‘Of course.’
‘It will cost you.’
‘How much?’
‘You have a nice boat. She’s a smart girl. Worth a lot of money, we think.’
‘How much?’ Will said again.
‘A hundred thousand Duxan creds,’ the voice said.
Will almost choked. ‘How much? How do you expect me to get my hands on that much money?’
‘If you want your sister back, you’d better try,’ the voice said.
‘We’re not rich people,’ Will said. ‘Is there—is there any chance we could negotiate on the price?’
‘Sure,’ the voice said. ‘You pay less than the full amount, maybe you don’t get all of your sister back. But we can negotiate.’
‘No, please don’t hurt her! We want all of her back.’
‘Then you’d better find the money,’ the voice said. There was a pause, then it said, ‘Unless…’
‘Unless what?’ Will said eagerly.
‘We know that you have a passenger on board. An heiress.’
Essie’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘Do you still have her?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘If you still have her, we might be willing to make a trade. Your sister for the rich girl.’
Pod was making vigorous “no” gestures with his hands. Essie simply looked aghast.
‘What if we don’t want to make that trade?’ Will asked.
‘Then it’s simple,’ the voice said. ‘You pay us a hundred thousand Duxan credits.’
Will’s brain felt like a wet sheet flapping in the wind. He tried to gather his wits. ‘Okay, okay, suppose we were willing to make the trade, you’d just give my sister back, no questions asked, no money changing hands, just a straight swap?’
‘Straight swap,’ the voice said.
Essie gave Will an outraged look.
‘And—and where would the exchange take place?’ Will asked.
‘We will name the place,’ the voice said.
Pod was shaking his head at Will.
‘I’m sure—I’m sure something could be arranged,’ Will said, desperately scrambling for something, anything he could use. ‘Where are you?’
‘We will tell you the location later,’ the voice said. ‘But remember: if the trade doesn’t go smoothly, if we think you’re trying to double-cross us, your sister dies.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Will said. ‘Double-cross you. Of course I wouldn’t.’
‘We want the rich girl. We don’t want your sister. If you want your sister back, then remember Gloradol, and do what we say.’
‘Sorry—what did you say?’
‘Remember Gloradol. Your sister said you’d know what that means.’ The voice paused for a moment, then said, ‘We’ll call you with further instructions tomorrow at 5. Be ready.’
The call ended abruptly.
Will and the others stared at each other in shock.
‘“Remember Gloradol”?’ Essie said. ‘What do you think it means?’
‘Annalie’s trying to send us a message,’ Pod said.
‘Gloradol trap,’ Graham said.
‘You’re right,’ Will said. ‘It was a trap. Maybe this is, too.’
‘What does she want us to do, then?’ Essie said.
‘Not go,’ Graham said. ‘Stupid girl.’
‘But we have to go,’ Pod said.
‘Obviously,’ said Will.
‘Wait, wait,’ Essie said. This was all getting too gung-ho too fast for her taste. ‘Shouldn’t we try and go to the police? See if they can help us?’
‘“Hello, corrupt Brundisan policeman. My name’s Will and I’m a wanted kidnapper. Could you help me find my sister, the other wanted kidnapper?”’ Will said sarcastically.
‘There are police here in Doria, too,’ Essie said. ‘But you’re right, the kidnap story means we can’t go to the authorities.’
‘So we’re just going to have to try and come up with a plan,’ Will said.
‘Or the money,’ Essie said.
‘A hundred thousand creds?’ Will said, laughing incredulously.
‘Maybe we could sell some stuff, raise the money that way,’ Pod suggested. ‘There’s good stuff here on the boat, it must be worth something.’
‘This is a bunch of secondhand junk. It’s worth nothing,’ Will said scornfully.
‘What do you suppose the boat’s worth?’ Pod asked.
‘We’re not selling the boat,’ Will snapped.
‘She’s your sister,’ Pod said.
They glared at each other. Will was the first to break his gaze. ‘I don’t really know what it’s worth,’ he finally muttered. ‘I don’t know if it’d fetch a hundred. Maybe, if we were lucky. Doria’s the kind of place where you might be able to sell a boat…’ He shook off the idea, looking accusingly at Pod. ‘But then we’d be trapped here.’
‘We’d have Annalie back,’ Pod countered.
Essie didn’t like the thought that had come to her, but knew she had to say it. ‘Maybe we should just let them take me,’ she said, in a wobbly voice.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Will said. ‘We’re not handing you over, and we’re going to get Annalie back. We just have to come up with a plan.’
Coming up with a plan did not turn out to be easy. One thing they did agree on was that they should stay in Doria, where they were relatively safe, rather than heading back to Brundisi. Will would have preferred to be somewhere near Dio in case they needed to move quickly, but even he could see that the risks of this outweighed the benefits. All around them, enormous yachts worth millions of creds rode gently at anchor; there were many people in Doria for whom a hundred thousand creds was just play money. Will suggested, not quite jokingly, that they do a midnight raid on a few of the yachts and see what they could scoop up in the form of saleable loot.
Essie contributed little to their increasingly wild plans, and eventually she wandered off to think. Money was the only answer to this problem, that much seemed clear, and she was the only one who had any chance of getting her hands on it. But how?
The creditstream her father had given her had been closed down. Her father’s own bank accounts had been frozen, and even if he did have some secret money stashed away somewhere, she thought it was very likely his communications were being monitored, so if she tried to send him a message, the Admiralty would soon find out.
She knew she had a trust fund of her own, but she had no idea how much money was in it and no way of accessing it. The point of trust funds was that the money was kept
