Midnight Girls

by Lulu Taylor

  But they don’t know about Mitch, she reminded herself. Their meetings had been conducted away from the eyes of the guards. Like the last time I was with him. She remembered that secret rendezvous in the library at the ambassador’s party when they’d coupled so quickly and beautifully. It had been like that for so long now. They’d both been living for the time when they’d be able to be free and open about their relationship, could live together like any normal couple.

  But will that ever happen? she wondered, agonised. Perhaps the guards had forgotten she spoke fluent Italian – or maybe they no longer cared what she knew, because they were going to kill her whatever. Carlo had been spitting with rage that there was no sign of the money, that her parents seemed to be prevaricating.

  ‘How can these rich people pretend they don’t have money?’ he’d raged. ‘They must have twenty million in the safe at their house, for fuck’s sake! At least!’

  Rocco had been trying to calm him down. ‘It’s only been one day. They’re probably getting their funds together as we speak. I don’t believe they’ve gone to the police. My girl in the house says there’s been no one visiting, no detectives.’

  ‘If I hear of one policeman walking through that door, she’s dead!’ cried Carlo.

  ‘And with her, any hope of getting the money. Come on, Carlo, we always knew this would be the tough part. We must keep our nerve, get the cash, and then …’

  She’d heard no more, hustled away and back into wherever they were keeping her.

  Oh my God! Someone is spying on my parents! Five minutes before, Romily had been praying for them to get the police and anyone else involved. Now she realised with sick horror that it would be her execution warrant if they did.

  And if the money didn’t come soon, she’d die anyway, she was sure of it.

  *

  Back on her uncomfortable couch, Romily rolled up into a foetal shape. She longed to sleep and find oblivion, wake up back at home in her own bed.

  Was it really so little time since she’d been taken captive? Only the day before yesterday she’d walked into David McCorquodale’s exquisite Knightsbridge house, perfectly dressed in a Louis Vuitton suit, ready to convince him to sign on the dotted line and surrender his business empire to her. He’d been charmed by her elegance and when he’d agreed to sell, she’d been full of triumph, a conqueror, her revenge on Allegra complete at last. How silly and hollow that all seemed now, her obsessive pursuit of Allegra’s possessions a meaningless and empty waste of time. If I get out of here, she vowed to herself, I’ll learn how to live again.

  But now I know who they are, will they have to kill me? she wondered. The very word ‘kill’ no longer had the power to shock her, she discovered. I’m getting accustomed to the idea of my own imminent death. The thought frightened her to the core.

  Mitch! Where are you? Come and find me, please! I don’t know how much more I can stand.

  Chapter 66

  AS THE DAY advanced, the mood in the Chelsea house grew more and more grim. There were still no leads and no word from Mitch.

  Allegra was sitting with Adam, who lay on a bed in a spare room, his thigh heavily bandaged and his leg raised. He’d been shot in the thigh and the bullet was probably lodged in the bone. The bleeding was heavy but he’d been lucky the bullet had missed an artery.

  The moment after he’d been shot, there’d been fierce knocking at the front door and she’d opened it to find Imogen and a strange man holding a revolver. They’d dashed inside and the man had immediately dropped to the floor beside Adam, assessing his condition. Imogen ran straight to Alex, who was howling, unclipped him from his car seat and pulled him into her arms to comfort him.

  ‘What the hell is happening?’ Allegra screamed at Malik, as Adam writhed in pain. ‘Why did you shoot him?’

  ‘He was trying to hurt you, wasn’t he?’ the young man retorted. ‘I acted to protect you.’

  ‘He was kissing me, you fucking idiot!’ she yelled. ‘Oh my God, is he going to be all right?’

  Malik had turned back to Adam, his expression sheepish. ‘Yeah, but we need to get him seen to as soon as possible.’

  ‘I’ll call an ambulance,’ Imogen volunteered.

  ‘No,’ Malik said sharply, pulling out his mobile. ‘I’ll call the boys. We don’t involve any outside agencies, understand? You’ – he looked at Allegra – ‘get me a sheet or something.’

