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. No clothes either. Just a lavender clothes freshener. What does this guy have against natural smells? Am I in some kind of abattoir? Is this the killing room, recently cleansed?

And the walls, of course, are paint, not wallpaper. So I can’t rip them down, write on them with the scent of flowers. No.

Somewhere outside the room there is a sound of slamming.

‘Hello!’ I shout again. ‘Are you there?’

Footsteps now. He is coming. The key in the lock.

He is wearing a coat. So. I was right. He has been out. If I had a watch, some way of telling the time, I could record whether it’s a habitual outing. Whether it gives me time to speak to Cara. Whether we can use it to break the doors down. Or if it’s just a one-off, to collect ransom money. But perhaps he would have come back in something nicer than an anorak if he’d just got one million pounds.

I want to say a bitchy ‘Nice day out?’ but I don’t. Better to pretend I haven’t noticed the coat. In case I need to exploit it later.

Instead, I say, ‘You told me to ask you if I wanted something.’

His eyes become more alive. ‘Well?’

‘I’d like a pen and some paper, please. To write a diary.’

‘A diary?’ His tone is curious.

‘Of my captivity. Not,’ I add, ‘that I expect it to go on for long.’

He nods his head. He seems to approve of my request. I don’t want your approval, I want to scream, I want you to let me and my daughter out.

But. short of that, give me a fucking pen and paper.

‘Anything else?’ he asks. There seems to be hope in his voice, encouragement. Like I’m suddenly going to ask for him, himself.

Something to keep in mind for an escape.

But I’m not ready to go down that route yet.

For now, I just want to communicate with Cara, and the girl outside.

I shake my head. ‘Just the pen and paper.’

The door closes, the lock turns. A few minutes later, he comes back with a notebook and a couple of pencils. The pencils are blunt, I notice. Maybe he thinks I would stab him with a sharp one. Maybe I would. But these will at least do for my first letter to Cara. I wait until he is out of the door again and the lock seals me in. Then I begin to write.

Chapter 8

The other side of the door

Well, you have to give them what they want, don’t you? Builds up trust, for when you need it. Means they no longer want to escape. Bit of tit for tat – I give you a pencil, you give me … Well. What I want. But slowly does it. I’m playing the long game here. Not that I won’t take drastic measures if I need to. Haven’t I already been drastic enough?

But can anyone blame me? I look at the photos again, lining the walls. So beautiful. That golden hair. Like mother, like daughter. Suze and Cara. Inseparable. What it would be like to touch it, for real. I sit back in my chair and let my fantasies run wild. I’m at the threshold of Suze’s room. She stands there, hips jutting at a provocative angle, twirling one strand of hair in her finger. Slowly, she starts undoing her blouse (or, OK, that pyjama top I’ve got her in – the best fantasies are based on reality). Then just when the buttons have got tantalisingly low, she stops, leans forward, and grabs my belt. She pulls me towards her. Then she kisses me. It’s a kiss that means I’m yours, I surrender, you can stop trying. It’s a kiss that ends up with me on top of her, on the bed. Loving her, hard. As hard as she’ll let me. Maybe harder.

I take a couple of deep breaths. Come on, cool it down. I know some men in my position would just go now and burst through the door, take what they want, and sod the emotional side. But that’s not enough for me. I want her to want me. I will use what tools I have available. Perhaps Cara will be one of them, when it’s appropriate. The diary is a good sign. It’s like an acceptance that she’s staying here. That’s what I need. Acceptance is what I’m after. A step closer to recognition, forgiveness, to moving on to what should be our lives together.

Oh, that life together. It’s like I can see it in a mirror but someone has steamed it over. Little by little, that steam will evaporate and there we’ll be, clear as day. I’ve just got to keep everything fixed in front of the mirror until that moment. Help that steam on its way. And no, everything will not end up back to front, inverted in its mirrored image. It will be perfect. Well, one imperfection. But I can’t do anything about that. Not now.

