through the last froth of my chocolate. “Are you able to save this country?”

  “I think so.”

  “And what does everyone else think?”

  “Who cares? I am the prime minister. It’s true that not everyone likes the methods I use to run the country, but it’s important to follow your own path. We can’t please all the people, all of the time.”

  “What methods don’t they like? What do you do?”

  “Whatever is necessary—” He is cut off by Gordon coming into the café.

  “Prime Minister,” he says, “I think we should move on. There appears to be a man with a camera. . . .”

  Gordon is standing in the window, blocking out the sun. For a second, Dad is in shadow, his features so obscured by darkness that I almost don’t recognize him. Then he stands up and is illuminated in sunlight again. “Come on, Bobs,” he says. “Carpe diem. Let’s go and see more of Paris.”

  • • •

  It is just after my afternoon trip to the bathroom on the fourth day when Talon brings me the book An Encyclopedia of Woodland Birds. It is a pretty unusual choice of reading material. “It was my dad’s. I thought that maybe you’d like to try to identify the birds outside from their calls,” he says, looking almost embarrassed. “The sounds are written out as you say them, and there are pictures.” He flips through a couple of the pages, and we both look down at the brightly colored (and actually beautiful) photos of various birds. Seeing them makes me yearn for my camera.

  “The video you made yesterday was good,” he goes on. “I’m sure they’ll release Marble very soon, and then you can go home.”

  I pick at a loose thread in the knee of my tracksuit bottoms. “Have you heard from him? My dad.”

  “Negotiations are ongoing.” He sounds like he’s reading a prewritten statement.

  “So you are talking to him? He’s going to release Kyle Jefferies in exchange for me?”

  “As I said, negotiations are ongoing.”

  So he hasn’t agreed, or rather the government hasn’t agreed. They must have promised something, though, because I am still alive. My worry must still show on my face, though, because Talon says, “You’re the PM’s daughter. If you speak out against him, things will change. They’d have to. He couldn’t silence you. Not his own daughter. He’d obviously do anything for you.”

  I fall back on the bed. I’ve always known that being rescued is my greatest hope of survival, so what the hell are the police waiting for? Couldn’t they just bang on the front door of every house in the country until they find the one I’m in? I don’t care if that isn’t realistic and is some sort of human rights violation. What about my human rights?

  “Feather wants you to eat upstairs this evening. She’s pleased with the recording but thinks you’re still not eating properly.” Talon sighs. “This will be over, just as soon as we sort things out with your dad.”

  I roll over and look at the tiny window.

  ‘“There’s a blue sky today,” he says, as though reading my mind. “Wispy clouds. There was a jay on one of the bushes out there earlier. There’s a picture in the book if you’re interested.”

  “This book really belonged to your dad?”

  He looks away, and I know we are both thinking the same thing: Why is he giving his dad’s book to his hostage?

  “Yeah, and then it was my brother’s. Jez was sick a lot when he was a kid. He couldn’t go out much, but there was a big tree just outside his window that was always full of birds. Dad gave him that book so he could listen to them and know what they were.”

  And now Talon is giving that book to me.

  Is he beginning to sympathize with me? Ther
e was a story in the newspaper a few months back, about a girl who was attacked in the street. Instead of panicking, she started telling the guy about her life: her friends, her favorite food, a book she loved. He let her go without hurting her. Later, the police said it was because she made him see her as a person—someone like him, and not a victim. If Talon sees me like that, will he be less likely to hurt me if something goes wrong with the negotiations?

  “There’s a big tree in the Downing Street garden,” I say quickly. “I climbed it once. Mum nearly had a heart attack. It was great, though. I could see over the wall and all the way across Horse Guards Parade.”

  “You should think about that tree now. It could be like a piece of home here with you,” Talon says.

  I pick at the loose thread on my pants again, pretending I’m not imagining myself outside, under that tree in Downing Street, both arms outstretched under an azure sky. Only the tree in my mind is larger than the one at home, and its branches are now loaded with birds.