  She raced to the linen cupboard, astonished that Julie was still sleeping soundly in the spare room despite all the drama. All she could think of was whether Adam was going to be all right. That fucking arsehole, shooting him like that! she thought, fiercely protective. Oh, God – perhaps I really do love him after all …

  They’d bound Adam’s leg with a sheet. He’d regained consciousness and groaned with the pain, but had been docile enough when forced to hobble to the car, one arm over Malik’s shoulders. Once they were safely stowed, they’d returned to the Chelsea house. Adam had been taken away, his leg seen to by someone with medical training. He’d also been given a hefty dose of morphine for the pain.

  ‘What’s going to happen to him?’ Allegra said anxiously, as he was taken to a bedroom. ‘Shouldn’t he go to hospital?’

  ‘He will be seen professionally,’ Malik said. ‘But not right now. It’s not time for cleanup yet. We’re still mid-operation and casualties will have to wait until we know the full situation.’

  ‘OK,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Well, I’ll stay with him for a bit.’

  Now she sat by Adam’s side, watching as he drifted in and out of a morphine-induced sleep, wondering how on earth it had come to this.

  They slept as the day went by. Food appeared, brought from the kitchen by several maids and placed on the coffee tables: sandwiches, sushi, salads and muffins.

  ‘You should go home,’ Allegra said to Imogen. ‘You don’t have to stay any more now that they’ve got Marco. I’m going to stay with Adam.’

  ‘So he wasn’t going to hurt you?’ Imogen asked.

  Allegra shook her head. ‘It’s so complicated, Midge. I don’t know what to think yet. But in some ways, nothing has changed between us. And I don’t want to lose him, if I can help it.’

  ‘Don’t throw happiness away,’ Imogen said softly. ‘It’s very precious, you know. Not as easy to find as people think.’

  Allegra went back to check on Adam and Imogen went down to the kitchen to beg milk, water and some baby-friendly food for Alex. Now he was awake, he was in a cheerful mood, intrigued by his surroundings and softening even the toughest of Mitch’s assistants with his gurgling and kicking.

  ‘Hey, he’s so cute,’ Malik said. He sat down to join Imogen and Alex, playing together on a white fluffy rug. He held out a coloured block from the bag Imogen had brought with her. ‘Here, kid, here you are.’ Alex took it with a long coo and an interested look, then carefully brought it to his mouth and started chewing it. Malik smiled at him and looked at Imogen. ‘Isn’t his dad gonna be worried about where you guys are?’

  Imogen shook her head, not taking her eyes off her son. It was amazing how she could spend long hours just staring at him, marvelling at how beautiful and clever he was. ‘No.’

  ‘Ah.’ Malik nodded. ‘You two split, huh?’

  ‘No. He’s dead.’

  ‘Oh.’ Malik looked embarrassed. ‘Hey, I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK. He died before Alex was born.’

  ‘Gee, that’s sad. He never saw this little fella?’ Malik put out a finger to Alex, who clutched it and shook Malik’s hand up and down. ‘Poor guy. He missed out.’

  ‘Any news from Mitch?’ Imogen asked, after a moment.

  ‘Yeah.’ Malik seemed relieved by her deft subject change. ‘He’s on his way home right now.’

  ‘That was a quick visit. How can you get to New York and back so fast?’

  ‘He was only in Manhattan for an hour. And having your own plane helps the whole thing along. He’ll be back in a couple of hours.’<
br />
  There was a sudden flurry of activity; men began running about and shouting. Malik stood up, instantly alert, and listened.

  ‘What is it?’ Imogen asked, standing up too.

  He turned to her, his eyes shining. ‘A name,’ he said. ‘The kid’s broken. He’s given us a name. Now we’re getting somewhere.’

  Mitch’s car, long, sleek and elegant, with blacked-out windows, sped back into town from Heathrow. It was almost dark. A whole day had gone by and he’d seen only an hour or two of it outside the confines of an airplane.

