Unbreakable, p.25
Unbreakable, page 25
No one spoke. From Grace’s position, she could still see the WhatsApp window, a dark blur coalescing into a man’s shape, then a face abruptly coming into focus. No mask, no balaclava, just an unshaven white man with a mop of dark hair and bloodshot eyes full of spite. The family resemblance to Thomas Elson was unmistakeable, but he was too young to be Elson’s brother. Behind him, a stone wall gave no clue as to his whereabouts, and there was no sign of Amelia. His smile bared his chipped tooth, confirming his identity as Elin’s assailant.
“You know who I am, don’t you?” he said at length.
“Yes. You’re his son,” Elin said, but she went no further, letting him control the conversation.
Kieran Elson nodded, seeming satisfied with her response. “Today’s the day, then. You ready to come and get your kid?”
“Yes.” Although she managed to keep her voice level, every part of her was rigid with tension. “I need to see her first.”
Demand proof of life, Safia had told her last night. Don’t agree to anything until he’s given you that.
His jaw clenched, clacking his teeth together. Even on the poor-quality video, Grace could see he was flushed and sweating. Unless he was running a fever or had the central heating on full blast, cocaine or amphetamines were a likely cause. He was studying Elin as if she were an insect he had pinned.
“Do you, now?” he said.
“Yes.” Elin was too breathless to sound imposing. “Or I don’t go anywhere.”
His laugh was harsh and humourless. “You don’t look fucking capable of going anywhere, you stupid bitch.” The screen shook as he began to pace, his face disappearing and reappearing at random. “I’ve given you every chance, and you look like you’re going to drop at any fucking moment. Why the hell am I even bothering with this crap?”
Grace saw despair flit across Elin’s face as she struggled for a response. Without saying anything, Grace calmly took the phone from her.
“No, don’t,” Elin said. She grasped at Grace’s arm, but Grace easily moved beyond her reach.
“Kieran.” She snapped his name, stopping him in his tracks, and he peered into the screen with fresh interest.
“I’ve seen you on the news,” he said. “You’re that doctor.”
“I am.” Unlike Elin, Grace was able to match the hardness of his tone. She had been dealing with cocky pieces of shit like him for years. All she had been waiting for was the opening he’d just handed her. “And I can make sure Elin gets to you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Grace said. “You know damn well she’s not going to get there on her own.” She heard Elin say her name, begging for her to return the phone, and walked into the middle of the room, ignoring the increasing desperation of Elin’s demands.
“You want to come with her,” he said, incredulous.
“Yes. None of this is going to work otherwise.” She knew he had a plan, a plan he could undoubtedly see unravelling before him, and she only had one card left to play. She swallowed, feeling sick. “I can wake her daughter up for you.”
That got his attention. He stared at her, his nostrils flaring. Somewhere in her periphery, Elin covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
“How the fuck you gonna do that?” he asked, but he sounded more curious than sceptical.
“I can give her a drug to reverse the one you’ve been dosing her up with.” Grace made it sound simple, and it was, in theory. In reality, there were far too many variables to guarantee success, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. She just needed him to believe it was possible. Tuning out the sounds Elin was making, she went for broke. “What’s the point of going to all this trouble if she’s just going to sleep through it?”
She saw the instant he made his decision. Exhilaration lit up his face, and he squared his shoulders, broadening his chest.
“Okay, then, if you’re stupid enough to want to do this, you can come with her. Forty-five minutes, with the money. I’ll send the address. Park at the turn-off and walk the rest of the way.”
“Right.” There was no time for Grace to contest the specifics. “Show me Amelia.”
He didn’t argue. He took a couple of steps and then crouched and re-angled the phone until Amelia’s profile filled the screen. Deeply unconscious, with vomit-stained lips, she looked worse than she had yesterday morning, but a twitch of her nose confirmed she was still alive.
“Jesus,” Grace said, before she could stop herself.
