The Family Lie

by Jake Cross

  He wore a necklace she recognised. The sight of it made her eyes grow wide in shock, and she closed them so he wouldn’t see fresh distress and fathom the reason.

  ‘There you go. Have maybe your last look, if you stuff us,’ he said. Then turned away.

  That was when she noticed her surroundings. Not a bridge or a tunnel or a building that had cut out the light, she saw. Lorries with big trailers surrounded them, their high sides blocking the sun. Her thought: a lorry park at a Services.

  Ball Cap put his hand on her neck, used it to turn her head towards him. No, not him. The window behind him. They were parked at the back of two articulated lorries that created a high corridor ten feet wide. As she watched, a van moved into view at the other end and a side door slid open.

  ‘Oh my god. J—’

  ‘Calm down,’ Ball Cap said.

  She reached for the door, but his free hand grabbed her ponytail, both grips locking her in place. She shut her muscles down because she knew the van could escape long before she reached the end of the corridor.

  She couldn’t believe it. There was Josie, on her knees in the back of the van. Her little lady. She didn’t look hurt or tied up, but Anna got only enough of a glimpse to know it was her, and then the sliding door shut, and the van pulled away, out of her view.

  ‘There. A movie clip. Now you want to see the whole film, don’t you?’

  Ball Cap started to stuff her down on to the floor again, ponytail and neck in his hands, but she struggled. He let go of her hand and clamped it over her mouth, shutting off her air, and promised he’d— ‘Bury both of you right here if you don’t quit it, woman.’

  The fight went right out of her, but not because of his threat. If she wanted Josie back, there was only one way to do it. Do what these people wanted. She had given in to them all the way so far, so why change that now, especially after they’d followed through with a promise to show her that Josie was alive? Do as they say, give them her Forcefield, and surely they would also follow through with their promise to free her daughter.

  ‘Let’s just get driving,’ she snapped as she laid her head on Josie’s pyjamas again. ‘We’re wasting time.’

  When the satnav said he’d arrived, Nick parked and shut everything off. Absently, he reached for the glovebox and a photo of all three of them, himself, Josie and Anna, at a country park picnic table. Only when he saw no picture did he remember that he was in Middleton’s car. But he did see a half-empty bag of roasted nuts and his stomach immediately grumbled. He slammed the lid and started gorging.

  It was late and he knew nothing was going to happen overnight, so he put the seat back and tried to relax. It wouldn’t happen. And it was cold. He went to the boot, hoping to find a coat or blanket, but what he found was a box wrapped in flowery paper. A tag said…

  Happy Birthday, Eldest. From Dad

  A birthday present for Anna. The shape was unmistakable: alcohol! He snatched it up. Randomly, his mind flipped through history – had Eastman ever bought Anna a birthday present? With a secret love note, perhaps in Braille so nobody else could read it?

  Back in the driver’s seat, paranoia fading, Nick tore a strip of the paper away before he caught himself. Beneath, he saw part of two words:

  EGA CHA

  It was as low as he’d felt for hours. Sitting in a stolen car, about to drink wine bought for his wife’s ruined birthday, and wondering still if she’d had an affair with her boss while he’d been dating her.

  His mind turned to his daydream on the motorway, when his brain had decided he could cope with a return of some memories from last night. Before, he had lied to DS Bennet when he’d said he didn’t remember anything else about being taken by masked men, but that had been because he’d believed he’d lain in that van and let panic overcome him, let his daughter down with inaction. But now he knew he had talked to Josie; he had tried his hardest to comfort her, to dispel her fears. Tied up, drugged, words had been all he could offer. And now he felt he had done as much as he could. Not enough, of course, but the limit of his ability.

  So he hadn’t been weak at all. He’d shown strength, and he needed to show it again tomorrow. And the day after, and for the rest of his life.

  Including right now.

  He pressed the torn paper back into place and put the bottle on the floor. He was about to put it under the mat, so it wouldn’t call to him, but backtracked. No, let it stare at him. Let it call, tempt, cajole, threaten. He was stronger.