  • • •

  That evening Talon leads me up from the basement. I’m not blindfolded this time, but of course Talon is still masked. I wonder fleetingly how he and the others are going to eat with their faces covered. The kitchen at the top of the stairs smells of garlic and onion. A pan of tomato sauce is bubbling over on the stove. “Feather!” Talon calls. “The food’s burning.” I jump, but whether from the suddenness of his cry or because his fingers brush my arm as he gently steers me through the doorway and into the corridor beyond, I can’t tell. The door still hangs half off its hinges from when Scar broke it down to come after me.

  Feather comes out of a room to the left of the kitchen. She pushes past us. “Go in. Sit down. I’ll serve up.”

  We turn a bend in the hall and there is the front door. Light from the outside world is spilling through its colored glass panes and making splashes on the tiled floor. If only I had turned left instead of right on that first day. I can’t run now; Talon is holding my arm too firmly.

  We go into a living room. Scar is slouched on the brown couch, his legs stretched out under the glass table, a pillow stuffed under his head. His mask is half pushed up over his nose. He quickly pulls it down over his chin as we enter, but not before I’ve caught a glimpse of full lips and a rounded chin.

  The TV is on and Feather turns the volume up as she comes in, setting one of the three bowls she is holding on the table and balancing the other two in the crook of her arm. “Yours is in the kitchen, Scar.”

  She settles on the floor and, after rolling her mask up to her nose, begins to shovel the pasta and sauce into her mouth. Talon hands me a bowl and a plastic fork. He brushes the sofa down with his hand and gestures for me to sit. After I’ve done so, he lowers himself down beside me, giving Feather, who grins up at him, a playful kick in the back.

  Scar comes back with his bowl as the news is starting. I am struggling to eat again. The sauce is more water than tomato, and the pasta sticks to my mouth like wet cement. After only a few mouthfuls, I put the fork down and let the bowl rest in my lap. Talon is eating methodically, the bottom of the mask pulled up with one hand, so he can shove the fork into his mouth with the other. I let my hair fall around my face, so I can watch him surreptitiously. He wears a gray short-sleeved T-shirt, so his arms are visible. At the top of one arm, just peeking out from under the fabric of his shirt, is the white bandage covering the stab wound I gave him. He looks vulnerable compared to the others.

  Scar is hunched in a corner, his back to us. He slurps and belches his way through his meal, the mask pushed way back on his head. He finishes eating just as a news broadcaster announces the day’s headlines. I am surprised that I am being allowed to watch this. Denying prisoners any knowledge of the outside world is a well-known way of making them co­­operate. But then, I have already cooperated—maybe they are preparing to send me home? Maybe the government has agreed with Dad that releasing Kyle Jefferies is a small price to pay for my freedom.

  “We go live now to a press conference with Prime Minister Stephen Knollys-Green,” the anchorwoman says.

  And there he is. My dad, in his yellow tie—the one I picked out for him on that last morning—standing behind a podium on the steps of Downing Street with my mum a step behind him. The camera zooms in on Dad as he loops his arm around Mum and pulls her into the frame. She is thin, her eyes watery behind the TV makeup. I can sense her resistance to being that close to him on camera from the pucker­ing of her lips and the way she tilts her head back. Dad begins to talk, but his voice is quiet, and his hand shakes as he reaches for the glass of water on the podium. That makes me nervous. I need him to be in charge. To be terrifying. I need him to tell these people that they can’t hurt his daughter and he will do whatever it takes to get me back. Instead he talks slowly, tripping over his words, and his eyes flutter across the screen as if unable to focus properly. “Firstly, I—we—would like to . . . thank everyone for their unfailing support in the form of words of condolence, letters, e-mails, and even gifts. These acts of kindness have sustained us through these, our darkest of days.”

  I convince myself he is just taking time to warm up. I’ve seen Dad persuade the United Nations to send out peacekeeping troops. He can do this.