  During the return flight, he’d received an unexpected message from London. His boys had found a source and, after interrogation, that source had provided vital information. He’d instantly transmitted it to Panciello’s people to help their investigations. Then it was back to waiting.

  Every few minutes he checked his email and made sure that he hadn’t missed a call. There was nothing.

  Have faith, he told himself. The old man will come through for us.

  But he had gnawing doubts. And what if they were too late, after all this? He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror above the passenger door. He looked ten years older: grey and haggard.

  I’m on my way, Romily. Hold on, baby, hold on.

  They were coming into central London when his phone buzzed. He pulled it to his ear in one smooth movement. ‘Mitchell,’ he said.

  ‘Mitch, I’ve got the information you need.’ He recognised that hoarse voice.

  His heart thudded and his palms became clammy. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘The address where you can find your property will be sent to your company email address. It will be marked for your attention. It will also be encrypted. Your guys will know what to do with it. They should look now.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ The line went dead.

  He stared at his phone for a long moment, unable to function now that he had the precious information they needed. Then he put through a call to his chief technician who was sitting in the operations room of the Chelsea house, monitoring all data traffic.

  ‘Sir?’ came the alert response to his call.

  ‘Arthur, check my company email account – the holding company. There should be something there. It will be encrypted. Get the address and research it. Pass it to Clarke for evaluation. The property we’re looking for is there. Understand?’

  ‘You bet.’

  ‘Good.’ Mitch cut the call. He leant back on the leather seat and sighed. The car moved slowly through the evening traffic. Relax, he told himself. You’ll need all your strength in a little while. The best people are working on it right now. You’ve done what you needed to do.

  Romily could hear voices, raised and angry. Someone had left the doors open again.

  She was thirsty and her stomach growled painfully, even though she didn’t feel hungry. More than anything, she longed for a hot bath or a powerful shower, to blast the dirt of all of this away. Her hair felt lank and oily, and her skin was in desperate need of moisturiser. She had never gone for so long without being able to care for herself, pamper herself and make herself beautiful.

  I don’t care about that now, as long as I can live. I just want to see Mitch again.

  She had tried to pass the hours by thinking about him, replaying all their times together, from their crazy wedding in a blacksmith’s cottage in Scotland to the last time they’d spoken: she’d called him in high excitement after her meeting with David McCorquodale.

  ‘I told him,’ she’d said. ‘I’m sure he’ll sell to us now. He took it all in. There’s no way he’ll let Allegra keep the company.’

  ‘This is it, honey,’ he’d cried. ‘This time next week, you’ll be walking into Colette’s and it will be yours.’

  ‘Ours,’ she’d said, thrilled.

  All that effort and money and time and planning … and for what? Now she was going to die here alone, condemned to death by the same money that had given her everything she wanted.

  I just want to live.

  Remember when you nearly lost Mitch? she asked herself. He believed that tape recording. If you hadn’t managed to prove to him that it was a forgery, you’d have lost him for good.

  She remembered the sweetness of that reconciliation, when they’d lain together in each other’s arms in the little Marais flat, laughing with joy and relief. He’d admitted that he’d already been on the point of returning to her. That he simply couldn’t live without her. ‘I realised I’d rather be with you as your plaything than not at all,’ he’d said. They’d giggled over his melodramatic demand to her father: How much will you pay me to divorce your daughter? And then they’d begun to wonder … and been tickled by the idea of Charles de Lisle giving Mitch the funds to start the business that would make him rich. So they’d cooked up a plan that would give them revenge on everyone: taking away Charles’s money and Allegra’s prized possession – Colette’s. They’d divorced, so that it would look absolutely convincing and so that they could marry again, properly. ‘You are going to have an amazing second wedding,’ Mitch had told her. ‘Forget three people in a cottage in Scotland. We’re gonna do it properly next time.’

  Hot tears escaped from Romily’s eyes and soaked her blindfold. She sniffed. I want that wedding. I want to get married. She passed the long hours, dreaming up every detail of how it would be, trying to fight against the conviction growing in her heart that she would never see Mitch again.

