He picks up the binoculars and scans the converted office where the girls are being held. They are sitting side by side on one of the camp beds watching TV.
He moves his attention across to the factory area. The two men are also watching TV. One is on the sofa, the other in the armchair.
Daniel sits on a chair he found in one of the offices and examines the gun. Then he loads the six rounds of ammunition into the chamber.
Daniel has never considered himself to be brave and even the sight of the weapon scares him but he knows he would be prepared to kill if anyone tried to harm one of the girls. He just hopes it won’t come to that.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Nine o’clock. It has been twelve hours since the phone call from the kidnappers. Nobody in the Mitten house has managed to grab more than a couple of hours’ sleep.
DI Eden Gold and his team are trying their best. But the truth is they have little to go on. They have no suspects and are no closer to finding the girls. And time is fast running out.
Unless they have a breakthrough one or both of the girls may be dead in thirty-six hours. But how do you find the kidnappers when there are no clues to who is behind it or where they are hiding the twins?
Daniel Zugravescu could tell them what has happened to the girls, where they are and who is holding them.
He is planning to rescue them. In the meantime, he will make sure nothing happens to them, because even though they don’t know it yet, one of them, he doesn’t know which one, is soon to become Mrs Daniel Zugravescu.
Daniel is thinking about the girls.
Don’t worry, my lovelies. Daniel won’t let anything happen to you. You can’t see me but I’m not far away. Thank goodness I came to the airport. Luckily I’ve been secretly watching and following you for months. I know you’ll be so grateful and you will fall in love with me when I rescue you. Then, whichever of you is the kindest, we will marry, start a family and be together, forever.”
He is the one who planted the tracking device on the minibus at the airport and now he is watching everything going on from a nearby building.
But the last thing he wants to do is involve the police. He wants to save the girls on his own and be the hero, so they will fall in love with him and one of them becomes his wife.
His idea is to wait until one of the men goes off to buy food from the takeaway and walk in with the gun, overpower the kidnapper to release the girls.
He will then lock the man in the office so they can make their getaway and Daniel will take the girls to a safe place and call the police.
But what Daniel doesn’t realise is, he is up against ruthless people and unless he is lucky, he will be discovered. And these are not the type of people you want to cross.
Chapter Thirty-Six
At 6am, Eden and Tracy leave the Mitten residence to head off to their respective homes for a couple of hours’ sleep and to freshen up. They leave PC Rachel Nason to keep an eye on the family. Eden has arranged a daily briefing for 10am, in the incident room to go through everything with the team.
Exactly on time, Eden stands in front of the whiteboard displaying photos of the two girls with their names written underneath in marker pen.
“Right, let’s make a start.”
The team of ten people, including Tracy Archer, working on the kidnapping, stop what they are doing to listen.
“First of all, thank you for working through the night. I’m sure the local takeaways and Deliveroo are grateful for the extra custom. Now, let’s get down to business. Two young women’s lives are at stake and we haven’t got much to go on so far.
“The kidnappers have given a forty-eight-hour deadline, so I’m afraid you will need to phone your families and explain why they won’t be seeing much of you over the next couple of days. There hasn’t been a ransom demand. They have told the parents to decide which of the twins to save and the other one will be returned in a coffin. So this is either a kidnapping based on revenge or a smart way to frighten the family so much that when the time comes, they are prepared to pay any amount of money the kidnappers demand.
“Our initial priorities are to concentrate on anyone who might have a grudge against the family. Last year they held a party to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary since the business was formed. There were 120 guests. We need to check all of them. The law of averages tells us a few will have a criminal record, so anyone who flags up with something more serious than a parking fine needs to go on the initial suspect list.”
Eden pauses to take a sip of water.
“Next, we have the people who currently work for the business. Twenty-six names. Then we need to check out anyone who might have worked there but has left in the past two years, especially if it was under strained circumstances. The family employ a cleaner who comes in three days a week, a gardener, and we also need to check out all the tradespeople who have been to the house in the past twelve months.
“Very discretely, I want two plain-clothed officers to visit all the neighbours and ask if they have seen anyone or anything they think is suspicious in any way. We need to go through their phone records and see if they have suffered
