Another head ruffle.
‘Of course you can, love.’
Alice leaves the room and strides up the stairs, almost managing two at a time. That was a close-run thing. It was bad having to lie to Mum. Because it wasn’t so much thinking about the last time she saw Cara that was bothering her. It was the fact that she knew where Cara was going.
Maybe there’s a ransom. Maybe that’s what this is about. Maybe the Captor wants money for our lives. Or our body parts. Maybe I’ll lose lock by lock of my hair, or finger by finger of my hand. He can take every limb from my body before he touches one strand of Cara’s hair.
Will Paul pay? We’ve had the debate while watching late-night hostage thrillers. Me and Paul curled up on the sofa, Cara sitting on the floor between us (if we’ve quietly ‘forgotten’ it’s a school night for the pleasure of her company). Is it ever right to pay a ransom? To give money to criminals? We’ve agreed that whether it’s right depends on the circumstances. Do they have a wife and family? Because it’s always the men, in these films, that go adventuring. All I did was stay safe at home. I even based the studio there. I hardly ever went out, not really, apart from to ferry Cara around – orchestra practice, concerts, parties, design classes, fashion shows … We deserve the safety we thought that gave us. I want to shout to him: ‘Paul, it’s always right to pay the ransom, if it’s you and me and Cara. However much money you have to raise’.
How much money could he raise, and how soon? Sell the house. The loft must have added a bit. Mine and Paul’s domain. Had there been a sibling it could have been her room. But no. So anyway, with the loft, with our Crouch End postcode – no Tube but lots of North London leafiness – we could be looking at £800,000? But the Captor might think it’s more. This might be a rented place I’m held in. He might not be a Londoner. He might believe the press, think we all live in garages worth two million pounds. And he might think that Paul being an ‘IT consultant’ means something, something lucrative. A desk in a corner office in a City building, rather than a desk in the corner of our living room and, whenever his mobile rings, a jump in the car to some industrial estate company that’s too broke to have a permanent IT team. The Captor might also think that because cupcakes are so popular, my company has been raking it in. That I’m doing corporate events or something. That millionaires come to my training sessions, not clever mums bored out of their wits by their decision to stay at home. He won’t realise it’s part inheritance, part being remortaged up to the hilt that keeps us there.
So, all in all, I bet the Captor is asking for a million.
A lot of money.
It’s nice he thinks we’re worth it, Cara and me.
But why take both of us? Cara is the more valuable one and with both me and Paul outside we could raise much more money.
A thought strikes me.
Would Paul be willing to pay for Cara? Considering?
But yes. He must be. He can’t negotiate over her. He can’t say ‘Nah, one million pounds? You don’t know who you’re talking to, mate. I’ll just take the one. Five hundred thousand plus another twenty for your trouble.’ Because he must know that if he gets me back, but not her, he won’t have me at all.
Why isn’t it light yet? Where is the sun when you need it?
The police might tell him not to pay of course. Friends and remaining family might benevolently but wrongly advise that I would not want all our hard-won money given up without a fight. But what’s money? I would live in a caravan, overlooking the ocean. All I need is family and freedom.
So pay it, Paul. Release what equity we have. Scrabble round beneath proverbial sofas to find the funds. Call in old favours. Phone your sister. Crowd-fund. Or find us, and shoot the place out (not us) with the police.
Find us.
I get out of bed, clasping the duvet to me, and go over to the wall. Cara’s wall. I nestle down there, close to her. The separation of the wall is not enough to break the bond. I tap-tap my goodnight kiss onto the wall. The tap-tap comes back. I can breathe again.
My baby so close I can almost hear her breathe. Almost. Not quite.
I awake to beams of sunlight coming through the window.
Morning.
The window.
I jump up.
There’s the chair, waiting for me. I clamber onto it, peering over the ledge. It looks so beautiful outside, so crisp. Unlike the air in here, already turning stale. Fully oxygenated out there – look at all those trees!
And not many people to clutter the atmosphere up with exhaled carbon dioxide, unfortunately.
I can see just one person. A girl. About eight. Scrawny, her brown hair in uneven bunches. Takes me back to when Cara was little. Except Cara’s hair was always blonde. And her bunches were never uneven. The girl is skipping. Quite well. She must be concentrating hard, no risk of tripping on the rope. No risk of her seeing me, the Captor must think. I wave. I wave again. I try banging on the glass. Nothing. Just one-two-three-jump-two-three and the bunches bobbing up and down.
See me! I will her. See me, understand me, and run back to your parents’ house – whether that’s the other side of those trees or just round the corner, slightly outside my view – and bring them, so they can rescue Cara and me.
But she moves on to a more complicated skip, turning herself and the rope round in a circle while she jumps. I never taught Cara that one. Would never want Cara to have her back to her mother. Like the girl now has her back to me.
I come down from the window and slump in the chair. The window is not a solution yet. But I can make it one. If I just had a pen and paper, I could write up a big sign. ‘Mother and daughter kidnapped – rescue us!’ Or just ‘Trapped – help!’ Although whoever saw that would probably just think it was the wry joke of an angsty teenager, smile slightly and walk on by. If anyone were to see it. If the girl is observant when the rope is down. If anyone comes through the trees.
And if I had a pen and paper, I could do something else too – I could write to Cara! I go back over to the grate and examine it. Yes, a letter would go through there, easily! I want to call through my plan, but I daren’t, after last night. He will separate us, I know he will, or punish us. Punish her. Which I can’t allow. And, anyway, I can call out to him, tell him I want paper. Cara will hear, and she’ll know I have some kind of plan. She’ll be on the lookout for something new, something different, and she’ll see it through the grate.
He told me, didn’t he, that I was to call if I wanted anything? Well, I’ll tell him I want to write a diary. That he’ll be torturing me if he doesn’t let me. That I’ll scream again (although I won’t).
So I bang on the door of my new prison.
‘Hey!’ I shout.
Silence.
‘You!’ I shout. ‘Come here!’
Still silence. What’s this? Is he sleeping? Has he topped himself? Will Cara and I starve? Has he left us alone?
Is he out collecting the ransom?
Is he just torturing me with denial?
Why doesn’t he understand I must have my paper!
I search the room. I need the paper and pen now, now I have thought of it, this plan. I need to communicate with my Cara. I need to put up a sign to the outside world. I need the pen and paper.
I open the drawers. Nothing. No drawer-liner that I could write on with potpourri. What kind of uncivilised place is this? I open the wardrobe, hoping for those tissue paper covers the dry cleaner puts on coat hangers. No. None.