  He remembered the framed quote in his kitchen, which he’d never before thought about. Author Josh Jameson’s belief that sometimes it was wise to give up, if the chips were stacked against you, but sometimes you needed to dip into reserves and push on.

  ‘I will not close the book.’

  The next leg was long, no stops. It gave her time to think. She tried to remember Miller’s instructions on how to talk to captors. She replayed everything Ball Cap had said to her, trying to get a read on his personality so she could work out tactics for conversing with him later. But soon after something happened that dissolved her belief that Ball Cap was the leader of the pair.

  He tapped her head with his foot. ‘What is it these guys are after? Why’s it called the Forcefield?’

  Not ‘us’. ‘These guys.’ And delivered in a whisper. Was he just some kind of helper, unaware of what was going on?

  She got her answer when Dominic said, ‘Hey, man, you were told not to ask about that. You’re not supposed to know, that’s why we call it the Forcefield.’

  ‘I thought that was in case the cops were listening.’ She felt him shift close. This time his breath was right by her ear. ‘Come on, tell me. What is it they want? What’s this lark about?’

  She didn’t want to antagonise him, but also didn’t want to tell the truth, not if he didn’t know already. So something cryptic, thus safe, slipped out:

  ‘Immortality.’

  ‘Dude, Jesus, I told you not to ask her,’ Dominic said.

  That feeling of proximity was gone. The feet were on her back again. The car rolled on. The minutes trickled by.

  The next time the car stopped, it did so for a long time. She knew they had arrived. But nobody said anything. She felt the daylight losing control to darkness. Dominic shut off the radio. He announced he was going for food and got out. Now, she knew, Ball Cap could do what he wanted. He could go between her legs, or he could insist on that answer he so wanted. But he did nothing, said nothing. Dominic returned with what smelled like fish and chips and both men ate noisily and talked about nothing that mattered to her. She wanted food but didn’t ask. Weirdly, though, upon the heels of this thought, Dominic said, ‘Hey, don’t scoff the lot. Some of that was for her.’

  ‘She’s had paper.’ Just a joke because chips pattered to the carpet by her face. She couldn’t move her arms because they were jammed by her sides. Rather than eat like a dog, she didn’t eat.

  ‘Hey, don’t waste it,’ Ball Cap said. ‘You don’t want to try a daring escape and find you’re out of energy.’

  She let a few minutes go by so he wouldn’t think she had an escape plan, then ate. Not long after that, Dominic said the words Boot time and Ball Cap tapped her head with his foot.

  ‘It’s late, missus, and we need sleep. I can either sleep on top of you, or you can go in the boot.’

  ‘Don’t mess around,’ Dominic said.

  ‘And I sleep naked. So, me on top or the boot?’

  She wanted neither. ‘I won’t run. I came to you. I want my daughter back.’

  ‘I know you won’t run. You’ll be in the boot. Or under me.’

  ‘Boot,’ she croaked.

  She heard a thump. Ball Cap grabbed her ponytail and lifted her up. She fought to get her arms under her and struggled to her knees. Ball Cap had collapsed part of the seat to expose the boot. In the darkness of the car, it was a black mouth she didn’t want any part of.

  ‘What are you, a vampire? I invite you into my boot.’ He swept a
hand like a concierge displaying the penthouse suite.

  She climbed over the back seat, into the black mouth. The carpet was rough and smelled of timber, and the fibres were studded with a billion splinters. He told her to lie with her back to him, hands behind her. She did and he slipped a piece of fabric around her wrists.

  Then his weight was on her and she feared he was going to kiss her good night, but he reached out to prop an electronic tablet against the rear of the car, right in front of her face. On the screen was a paused YouTube video called Hilarious Cats.

  ‘Dead funny, that. Don’t laugh too loud, okay? Oh, and if you scream for help, your kid will end up doing the same.’

  He shut the mouth. Thankfully, the tablet prevented total blackness. Behind the wall, she heard Ball Cap shifting about, getting comfortable. She heard the click of the driver’s seat reclining as Dominic prepared for bed, too.