Kieran turned the phone around. “See you in”—he tapped his watch—“forty-three minutes.” He waved and cut off the call.
Still clutching the phone, Grace went back to kneel by Elin.
“What the hell have you done?” Elin said.
“Exactly what I needed to.” Grace checked the phone as it vibrated. Two messages: a local address, and a stock photo of a drone, along with the warning: I’ll see you coming. Mindful of the countdown he had started, she patted her jacket for the car key. She would need to organise her kit and the drugs, and tell Safia what had happened, and simply keep moving, because if she stopped to think then everything would fall apart.
“Grace.” Elin’s voice had lost its edge. She just sounded bewildered, thrown by a gambit Grace had fixed upon but never discussed. “Are you really going to come with me?”
“Yes, I am.” Grace kissed her forehead. “Shall we let Safia in and break the news?”
Safia. Monday, 6:45 a.m.
The Ordnance Survey map rumpled and peaked as Safia threw it open. To her left, a double crack of cartilage told her Elin had managed to kneel with her. Working from the postcode on Kieran’s message, Jo’s breakneck internet search had identified an isolated rental cottage at the foot of the Saddleworth moors. Google Earth showed it surrounded by pastureland, approximately four hundred yards from the turn-off he had ordered Grace to park at. Safia slapped a hand on the worst of the map’s creases, flicked her phone to speaker, and set it on the carpet.
“Suds found an OS map stuffed in a wardrobe. The area code is 277,” she told Jo, as Elin cross-referenced the postcode’s address with Jo’s directions and the map covering half the living room floor. She shook her head when Elin stuck her thumb on a specific point. “Bloody hell, this place is not going to be easy to sneak up on.”
“I’m guessing that’s the idea,” Jo said. “It’s sixteen minutes’ normal travel time from your current location. Twenty-three on blues from ours. Shit. How long do we have?”
“Thirty-four,” Suds called on his way past with one of Grace’s medical bags.
“Bollocks,” Jo spat, and then yelled “Well, hurry the fuck up, then,” to someone in the background. “Okay, we’ll be leaving in the next five,” she told Safia. “I’ve got Armed Response and Tactical Aid with me. The negotiator’s running from home, so he’ll be twenty minutes or so behind. North West Ambulance are sending a couple of buses to stand by with us, and their chopper and Yorkshire’s have been given a heads-up as well. How close do you think we’ll be able to get?”
Safia turned to Elin, who’d used a marker pen to plot the access route and highlight potential points of cover.
“The cottage is at a slightly higher elevation than we are here, so it should be thick with fog,” Elin said. “He’ll still be able to get a drone up, though, and we’ll have to assume it’s capable of infrared until proven otherwise, which means he’ll be able to see the teams if they set out too soon.” She circled a patch of woodland that crept alongside the fields for a distance. “Armed and Tactical could approach through the woods at grid 245673, but beyond its perimeter they’d be far too exposed. All he’d need to do is look out a window at the wrong moment.” She didn’t sound particularly unhappy about that. She seemed amenable to the police coming along, now that she was sure they couldn’t actually intervene.
“I’ll pass that on,” Jo said. “We need to make a move. Good luck to you both. Safia, keep in touch.” She hung up without waiting for an answer, her urgency making Safia antsy to leave as well. If they were really going to go through with this, she didn’t want them to faceplant at the first hurdle.
The pen dropped from Elin’s fist, and Safia picked it up and slid it back between her clawed fingers.
“Thanks.” Elin’s expression was strained, and she was shuffling constantly, unable to find a comfortable position. “I didn’t mean for Grace to get involved,” she said quietly. They hadn’t spoken much about the deal Grace had made. Grace had presented it to Safia as a fait accompli and rushed outside with Suds to pack the ransom and sort her equipment.
“I know you didn’t,” Safia said. With hindsight, though, she should have seen it coming. Grace was as protective of Elin as a lioness with a new cub, and her offer to Kieran hadn’t come out of nowhere; the baited hook she’d dropped had been prepared in advance, and he’d duly swallowed it whole. Had Safia not wanted to knock her and Elin’s heads together, she would have been impressed.
