31 Days of Autumn (30 page)

‘You get to choose which quarter he doesn’t get
back alive, sweetheart. Jenny or James, pick one and I’ll deliver their body to
him by morning to show him just how seriously I take my job.’

‘No,’ I cried, gasping for air. Salt stung my
eyes, as if a hundred red-hot needles were pricking them as I looked over at my
friends, Charlie grinning as he pointed the gun at the back of each of their
heads in turn. James had his firm, serious face on, while Jenny was looking
less confident as our eyes locked. ‘No, you can’t do this.’

‘Until you’re the one pointing a gun in my
face, I can do whatever the hell I want, sweetheart. Make a choice, now.’

‘I can’t, I won’t.’ I shook my head, losing my
battle to contain my tears.

‘You can and you will, otherwise Charlie here
will put a bullet in both of them and you’ll have to live with the fact that
you were responsible for killing two people.’

‘They’re my friends, they’re my
family
, I
love both of them dearly. How do you expect me to make a choice like that?’ I
cried, anguish saturating my body, not just my voice. My heart was banging
against my ribs, my mouth was going dry, and I was fighting the urge to be
sick. He couldn’t be serious, surely this was a bluff?

‘I’ll give them sixty seconds each to give you
their best impassioned plea, to convince you why you should save them over the
other, but if I don’t have your answer ten seconds after they’re done, Charlie
will put them both down.’ I blinked up at him, horrified to see he was smiling.
He was getting off on this.

‘You sick, twisted bastard,’ I spat. Oliver was
now bawling his head off, and no matter how hard I rocked and shushed him, he
wouldn’t stop. The tension in the room was palpable. Even if he couldn’t feel
it, he’d sense it radiating off me.

‘It’s been said before,’ Alfa nodded, with a
sickening smile of pride. He swung the camcorder around to focus on Jenny and
James. ‘Ladies first. Set the clock, Charlie.’

‘I’m not doing this,’ Jenny said defiantly,
thrusting her chin up to eyeball him. ‘I’m not going to make my best friend choose
who you’re going to kill. She’s the most loving, nurturing person I’ve ever met
in my life, and it would destroy her to know she’d played any part in this.’

‘There’s no need for either of you to make a
choice,’ James added, in an eerily calm tone. ‘I won’t make Mrs. Davenport choose
either. Jenny, you’re a young girl with her whole life ahead of her. You’re in
love and just starting out on the adventure of a lifetime with Dean. You
deserve to have as many years of love and laughter as I’ve had with my wife. To
have children of your own, to see your grandchildren grow up. I’ve had a good
life, let this be my last mission, to protect you both.’

‘James, no!’ I cried, my chest rattling as I
sobbed.

‘They’re not going to shoot one of us, James,’
Jenny replied, shaking her head. ‘It’s all for show, for the camera, to scare
Dan into moving faster.’

‘Jenny, you’ve been hanging around Mrs.
Davenport too much, you’ve inherited her stubborn streak. Look around you, look
where we are. He’s got enough money to live off already and they haven’t let us
go. We’re expendable. If you don’t let me do this, we both die. Let me protect
you, let me go with honour.’

‘No,’ she whispered, shaking her head as tears
finally started to roll down her face. ‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Believe it, sweetheart,’ Alfa laughed. ‘Time’s
nearly up.’

‘Then it should be me,’ Jenny cried. ‘I don’t
have a family, not like you do, James. How will all of them feel if it was
you?’

‘No different to how Dean will feel if it’s
you, you stubborn bloody mare,’ he shouted, making me sob even harder. James
never yelled, he was the calmest man I knew. He was serious, he really believed
it was going to happen, which had me fighting to contain my nausea. ‘He got a
bloody ring, I helped him pick it. He was going to propose on your weekend away.
Even if you’ve missed it, you’re going to get out of here and see him again so
that you can say yes, do you hear me?’

‘Last few words,’ chuckled Charlie. I just
stared in disbelief, not sure if I believed this was actually going to happen.
Kidnap was one thing, but murder? Were people really that twisted? James turned
to look at me and nodded firmly.

‘You tell my wife that I love her, that I was
thinking of her, of my children and grandchildren, at the end. You make sure to
tell her that I died fast and I didn’t suffer. And I want you both to hear me
right now. If I had the chance to do it all again, I would. I’m a soldier, Ellie,
it’s in my blood. I always knew I’d go out like this, I just thought it would
be a lot sooner than now. I’ve had an amazing life, so none of you are going to
blame yourselves, you hear me? You’re going to grow old with your loved ones,
just like I’ve had the chance to do. It’s been an honour and a privilege
serving you, Ellie. Do it, Charlie,’ he ordered, gritting his teeth and
clenching his jaw tightly.