  As the two men settled, she closed her eyes and said, ‘I will turn the page.’

  Fifteen

  Afterwards, she got thanked for her concern, but it wasn’t for the child. It was because she couldn’t fathom the horror of letting someone else get hurt by her car.

  Before all that, though, the boy, still shaking after nearly racing his runaway pushbike into her Punto, holds out his hand and she shakes it. He thanks her for rushing forward and stopping his bike. She tells him to be careful in future. Running a hand through his floppy ginger hair, he remarks that kids are tough and he would have been fine. He’s a good-looking boy and she hopes to have one like him if she can’t strike lucky with a daughter. Far from here, though. And when she gets her life back on track, and these demons from her mind.

  Perhaps sensing that he’s being rude, he says, ‘I’m lucky you was here, countess. I was gonna have a smash.’ Thankfully, he doesn’t ask why she’s here. ‘Maybe you should never leave and make sure nothing else happens to me.’

  ‘I can’t. I have to go soon. But I have something for you. A present…’

  She was snapped out of the dream – the nightmare – by Ball Cap shaking her. Daylight streamed into the mouth. Amazingly, she had slept until morning. Deep enough to slip back into a dark period of her life.

  ‘Hey, what’s this?’ he said as he snatched up the electronic tablet.

  ‘No, don’t you look at that.’

  But he sat back and looked, and he showed Dominic, who was rubbing sweet sleep from his face.

  ‘Put it down. Don’t you look at it.’

  ‘Mess this up and pictures are all you’ll have left,’ he said, turning the tablet so she could see him tap the picture of Josie.

  In the night, strangely not in the mood to watch cats falling off walls, she had logged in to Facebook, using her nose to cycle through pictures of Josie. But then she must have fallen asleep with one still onscreen.

  He tossed the tablet aside and ordered her out. He watched her struggle, laughing, until Dominic told him to untie her and stop messing about.

  Seated and trying to ignore the pain from arms locked behind her all night, she was ordered to wash and given a packet of baby wet wipes. Dominic was reading a newspaper, but Ball Cap watched her scrape away tear residue and dirt from the boot. She realised she hadn’t showered since the morning of the day before yesterday, just before taking Josie to school. This time, for the first time since the nightmare kick-started, picturing her little lady didn’t come with a wave of dread. She knew what that meant.

  ‘Hey! I said: you didn’t try to run, then?’

  ‘I want my daughter,’ she said with confidence borne of the knowledge that she would have her Josie back soon. She looked into his eyes. ‘You could even send me for breakfast.’

  He laughed. ‘Comb your hair. You look like a whore who had a killer night.’

  He gave her a plastic chip shop fork with hardened grease on it. She dragged it through tangles and knots, while reminding herself that she had only to follow some simple rules, and give these people what they wanted, and then soak up a magnificent, delicious reunion with her—

  ‘Hey! Snap out of it. I said put this on.’

  He was holding clothing pulled from a plastic supermarket bag. Black trousers and a suit jacket. He was grinning.

  ‘That’s right. This is your changing room.’

  So, there in the cramped back seat, with the Ball Cap bastard watching and making no attempt to pretend he wasn’t, she stripped out of her dirty clothing. But before she could drag on the trousers to cover her underwear, he plucked out a final pair of items from the bag. She knew what was coming even before she saw knickers and a bra in his hands. She wanted to protest that hers were fine, but knew these people hadn’t brought them because they wanted her fresh. So she didn’t bother. She took hers off and put on the new stuff, knickers first.

  ‘Hang on, let me help with that,’ he said when she tried to put the bra on. She ignored him. Once done, she quickly got into the trousers and suit jacket, which thankfully buttoned up above her bra.

  Afterwards, he held up a pair of shoes. But he only gave her one; the second he insisted on putting on himself. She put her eyes out the window as he slipped it on to her foot. He patted her instep when it was done.