I’ve still got some little tokens of that life. Suze’s phone. She had it on her, when I locked her in. I confiscated it when she was sleeping. Switched off, of course. Good luck contacting her, anyone. And I have Cara’s cherished instrument. She had it with her when she got in the car. Must just recently have had her lips against this very hole that I now lay my mouth on. Must have fingered its length to make her own melodious sound. Like I saw her do before. Oh yes. I’ve been there, to the school concert hall. I’ve stood at the back, in the dark, watching her. They stop monitoring the doors once all the parents have sat down and the lights have dimmed. Anyone could walk in.

I should take this to Cara’s room. How I’d love to see her play, my own private performance. But I can hardly make her do that. I’m not deluded. Cara’s not going to do anything to my bidding, any more than Suze is (yet). And it’s Suze I’ve got to work on. Suze that holds the key to our happiness.

I get up and close the curtains. There’s no room in the mirror picture for intruders. I can’t risk answering the door and, if I’m clearly visible, there’s no excuse not to. I’ve been out; that’s enough. No reason to let them indoors wander free. I’ll choose what from this house goes into the world. And what comes in.

Chapter 9

Dearest Cara,

It’s me! I’m writing to you! I got him to bring paper and pencils (you might have heard). So we can communicate without risk of being overheard. But you must make sure he doesn’t find this letter, or future letters, or the pencil or paper that I’m enclosing. Look for a hiding place. And then write back.

If I can’t write again, for any reason, then remember this: I love you. And Dad loves you. And between us, somehow, we will keep you safe.

Mum

xxxx

I rip the letter from the notebook and tear out some other pages. I fold up the missive and wrap the other pages around it. Then I change my mind and put the letter on the outside, facing outwards, in case she otherwise doesn’t see my writing. I place the pencil in the centre. Then I advance to the grate and begin shoving it through. The grate is small – each vent only the length of a finger, and narrow too. I have to reduce the amount of paper I send through and refold the package. The pencil itself, the essential tool of reply, I wriggle through.

I put my head to the wall and listen for rustling. Nothing. I stay pressed like that. Maybe she is asleep. Or worse. Not there. Maybe when the Captor left the house earlier, he took Cara with him. Maybe he is ransoming us or disposing of us or … whatever-elsing us one by one.

Shall I tap-tap on the wall? Or is that too much? Do I need to limit myself, not show by my desperation for her safety, how vulnerable we are? I raise my hand, lower it again. Don’t alarm her. Don’t keep knocking. Don’t put the Captor on to us.

But please be there, Cara. If you are there and reply to my letter, I know you at least are still with me. Only in peril in the same way as me. Not in some dangerous outside place. Although there’s a wall between us, a daughter is safest nearer her mother, isn’t she? Please be there. Please let him not have taken you someplace else. I can’t bear for you not to be there.

You’ll always be this little one’s mummy. No one can take that way from you.

Tears well. I let them fall. I rock back on my heels and wait. And wait. What is taking you so long, Cara? Why don’t you reply? Should I risk a knock on the wall? A whisper? But no. That might endanger everything. I must have a little patience. Must breathe. Yes. Important to remember. And fill my time wisely. The window!

Yes, of course, the window. My sign. It will be poxy in small notebook paper and a pencil but I will do the best I can.

What to write?

Keep it simple. Something like:

‘Please help. Mother and daughter, Susan and Cara Bright, held hostage in here. Call 999.’

We must be all over the news – Paul will have done his bit insisting the media and police will be on the case. Right? Paul won’t just think I’ve taken Cara on a trip? No. We were due to be at home, to eat together. The Captor snatched me from home and must have snatched Cara from school.

And Paul will find us. Then everything will go back to normal. I’ll resurrect the cupcake business. Cara will go back to school – once I’ve spoken to the Head about security – and we’ll all dine out on this trauma for the rest of our lives.

I sketch out the words for the sign lightly first. They cover six sheets of paper. Then I start pressing hard. Deep grey shading, to make it visible outside. But not too dark so as to destroy the pencil. It’s all I have.

I’m so absorbed in my task that it’s not until I hear the key in the lock that I know the Captor is coming.

Quick! Hide the sign! Why didn’t I take my own advice to Cara and look for a hiding place? The door is opening, where can I put the sign?

I shove it under duvet, just in time. By the time the Captor’s face appears, I am posing with the notebook, pencil in hand.