  It must be night again. She could smell food cooking. Eventually someone came, untied her and pushed something into her hand. It was greasy and hot. She tasted it: a samosa full of spicy meat and vegetables. The oil coated her lips but it was delicious and she ate it quickly. A glass of water was given to her and she gulped that down eagerly. There was nothing else. Her hands were retied.

  She lay back and tried not to think about how much she wanted more food: a crisp salad with fragrant lemon and thyme chicken, new potatoes in butter … that would be perfect.

  If I get out of here, I’m going to eat as much as I can! she told herself. I want to feel alive.

  After another hour or so, she was hauled to her feet and taken for another bathroom break. As she went out of the room where she was kept, she listened out eagerly but heard nothing. She knew, though, by some other sense, that people were watching her as she walked past and this frightened her horribly. Why were they staring? She felt like a prisoner being taken from the dock to be hanged.

  She spent as long as she dared on the loo before the door was rapped upon and then opened, and she was pulled out while still fumbling with her jeans.

  Then she heard it again, more crazed shouting, worse than ever this time. She could make out distinct words. ‘Not waiting any longer …’ ‘… we mean business …’ ‘… tell them thirty more minutes then she’s dead’ …

  Her skin crawled with horror. Thirty minutes? Do I have only thirty minutes to live?

  But why hadn’t her parents paid up? She had been certain they would. She’d thought that she would die not because of lack of money but because she knew too much about her kidnappers and their plans. She already knew they planned to travel to South America with their new riches, and vanish there into a life of secret luxury.

  Then heavy footsteps came rushing towards her and she was pulled off the sofa and thrown to the ground.

  ‘Where’s your money?’ hissed a voice in her ear.

  ‘Carlo? Is that you?’ she asked, trying to make her voice sound strong. She ignored the pain where she’d hit the hard concrete of the floor.

  ‘Doesn’t matter who the fuck I am, you whore!’ The man pulled her up on to her knees. ‘Your daddy isn’t going to pay. So here’s what we’ll do. Do you have money at home?’

  ‘Yes,’ she stammered. Is this in my interests or not? What should I tell them? ‘But in my bag is a card. You can use it to take out cash. I’ll give you the number. You can buy things with it as well.’

  Sh
e gasped as she took a heavy blow round the head that left her ears ringing.

  ‘How stupid do you think we are?’ jeered the voice. ‘Your account might be watched. And we didn’t risk all this for five hundred stinking Euros or whatever your cash machine will give us. We want cash … jewels. Have you got that?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said, fighting the dizziness that was overwhelming her. ‘Cash – about ten thousand Euros and five thousand pounds. And the jewellery I’m travelling with, along with my Rolex – that must come to over one hundred thousand Euros.’

  There was a pause and then another voice said in a scornful tone, ‘All this for a hundred thousand Euros, Carlo? This is a fucking disaster.’

  ‘Fuck you!’ roared Carlo. ‘We’re not going to get the twenty million. They would have given it to us by now.’

  Just then, a phone rang. Someone answered it hastily, speaking in a language Romily didn’t understand. Then they said, ‘Call the parents. They have the money. Call them now, they want to pay.’

  Romily didn’t know whether this was good news or bad. She carried on kneeling, her head bowed, trying to keep quiet and not be noticed.

  Carlo strode away, not bothering to close the door behind him. She heard him growl in French but couldn’t make out what was said. Then he returned, marching up to her. He pulled off her blindfold and she was staring up into his face, the face she had once trusted implicitly.

  ‘Hah!’ he sneered. ‘Seems you’re worth something after all. Mummy and Daddy have found our twenty million. They’re following the delivery instructions right now. If the drop is made successfully, our courier will call us. If the drop is a trap, he won’t. Either way, we’ll know in twenty minutes.’

  Romily closed her eyes. Blindness seemed preferable to seeing that contemptuous face in front of her.

  Twenty minutes. She began to send last thoughts out to everyone: her parents, friends, brother, and Mitch. I’m so sorry, darling. I wish this hadn’t happened. We were going to be so happy. I’ll always love you … always.