She refolded the map and helped Elin to her feet, where gravity made her reel and pant for air. Safia took her arm, and Elin shook her head in dismay.
“I won’t get there without her, will I?” The question dropped like a guilty verdict. She looked and sounded devastated.
“No.” There was no reason for Safia to lie, when the damage was already done. “I don’t think you will.”
A sudden draught of cold air and the stomping of boots announced the return of Grace and Suds. Grace came over to Elin and ushered her onto the sofa, setting a holdall by her feet.
“I just need to draw these drugs up, then we’re good to go.” She snapped a glass vial and dipped a needle-topped syringe into it, eyeballing Elin as she did so. “What’s your pain score?”
“Four,” Elin said. “It’s bearable.”
“Why do I even ask?” Grace took Elin’s bandaged wrist and uncapped its IV port. “Tell me when it’s really bearable,” she said, injecting a clear drug.
Elin let her get a couple of markers down on the syringe and then nodded.
“Honestly?” Grace was studying Elin’s face as if searching for tells. Seeming satisfied, she broke into a new vial and began to repeat the process of drawing it up.
“What’s that?” Elin said.
“Narcan.” Grace didn’t explain, but Safia recognised the drug from her time as a response officer.
“Will it work?” she asked.
“It should, but it all depends on what he’s been giving her. Narcan will reverse the effects of opioids, and this”—she started on another vial—“will reverse benzos like diazepam.” She topped both syringes with fresh, large needles and zipped up the bag. “Right, then. Let’s go.”
Grace. Monday, 7:04 a.m.
Grace hit the brakes for a bend that seemed to come out of nowhere, its warning chevrons lost in an opaque murk of early dawn and blanket fog. The road was empty, bar the odd long-distance commuter, and she was pushing the speed limit as hard as she dared, unsure whether the deadline they’d been set accounted for Elin hiking along a single-lane track. If it didn’t, they were going to miss it.
“Why’s he doing that, anyway?” she said, forgetting she’d been having this conversation with herself.
Elin, who was alternating between staring at the dashboard clock and following their progress on the satnav, tore her focus from the latter. “Doing what?”
“Making us walk.”
“Because he’s an arsehole.” Elin’s answer, fuelled by loathing, came quickly, but she tapped her foot on the car mat and gave the question more thought. “It’ll give him plenty of time to ID us. If we got out of a car by his front door, he’d have a few seconds to decide whether it was us or an armed unit ready to batter their way in. It’ll also allow him to monitor any potential backup. The longer his drone is up, the less chance there is of anyone getting close to the house before we go in.” She checked the satnav again. They were three-quarters of a mile from the turn-off. “Grace…”
“What?”
Elin was back to watching the clock. “Please don’t wake her up,” she whispered. “I don’t want her to know what’s happening.”
For the first time, Grace was grateful for the adverse conditions, because the corner she was spinning the car around stopped her having to face Elin. At some barely remembered point in the night, she had committed to the plan she was now neck-deep in, and its success had been contingent on not warning Elin beforehand. The video call had made it even easier, with Elin’s revulsion captured live and in colour, all the better to convince Kieran that this would be the cherry on top of whatever else he had in mind for her. One of the hardest things Grace had ever done was hide the filthy sensation crawling across her skin as she used Amelia as a bargaining chip.
“Let’s see what happens,” she said, unable to make any guarantees. If treating Amelia was her only way to buy Elin more time, she knew she would do it.
She slowed the car as the satnav began a fifty-yard countdown to a left-hand turn, where a wooden sign above a tarnished mailbox read “Honeysuckle Cottage.” She parked on the verge of a rough lane, its pothole-ridden tarmac patchy with puddles and flanked by tall hedges of holly and hawthorn. The text she sent Safia from her own phone was a pre-written “On foot,” and she tossed her phone onto the back seat without waiting for a reply.