He bends down to place a tray down on the floor. Granola, yoghurt, orange juice, a cup of tea. An inch at the back of his neck is exposed. If the pencil were sharper, I could bring it down, now, spear it through the skin, force him to the floor. Or could I? He’s a big guy. I’m not so huge. Maybe I need more than a pencil.

He stands up again. Moment or non-moment of potential escape gone.

He looks at me. ‘Writing in your diary then?’ he asks.

I shrug. ‘I can’t think of anything to write. Not much happens in here.’

‘Let me help with that,’ he says. And he sits down on the bed. Right on top of the part of the duvet that hides the sign.

If he pushes the duvet back, I am finished. He is too close to me. I can smell him. He smells of mould. Not in a way that makes me retch. More that fragrant mould, released in forests after the rain. Fine for forests. Not so nice on a man.

He takes the diary and pencil from me. I want to resist, want to claw them back, but we know who has the power here.

He writes in the diary. Seeing as he is so close to me, I try to lean in, see what he is writing, but he hides it from me. He is concentrating. I couldn’t, could I, stand up and make a run for the door? He sees my head move and follows my eye line. He puts one leg firmly across mine. He is wearing big, heavy boots. I stay where I am.

Then I notice that when he moved, the duvet moved with him. The edge of the sign I drew is now visible.

Shit.

I hold my breath, waiting for him to pull back all the duvet, find out what is underneath. Punish me.

He is still focusing the notebook. For now.

I resist the urge to look at the sign again. He is observant. He will follow my eyes. Instead, I force myself to stare at him, while he looks at the notebook. I scrutinise the hair in his ear, the little lines around the edge of his eyes. This is a villain who has smiled more than he has frowned then. Not a good sign. Potentially sociopathic.

‘There,’ he says. ‘Done.’ He hands me back the diary.

I look at what he has written.

‘Today is the day that I shared my bed. Sitting this time. But it’s a sign of closeness. A sign of more to come. I will give that man what he wants – what I want, really – in time.’

I shiver. I look up at him. He smiles.

So. That is the plan then. He does, as he says, want me. But, apparently, I have to give myself to him.

He stands up. I want to break eye contact, let him know his plans revolt me. But I daren’t, lest his eyes search out the paper sign instead. Holding his gaze, I shift along the bed, putting one hand behind me. I call feel the rough edge of the paper under my hand. I hope it is covered. I hope he doesn’t think the gesture is an invitation.

He stays in the room, staring at me. A smile – or is it a smirk – crosses over his lips. He adds to the creases round his eyes. Then he turns his back and opens the door, and goes out. And locks me in again.

Chapter 10

There it is – under the grate! A letter from Cara!

I was so busy trying to fend off, distract, comprehend the Captor that I must have missed it coming through. At least, I hope it’s a letter. Not just a bundle of papers. I rush to pick up the pages. They shake in my hands like leaves.

And yes! Thank goodness. Here is Cara’s wonderful handwriting. That beautiful, self-conscious, teenage script, with the dots of ‘i’s done in circles, the ‘z’s struck through, and all letters bulbous and round. That relief as real as when I used to look at you in your little bed, holding my own breath until your chest rose again. I clutch the paper to myself before I begin to read, inhaling it. Cara. Then I pull it away and study it.

Dear Mum,

Amazing. SO well done getting the paper and pencil. Totally get what you say about a hiding place. The room has a … actually, no, better not write where the hiding place is in case your place isn’t as good as mine

So. What’s the plan? How are we getting out of here? We will get out of here, won’t we? Dad must be coming, right? I reckon give him another few hours and he’ll be here. Definitely.

How did you end up in here? I remember being by the school gates, then in a car, but not much else. Then … here.

I just wish we could get a message out. Let people know where we are. That we’re alive. And so far, safe.

That first night, I think it was night, that was the worst. I just sat up in this horrible bed in the dark holding the duvet and shaking. I couldn’t believe it was happening. I thought I’d never see you or Dad again. I would have given anything to know you were here. And now you are.

I love you Mum. I know you’ll get us out of this.

You will, right?

Cara xxx.

