Dragos raises his hand and points his finger.
“I’ll be back. Maybe I’ll bring my mate and ’ave you. Then we’ll see who’s in charge.”
“You mean you told someone about this?”
“Only my mate. He’s alright. He won’t say anything.”
“You’re unbelievable. You’ve told someone what we’re doing. What sort of a moron are you?”
“Fuck you and fuck his lordship.”
“Oh go off and have a sleep. Come back when you’re sober.”
Dragos staggers out of the building.
The girls must have overheard the heated exchange. Kronid wants to reassure them. He takes the key out of his pocket and opens the door.
The two girls are cowering in the far corner on their beds.
“Don’t be frightened. Nothing is going to happen to you. We’re waiting for your parents to pay the ransom and then you’ll be going home. It should all be over soon. I’ll make sure he keeps away from you. I promise. I have the only key.”
With that, he closes the door and locks it.
Kronid sits down on the sofa. He rests his head back and thinks about the new life he will have soon.
A couple of days and he will have one hundred thousand pounds. He has big plans for a better life.
Until then he needs to keep an eye on Dragos and make sure he doesn’t ruin everything.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The taxi drives up to the front door and Gordon Mitten emerges holding a Nike Brasilia duffel bag.
Following the plea from his mother, he has come home. When she phoned him earlier he had only understood the basic details of what has been happening. Something about his sisters having been abducted and his parents waiting for the kidnappers to call with the ransom demand. It sounded like she was on the edge of despair. He had never heard her like that before.
Naturally he watched them on the reality TV show and how they had won the votes of millions of people to become the winners. His main thought had been about the £50,000 they had won. He could sure do something with that amount of money.
His father has always been tight. His grandfather built the business from nothing and it has a multi-million turnover. They live in a nice house and want for nothing but his father has always kept financial matters close to his chest.
What angers Gordon the most is, if this is a genuine kidnapping situation, the ransom demand will be for a lot of money.
And every penny will come out of his future inheritance.
What a waste. If he had a large amount of cash right now he could do a lot with it, exactly like his friend Smokey had done with the money he got from his late aunt.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
DI Eden Gold moved from London to Trentbridge over three years ago. Working for the Metropolitan police is not all it is cracked up to be. It has become too political and a lot of the best police officers are either leaving or, like him, requesting a transfer out of the capital.
The politicians and London Mayor are always making promises to the public but not giving the police the resources they need to do the job. Half the time they find their hands tied behind their backs with red tape and paperwork that is only there to cover the arses of the people at the top.
Eden fancied a place where he could concentrate on old-fashioned police work. His mother had lived in Trentbridge until she was sixteen when she was ‘discovered’ by a talent scout for a major modelling agency and moved to London.
She often spoke warmly of the place and the friendliness of the people. With a population of 260,000 and two miles from the M6 motorway and a lower crime rate, it seemed like a good move.
He also wanted to escape from the shadow of his father. Taz Gold had been a massive pop star in the late seventies and throughout the eighties. Leader of rock band ‘Tazmania’.
A string of top ten hit records and four massive worldwide-selling albums, including two that hit number one: ‘Tazmania’ and ‘Break the Silence’ meant he was still recognised wherever he went.
He looked two decades younger than his fifty-six years, although his bio said he was fifty-one. He still looked every inch like a rock star, albeit an ageing one. He still sported his trademark jet-black hair, with a little help from a bottle and a £300-a-time cut by a Chelsea-based celebrity hairdresser.
Eden wanted to be successful on his own terms. He had inherited his father’s handsome features but didn’t seem to have his flair and confidence. While his father stood tall, Eden seemed to droop and fumble, although his mind is as sharp as a razor.
The slower pace he had expected from the move out of London hadn’t happened. He should have realised, like every police force in the country, they were understaffed and underresourced. It was no use complaining, you learn to accept it.
Since his arrival, Trentbridge has seen a massive increase in crime fuelled mainly by a drug known as Monkey Dust. The substance affects the people who take it in different ways. Some become paranoid, others enter a zombie-like state and for some it gives them superhuman strength.
One man had walked into the path of a twenty-ton lorry, convinced it couldn’t hurt him. Another jumped off the roof of a house and landed on a car and walked away. And the drug sells for less than £5 a hit.
Recently it seems the traveller family behind the supply had been killed in bizarre circumstances. The supply of the drug, for now, has dried up. Everyone is aware that won’t be the case for long.
Eden lives alone. His girlfriend having moved up from London with him but a combination of his long working hours and the new company she worked for not offering her a senior position, she decided to move back down south.
In the eight years Eden has been in the police he has