The first thing she heard as she got out of the car was a waspish buzz, the noise encroaching but impossible to pin down, until she opened Elin’s door for her and the drone swooped over the hedge. They stood obediently, letting it zoom in on them. Then Grace collected her holdall and went back to loop Elin’s good arm around her.
“I don’t think we need to rush now, do we?” she said as they set off at a reasonable but unsustainable pace.
“Probably not. He’s confirmed we’re here and on our own.”
Elin’s answer puffed warm across Grace’s cheek, and Grace found herself trying to memorise everything: the delicate feel of the mist on her lashes, the deep green spikes of the holly leaves, and the roll of loose stones beneath her boots. She hugged Elin close, listening to her breathe, to the hitch at the end of every exhalation that told Grace how much this was taking out of her. The drone flitted above them like a curious insect, monitoring their every step, and Grace gradually slowed, letting Elin lean more comfortably upon her.
“I’ve got you,” she murmured. “Keep going. I’ve got you.”
Safia. Monday, 7:11 a.m.
The National Trust car park, hidden amidst trees a mile from the cottage turn-off, was the perfect place for an emergency rendezvous, and the weather seemed to have deterred even the hardiest of hikers, because every space was empty.
“They’ve just left the car,” Safia told Suds as he reversed into the first bay. “Jo’s ETA is two. I’m not going to ask what speed they’ve been doing.”
“Might be for the best.” Suds took the key from the ignition, but rather than pocketing it, he began to pick at the fake leather on the fob. “This is crazy, Saf. We’re going to get them all killed.”
She didn’t bite his head off or ask whether he had any brighter ideas. If he’d had an alternative strategy, he would have told her. Sometimes he needed to state the obvious before he could get on with things.
A flash of headlights behind them stopped her from having to answer, but she prised the fob from his hand and gave his fingers a squeeze. “Come on,” she said. “Grab that map just in case.”
As they got out of the car, Jo ran around to the rear of the police van she’d arrived in and flung open its doors. “You’re up, Ben,” she said to the lad in the back, and he swapped places with her, carrying a small drone. “It’s got great range and thermal vision capability,” she told Safia. “And he swears Kieran won’t see it coming.”
Safia watched Ben tinker with the drone’s settings. “Elin and Grace are on the lane. Can you get this in behind the cottage and confirm occupancy before they arrive?”
“Yep,” he said, confidence personified. “I can take it out so wide, he’ll never suspect a thing, especially if he’s focused his own on them.”
“Excellent. Do we have an ETA on Armed Response?”
Jo distributed handsets and earpieces for the comms. “Five.”
“Okay.” Safia settled her earpiece into place, automatically tuning out the chatter on the channel. “If we can say for sure there are only two people in the cottage, I’m happy for Armed Response and the TAU to approach through the woods once Elin and Grace are inside. If Kieran is on his own with Amelia, we’re going to have to take a leap and assume he won’t be able to deal with them and keep an eye on the exterior at the same time. If we see three heat signatures, suggesting an accomplice, then we’re fucked.”
“Should have an answer for you in approximately”—Ben sent the drone zipping into the air—“ninety seconds.”
The ART and TAU vans careered into the car park as the drone swooped above the trees and vanished into the mist.
“If anyone needs a fag, they have it now,” Safia said. “I want them ready to go the second we get feedback from Ben.”
Jo gave her a curt nod. She’d probably had as little sleep as Safia, but she was bouncing with adrenaline. “They’ll be ready, and the paramedics are en route. Negotiator’s somewhere on the outskirts of central Manchester, the useless shite.”
Safia thought of Grace and Elin making their way up the lane, trusting her to have the rest of this sorted just in case, but willing to go in alone regardless. All things considered, a missing negotiator was the least of their problems.
“I’ve got the cottage in sight,” Ben yelled from the back of the van. “Two heat signatures still on the lane, closing at around fifty yards.”
