CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
PRESENT
Ned’s abductor is back in the basement room.
“So, what have you got for me?” I hear him ask.
“Around a million on day twenty-one, so probably ten million if he paid today, exactly like I said.” Ned sounds pleased with himself. “But don’t worry, my father can pay it.”
“You’re right about the million on day twenty-one but I’m afraid he owes us a lot more than ten million today. Let’s work it out, shall we? What would he have owed if he’d paid us on day twenty-two?”
“Two million.”
“Day twenty-three?”
“Four million.”
“Day twenty-four?”
“Eight million.”
“Day twenty-five?”
“Sixteen million. Look, do we really have to do this?”
“Humor me, Ned, humor me. Today, day twenty-six?”
“Thirty-two million.” Then it hits him. “Wow, that’s a lot of money. Are you really asking him for thirty-two million pounds?”
“No, Ned, we’re not.”
“Thank God for that. I mean, my father’s rich but—”
“You misunderstand me. He’s not paying us today, so he’ll have to pay us more.”
“But—”
“Let’s carry on. And by the way, because you’ve been rounding down, the actual figure your father would owe us today is around—”
“Thirty-three million,” I whisper.
“Thirty-three million. In fact, the exact figure is thirty-three million, five hundred and fifty-four thousand, four hundred and thirty-two pounds. So, let’s carry on. What will your father owe us if he pays us tomorrow?” A pause. “You can just double the millions, if you like.”
“Sixty-six million.” Ned’s voice is sullen now.
“And the next day?”
“A hundred and thirty-two million.”
“The next day, day twenty-nine?”
“Two hundred and sixty-four million.”
“And day thirty?”
“Five hundred and twenty-eight million.”
“The thing is, Ned, we’ve asked your dad to pay us on Monday, which will be day thirty-one of your captivity.” Another pause. “So, how much is your father paying us for your life?”
“I—I don’t know.”
There’s a crack, followed by a cry from Ned.
“DON’T BULLSHIT ME! HOW MUCH IS YOUR FATHER PAYING US FOR YOUR LOUSY LIFE?”
“Um—over a billion pounds?”
“That’s right, Ned, over a billion pounds.” The man is no longer shouting, his voice is quiet, I have to strain my ears to hear him. “Except that it’s not for your life. Your life is worth nothing. We know who you are, we know what you did. The billion isn’t for your life. It’s for Lina’s.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
PAST
I woke in the dark, felt a hard floor beneath me. It took me awhile to work out that I was lying on my bedroom floor in Ned’s house. My chest hurt, my throat was on fire. I remembered then, Ned suffocating me.
I swallowed painfully. He mustn’t have wanted to actually kill me, he could have if he’d continued blocking my airways for just a few seconds more. But he needed me until the end of the month, he needed me available for the outside world.
The events of the previous day came flooding back and my cry of anguish echoed through the silent house. Images hurtled through my mind: the gunman dragging Hunter from the car, his pistol pointing downward, the bangs of three bullets being fired. The gunman raising his head, looking at me, then walking around Hunter’s body to get to me.
I curled my body into itself. I had misjudged Lukas. Hunter’s murder was down to him, I was sure of it. So many things pointed to it, from the message he’d been sending on his phone as I went to speak to him, to the way he had stared at Hunter as we were leaving. Lukas had assumed that Hunter was responsible for Lina’s murder. Except he wasn’t the one who had killed her.
My mind jumped to the thumbs-up message Ned had received in the plane, just before we left London for Las Vegas, from someone named Amos Kerrigan. Ned had spoken to someone called Amos after he’d murdered Lina; it had sounded as if he was asking him to come and remove her body from the house. Had Ned murdered Justine, and the thumbs-up from Amos Kerrigan was to let Ned know he’d disposed of her body? Nausea surged into my throat and scrambling to my feet, I ran to the bathroom.
My stomach emptied, I wiped my mouth, then sat on the bathroom floor, my head on my knees. There were things I didn’t understand. How had Lina passed through Immigration at the airport in Vilnius? I remembered overhearing Ned telling Amos Kerrigan to find Lina’s passport, and his comment that they would have to be more thorough this time. Had he paid someone, someone who could pass for Lina, to travel to Lithuania using her passport? Then, that person, or Ned himself, had used Lina’s phone to send the messages to Vicky?