‘No,’ Jenny screamed as the sound of his safety
was clicked off.

‘Don’t, please don’t,’ I cried, registering
that he’d just called me Ellie, for the first time ever. He really was saying
goodbye because he truly believed that this wasn’t a hoax. ‘Oliver, close your
eyes for me right now and don’t open them until I tell you, ok?’ I ordered
between gasps for air that shook my already trembling body. I’d never been so
scared in my life. Not in the loch, weighed down by all of that water, nor when
I fell down those stairs. I felt like the walls of this already tiny space were
closing in on me.

‘Not so fast, Charlie. I told Mrs. Davenport
she had to make the choice, or lose both of them,’ Alfa confirmed, swinging the
camera back onto me. ‘Ten seconds, sweetheart. Who’s it to be,’ he asked. I
shook my head. What was I supposed to do? If he was serious, I could be
responsible for both of their deaths. I looked from Jenny, who was now crying
as hard as I was, to James, who nodded his head, his eyes pleading with me to
do as he asked. He was right. Jenny was a baby in comparison to him, she’d
hardly had a life, she deserved a life as happy as his had been. ‘Five
seconds,’ chuckled Alfa.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I sobbed, my eyes and nose
streaming. ‘I love you, James.’

‘I love you too, Ellie,’ he called, swallowing
hard as he closed his eyes and braced his shoulders.

‘I think I’ve just thrown up a little. Answer,’
snapped Alfa.

‘James, I choose James,’ I howled, my whole
body shaking violently. The loud crack of the gun firing was still a surprise,
even though I’d expected to hear it, sure beyond a shadow of a doubt now that they
really weren’t bluffing. It was almost deafening, but what was even louder was
the sound of Oliver and I screaming at the same time. The sight of all of that deep
red blood and fragments of bone and brain matter spraying onto the plastic sheet
replaced the tears filling my eyes as I leaned over and threw up, the acidic
bile burning my throat.

‘Remember who’s in charge here, sweetheart. I’m
always in charge. I set the rules, I choose the outcomes,’ Alfa laughed as I
retched again.

Monday 14
^th
September

Dan

‘Stuart?’ I answered the phone before the first ring
tone ended.

‘Damien Daniels, does the name ring any bells?’

‘Who the fu … hell is Damien Daniels?’ I asked,
stopping myself from swearing just in time. I had Jonas on my lap as I was
reading him a story, and he was more than happy to repeat everything he’d
heard, if he could get his tongue around the words. Eva was having her hair done
by Brooke, while Molly was talking to Lucas. Summer and Magda were battling for
supremacy in the kitchen, cooking breakfast for everyone. My parents were away,
my mother having booked a last-minute Far Eastern cruise. Since receiving the
call from the police, as my emergency contact, they were trying to get the ship
to pull into the nearest port so they could get an immediate flight home.
Sometimes I just wanted to be alone, sometimes I just wanted to cry, but most
of the time I was grateful to have them all to distract my mind from imagining
the worst. There hadn’t been any contact after I made the first payment, which
Andy told me to do when they’d got no closer to unearthing any more data. I’d
been beginning to lose hope, but at last it seemed we were onto something.

‘Jessica cracked this morning when Chris and HR
called her in. She’d been having an affair with this
Mr. Daniels
and he
asked her to download some pictures on a memory stick. He was supposed to be
waiting for her outside to take her for lunch, but he’d vanished and she’s not
heard from him since. His mobile line is dead, his email’s been deactivated,
and the landlord said he’s cleared out. Seems we’ve found someone of interest.’

‘Have you asked Ian to run identity checks?’ I
asked, a tiny glimmer of hope finally sparking inside me.

‘It was the first call I made before you. The
second was to Marv. He’s working on the email and mobile accounts to see what he
can extract. Chris is interrogating Jessica now, we’re hoping she’ll have
pictures. Once we have his, Ian can hack into London’s security camera server
and run facial recognition. He’ll be able to track this guy’s movements and
hopefully see him meeting any of his accomplices.’

‘What can I do?’

‘Nothing, Sir. I’m in complete control
co-ordinating all efforts from here. Nothing you do will make anything happen
any faster. You need to focus on Jonas and Eva, they’ll be missing Ellie
terribly.’

‘They are,’ I sighed heavily. ‘And they’re not
alone.’ I felt empty, like someone had unplugged me from life, from feeling any
kind of happiness or emotion other than despair and anguish. I remembered the
feeling from when Ellie and I had been separated those two times. It wasn’t
something I’d ever expected to feel again once we got married. I thought she’d
always be by my side. I looked down and cursed under my breath when I saw
another incoming call. ‘Stuart, I’m sorry, it’s the police. They might have
news.’