  “These last days have been . . . They have been . . . well, hell. As many of you know, on the eleventh of April, my daughter Robyn was taken hostage while traveling with her mother and sister—”

  He gets no further because my mum collapses, falling right into the podium and knocking it forward. My hand goes automatically to my head as hers hits the concrete. She doesn’t get up again. The room spins. I stare at a piece of peeling wallpaper, just to the right of the screen. Green with mold and curved upward, it looks like a leaf. I stare at it until the room settles. Be okay. Please be okay. I jump as Talon touches my arm. When I look at him, I expect to see gloating in his eyes, but there is only gentleness there, as if he cares whether my mum might be hurt. I’ve never thought before how much you can tell about a person from just their eyes. When I look back at the TV screen, my heartbeat is steadier again. Like somehow the fact that I’m not the only one in this room who cares about my mum has calmed me. One of Dad’s assistants is helping Mum to her feet. She looks dazed but otherwise all right.

  “Stupid bitch,” Scar murmurs.

  Talon tells him to shut up. Scar opens his mouth to say something but is silenced by Feather holding up her hand. “He’s going to start talking again.”

  She’s right. Dad is back at the podium. Talon’s hand slips from my arm, but my skin is still warm from his touch. After a last look at Mum, who is being ushered inside Number 10, Dad begins to talk. It’s like he’s a different man. Maybe seeing Mum faint has reminded him of what is at stake. There is a new determination set into the lines in his face, and he grips the sides of the podium with both hands, like he might throw it at anyone who gets in his way. When he speaks, it is the voice he used for the UN. This is the dad I need him to be right now. He is, after all, fighting for my life.

  “As many of you know, on the eleventh of April, my sixteen­-year-old daughter, my Robyn, was kidnapped while traveling with her mother and sister to my wife’s family home in the country by the terrorist organization the AFC. This same group is responsible for shooting me in Paris in January. These people are ruthless. They would have us believe that they are promoting the rights of animals, but what about the rights of the human? What about the rights of my daughter, snatched in the most brutal and terrifying way? This will not be tolerated. We will find the people responsible and we will punish them in the severest way.” He looks straight into the camera, straight at me. “Robyn, we will find you. We will bring you home.”

  A flush of adrenaline surges through me. I knew Dad would sort this. Everything is going to be okay.

  “Terrorists seek to destroy the fabric of our society and put in its place chaos, destruction, and fear,” Dad con
tinues. “They will stop at nothing until their ends are met. The fact that they believe that taking children hostage is a viable way to promote their cause is testimony to this.”

  “This is utter bullshit,” Scar says. He leans over the back of the sofa; his bowl lies discarded on the table, pasta sauce crusting on its edges. “Your father is full of shit, you know that, Princess?” His fingers slide under my hair and up the back of my neck.

  I jerk forward.

  “Scar, sit down over there,” Feather orders.

  Dad is still talking. He mentions the video I made in which I demanded the release of Kyle Jefferies. He brands Jefferies a terrorist. In fact, he is talking a lot about terrorism and how it must be stamped out. “We must work together to ensure the safety of this entire nation.” He holds his hands out, palms up. It is a gesture he often uses. It is supposed to be nonthreatening and to invite friendship and cooperation. I was in the room when the speechwriter first suggested it. All my dad’s speeches are written for him, carefully and elaborately scripted by a team of people. He oversees them and makes suggestions, of course, but he doesn’t write them. He wrote this one, though, didn’t he? He wouldn’t let someone else write the speech that could save his daughter’s life. Would he?

  “Terrorism cannot and will not be tolerated.” He bangs his hand firmly on the podium, and for a moment, the speech feels like a performance. Almost as though Dad is going through the motions. But for who? For the cameras? The AFC. For me. Why go on camera at all, looking cleanly shaven and neat in his suit and tie, like his daughter being kidnapped is a press opportunity to prove that he is a good man in a crisis? He doesn’t look at all like a man whose daughter has been kidnapped. He looks like a prime minister, using an opportunity to talk about terrorism.

  Stop it, Robyn. Stop it. He’s the prime minister. Of course he needs to be in control. I need him to be in control; that’s what will bring me home. But why hasn’t he just given the AFC what they want? Release Marble and this will all be over. In a few hours I could be back at Downing Street, with Mum and Addy and Shadow. Any second now he’ll say it.