Deadline

by Simon Kernick

  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 f
or 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.

  Two

  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 r
eally 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.