‘I’ll call with any updates as soon as I can,
Sir. Good luck.’

‘Thanks,’ I replied, cutting his call and
accepting the other.

‘I’m not letting you go in alone,’ Lucas
snapped, shoving my chest as he blocked the door. ‘You shouldn’t have to do
this at all. Let me.’

‘No, I need to see for myself.’

‘I agree, Sir. This isn’t something you should
do. Let Mr. Steel go in for you, or me?’ suggested Andy, standing by Lucas’s
side. I respected both of them, but right now I was ready to punch them and
take them both down if they didn’t get out of my way.

‘Don’t make me do something I’ll regret. I need
to know, I need to see with my own eyes, and the instructions that came with
the body were clear. I have to do the identification.’

‘Mr. Davenport is right,’ added Detective
Carter. ‘We have no idea if these kidnappers are watching us right now. They
could have intercepted our calls this morning. Mr. Davenport has to be the one
to identify the body or we could be receiving another body bag, and I’m sure no
one wants that on their conscience.’

‘I have to do this, Lucas,’ I repeated. In
reality, I wanted to be anywhere but here. Seeing it would make it real. I
wanted to live in denial a little bit longer.

‘This is fucked up, that’s what this is! What the
hell has Dan ever done to deserve this?’ bit Lucas, shoving both hands through
his hair. ‘Fine, but I’m going with you, you’ll have to knock me out cold to
stop me,’ he muttered as he pushed the double doors to the morgue open. He put
his hand on my shoulder as we approached the white shroud on the gurney. The
guy standing by it with a clipboard and white coat nodded to us. I shuddered.
It wasn’t the freezing temperature in here, it was seeing that body, a body
that I was responsible for.

Another one.

‘Ready?’ asked the mortician.

‘No,’ I croaked, wondering if anyone was ever
ready for this. Even with your eyes closed, you’d know you were in the presence
of death. Setting aside the sickly smell of chemicals and bleach, the place
reeked of it. I gave him a brief nod as I let out a shaky breath, feeling Lucas’s
fingers curling around my collarbone, trying to let me know that I wasn’t on my
own. I held my breath as the mortician pulled the sheet back, then I gagged,
slapping my palm over my face. I heard Lucas gasp, his fingers tightening
painfully into my shoulder. I nodded and stepped back in shock. I’d been warned
it wasn’t pretty, but that was an understatement. A silver bowl was suddenly
thrust at me and I emptied the contents of my stomach into it. The silence,
other than the sound of me retching, was eerie. Lucas handed me a handkerchief
to wipe my mouth, and the mortician took the bowl and put it to one side. He
hadn’t even batted an eyelid. I suppose he saw sights worse than this every
day, not to mention people not handling it well. I said a silent sincere apology
from the bottom of my heart as the sheet was raised again. Lucas hurried me
back out into the corridor, stopping me from retching again.

‘Can you confirm the name of the deceased?’ Detective
Carter asked. Andy stepped forward and nodded at me, bracing himself for the
news.

‘Yes, it’s … it’s Jenny Parker,’ I nodded,
clenching my fists tightly to try and stop my hands from shaking. Andy shook
his head and dropped his chin to his chest with a sigh.

‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Davenport,’
Carter said quietly. ‘We obviously have questions that we need to ask. Once
you’ve answered them, we can let you see the recording that was sent with the
body.’

‘What about her parents?’ I asked quietly,
still not sure I quite believed what I’d just seen. Any fleeting moment of
relief that it hadn’t been Ellie had quickly been replaced with shame, then
guilt, and an overwhelming sense of loss that it was Jenny. ‘They need to know,
it should have been them to see her first, not me.’

‘I agree, but the instructions on the body were
clear, we weren’t to divulge anything other than the fact that it was a woman
and you needed to make the identification, or there would be severe consequences.
Given the footage we watched, as well as the reason we’re all standing here now,
there’s no doubting the validity of the threat. I’m very sorry if you thought
it was your wife, but I couldn’t take the risk of telling you that it wasn’t.’

‘I’m not sure I feel any better for knowing it
was the nanny of my children, as well as a close family friend,’ I bit, giving
him a glare. Travelling to the morgue, only knowing that a woman had been
brought in, had been horrendous. I’d really thought it was Ellie. The guy who had
set the ransom had warned me it would be her body. He was toying with me, trying
to get me to crumble. He was doing a bloody fine job of it. I looked over at
Andy, he looked how I felt, happy to know Ellie was probably still alive, but
totally devastated to have lost Jenny.

‘We’ll call Miss Parker’s parents now,’ Carter
advised.

‘What about Dean?’ Lucas asked.

‘Shit, Dean,’ I groaned, covering my face. He
was supposed to have been proposing to her last Saturday. How the hell was I
supposed to break it to him?

