He was smiling now. As cocky as ever, forcing her towards him. She could smell the booze on his breath. Anger overtook her – anger that the bastard could be so cold to both her and Emma's plight – and she slapped his hand away, wrenching herself free from his grasp with more force than she'd intended.
'You fucking bitch,' he snarled, clenching his fists; but she stood her ground, glaring back at him.
'I'm not the little girl you used to know, Jimmy. So don't you dare try it. Think of someone else for a change. Like Emma . . . your daughter.'
'Still a tease, ain't you, babe?' he said quietly, and then with a snort of derision he walked past her back into the living room.
Five
The next day, Thursday, was excruciating. It was the waiting.
Jimmy apologized for his behaviour in the morning, which was typical of him. Always changing tack. She accepted the apology but she didn't believe it was genuine. Jimmy Galante was not the sort of person to feel remorse about anything he'd done. If he was, he'd never sleep at night, and she knew from experience that he slept like a log.
Their conversation over coffee in the kitchen was strained, and she was pleased to get out of the house and leave him behind. He'd wanted to come with her as she drove to the bank to pick up the remainder of the money, but she told him it would be easier if he didn't. 'It'll just arouse suspicions,' she explained, knowing that this was just an excuse. She took the holdall containing the money with her as well.
'Don't you trust me or something?' he asked her at the door.
And the truth, of course, was that she didn't. But she didn't say this. Instead she looked him right in the eye and said, 'This money represents our daughter's freedom. It's not going out of my sight today.'
Jimmy nodded and left it at that.
The bank were reluctant to part with the money, even though it was hers, and she had to go into the back and endure a lecture from the manager about the perils of being in possession of large sums of cash and sign a load of paperwork before they let her out with what was rightfully hers.
For lunch she grabbed a sandwich and took a walk on Hampstead Heath, leaving the money locked in the boot of the car. Usually it was a place of tranquillity where she could relax and enjoy the illusion of being somewhere in the country. Today, however, she paced relentlessly, counting down the minutes and hours, worrying about someone stealing the car and therefore the money, and when she encountered passers-by she felt bitterness and jealousy at the way they went about their easy lives while she suffered alone in hers. Waiting, always waiting.
She was home by mid-afternoon, and carried the holdall with difficulty up to the front door. Half a million pounds, she was discovering, weighed one hell of a lot. Jimmy was out, for which she was thankful, and she took the opportunity to sit on a lounger in the back garden, look out at the trees and listen to the sounds of early autumn. This was her refuge, her place of peace, and today it gave her hope. There was still that numb fear that it could all go wrong, and that these people, whoever they were, were simply stringing her along, but Andrea was a pragmatist, and the more she thought about it the more she shared Jimmy's view that their primary motive was money. If she did what she was told, they would release Emma. And then maybe, just maybe, things could start to get back to normal. Just the two of them together again.
Jimmy returned at seven o'clock, telling her not to worry because he'd been careful leaving and coming back. She didn't bother asking him where he'd been, assuming he'd been visiting associates. Frankly, she didn't care. She just wanted tonight sorted, and then she wanted rid of him for ever. It remained to be seen whether she'd made a mistake by involving him at all, but it was too late to worry about that now. Tonight she had to focus on the task ahead.
And so, for the next two hours, the waiting continued. They didn't speak much. There was little to say, and it was difficult to plan anything given that neither of them knew what procedures the kidnappers intended to set for them. Andrea kept looking at her watch. Sometimes she counted the seconds ticking on the clock in the hallway, and all the time the tension cranked up inside her little by little.
The clock struck nine.
She looked across at Jimmy. Her mouth was dry. He looked back, and for the first time she saw that he too was worried. He was frowning, his eyebrows almost touching, the lines on his forehead heavily pronounced and suddenly making him look his age. The room was thick with silence.
A minute passed. Andrea counted the seconds on the clock. Neither of them spoke, but Jimmy looked at his watch several times and sighed. It was a cheap thing with a black plastic strap, not like the Cartier he'd worn when she'd first known him. Times had obviously been hard for Jimmy. Maybe even hard enough for him to consider getting involved in a kidnap . . . No, she didn't want to go down that route. She had to trust somebody, and right now there was no one else.
The phone rang. The receiver was next to her on the coffee table. She picked up immediately.
'Yes?'
'Have you got a pen and paper?' asked the disguised voice – the one that had first called her, she thought.
'Yes.'
'Good. Do exactly what I say and you'll have your daughter back before the end of the night.'
'That's all I want,' she told him.
'Fuck us about, though, and she dies. Painfully. Do you understand?'
She tensed, thinking of Jimmy. Was it a big mistake bringing him in? She said that she understood.
'Here are your instructions. Get in your car – the Mercedes – and drive up to the junction of the M1 and the M25, then proceed eastbound on the M25 to junction twenty-five. Turn left on to the A10, then turn left again at the next roundabout on to the B198 signposted to Rosedale.' He waited while she wrote all this down. His breathing