  Next he reached over the passenger seat and ripped the sun visor right off the roof, which made Dominic swear. He turned his head, angry, and she got another look at the necklace he wore. She wanted to tear his eyes, oh so in range of her nails, right out of his head.

  The sun visor, which had a mirror, got dumped in her lap along with a few make-up items.

  ‘I’ll help with the lipstick,’ he said.

  And he did.

  ‘Now sit back and relax,’ he said afterwards. ‘We’ve got twenty minutes until 9 a.m.’

  ‘What?’ she snapped. ‘We waited all night because of that? It’s a twenty-four-hour establishment, you damn idiots.’

  She’d blurted the insult in anger, because this error had kept her away from Josie for hours, but now fear flooded in as she worried about repercussions. But both men just looked at her. Ball Cap punched the back of the seat, just inches from her. ‘Why didn’t you know that?’ he asked his pal. ‘We just sat here all night.’

  ‘So go now,’ Dominic said, turning back to his paper.

  She shrank back as Ball Cap reached past her to grab the door handle, but paused like that. ‘In and out. I say this takes half an hour tops. Any longer, bad news. Do I need to remind you of what happens if you run or anything? Do I?’

  She shook her head. ‘I won’t run. I want my little lady.’

  He opened the door. And that was it. She got out. Free. She looked around, seeking the van she had seen yesterday. But Josie was probably miles away in case she called the police. With no other choice – not that she would have taken another – she virtually ran down the side road, and out into a blizzard of pedestrians on the Strand in Westminster, London.

  Jefferson’s was down a nondescript side street off the major London thoroughfare, tucked nicely away because it didn’t need or wish to advertise. The kind of people who banked there went looking for it.

  The perks of banking here included access to executive lounges in hundreds of airports, major discounts on fine wines across the city, and a Breitling watch with personal locator beacon, because clients of Jefferson’s didn’t holiday in Blackpool. And since many were international and didn’t keep to British working hours, there was a concierge in reception twenty-four hours a day.

  Anna swiped in with the keycard from her father’s garage. Ahead, across a marble floor, the white-suited concierge rose from behind his desk and straightened his tie with a smile. She started towards him, telling herself that she needn’t worry about her demeanour, because often the rich were quirky, and this guy was paid not to ask questions about—

  He lost that smile in the quarter-second before she heard a bang behind her.

  She whirled to see a man at the door, having just caught it before closing. Dishevelled, anxious, with distressed eyes
and rapid breathing.

  ‘Nick. My God, what—’

  He rushed in and grabbed her arm.

  ‘Ma’am, do you know this man?’

  Over her shock, she turned to the concierge, who was walking around his desk.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It’s fine. Thank you.’

  He didn’t look like he believed this, but he was paid not to ask questions of the quirky rich. The guy simply nodded as Nick guided Anna down a short corridor bearing the toilets. He pushed open the door of the Gents and virtually dragged her inside.

  Still in shock, she didn’t manage to form a question until they were in a cubicle and the door was locked.

  ‘How did you know?’

  He seemed calmer now they were alone. ‘It is revenge?’

  ‘You can’t be here, Nick. This will ruin things. How did you know where I was?’

  The panic came back into his face. ‘Do you know where Josie is? Was she ever at the scrapyard?’

  Scrapyard? He’d been there, too? She sat on the closed toilet lid, legs weak, goosepimples on the back of her shoulders. She knew he knew it all. He glared down at her, his face part anxiety and part anger and part terror. But he knew she was suffering too, because he took her hands and knelt before her. Jefferson’s didn’t have cramped toilet cubicles.

  ‘I know, Anna. I know it all. I know about the hit-and-run. It’s why you needed to leave London so quickly. I know about the cloned car. I don’t know how you arranged it all, but I know. Is this about revenge? Someone connected to those people you killed? Did they take Josie to get revenge? But what are you doing here? Is there something here they want? A secret money stash? What? Talk to me.’

  Still in shock, she touched his face, as if to confirm he was really there, and to give herself time to catch her breath. He waited.