‘I’ll tell him,’ Lucas offered. ‘You have
enough on your plate. You came here thinking it might be Ellie, there’s only so
much you can handle in so many hours.’ He gave me a nod, but I shook my head.

‘He’s my employee, my friend. I should do it.’

‘Don’t be so bloody stubborn, Dan. Let us help,
you can’t shoulder everything,’ Lucas urged.

‘I don’t think he should see her like that,
she’s …’ I shook my head again. I didn’t have words for what that exiting bullet
had done to her once-pretty face.

‘That’s his choice, I’ll warn him. But if it
was Summer, I’d still want to see for myself, no matter how ugly it was. I’ll
wait here for him and her parents, let me know when you’re done.’

‘Ok,’ I relented, feeling totally overloaded,
and I hadn’t even seen the recording yet. ‘Thank you. I need to speak to them
all myself, but I need to see what these sick fucks are asking for now.’

‘Go,’ nodded Lucas. Andy stepped forward to
walk by my side.

‘I’m so sorry, Sir, she was an amazing young
woman. It’s a very sad day.’

‘I’m sorry, too. She was one of your team,
under your care. I know how personally you take a loss like that.’

‘Very personally, Sir. But you’re not to blame,
you did everything that you could. You didn’t force them to take hostages and
you didn’t pull the trigger.’

‘Well, I feel to blame,’ I said firmly.

‘Sick bastards,’ muttered Andy, both of us
flinching as we watched one of the captors swing his gun from the back of
James’s head to Jenny’s. I closed my eyes as I heard the shot, shuddering as I
heard the thud of her body hitting the floor, then Ellie and Oliver screaming
and James roaring with anger.

‘Ellie chose, she did what he asked, why did he
put her through that if he was always going to kill Jenny?’ I said under my
breath, unable to comprehend how someone could do that, then laugh.

‘He’s showing us that he holds all of the
cards, that no one can influence him or steer him. He wants you to know that
he’s in control and will do whatever it takes to make you pay up,’ Andy
confirmed.

‘You’re dealing with some serious individuals
here, Mr. Davenport,’ Carter added, stating the obvious.

‘Sir,’ Andy cried, grabbing my arm. ‘Look,’ he
urged. I opened my eyes to see the view had changed. It looked like the
interior of a cottage with white-painted stone walls. There were floral
curtains pulled across the window in the background. The face of someone in a
balaclava came into focus, their lips curling up into a sickening smirk.

‘Send me a quarter, lose a quarter. Maybe now
you’ll take my threats seriously, Mr. Davenport. Now that you know just how far
I’m prepared to go, you’ll trust me when I tell you that if I don’t have that
remaining balance by Thursday morning, I
will
hurt someone else that you
care about. Starting with this bitch here.’

‘No,’ I yelled as the camera panned around to
Ellie struggling to get out of the hold of another captor. She had tape over
her mouth, her eyes were red, puffy, and swollen from crying, and she looked so
pale. Even the grime on her face couldn’t disguise that.

‘Brace yourself,’ Carter warned. He’d already
told me what they’d done to her, but seeing it with my own eyes was far worse
than I’d imagined. I jumped as the shot was fired. Ellie’s eyes went wide and
filled up with tears as she sagged against the man holding her. The camera
panned down to her leg, where blood was trickling out, then up to her face. She
was in real pain, I could read it in her eyes, but I was convinced it wasn’t as
much as I was feeling, sitting here helplessly watching the woman I loved
suffering.

‘One limb for each hour you go over the
deadline. If you’re more than three hours over, then it will be her in the next
body bag for real this time. I know your history with women, Mr. Davenport. If
you lose this one,’ the guy in charge chuckled, running his fingers down
Ellie’s cheek and making my blood boil, ‘you’ll never forgive yourself. I could
kill your brat, but you have two others and can have more to fill the void.
You’ll never fill it if you lost the third woman in a row and that’s what I’m
banking on. You have until ten a.m. on Thursday. You’d better hope the police
are more effective at delivering my message than they’ve been at trying to find
me.’

‘I’m going to kill you,’ I hissed as I watched
him rip off the tape from Ellie’s mouth and saw her wince and gasp for air.

‘Any last words for your husband? It could be
the last time he ever hears your voice.’

‘I love you, Dan,’ she sobbed, looking straight
at the camera, straight into my eyes. ‘It’s not your fault, please don’t take
this on yourself. Whatever happens, look after our children, tell them how much
I love them and miss them every single day. Don’t ever let them forget me,
promise
me
, Dan. I don’t want them to forget me. And I want you to find someone,
your heart is too big not to share. No,’ she screamed, struggling as a fresh
piece of tape was moved towards her mouth. ‘I love you,’ she screamed.