I read the letter again and again. And again. I trace the loops with my eyes and then with my fingers. Cara. At once so strong and so vulnerable. So independent and yet still my little girl. I’d give anything to hug her. Kiss that beautiful face. To take her home, reunite her with the pink biro that I know this letter would be written in, had she the choice. She’d maybe cover it with some pink hearts, for extra measure, like the hearts she draws on the magazine articles and clippings that adorn her bedroom walls. Perfume ads, fashion pictures, cute animals – she’s a real girl’s girl. Then she recreates that physical space online, Pinterest and everything. I know. She showed me a picture of one of my cupcake ads she’d ‘pinned’ on her virtual board. I felt so proud that she should be proud of me.

Much as I would love to write back immediately with outpourings of love, I can’t write back until there is a plan. You can tell from the letter that she needs me to think of one, to keep her happy. What energetic and traumatised fifteen-year-old wants simply to hang round waiting for Dad to do something? I’m surprised I can’t hear her ricocheting off the walls with pent-up frustration.

No. I must provide an alternative.

The window sign.

I tuck her note into my pillowcase and pull the sign from the bed. Quickly, I finish emboldening the letters that I had loosely pencilled in. There. That sign should be readable by the little girl outside, if she is still there.

I clamber up my chair ladder to the window and look out. No little girl today. But she must come back. Or somebody else must. And see the sign. I lean the pieces of paper against the window, facing out. They take up almost all of the window, leaving me just a small chink to look out of. The paper seems flimsy, like it could fall down at any moment. And however visible it is from the outside, it feels painfully visible from the inside. The Captor may see it. And, with it, my knowledge of Cara. Then he’ll take down perhaps my only means of escape, and deny me my lifeline with my daughter.

So what I need is a prop. Something to keep the sign in position and also conceal it. But not arouse suspicion. From my chair, I look round the room. What would work?

The only contender seems to be a pillow. I have two. One should squidge up nicely to fit in the gap. I clamber down from the chair, seize the pillow and spring back up to the chair. Success. The pillow fits. It takes away most of the light and my room takes on a dungeon feel. But it’s for a greater good. Our greater good. Mine, Cara’s, Paul’s. If the Captor asks, I’ll say the light was stopping me sleeping. I can still move the pillow if I need to, when I’m alone, to look out. For the girl. Or for anyone else.

And the other pillow – well, its case can hide the letters from Cara. Two missions accomplished.

Escape plan A put in train, I can now face Cara again. I pick up her letter and reread it. Why wasn’t I there at the school gates to pick her up? The Captor must have already got me. Did he do it in two journeys then? Or was one of us in the boot? Or was there an accomplice? I want to tell her I’m sorry I wasn’t there. But it wasn’t my fault.

As I pick up the pencil, my stomach rumbles. I look over at the granola. Healthy, nutritious. Not that I need to watch what I eat so much these days. With the yoghurt it would be delicious. And give me energy to fight for Cara. Can I eat it? Who would drug granola? Surely if you were going to drug breakfast, you’d make scrambled eggs, or porridge, or something else sloppy and indistinct. Not granola. But I’m not dealing with a logical person here. I’m dealing with a kidnapper. So he might have drugged it. Best not to risk it.

I turn back to the pencil and paper.

‘Dearest Cara,’ I write.

Cara. Beloved. I remember choosing that name, with her father.

People asking whether we’re giving her a name, just now. Of course we need a name. Look at her. She’s beautiful.

I wanted to call her all the names that summed up just how glorious she was to me: Cara Joy Aimee Hope Star Rose. In the end, I was persuaded just to go for Cara Joy. A name cannot sum up that much love anyway. The love that came just holding her in that little bundle, staring into her eyes, feeling her little lips at my breast, one finger wrapped up in her tiny hand. A magical day. I wonder if her father still remembers it. Remembers her. Fourteen years is a long time with no contact.

My stomach rumbles again. Love does not conquer hunger apparently.

I look at the breakfast tray. I could just eat half of everything. That way, if it really is drugged, it won’t hit me with its full strength. I might just be caused to flutter my eyelashes a bit, not invite him into my bed. And I would have the strength to give my letter to Cara the full attention it needs. Plus me starving isn’t going to help. I need the strength for a fight, if it comes.

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